“I don’t have a eunuch switch.”
“English?”
I met her eyes. “Yes. You’re very beautiful. It’s not the kind of thing I would get tired of quickly. Might take me fifty years.”
“I’m glad. Although . . . maybe that makes it even harder.” She reached across the table and took my hand, squeezed it, then let go.
“Speaking of which, you shed a few tears coming back from Tonopah.”
“Sometimes I still feel like crying.” She made a little gesture at her dress. “Wearing something like this doesn’t feel the way it used to. It’s not as good as it was before. It doesn’t compare to the way it was with you in Tonopah or up in Oregon.”
“I’m sorry.”
She sighed. “Me, too. Tonopah was wonderful. Now I’m just sort of . . . blah. But that ‘gifting’ thing is stuck in my head and I can’t get it out.” She gazed out at the city, then back at me. “It’s driving me crazy, like I don’t know right or wrong anymore, like my world has been turned upside down.”
“There’s got to be someone out there for you, someone who can give you what you want.”
“Right. Someone like you. Lots of them around. I see them on street corners all the time. They wear signs.”
She split a mushroom with a fork and speared half, put it in her mouth, chewed slowly. Her eyes had a shine to them that picked up lights in the room.
Finally, she said, “You’re something else. You don’t know how different you are, do you?”
Hell, yes. I find heads and people send me hands. An entire nation awaits my next move. But I didn’t tell her that because I’m a sensitive chap and I could tell it didn’t fit the mood.
“Makes me want to fucking cry,” she said.
CHAPTER TWENTY
IT WAS FULL dark and we’d made nearly three revolutions by the time Bye and Julia pushed their chairs back. They gave the room a guarded look as they stood up to leave. Holiday and I hadn’t said anything about gifting for over an hour, but it was still in her eyes—even after the Dungeness crab cakes I ordered because Bye and Julia were taking their sweet time over dinner.
I fumbled my cell phone out and speed-dialed Jeri. “Houston, I think we have liftoff.”
“About time. Let me know when they get on the elevator.”
“Roger, Houston. Expect a text.”
Holiday smiled. “She puts up with a lot, doesn’t she?”
“She’s a sweet kid that way. Unlike my mother who abandoned me when I was six.”
“She didn’t.”
“No, but she wanted to. She would intentionally lose me in big department stores. After age six, Christmas was all downhill.”
Holiday rolled her eyes. Then Bye and Julia walked past us so Holiday and I put our heads closer together to hide our faces. She kissed me until they were far enough away, which was an excellent PI move and very nice.
“More, please,” she said when I backed away.
“Can’t. Houston awaits.”
When the elevator door closed on the lawyer and the erstwhile senator’s wife and would-be First Lady, I texted Jeri with the news. Holiday and I got up. I dropped sixty dollars on the table, then we went over and hit the down button.
Jeri and Ma weren’t there when we got to the mezzanine. My phone rang. The screen showed a picture of Jeri.
“Yeah? Who’s this?” I said.
“Your fiancée and she’s damn tired of waiting around so don’t start. I’m in my car. Leland and Julia are in a lip-lock beside his car, might need chiropractic help to separate, so I don’t know how long it’ll be before I get to tail anyone.”
“Hang in there, kiddo.”
“Actually, they’re giving me an idea of what you and I might do later. That six-minute thing yesterday has worn off entirely.”
“I’ll have you know that was a ten-minute thing. You’d think the afterglow would last longer.”
Holiday lifted an eyebrow at me.
“Okay, both of them are getting in Bye’s car,” Jeri said. “Gotta go, Mort. Stay tuned.”
Jeri followed them out of the parking garage and Ma followed Jeri. That parade stayed together all the way out I-80 to the town of Fernley with Ma and Jeri trading places to reduce the chances that the lovebirds would know they were being followed. At one point, Ma had to push her Caddy up to seventy-five, a death-defying feat. Holiday and I piled into her Audi. She drove. She’d parked her car next to my Toyota in the garage, so I got my gun from under the seat before we headed out. We were only three or four minutes behind Ma and Jeri by the time we reached Sparks on I-80, but it took us most of the way to Fernley to catch up. Finally, Ma’s Eldorado came into view, at which point we passed her, then Jeri, and took over the lead in the chase.
We were back on a conference call, three-way, with me, Ma, and Jeri talking to each other. Jeri suggested that Holiday and I pass Bye’s SUV before it reached the first Fernley exit. A second exit off the interstate would take us into the east end of town if Bye got off at Fernley, which seemed likely. With the Audi ahead of him, the parade following him wouldn’t be so obvious. Holiday could get off I-80 two miles away and come back, or hit Highway 50 and keep going, if Bye and Julia were going all the way to Fallon.
Not a bad plan. Holiday gunned it and we shot past Bye and girlfriend Julia at eighty miles an hour, a mile before they reached the first Fernley exit. Less than a minute later, Jeri reported that Bye had indeed exited at Fernley, so Holiday raced up to the next exit and got off, went south about three-quarters of a mile to Highway 50 and headed back west on the main street through town.
Jeri dropped back. Ma took over the lead. Bye went through town, passing Holiday and me in the Audi in the opposite direction.
