He thought about that. “A girl. Not old. Pretty, too. I remember ’cause I still like pretty girls. I ain’t so old yet that that don’t matter to me. I sit out here and every so often a pretty one’ll come by.”
“Was she driving?”
“Uh-uh. A woman was. Older, but also good-looking, near as I could tell. It was gettin’ on toward dusk so the light wasn’t so good, but I got new glasses a couple months back so my eyes is fair.” He gave Sarah and me a sheepish look. “And, a while back I bought me these at Cabela’s.” He held up a pair of field glasses. “Good ones, too. Cost five hundred bucks, but worth it. If I see what might be a pretty girl on the street out there, I pick these up and get me a better look.”
I showed him a picture of Allie. “Did she look like this?”
He stared at the photo for five seconds. “This one’s blond. Girl that put that package in the box had dark hair.”
“What if she was wearing a wig?”
“A wig, huh?” He studied the picture a while longer. “The light was starting to go, but, yeah, I’d say fifty-fifty, that’s her.”
“So, flip a coin?”
“About that. Heads it’s her, tails it’s someone looks close.”
“How long ago did you see them?”
He thought about it for nearly half a minute. “Been four days, maybe five.”
“Feds didn’t mention them?”
“Can’t figure why they’d have a reason to. Damn strange, you askin’.” He gave Sarah a questioning look.
“He’s like that,” she said. “It’s exhausting.”
He stared at her shirt. “Biggest piece of pi is three.” He chortled. “That’s a good one. Oughta get me a shirt like that, piss off my brother.”
Sarah and I walked back to her car.
A pretty girl that might have been Allie, and a good-looking woman in a green Mercedes SUV. About the right number of days ago, they’d put a package in that drop box. Jesus H. Christ. I’d made a connection so unreal it was like being in the Twilight Zone. Next person over the horizon would be Rod Serling.
“That’s just . . . impossible,” Sarah said as I parked the Audi at the Slumberland, a final pit stop before we headed back to Gerlach. “Allie couldn’t be mixed up in that mess.”
I didn’t know what to tell her. Allie had phoned from Gerlach. A green SUV was seen in Gerlach about that time with a girl who might have been Allie inside and a woman driving. A girl in a green SUV had dropped off a package in the same box Reinhart’s hand had been put in, with a woman driving. The whole thing might be nothing but coincidence and coincidences happen, but I had the eerie feeling it was all tied together somehow. I also had the feeling that the FBI wasn’t anywhere near it.
I could’ve been wrong on all counts since that’s part of my MO, but it was still eerie as hell.
Up in the room I looked around. I didn’t see anything we’d left behind. Sarah had extra clothing and school things in her duffel bag. She came out of the bathroom in jeans and her pi shirt. “I’m ready,” she said. Her tone was distracted. The possibility that her sister was somehow tied up with the Reinhart thing had her brain spinning.
By ten forty we were out of Bend and on the highway, headed south through low scrubby hills covered with pine.
“What do you think?” she asked.
“Dunno. Anything’s possible.”
“Allie can’t be involved with Reinhart,” she said in a voice that lacked conviction.
“She was hooking.”
“I know.”
“And she was working casinos where there’s money and a different clientele than you’d find on Lakeside or Fourth Street, so there’s a possibility there.”
“I know.”
I didn’t know what else to say. Sarah got out a textbook and said, “I can’t think about that right now. I’m going to study.”
Which she did, all the way to Gerlach—God bless those nerd genes. She got in there and seriously wrestled with eigenstuff, which was more than I could’ve done even if I had the slightest idea what that stuff was. I’ve always found structural dynamics boring.
We arrived in Gerlach that afternoon at three twenty. I parked the Audi beside my Toyota and we sat there in silence for a moment.
“Got any reason to stay the night?” Sarah asked.
“Not that I can see.”
“Guess I’ll go back to Reno then. I need to keep studying, and I probably ought to give it a rest for a while—I mean, the way I’ve been around you. Although,” she added, “it’s been a blast.”
“Uh-huh,” said the master of repartee.
“Seriously, Mort. Allie couldn’t be involved.”
“Even so, I wouldn’t run any of it past anyone, like the police or the FBI. Especially the FBI.”
She gave me a look. “Like I was going to.”
Not sure why I told her that. It just came out. Putting the FBI on that trail might turn a whistle-stop carnival into a full-blown circus, with Sarah and me in the big tent, center ring. It might end up in the news. No telling how that would affect Allie, wherever she was, whatever was happening with her. It’s not like Sarah and I were withholding evidence in a murder investigation—for two reasons. One, that green SUV might be nothing at all, and two, no one knew if Reinhart was dead or alive. The lying sonofabitch might’ve shipped his own hand, he’s that fucking dishonest.
Sarah and I got out. She came around the car and got behind the wheel, then looked up at me. “See you back in Reno?”
“Yup. Especially now that you and Jeri have progressed to the telephone buddy stage.”
“Not just because of Jeri. And not only because of Allie, either. I’ll see you, too, I hope. You’re a good guy, Mort. You’re still going to try to find Allie, aren’t you?”
“Sure am.”
“I’ll be around. I want to help, if I can.” She hesitated. “Would a tiny little good-bye kiss be out
