Gumshoe for Two

feet!—and when Biggs came through she saw the gun and broke his leg with one kick. Broke his knee, actually. Kicked it from the side and shattered it. She put him down so fast he didn’t get to use the gun, but his finger jerked on the trigger and he put a hole in that sideboard you might’ve seen, which reminds me every day that that bullet was meant for me. I probably ought to mention that she didn’t stop with the knee. She’s an alley cat. She picked him up like a sack of grain and hauled him across the office, slammed his head through a window, didn’t send him on through though, then she hauled him back inside and broke his nose, jaw, bunch of teeth. When the police came, they had to take him out on a gurney. He’s in the Nevada state prison in Carson doing twenty-five without parole. One thing I owe Jeri for is the pleasure of watching her kick Biggs’ ass so hard he’s probably still bouncing. That and my life, so, yeah, no charge for anything she needs, ever. If not for her, I wouldn’t be here.”

“Remind me never to piss her off, Ma.”

“Not sure you need reminding. You saw what she did to that psycho Victoria, didn’tcha?”

“Yep.” In fact, that was a memory I still treasured. Victoria had come through a door thinking murder, and Jeri kicked her under the chin so hard it ripped her esophagus loose internally, broke her neck, and shattered her jaw. I remember seeing a piece of tongue fly across the room. Victoria was dead before she hit the floor.

“She is some kinda bobcat, that girl,” Ma said. “Told me about this thing with Holiday that has you tied up in knots.”

Aw, jeez.

“I’ve been around the block a time or two, in case you hadn’t guessed,” Ma said.

“Really? All the way around at least twice?”

“That’s right, boyo. So here’s a little something you might not know. A lot of us gals don’t want to be jail keepers.”

“Jail keepers?”

“Wardens, prison guards. Take some poor schmuck and tell him what he can and can’t see and think, can and can’t enjoy. If I was with some guy, I wouldn’t want to tell him he couldn’t at least look at women—half-clothed, naked, whatever—just like I wouldn’t want him to tell me I couldn’t look at naked men, if that’s what I wanted to do. I’ve been to Thunder Down Under at the Grand Sierra Resort—with Jeri, in case you didn’t know. The last thing I need is some uptight warden micromanaging my life, telling me what I can and can’t do like that. So here you got maybe eighty million adult women in the country, and I’d guess eighty or ninety percent of ’em are wardens, mind police, whether or not they know it or care to admit it. But that leaves ten or twenty percent who aren’t, and Jeri is one of those. Umpteen million women out there are smart enough to know you can’t reach into a guy’s head and throw that eunuch switch. Guys are what they are. We gals are, too, but that’s a secret we don’t let out. Get a warden who thinks she can change what turns a guy’s head, she’s an idiot, fooling herself. She thinks by guilt tripping and snarling loud and long if he so much as glances at another woman that she’s changed him, but all she’s done is driven him underground and made him realize he’s married to a jail keeper and he’d better keep his head down. All jail keepers get is surface behavior and resentment. That includes mind wardens who are male, too, so it works both ways.”

“This is a hell of a discussion, Ma.”

“Let me know if I’m boring you.”

“I’ll do that.”

“Anyway, Jeri’s worried that you don’t get it, so I’m putting in my two cents, that’s all.”

“Lately I’ve felt like I’m on loan.”

She stared at me. “You’re somethin’ else. I can see why Jeri’s worried about you. She isn’t loaning you to Sarah. Not sharing you, either—not in any usual sense of the word. If you want another two cents on top of the two I just gave you, here’s a concept: Jeri is sort of gifting you—to each other.”

“Gifting.”

“Both you and Sarah, in case you don’t get it. Letting you do what you want. That’s a gift. Think about it, boyo. That’s all I got for you. Except Jeri isn’t a jail keeper and she isn’t worried about you two, so unless you and Sarah are in deeper than you’re telling, you oughta just settle down and enjoy the ride. And if you want another penny—if I looked half as good as that girl I’d dress up and turn a few male heads, lemme tell you. Life never gave me that, but if it had, I would’ve been all over it in a heartbeat.”

“Now I’ve got a whole nickel, Ma.”

“Yeah? Spend it wisely. Now if you don’t mind I’m gonna catch a little shut-eye.”

Which she did. Two minutes later she was fast asleep, leaving me alone with my thoughts, working on jail keepers and gifting.

I woke Ma up a few miles outside of Alturas. We cruised the main street from one end to the other and back, found a guy who did minor body work on cars along with brake jobs and tune-ups, but he’d never painted a car in his life.

So, back on the road.

A quick look around Lakeview, Oregon, gave us a body shop that would paint a car, but they’d never painted a Mercedes SUV.

So, on to Bend.

Ma drifted in and out of light dozes. I had to stop at a roadside gas station and get a Red Bull to keep going. A hundred miles from Bend Ma was awake so I said, “Gifting.”

Ma smiled. “Keep chewin’ on it. Probably best if you try not to think like a guy.”

“No sweat. I’ll do that.”

A hundred miles. It took