I downloaded a new ringtone while we headed back north, then speed-dialed Fairchild. He picked up on the second ring.
“Yeah?”
“Bit terse on the howdy there, Russ,” I said.
“What?”
“Where are you?”
“Cali-fuckin’-ente.”
“You’re breaking up, Russ. When we’re back in Reno, I’ll tell you what it sounded like you just said. It’ll crack you up.”
“What the hell do you want, Angel?”
“That lady, Arlene, Arlene’s Diner, what’d you find out?”
“I put Day on it. That would be your buddy Officer Day. Ask him. You still got his number?”
“I keep it in a special place in my wallet.”
Lucy looked over at me, then back at the road, lips lifting in a little smile.
“Call Day. I’m busy.” Russ ended our horn session the same way Ma did that morning.
“What’s in a special place in your wallet?” Lucy asked.
“Officer Day’s phone number. Well, numbers.”
“I sure hope Officer Day is a woman.”
“I haven’t told you about Day yet?”
“Nope.”
“Well, then, you’re in for a real treat.”
“Why? She pretty?”
“You’ll have to tell me when you two meet. Now shush.” I got Day on the first ring, which was great. Now I had two RPD cops in my back pocket. “Officer Day. How’s your day?”
“Got any idea how many times I’ve heard that dumbass line, Angel?”
“Nope. I’ll puzzle it out later, get back to you on that. So, tell me about Arlene of Arlene’s Diner.”
Five seconds of dead air. Then, “I can’t talk here. I’ll call you back.” My phone went dead.
“Call back,” I told Lucy.
“Caught her at a bad time?”
“With Day, there’s never a good time.”
“That makes her sound like something of a bitch, Mort.”
“Right. Keep your eyes on the road, woman.”
My phone’s new ringtone fired up. I let it play for twenty glorious seconds.
Ten seconds in, Lucy stared at me. “What on earth is that?”
“‘Purple People Eater,’ by Sheb Wooley.”
“Wow. When did that come out?”
“Nineteen fifty-eight.”
“People must’ve been totally schizo back then.”
“Here’s a thought. When was your father born?”
“Well, poop and a half. Nineteen fifty-seven.”
“Right. Eisenhower was president. Ike founded the CIA. I know cool stuff, too. Now shush.” I answered the phone. “Sorry about the delay, Officer. Had a little ringtone issue. So what’s the poop on Arlene?”
Lucy looked at me and mouthed, “Poop?”
“Arlene Faye Hicks,” Day said. “Fifty-nine. Got a son thirty-four years old, Buddie Hicks. Buddie with an ‘ie,’ not ‘y’, no middle name. She owns the diner, motel, too—been there going on fifteen years. Place made just over seventeen thousand last year, diner and motel combined. She didn’t pay a nickel in federal taxes, income that low. Sounds like a high-end goddamn place out there, Angel.”
“You should go there on vacation, check out the fishing and boating. What about her son? He runs a backhoe.”
“Buddie’s Excavating. Guy made thirty-one thou last year, paid his taxes. No kind of a police record. Her either. They’ve got the same address so the kid’s still living with his mama.”
“They own any other property?”
“Didn’t find any. She’s driving a 2005 Impala worth about a buck thirty-nine. She’s got a storage unit in North Vegas. T&T Storage. Unit seventy-two. Sixty-five bucks a month.”
“TNT, like the explosive? Classy.”
“You could drop by, tell ’em you don’t like the name.”
“Oh, but I do like it.”
“I’m glad. Makes this a damn good week. What else you want to know, Angel? Checking out this lady and her kid was as boring as watching bat shit pellets harden in the sun.”
“Not an image I would’ve come up with.”
“So you’re unimaginative. You should read more. If that’s all, I gotta get back in the station, keep Reno’s streets safe.”
“A sense of humor. Who woulda thunk—” The line went dead. People hang up on me a lot. Don’t know why.
“Totally weird conversation,” Lucy said.
“You should’ve heard the part about bat shit pellets drying in the sun.”
“Bat shit pellets? Seriously?”
“That’s Officer Day. We have an interesting relationship.”
“Still do? I wouldn’t want to get in the middle of anything. If, you know, you’ve got something goin’ on with her.”
“Trust me, you don’t have to worry about that.”
“She find out anything good?”
“T&T Storage, North Vegas. Arlene’s renting a unit there, number seventy-two, sixty-five bucks a month. Which is where we’re headed, kiddo. And her full name is Arlene Faye Hicks.”
“That’s all your Officer Day got? Arlene’s not wanted by the police or anything?”
“Nope. But that Impala she’s got parked behind the diner is a 2005 model. How about that?”
“Talk about a sucky car . . . and your new ringtone.”
“Give it time. It’ll grow on you.”
She rolled her eyes.
I got into Google Maps, typed in T&T Storage, got a map and an address, got Lucy aimed in the right direction on I-15.
“‘Purple People Eater,’” she said.
“I wasn’t born yet, but Mom says those were America’s best years. After Korea, before Vietnam. American Graffiti years, if you saw the movie. Of course, the Soviets had hydrogen bombs, so there’s that. She described hiding under her desk at school. They taught you how to duck and cover, kiss your ass good-bye.”
“A one-eyed, one-horned . . . what?”
“Flying purple people eater.”
“People eater. That’s a little bit gross, actually.”
“In fact, it’s funny and tame. You want gross, listen to Jo-X’s lyrics. That’s like scuba diving in a backed-up sewer.”
She made a face. “I get your point, and that’s an image I’ll spend the next month trying to forget. So, here we are, headed off to check out a storage unit. That’s exciting.”
“Arlene made all of seventeen thousand dollars last year. She pays nearly eight hundred for storage. That’s a pretty good percentage of net. I wonder what she’s got worth storing for eight hundred a year.”
“Maybe it’s where she keeps her gold bars.”
“Yeah, that’d be my guess.”
T&T Storage was a low-rent place behind a rusting chain-link fence topped with a languid coil of rusting razor wire. A pushbutton entry pad would roll a gate open for vehicles. The office comprised part of the perimeter fence. A door gave access to the office, and a door inside the office gave access
