“What’d you see?” Buddie asked.
“Money belt. He put it under the mattress.”
“Yeah? That’s good. Sure wish we could sell the car, though. That’d be worth a lot. Lot more than the belt, most likely.”
“We’ve talked about that, Buddie.”
“I know. Still wish we could.”
He was an idiot. She found it hard to be patient. “Not easy to do something like that and not have cops all over us.”
“Big sonofabitch, that Lexus.”
She laid back, sighing as Buddie’s thumb worked a groove up the sole of her right foot.
“When will he be completely out?” Buddie asked. He looked at the monitor. Looked like the guy was out now, crashed on the bed. But he’d had trouble in the past when he’d gone in too soon. Trouble made noise. He liked it quiet and easy.
“Better plan on midnight, maybe one o’clock.”
“After the Tonight Show,” Buddie said. “Good deal. Hate it when I miss that.” He stood up and stretched his back. “It’s gettin’ late. I better get the backhoe out there, ready to go.”
“You do that, Sweetheart.”
“We got someone in one,” Buddie said. “I seen a car.”
“Some guy about forty and a young girl looks like she’s a high-end hooker, outfit she was wearing. Don’t see any money there. I put them as far away from Four as I could.”
“Okay, good.”
Just then the buzzer for the motel rang, doorbell push-button on the jamb to the restaurant, someone wanting a room.
“Hell,” Arlene muttered, putting her feet into flip-flops. “It’s like frickin’ Grand Central Station around here tonight.”
Not good, but she really wanted that money belt.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
I HEARD A car engine moments before headlights swept over the ground between the diner and the motel, illuminating gravel, weeds, dirt, aluminum cans. Then the engine went silent.
Footsteps on gravel, a moment of quiet, then they headed for the diner. I stood in shadow at the back corner of the motel as Vince Ignacio appeared in a pale wash of light spilling from the diner’s windows.
The Wharf Rat. Terrific.
I went around the front and saw a red Chevrolet Cruze nosed in between the Mustang and the Lexus.
I wanted to keep my night vision intact, so I waited in the lee of the building. Six or eight minutes later, Ignacio came out and headed back toward the motel.
“Hsssst.”
He stopped, night blind. “Who’s there?”
“Over here, Vince.”
He hesitated, peering into the gloom. I came closer, grabbed him by the front of his shirt, and hauled him squawking into the darkness behind the motel. I told him to shut up, rammed the suggestion home with a knuckle to his chest as I pinned him to the back wall.
“What’re you doin’ here, Ignacio?” I asked. I almost called him Wharf.
Took him a moment to recover, then he said, “Hey, it’s still a free country, Mr. Angel. I’m just ridin’ the highways.”
“Sure you are.”
“You could turn loose of my shirt.”
“I could, but I won’t. I told you you couldn’t use that picture of me. So now I’ve got this big sonofabitching lawsuit in the works. Once the dust settles, I’m gonna be rich. I figure you made a bundle with those Jo-X pictures.”
That slowed him down for a few seconds.
“Didn’t hear nothin’ about any lawsuit,” he said.
“You’ll get the subpoena when they finally track you down. If I were you, I’d be thinking Brazil, maybe Uruguay.”
He chuckled. Which meant he was over the shock of being dragged off into the night. “Subpoena. I’ll believe it when I see it. Anyway, you finally got that ‘Celine’ thing nailed down, right? Things come together for you today in Caliente? Like maybe you’re not engaged to her like you said?” He snickered. “I still don’t think you’re her type . . . Stud.”
Man, I hate it when intimidation fades off into burlesque and low comedy. The sky was nothing but stars, Milky Way glowing bright. White as he was, Vince’s face was a pale blob against the black side of the motel. Good thing I couldn’t see his grin.
I heard distant scuffling noises, then the big backhoe’s diesel engine fired up, thirty yards behind the diner, beyond the shed I’d been forced to use as an outhouse earlier. Headlights came on. The rig backed off its trailer, warning beeper chirping away.
I shoved Ignacio toward the front of the motel. “Keep away from me,” I said. “Keep following and I’ll put you in a dumpster somewhere and lock the sonofabitchin’ lid down.”
He went. I watched him scuttle ratlike around the back of his Cruze. I went behind the motel again to see what this backhoe business was all about. Who fires up a backhoe this late at night?
I stood in the dark, watching. The backhoe swiveled and bounced, headlights briefly illuminating the helicopter shed, then it surged away, churned west into empty desert, lights dipping and swaying over the uneven ground. It went out a little beyond the helicopter shed, then stopped. Moments later the engine died, lights went out, and the night was quiet again.
My phone vibrated.
“Yeah?” I said softly.
Fairchild gave me Lucy’s birthday. She was born on April Fool’s day. Interesting. And the planet for Aries was Mars—the planet that wasn’t lined up with four others when she was born. Also interesting.
Russ said, “She’s thirty-one. Isn’t that a little young for you?”
“In what way, Russ? She’s my assistant. How old does an assistant have to be?”
“Yeah, right. I pulled up her picture. She’s an assistant like I’m Brad Pitt.”
“Not sure that analogy works, but if it makes you happy, use it.” I hung up.
Thirty-one. Yes, indeed, I was hopeless with ages, but I had a hell of a girl on my hands.
I waited in the dark. Three minutes. Four. Then a dark figure emerged in the night and went into the back of the diner, where the owner lived. Looked tall. Huge, actually. Had to be that big guy with the beard I’d seen earlier that
