Forever Odd

'You don't want to be in trouble this bad,' I said.

'Nobody can hurt me,' she declared.

'Is that right?'

'I'm invincible.'

'Good for you.'

'You know why?'

'Why?'

'I have thirty in an amulet.'

'Thirty what?' I asked.

'Ti bon ange.'

I had never heard the term before. 'What does that mean?'

'You know.'

'Not really.'

'Liar.'

When she didn't hang up but didn't immediately say anything more, either, I sat on the ground, facing west again.

Except for an occasional clump of mesquite and a bristle of bunch-grass, the land was ash-gray and acid- yellow.

'You still there?' she asked.

'Where would I go?'

'So where are you?'

I traded another question: 'Can I speak to Simon?'

'Simple or says?'

'What's that mean?'

'Simple Simon or Simon Says?'

'Simon Makepeace,' I said patiently.

'You think he's here?'

'Yes.'

'Loser.'

'He killed Wilbur Jessup.'

'You're half-assed at this,' she said.

“At what?'

'Don't disappoint me.'

'I thought you said I already had.'

'Don't disappoint me anymore.'

'Or what?' I asked, and immediately wished that I had not.

'How about this…'

I waited.

Finally she said, 'How about, you find us by sundown or we break both his legs.'

'If you want me to find you, just tell me where you are.'

'What would be the point of that? If you don't find us by nine o'clock, we also break both his arms.'

'Don't do this. He never harmed you. He never harmed anyone.'

'What's the first rule?' she asked.

Remembering our shortest and most cryptic conversation, from the previous night, I said, 'I have to come alone.'

'You bring cops or anyone, we break his pretty face, and then the rest of his life, he'll be butt ugly from top to bottom.'

When she hung up, I pressed end.

Whoever she might be, she was crazy. Okay. I'd dealt with crazy before.

She was crazy and evil. Nothing new about that, either.

TWENTY

I SHRUGGED OUT OF MY BACKPACK AND RUMMAGED IN it for an Evian bottle. The water wasn't cold but tasted delicious.

The plastic bottle did not actually contain Evian. I had filled it at the tap in my kitchen.

If you would pay a steep price for bottled water, why wouldn't you pay even more for a bag of fresh Rocky Mountain air if someday you saw it in the market?

Although I am not a skinflint, for years I have lived frugally. As a short-order cook with plans to marry, paid a fair but not lavish salary, I had needed to save for our future.

Now she is gone, and I am alone, and the last thing I need money for is a wedding cake. Yet from long habit, when it comes to spending on myself, I still pinch each penny hard enough to press it into the size of a quarter.

Given my peculiar and adventurous life, I don't expect to live long enough to develop an enlarged prostate, but if I do miraculously reach ninety before I croak, I'll probably be one of those eccentrics who, assumed to be poor, leaves a million dollars' cash rolled up in old coffee cans with instructions to spend it on the care of homeless poodles.

After finishing the faux Evian, I returned the empty bottle to my backpack, and then watered a patch of desert with Odd's finest.

I suspected that I had drawn close to my objective, and now I had a deadline. Sundown.

Before completing the final leg of the journey, however, I needed to know about a few things that were happening in the real world.

None of Chief Porter's numbers were programmed for speed dial on Terri's phone, but I had long ago memorized all of them.

He answered his mobile phone on the second ring. 'Porter.'

'Sir, sorry to interrupt.'

'Interrupt what? You think I'm in a whirl of busy police work?'

“Aren't you?'

'Right now, son, I feel like a cow.'

“A cow, sir?'

“A cow standing in a field, chewing its cud.'

'You don't sound as relaxed as a cow,' I said.

'It's not cow-relaxed I'm feeling. It's cow-dumb.'

'No leads on Simon?'

'Oh, we've got Simon. He's jailed in Santa Barbara.'

'That's pretty fast work.'

'Faster than you think. He was arrested two days ago for starting a bar fight. He struck the arresting officer. They're holding him for assault.'

'Two days ago. So the case…'

'The case,' he said, 'isn't what we thought it was. Simon didn't kill Dr. Jessup. Though he says he's happy someone did.'

'Was it maybe murder-for-hire?'

Chief Porter laughed sourly. 'With Simon's prison record, the job he was able to get was pumping out septic tanks. He lives in a rented room.'

'Some people would do a hit for a thousand bucks,' I said.

'They sure would, but the most they'd be likely to get from Simon is a free septic clean-out.'

The dead desert did a Lazarus, breathed and seemed about to rise. Bunch-grass shivered. Jimsonweed