“I’d like all that. Especially the pictures.”
“Okay, then. Count me in. When is this supposed to happen?”
“Not for a while. Next March. They meet somewhere around the Ferry Building, down by the bay.”
“March? That sounds cold.”
“Not in San Francisco. June and July can be cold. Weather is strange there. Mark Twain wrote about it.”
“You’ve already researched this bicycle thing.”
“I looked into it in April, before you and I met, then pretty much forgot about it because I didn’t think I would be able to go through with it—so it’s amazing that you found Sarah, or she found you, whatever. She’s perfect for me. I mean, so we can do that bike ride together. And, you know, just talk about stuff. Really, Mort, she and I are becoming friends, almost like I’ve known her for years.”
The things I’d never suspected. Each person on the planet is an entire universe of gnarled complexity.
“Mort?”
“Yup.”
“You don’t think I’m too weird, do you?”
“Not too. Just about right, actually.”
“But weird?”
“Everyone’s weird, Jeri. Except me, of course. I’m a freakin’ pillar of normalcy. But for what it’s worth, here’s what I think—for every person out there riding a bike in the buff, a thousand other people wish they could but are afraid to pull that trigger.”
Softly, she said, “I sure do love you, big guy.”
“I love you, too. And the world’s gonna go nuts when they see you topless on that bicycle.”
She laughed. “Thanks. Hearing you say it makes it sound even more wonderful and fun. Well, I better get to sleep. And, Mort?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m glad I told you. I’m glad you understand.”
I didn’t know how everything got turned around like that. I was worried she wouldn’t understand. Women.
“Good night, Jeri. Go get ’em tomorrow.”
“I will. Night, Mort. Enjoy, you know . . . the scenery.”
I went back inside the room. Sarah looked up from a textbook. “How is she?”
“Naked bicycle riding? Yowzer.”
“She told you about that? Why? I thought she was gonna wait until she saw you again.”
“She had to because I’m a shithead.”
“That sounds right.”
“I don’t know how you two managed to exchange so much information. I wasn’t gone more than half an hour when I left you to talk to her in the bar yesterday.”
She chewed on her lower lip.
I said, “Television buddies. There’s more to that story, isn’t there?”
“Little bit. She gave me her cell number. When you left I called her back, and we talked for over two hours, probably closer to three. I feel like I know her pretty well by now.”
“So you’ve progressed to telephone buddies. Next up will be bicycle buddies.”
She grinned. “Guess so.”
“Naked bike rides. What else came up?”
“Just . . . stuff.”
“Sounds like I don’t want to know. And what the hell’s a cache-sexe?”
“Look it up.”
“Déjà vu. So how about that pizza, since your communication skills are sucky right now?”
“Finally. I’m starved. Hey, you gonna ride naked, too? You should.”
“I’m more a sidelines kinda guy. But I’m a terrific watcher. I’ll be the guy with the leer and the camera.”
“There’ll be a million cameras out there. We’ll end up on the Internet, guaranteed. But maybe by March we’ll get you loosened up enough to get you on a bike, too.”
“Yeah, good luck with that. It would take a platoon of Marines to get me out there naked. They’d have to pedal for me, too.”
“She said you’re kinda tight. Thinks it’s your IRS training, like it gave you a suit-of-armor brain.”
“Suit of armor . . . me? I don’t—”
“Yeah, you do.” She grabbed my arm, hauled me toward the door. “Let’s go before I pass out. What kind of pizza do you like?”
“Anything with meat and cheese on it without anchovies. What the hell else did you two wenches talk about?”
“Wenches. I like that. I’ll let her know.”
The place was called Pizazz Pizza of all things, but the pie was first-rate so we left full and happy. Several flat-screen TVs were on in the place. CNN ran a story that showed Reinhart’s wife in front of a half-dozen microphones. The sound was turned off so I didn’t know what she was saying, but it was probably an appeal of some kind to the psycho who’d hacked off her hubby’s hand. She must want the rest of Harry back, hopefully in one piece so they could keep on with that presidential campaign thingamabob that might put her in the White House with him.
Her name was Julia and she was twenty-six years younger than Reinhart. He’d picked himself up a trophy wife. She was a good-looking woman, would’ve made a Jackie Kennedy kind of First Lady, but that wasn’t likely to happen now that it was likely Harry was dead—or at least had lost the ability to shake, which had been his shtick. Actually, it was never likely either of them would have made it to the White House, Reinhart being a dishonest, conniving son of a bitch with hands deep in taxpayers’ pockets, but since he lost that one hand at least he wouldn’t be grabbing double fistfuls.
Night had come while we were eating. A block down the street we found a Walgreens where I bought a shirt, underwear, and socks, since I’d forgotten all that in Jeri’s house—our house—when I’d left Reno, and things were starting to get unfresh.
“How’re you fixed for clothes?” I asked Sarah.
“Okay. My shirts and pants are okay, and . . . I’ve got one more pair of like panties left.”
I should have paid more attention to the way she said it, the valley-girl like, the nuance, the slight hesitation, but things like that usually go right over my head.
Before we left the store she said, “I’ve got to study some more. Couple of hours at least. If you’re gonna be bored, you ought to buy a book or something, like some crosswords or Sudokus.”
“Sudoku? I’d put a bullet through my head first.”
“And you’ve got a gun, which is scary. So buy a novel. I can’t study with the TV blaring.”
I rummaged the shelves, came up with a John Lescroart novel, A Plague of Secrets.
