Other stuff. I wondered what it might have been, but Jeri said she didn’t want to talk about it. Ma could tell me if she wanted to. When we got back to Jeri’s we got right on that list-making. Well, there was a half-hour delay that ended with us in the shower—and a phone call just to make the day complete.
“Whew,” Jeri said at one point, right before the shower. “I need to meet this Holiday person in person. See how she did that to you.”
“Uh-huh,” I said. Maybe not a good idea, but I keep thoughts like that to myself.
“Without even touching you,” Jeri added.
“Uh-huh.”
Jeri snuggled up against me. “How about tonight, Mort?”
“How about tonight what?”
“Meeting Sarah. Or Holiday, whatever. If she has time and wants to, that is.”
“Television buddies, telephone buddies, bicycle buddies,” I said as a delaying tactic. Which worked for all of forty-five seconds.
“Huh?”
I gave her the history of that progression. She laughed and kissed me on the forehead. “Bicycle buddies. I like that. You should call her. Maybe we can see her tonight.”
“Turns out, I don’t have her number.”
“Turns out, I do.”
“So you could call her.”
“Do I sense a little reluctance there?”
“Not at all, sweetheart. I was thinking of spending a week or so in Uruguay. Now’s a good time for me.”
She gave that some thought. “I’ve only seen her on TV—after you found Reinhart’s hand. How is she really—in real life?”
“Pneumatic comes to mind.”
She looked at me with one eye. “That’s not a description I’ve heard before. How’s it work?”
“I’m going to let you think about it.”
After the shower when she was looking at herself naked in the mirror, she turned and looked at me. “As in, pumped-up kinda full?”
I touched my finger to my nose.
Jeri laughed. “Now I’ve really got to meet this girl.”
Which she did.
But first there was a lot of easy-to-find public record stuff to look up: Reinhart’s Wikipedia biography, press releases, news items. We got thirty-two names in half an hour. Then a lengthy grind on the computer during which I learned more than I wanted to know about databases, Google searches, and a few programs Jeri subscribed to that required an investigator’s license, not available to the general public. Before she started on those secondary sources, she handed me her cell phone, after she’d already proactively tapped the screen to call Holiday-Sarah.
“Hello?” Sarah said.
“It’s me, kiddo,” I said, giving Jeri the eye. She smiled sweetly at me then held her ear an inch from mine to listen in.
“Everyone calls me kiddo,” Sarah said. “So who’s ‘me’?”
“Nice try. You studying?”
“Like a fiend. My brain’s getting full and I’m starting to see double. What’s goin’ on?”
“Want to meet Jeri?”
“Sure! When? Where?”
Eager. I still didn’t know everything they’d talked about during that three-hour phone call a few days ago.
Jeri took the phone from me. “Mort’s favorite bar, Sarah. That okay?” I kept my ear near the phone in case I needed to grab it and throw it against a wall.
“Jeri! Wow, what a coincidence. I was just talking to Mort.”
Jeri laughed. “I don’t know what happened. He was right here. Next thing, he was gone.”
“He was like that in Gerlach, too. I’d, like, take off a shirt or something and he’d disappear.”
Terrific. This was going just swell.
Jeri nudged my ribs with an elbow. “We were going to go to the Green Room tonight, Sarah. Would you like to meet us there? Say, eight o’clock? Not too late?”
“Sure, perfect. I’ll be there. My first class tomorrow isn’t until ten in the morning.”
“Could you dress up?” Jeri said. “You know, like you do.”
“Uh, are you sure?”
“Yes. I’ll try to find something kinda like that so we won’t look too different. Well, I probably won’t be as pneumatic as you but I’ll do what I can.”
Jesus H. Christ.
“Pneumatic? That sounds like something Mort might say.”
Sonofabitch.
Jeri slid an arm around my waist, pulled me closer. “He did. He’s very impressionable.”
“Um. That’s good, I guess.”
“It has been, yeah. Since I got back.”
Sarah laughed. “Good. I’m glad. I’ll see you at eight.”
“Uh-huh. See you.” Jeri ended the call.
“Remember who set this up,” I said. “Don’t blame me for how things turn out.”
“Yeah? Why’s that?”
“Two gorgeous women, only one of me. What do you think?”
I’m never right about that and I don’t know why. I think it’s because women are strange. In July, when Jeri met my ex, Dallas, I expected fireworks, carnage, cannon fire booming across the room. What I got was two hot broads discussing running shoes, 10K runs, exchanging recipes, and chuckling about the only guy in the room.
So there was Holiday, already at the bar with a Tequila Sunrise in front of her, wearing silver high heels and a red dress so short and open in front that I felt my eyes bug out. My life flashed in front of my eyes when she slid off a barstool and came toward us, first time Jeri had ever laid eyes on her. Holiday had gone all out. Her dress plunged so low I could see a sapphire stud glittering in her navel.
Then they hugged.
Didn’t expect that.
Je-sus, that was one cushioned, rubber-bumper hug—like they were best friends who hadn’t seen each other for five years. I saw O’Roarke’s face go slack at the sight.
Jeri had gone to Victoria’s Secret that afternoon and left me in charge of the computer. She came back with a bag I wasn’t allowed to peek in. When we drove to the Golden Goose in her Porsche, she had a crocheted wrap over her shoulders and across her chest. Night chill, she said. She took it off as we entered the Green Room and suddenly she was in a black dress showing enough cleavage to cause a riot of her own. I’d never before
