I stopped for a moment.
“They taste like chicken, sorta,” he said. “But you gotta cook ’em real slow or they’re tough as boot leather.”
“Good to know.” I headed out again.
He stood there and watched me go. I caught up to Lucy and we kept walking west, away from the diner.
“What’d he say?” she asked.
“Our shoes suck, and watch out for sidewinders.”
“That’s what? Like rattlesnakes?”
“Yep.”
“Well, poop. How ’bout a piggyback ride?”
So we walked that mile up into the hills, after all. Below, Buddie watched us for ten minutes then gave up and drove back to the diner. The panel truck was gone. The guy might’ve opened the safe like it was a cheap tin breadbox. Or failed quickly. Either way, he was gone and Lucy and I were alone with Arlene and Buddie. And Melanie and the cook, Kirby. Every ten or fifteen minutes, a car or truck would roll by on the highway. We didn’t see any sidewinders and, like Buddie had said, there wasn’t any gold in the hills, at least not decent-sized nuggets.
We arrived back at the motel-diner, dusty, hot, and thirsty. Arlene wasn’t in the diner, but Melanie was wandering around, fussing with the tables, menus, salt and pepper shakers.
“How about some water,” I said to her. “Four bottles.”
She got the bottles out of a tall cooler with glass doors and a Pepsi logo. “Eight bucks.”
I gave her a ten.
She handed me two dollars change. “You were that guy I talked to out back a coupla nights ago, right?”
“That’s right.”
“You sort of like this place, huh?”
“It’s a lot like Venice, only hotter.”
“Really? Venice is like . . . like in France or Spain, right?”
“Close. You nailed the right continent.”
“Cool.”
“Did they finally get that safe open?”
Her face shut down. She turned and looked toward the back of the diner. “What safe?” she said, almost a whisper.
I kept my voice low. “The one you said was in that shed out back.”
“See, the thing is, I’m kinda gettin’ behind here, mister. I gotta fill the ketchup bottles on the tables, so if that water was all you wanted . . .”
“Right. Nice talkin’ with you.”
Lucy and I left. We headed for the far room of the motel. “When did they move Venice?” Lucy said. “I didn’t catch that.”
“Place was sinking into the sea. They moved it a month or two ago, Sugar Plum. It’s in Corsica now.”
“Corsica. That’s in England or Holland, right?”
“Yeah. One of those.”
“Guess I can be kinda bitchy, huh? Hope it’s not enough to scare you off.”
“I’ll let you know.”
We showered. I read. Lucy stretched awhile, but there’s only so much of that a person can do before their bones are so flexible they can no longer take Earth’s gravity, so she went out to the car, found a battered James Lee Burke novel in the trunk, Cadillac Jukebox, and settled down beside me on the bed. I wondered when or if we would hear something more about our walking tour out in the desert.
Hunger eventually drove us back to the diner. A car had pulled up and a couple with two boys about six and eight years old were in the dining room—the boys running amok, playing grab ass, toppling a few chairs while the parents took a break from parenting.
Arlene came out of the back, went back, came out again, went back, didn’t pay us any attention. Melanie took our orders. They were out of lobster thermidor again so we settled for greasy fried chicken, baked potato, cole slaw in a side dish.
“Yum,” Lucy said, picking the skin off a chicken breast.
“Calories, dear.”
“That’s about all it is.”
The sun went below the hills. Long shadows crept eastward across the shallow bowl of the valley.
“Got apple or berry pie for dessert,” Melanie said. “And ice cream, vanilla or chocolate.”
“Berry pie with vanilla ice cream for me,” I said.
Lucy looked up at her. “Nothing for me, thanks. I’m saving myself for my wedding night.”
Melanie stared at her, then shook her head and left.
“Not sure you should do that to her,” I said.
“Maybe I’ll have a little of your ice cream when it arrives.”
“Don’t. You won’t be able to wear white at your wedding. People will talk.”
“I’ll wear white. You’ll see, since you’ll be there.”
Dessert arrived. Lucy nipped a single spoonful of ice cream. I paid, we went outside. To settle the food, we walked half a mile up the highway and back. The land grew dark and infinite around us. The Milky Way filled with secrets.
“Nice out here,” Lucy said as we stood outside the motel. The world was dead quiet. “Except for . . .” She nodded toward the diner. “Those two weirdos, Lizzie Borden and Bigfoot. Still got your gun on you, right?”
I slapped my hip. The revolver was on my belt under my shirt and it would stay there, maybe even when I was in bed. Which I told Lucy.
“In bed? That’s so cool. I could put that in my diary. I slept with Wyatt Freakin’ Earp. You are gonna wear the hat, too, aren’t you?”
“Of course. And spurs.”
“Oh, great. I hate it when those dig in.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
THE SMOKE ALARM above the bed went off seconds after I woke to the smell of smoke. First Alert gave off that ear-piercing shriek that catapults you out of bed and yanks your brain inside out. Lucy was out of bed on the other side, a ghost in the dark. She grabbed the blanket as I tried to find my clothes on a chair beside the bed. Too late. The smoke drove me away. I headed for the door naked, eyes stinging, watering.
Lucy ran outside with the blanket in her arms. I followed on her heels and ran into a brick wall outside the door that slammed me back into the room on my back, dazed. Then something grabbed my foot, dragged me out into the night, and a weight like a Jeep Cherokee landed on my chest. Then something grabbed my head and banged it onto
