“Danya?” Lucy said.
“Uh-huh.”
“She called you a cretin?”
“Sure did. And a shithead. Twice.”
“She’s beautiful, but she’s got rough edges.”
The phone sounded off again. I swiped the screen. “Hola, kiddo. Guess we were cut off.”
“Yeah, right,” Danya said. “Don’t do it again.”
“That all depends. What’s up?”
“That’s what I want to know. That tabloid guy was up at Jo-X’s hideout place. How’d he find out about us? Or you?”
“You first.”
“I don’t know. That’s why—”
“What I meant was, he knew about you two first. Shanna, actually. He tracked Celine all the way to Tonopah, except by the time she got there she was Shanna again. Then he tracked you to Reno. He found out later who she was, after she got back to your place when Xenon dumped her. I wasn’t involved in this mess until you hired me and got me involved.”
“Well, shit. Is there any way to keep him from writing the story?”
“You could kill him. That always works.”
“Get real.”
“Not that I know of. Something about freedom of the press, First Amendment rights, that sort of thing.”
“What about libel?”
“If he tells the truth, good luck with that.”
“If anyone in the media found out Shanna had been Celine, we would never hear the end of it.”
“Sure you would. You’re giving the national attention span too much credit.”
“That’s still not a nightmare I want us to ride out.”
“Gotta go, Danya. Good luck. If you need more advice, I’m here for you.” I ended the call.
“She’s gonna kill the Wharf Rat?” Lucy asked.
“Probably not. But next time I see him, I might give him a heads-up. Anyway, I’m hungry. You ready to get out of here, go track down something to eat?”
My phone rang at six forty-five the next morning.
“Please get that soon, like now,” said my brusque assistant. She had an arm across my chest, warm resilient breasts tucked tight against my ribs, one leg flopped over one of mine.
“‘Monster Mash,’ Sugar Plum. Really good stuff.”
“Before I throw it against a wall, okay?”
“That’s right, threaten the phone.” I swiped the screen and said, “Yo?”
“Yo?” Ma replied.
“Do you know what time it is?” I asked.
“Eight forty-five.”
“Not here, it ain’t.”
“You don’t come on the news until after the first commercial break, Mort. The story’s starting to fade.”
“Good to know, and it’s six forty-five here.”
“So what’s goin’ on? Where are you? Still at that motel?”
Took me a moment to catch up to that.
“Not that one. We’re in Vegas. At the Luxor where, guess what, it’s now six forty-six in the morning.”
“We?”
Oops. That one got loose.
“Got me an assistant, Ma.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I don’t?”
“Who the hell said you could have an assistant? I’m not paying for anything like that. And it’s a she, isn’t it?”
“Wait, I’ll check.”
“Don’t bother. How old is she?”
“Thirty-one.”
Silence for a moment. “That don’t sound so bad, not that you can have an assistant.”
“Thanks, Ma.”
“She good? I mean, as an assistant? And don’t think my asking means you can keep her. Jesus, I don’t mean keep her like a hamster. What I mean is, get rid of her. Unless of course she’s useful. And free.”
“She’s useful. Like a set of skeleton keys.”
More silence.
“What’s that mean?” she asked. “That don’t sound good.”
“You’ll like her, Ma.”
“At least tell me she’s not there in the room with you.”
“She’s not here in the room with me.”
“Liar.”
“You told me to tell you that. Now, if you want to know where she is, she’s right here in the room with me.”
“Early in the morning, too. So . . . what’s she weigh?”
“That’s a hell of a question.”
“Again, I ask: What’s she weigh?”
“Depends. When she’s in a supermarket, she weighs apples, nectarines, grapes, stuff like that.”
“Je-sus Christ. You evasive son of a bitch. She’s beautiful, ain’t she?”
“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, Ma.”
She hung up.
“That your ma?” Lucy asked, head propped up on an elbow.
“Nope. That was Ma.”
She stared at me. “Let me know when you wake up.”
Twelve thirty-five p.m. Temperature 105 degrees and creeping upward.
The Caddy was a hardtop, a good solid ride with tinted windows, leather seats, navigation system, intermittent wipers. The lockbox was in the trunk. I had on the white wig, matching moustache, golfer’s hat, sunglasses. Lucy wore sunglasses so big they made her look like an insect.
“And look,” I said. “It even has air-conditioning.”
“Wowie. Imagine that. I liked the Mustang.”
“Me, too.”
“Won’t be much point in me taking off my top in this thing. It doesn’t even have a sunroof.” She was wearing her form-fitting pink tank top from Tonopah, complete with bumps. Latex-thin stretchy cotton was a hell of a good invention.
“Really?” I said. “That’s too bad.”
She gave me a smug look. “Thank you.”
We cruised by Jo-X’s Vegas mansion. The circus had been downgraded to a carnival. One cop car, one forensics van, and four carloads of anguished girls barely old enough to drive, Jo-X rap issuing from three of the cars, polluting the neighborhood. Crime scene tape was still strung up. It had only been five days since I’d found Jo-X and sent a million teenage souls into a death spiral of mourning, sort of like Kennedy’s assassination, which, to keep the record straight, was fourteen years before I was born.
Five days? It felt like two very long weeks.
I pulled over a quarter mile away, swapped the white wig for an unkempt brown one so I could dump the itchy moustache.
“Now what?” Lucy said.
“You drive. I’m gonna get Fairchild on the horn.”
She gawked at me. “On the horn? Seriously?”
“Before your day, kiddo.”
“You, on the other hand, used a ‘horn’ before they had rotary dial and Bakelite phones.”
“You’re fired, smart-ass.”
She smiled. “You didn’t know they used to make phones out of Bakelite, did you?”
“Tell me why it matters.”
“It matters because I know a ton of cool stuff so you can’t fire me. That and I’m really good in a Jacuzzi.”
“Excellent points both. Now are you gonna drive this thing or do I have to fire you?”
We switched places.
“Where to?” she asked, fastening her seat belt.
“Just drive. Jo-X rap is coming
