“Yeah?” he said, in a paranoid whisper. “Who’s this?”
“You are not authorized to use that picture of me, Ignacio. Do that and I’ll sue you and your scummy rag for a million bucks.”
He laughed. “Good luck gettin’ a million from me. I got forty bucks in my checking account.”
“Forty bucks and no job if you run that picture.”
“Jesus, you don’t know nothin’ about tabloid journalism, do you?” He hung up.
Well, shit.
Five seconds later, my phone rang. Probably the Rat, so I said, “Tabloid journalism is a pimple on society’s ass.”
“Really? Just a pimple, not a boil or a hemorrhoid?”
I knew that voice. “Hey, Dallas. What’s up?” Dallas, my ex, pushing forty-three and still beautiful. She’d been semi-engaged to Reno’s missing mayor, Jonnie Sjorgen, until I found his head in the trunk of her Mercedes last July. That pretty much put the kibosh on the engagement, but she got to keep the ring.
“You found another missing Jonnie, Mort. Good work.”
“It’s a knack.”
“I just wanted to call with my congratulations before you got so famous I couldn’t get through.”
“Thanks. It’s always great to hear from you, Dal.”
“How’s Maude taking it? You and this Jo-X thing?”
“She’s somewhere in Utah, on her way to Memphis to visit her kid. She’ll be gone two weeks. Amtrak. Her phone cuts in and out, so I think she hasn’t seen the news yet.”
“No doubt she’ll be thrilled.”
“I’m counting on it. It’s about time I got a raise.”
She laughed, hung up, then a minute later my phone chirped and it was Holiday. A phone chirp didn’t seem all that manly. I was going to have to come up with a new ringtone.
“Mort, I’ve been reading. I just turned on the television.”
“Yeah? Anything good on?”
“You’re totally something else.”
“Got that right. Totally.”
“Ma’s gonna kill you when she gets back. She told you not to find Jo-X, and what do you do?”
“Uh-huh. Can’t help it.”
“I know. At least this time you found an entire body, not just heads or a severed hand.”
“I’m upgrading my act. Doesn’t piss off the police as much, waiting around for the rest of it to show up.”
“They’re saying you found him at a girl’s house. Was that the girl in the Green Room last night?”
“This’s not for public consumption until it gets out—but that girl was Fairchild’s daughter.”
Six seconds of silence. Then, “Fairchild? The detective? You gotta be kidding me.”
“Nope.”
“That girl was black, Mort. And pretty. Russell Fairchild is as ugly and white as Buddy Hackett’s ghost.”
“Good eye, kiddo. The metaphor was a winner, too.”
“That was a simile. And . . . Russell’s kid? I never know when you’re serious.”
“I am now.”
“Interesting. So, how’s he taking it?”
“Talk about delighted. The guy is bouncing off the walls.”
“I bet. Anyway, I thought I’d let you know Alice phoned a while ago. She misses me, so I’m going to visit her for a few days. I’ll drive down tomorrow morning.”
Alice, Holiday’s aunt, lived in San Francisco. She was fifty-five. She let Holiday bathe with two male cousins until the day Holiday turned eleven. I was so jealous. I never had a cool aunt like that, and I had female cousins the right age, too.
“Good to know. How long you gonna be gone?”
“Four or five days, maybe a week. I’m driving down, and she said something about us going to San Luis Obispo to visit her sister, Irene, so it might be longer.”
“Safe trip, huh?”
“Yep. Thanks. I’ll let you know when I get back.”
The call ended. Everyone was out of town or about to leave. I sat there with Ignacio’s snide words drifting around in my head, mostly that crack that I was out of Shanna’s league. I hated him until it was full dark and Venus got hung up in the trees over the Sierras. No moon.
Then Venus slid below the mountains.
The night was warm. For a while I contemplated this Danya-Celine thing. Jo-X had been stinking up Danya’s—or Shanna’s—garage, but what did that mean? According to the covers of half a dozen tabloids, Celine was a “mystery woman”—an expression that sold tens of thousands of additional copies to a relatively low-IQ or easily amused market—so if Danya and Celine were one and the same, in spite of the apparent difference in their heights, then it was likely Danya had an agenda. A hidden agenda, to be precise. Might that agenda include turning out Jo-X’s lights for some unknown reason? If so, why the hell would she string him up in her garage?
Made no sense. I couldn’t fit Shanna into any of that. And if those two were in fact married, Shanna would know about the Danya-Celine connection—especially if Danya had disappeared for two or three weeks while Celine was making headlines. That would put Shanna in cahoots with Danya, “cahoots” being a word I like to use around Ma. Russell Fairchild must be fizzing like Alka-Seltzer in a glass of Pepsi about now. If—when—the media made that final connection, all hell was going to break loose and Fairchild was going to know how I felt last year, which might make him a better person, more empathetic.
The Wicked Ale was long gone, including its buzz. I wasn’t sleepy and I had things to do later that night, so I got up and hiked over to the Green Room, half a mile away.
As soon as I came through the door, O’Roarke grabbed a bottle of Pete’s Wicked Ale and had the top off, the bottle sitting in front of my favorite stool, opposite the TV.
“Nice goin’, spitfire. You’re four for four now, right?”
“Something like that. I’m beginning to lose count.” I pushed the Pete’s back at him. “Gimme a Coke.”
“Just Coke?”
“Okay, put a twist of lime in it.”
O’Roarke frowned at me. “Guy gets famous, suddenly he gets picky. It’s a bitch in this place, trying to keep up.”
“Yeah, I get that bitch thing a lot.”
He set a Coke in front of me, lime on the rim. “Bottoms up. Eleven-o’clock news in ten minutes. You wouldn’t want to
