“Not tonight. Arlene and Buddie will be at DefCon One, then we show up in dark clothing covered in dirt.”
“DefCon One? What the heck is that?”
“Tell you later. So, do we head back to Vegas or keep going to Caliente? It’s seventy miles back, eighty miles if we continue north. You choose.”
“Caliente has hot springs,” she said.
“Uh-huh. Beds’ll do that when you really get ’em goin’.”
She stared at me. “No way you just said that.”
Well, hell. Things pop out. My ex, Dallas, still gives me The Look on occasion, a kind of long-suffering incredulous stare. My mouth might be why she divorced me. That or she was terrified of the IRS, knowing agents will audit their own wives if it would get them a promotion. I’ll have to ask. She would level with me now that I have a soul.
I said, “Soaking in a hot spring might be just the ticket.”
“Just the ticket?”
“An expression of approval. And hot springs? What could be better, since it didn’t even reach a hundred ten today.”
She sighed. “Ever been in a mud bath? And don’t answer with something so wacky I’d have to shoot you.”
“Mud bath. Sounds like your basic oxymoron, but to answer the question without getting shot—no.”
“If they’ve got hot springs, they might have mud baths. Very therapeutic. We should find out.”
“You’re driving, Sugar Plum.”
As we sailed past the motel, I saw Ignacio’s Cruze parked outside. So the Rat was still nosing around.
First stop in Caliente was the Pahranagai Inn. I rang a buzzer on a countertop in the office, and a lady thirty years old came yawning out of a back room. She checked us into room six, told us the hot springs north of town wouldn’t be open that time of night, which by then was early in the morning.
“Well, poop,” someone said.
So . . . shower and sleep. It had been a long day, starting with Ma’s wake-up call before seven that morning. The shower was quick and workmanlike, goal-oriented, without the kind of undercurrent that might have delayed things. Lucy fell asleep on her side two minutes before I did, so I tucked her butt against my belly, got hold of a nice warm breast, and spooned her.
Outside the room the next morning, nine twenty-five a.m., temperature eighty-four degrees and rising rapidly, there was RPD Detective Fairchild, my buddy, pacing, puffing on a Camel. And, of course, Lucy came out the door right after me, wearing shorts and a tank top molded to her like a second skin, revealing rounded contours.
“Morning, Detective,” I said.
Russell stared at me. “Nice wig. I could use one like that at our next Halloween party at RPD.” He leaked smoke as Lucy came up beside me. “Miss Lucy,” he said, giving her a nod and a brief appraising look. “By the way, what’s your last name?”
I’d asked him to check on her birthday, so his question was a bit of misdirection for which I would have to thank him later.
Her eyes narrowed. “What’s it to you?”
“Just wondering.”
“You’re kinda nosy.”
“Sorry about that. I do it for a living.” He turned to me. “Funny, you two showin’ up here. What’s the story?”
“No-o-osy,” Lucy said.
I put a hand on her shoulder. “Take it easy, kiddo. Detective Fairchild here more or less qualifies as a friend.”
“More or less?” Russ said.
“A friend?” Lucy said. “Seriously?”
I was thinking about distributing Valium to get things under control when Danya and Shanna came out of unit nine in wigs, hats, sunglasses, and hot-weather clothing that revealed enough skin to put a father into cardiac arrest. Perfect. Southern Nevada didn’t have that much Valium so I took a step back to let nature take its course.
Danya shook her head in disbelief when she saw the three of us standing there. She and Shanna drifted over.
“How about some breakfast and a powwow, everyone?” I said before Danya could start in on us.
“Powwow?” she said. “You gotta be kidding.” She turned to her father. “I thought you were gonna get a different motel, leave us alone.”
“I am leaving you alone.”
“Yeah, right. There’s a motel the other end of town.”
“So I’ll go. Today.” He turned to me. “Breakfast where?”
“Wherever the locals feed. That’s always best.”
We cruised the main drag and ended up at Dottie’s Kitchen. We went in three cars, Cadillac, Focus, Russ in a dark blue Ford Explorer three years old.
The breakfast crowd at Dottie’s was thinning out. We found a booth away from the remaining customers, Danya and Shanna in one side, Lucy and I facing them, Russell in a chair at the end.
Our waitress was in her forties with big hair, a plastic stick-on smile, five menus. She took drink orders and left.
“My treat,” I said. “Order up.”
After a while, Big-Hair took our orders, left again.
“So, Dad,” Danya said, “you said he’s unprofessional and a maverick and you don’t like him, so what the hell is he doing here?”
“Nice,” Lucy said.
Russ shrugged. “He’s got other qualities I’m finding useful, in addition to the two you just mentioned.”
“Perfect.” Danya looked at me with her usual hint of venom. “So go ahead and powwow, Mr. Useful.”
I pulled out my cell phone. “Got something to show you,” I said to Russ.
“Oh, no. No!” Danya yelped.
“Got a problem with this?” I asked her. “If so, why?”
“What is it?” Russell said.
Danya looked down at her hands. “It’s . . . just . . . shit.” She shot me a lethal j’accuse look, then slumped back in the booth. “Go ahead. Whatever. I give up.”
I showed Russ the two Shanna videos. Twice each.
He looked over at his daughter and his . . . daughter-in-law. “What’s that all about? Where was that taken? Who took it?”
“Someone at this table is the fabled Celine,” I said.
Russ stared at Danya. “How could you?”
“I couldn’t. Did you actually look at that video, Dad?”
Shanna said, “I’m Celine. I mean, I was.” She looked at me. “And thanks so much for bringing this up, Mortimer.”
“Da nada. And it’s Mort. We’ve got a hell of a problem, ladies.
