I looked back. Thirty feet away, Lucy was slumped in the seat, one bare foot up on the dash, phone to her ear. She waved an index finger at me and smiled.
Good enough. When women talk about me, this is the way it goes. I can’t figure it out.
Two minutes went by. Three. I watched a buzzard or vulture floating over a low brown hill half a mile away, hunting.
Lucy got out of the car. She came over in her filmy shorts and sandals. “She hung up. Said a kid dumped an ice cream cone down the front of her shirt. Anyway, that was sort of weird.”
“Ice cream down the front is like that.”
“Not the ice cream. I mean, she was so nice. You told her I was topless and she didn’t mind. Not what I expected. Sarah’s that girl you were with when you found Senator Reinhart’s hand, right?”
“His right hand, right. And to keep the record straight, it pretty much found me.”
“What she did, before she hung up, she told me not to hurt you. Said if I did she’d break my legs, but she said it in a nice way.”
“A nice way?”
“Uh-huh. I didn’t think anyone could do that. She asked why I was topless and I described it, the sun and the heat, the wind on my skin. I told her it was just an experience—something I might never get a chance to do again, certainly not with someone like you, and she said she understood, especially about you. But the point is, I mean what I got is that she cares about you, but it was perfectly okay for you to . . . well, do this. Drive me to Vegas, whatever. Still feels kinda weird, she was so friendly . . . like not only was it okay, but she approved.”
“She didn’t say anything about gifting, did she?”
“Gifting? What’s that?”
“Tell you about it sometime.”
“Something to look forward to. I like that. Anyway, here’s your phone. Okay with you if I don’t put my top on right away?”
“Sure. Enjoy. What’s a little nudity among friends?”
She laughed, then looked toward the hills. “She was so, so nice about it.”
After five more miles, Lucy picked up her tank top, pulled it over her head, snugged it back down.
“Done with the showgirl act?” I asked.
“For now. Don’t want to overdo the sun even with sunblock. But it felt good, so thanks. I’ll probably do it again later. It’s almost like I was born in the wrong century. I could’ve been Sally Rand or Faith Bacon. Sally, mostly.”
“Sally Rand?”
“She did an ostrich-feather dance at the Chicago World’s Fair, 1933. Danced entirely naked, partly hidden by feathers. She mostly kept one part of herself concealed, but she showed ’em everything else. Gave the world a topless show that was really something at the time. I’ll bet she was pretty much turned on the whole time, too.”
I didn’t comment on that last, but it sounded a lot like Holiday. I wondered if Lucy had some of that, too.
“Anyway,” she said, “you’re nice and a little bit goofy but so am I, so I think this relationship is going to work out fine.”
“What relationship?”
“You. Me. Us.”
“What relationship?”
“It’s a work in progress. Guess we’ll find out. So, you’re investigating this thing with Jo-X? His murder?”
“Maybe.”
She frowned. “That doesn’t sound very definite.”
“It’s not.”
“Then what’re you doing, driving all the way to Vegas if it’s just maybe?”
“I’m going to nose around, see if anything pops up. A guy in Reno asked me to look into it. It’s sort of a favor.”
“A favor, huh? This guy pay you to do this favor?”
I looked over at her.
“Hey, don’t look at me like that. It’s not like I’m looking for a handout or anything. I’ve got money. I just want to, you know, hang out with you a while. Especially if you’re looking into Jo-X’s death, and especially-especially since it’s okay with Sarah.”
“Hang out?”
“Uh-huh. Until you marry me, then it’s not called hanging out. In the meantime, I’ll learn private eye stuff, help out if I can. I’ll tell you why neo-impressionist paintings generally suck, and you can tell me more about those decapitated heads you found, stuff that didn’t make it into the news.”
“Jesus.”
“So even if all you’re gonna do is nose around, what’s the first step? Do you have a plan? Seems like you ought to. Vegas is a big place. First thing, though, we’ll need to get a room.”
“Two rooms.”
“Nope. One. A suite. I’ve got an idea about that. Nice big fancy suite and it won’t cost us a penny.”
“A free suite?”
“Yep. You watch. Like I told you, I’m lucky. Lucky Lucy. Take the ‘k’ out of Lucky and what’s left? Lucy. I was born when four planets were lined up and Mars wasn’t one of them.”
“That works?”
“Does it ever. You watch.”
We stopped in Beatty, Nevada. Whatever else Lucy wanted to do or see or experience, it was not going to include a big right turn that would take us into Death Valley and temperatures that might exceed a hundred twenty degrees. While I was at the wheel, there was going to be no Furnace Creek, no Dante’s View, no Devil’s Golf Course, no breakdown in the middle of nowhere, no desiccation of the Mort.
But what she wanted was almost as weird, at least to me. She found a shop that sold nail polish, bought a tiny bottle filled with what looked like fresh blood. I gassed up, and we were back on the road in ten minutes, headed south. She propped a heel on the seat and hunched over a foot, painting her nails. She did the other foot, then her fingernails. When she was finished, she held up her hands and admired her handiwork. Bright blood red.
“Cheap,” she said. “Very trailer park.”
Women. Go figure.
CHAPTER TEN
WE HIT THE Vegas city limits at 5:20 p.m. First thing visible on the skyline was the Stratosphere. Fifteen
