“I didn’t know that,” I said. “Nice stat.”
“You two,” Jeri growled. “Can we keep it on track?”
Ma grinned. “Anyway, there it is, but I wouldn’t follow up on that on a bet. At least not yet.”
“We’ll keep after Bye and Odermann,” Jeri said. “I like it that the SUV was registered to a dead woman.”
“I sort of like Julia,” I said. “We oughta stake her out.”
Jeri turned to me. “Why? She pretty?”
“What I saw of her on TV, she ain’t bad.” In fact, she was or is a fairly typical trophy wife, given what I know about trophy wives, which is to say they’re younger and prettier than the wife who helped make the guy successful, and they’re interested enough in an older man’s wallet to grit their teeth and put up with the sex thing. And, having come up with that great analysis, I said it aloud.
“Okay, you’re not a complete idiot,” Jeri said.
“I glow under your praise, darlin’, but I like Julia for another reason. If Reinhart is dead, who benefits?”
“The entire country,” Jeri said. “How’s that help us?”
“Cui bono,” Ma muttered.
We both stared at her. I was about to burp her when she said, “In case you’re Latin-challenged, that’s Latin for ‘who benefits.’”
“Man, I gotta remember that,” I said.
Jeri said, “Can’t see that she benefits. Odds are she isn’t gonna be First Lady now. Or even the wife of a powerful politician, even if he is a low-life grub worm. Let’s get outta here. We’ll go check out Odermann or Bye, Ma.”
“Yeah, bye,” Ma said.
“Bye, bye, Ma,” I said.
Jeri spun me around and shoved me toward the door. “I don’t know if you’re gonna make it as a PI, Mort.”
“Why’s that?”
“This is serious fucking business and you’re a goddamn flake and a half.”
Ma’s bray of laughter followed us out the door.
Jeri drove us straight to Sarah’s place where we switched cars again. Holiday and I sat up front in the Audi while Jeri took the backseat. I knew it was Holiday because cleavage was abundant. I had the impression Tonopah had worn off and someone’s hormones were starting to flare up again.
We parked on California Avenue across the street from a place called the Dancing Hippo, which hardly seemed like a good name for a place that caters to an anorexic crowd in high heels. I’d been in there one time, with Jeri, and almost starved to death on one of their sandwiches before I made it out the door. Eighty feet away, Leland Bye and four other attorneys were making two or three hundred dollars an hour while we sat in the car and watched the place and made something like, oh, zero dollars per hour. But the view was terrific so I didn’t complain. Every so often I looked up at the office building, just to be sure no one had moved it, which, if they had, would have made me look like a damn fool.
We had a license plate and VIN on Mary’s SUV, but no SUV. During our travels around town we’d picked up a brochure from the local Mercedes dealer and had pictures of a Mercedes G550 so we could tell one of those from any of a hundred other SUVs. If it showed up, we’d be all over it.
Yawn.
At twelve fifteen, Jeri said, “We could go over to the Dancing Hippo and get something to eat.”
“No we couldn’t,” I said.
“Why not?”
“They don’t have anything in there to eat, that’s why.”
“Tofu.”
“Just what I said. Negative calories. It takes more calories to break that stuff down than you get when it finally turns to pond scum and shoots on through.”
“Je-sus, what a fuckin’ image,” Jeri said.
“Phone Ma. See if she’s got anything on Julia.”
“Julia?” Holiday asked.
“Reinhart’s wife,” Jeri said. “Mort’s got a bug up his butt.”
“Really? There’s a doctor’s office across Virginia Street, over on Ryland.”
I shook my head sadly. “I distinctly remember someone telling me I wasn’t cut out for this PI thing since I was a flake and a half, and here I am with two flakes. So how about that Julia thing, huh?”
Jeri shrugged, got Ma on the phone, put her on speaker, and told her to look into Julia.
“Been there, done that,” Ma said.
“No hits?”
“Nothing much. Other than it don’t look like she’s in line to be First Lady anymore, what with a husband who probably can’t tie his own shoes—if he’s still alive, that is, which I wouldn’t put a lot of money on.”
“How about the basics, Ma?” I said. “Age, address, that sort of thing.”
“Hold on, I got that somewhere around here.” Papers shuffled, then: “Okay, she’s thirty-six, blond, five foot nine, hundred thirty-two pounds—bitch—no children, been married to Harry for eleven years. They got hitched six months after he got rid of some baggage by the name of Rhonda Reinhart, née Fenner, of Bryn Mawr—la-de-fuckin’-da—the same year their youngest kid, Kyle, graduated from Ha’vid—more la-de-da—with a Ph.D. in economics. I think you’d be better off looking into this Rhonda lady since she’s the one who got dumped, except she’s remarried, lives in Baton Rouge, and her name is Rhonda Alsford now. So, back to Julia . . .” She read off an address in the hills of southwest Reno where a starter home would run newlyweds in the seven-hundred-thousand-dollar range. A look at a city map and, lo!—same gated community where Bye lived. I liked that, except that particular community sprawled over the hills like fungus and involved hundreds of homes, maybe a thousand, some of which were nearly two miles from the guard shack. Big place. I also liked Rhonda, who had been tossed aside like a used Kleenex—revenge being a dish best served cold according to all the experts.
“Think you could get us in there, Ma?” I asked. “The place is gated.”
“Is one and one two?”
“Wait, I’ll ask.” I looked over
