'I really would help her,' Rhonda said as she scrubbed the wall. 'If she kept the baby, I mean.'
'It's not that simple,' I returned.
I felt her turn and look at me, sensed the resurgence of anger. 'What would you know about it?'
I bridled at the female arrogance that automatically assumes all men are unfeeling, insensitive clods. I wanted to lash out at her and put her in her place, but memories of my own mother's struggles raising an illegitimate son in Seattle in the forties and fifties tempered the fight in me as well.
'More than you know,' I answered wearily. 'Way more than you know.'
For several minutes we worked on in silence. 'But couldn't Ralph work out some kind of custody agreement? I could raise the baby myself. Michelle wouldn't have to be responsible.'
'The chances for that are pretty slim.'
She looked at me for a long time, but finally she nodded in defeat. 'I guess you're right.' Rhonda glanced at her watch. It was after five, close to five-thirty. 'Damn,' she said.
'What's wrong now?'
'No matter what I do with the money, I still have to get those paintings over to Vincent. He's already paid for them, and I promised to deliver them this afternoon. The problem is, they won't fit in my car. They're too big. I was hoping I could get Ralph to take me in his, since he's the one who put the whole deal together.'
'Where are they?'
'At the Renthrow Gallery, on Main Street in Scottsdale. They close at six.'
'I could take you,' I offered, 'if you think they'll fit in the Subaru.'
'Would you mind?'
'Not at all. I'll just leave a note for Ralph so he'll know where to find us.'
She looked down at the amber stain on her blouse left by spilled Crown Royal. 'I should stop by the hotel and change. It'll only take a minute.'
'Sure,' I said. 'Lead the way.'
In the gathering twilight I followed the Fiat out of Ames' driveway and back to MacDonald Drive, where we turned right and made our way to Lincoln Drive to the Red Lion's La Posada. We turned in by the main entrance and went past the huge pool with its immense waterfall. Rhonda led me through a maze of crowded parking lots to the hotel's farthest wing. She parked the Fiat in the only available spot then came up to me in the Subaru.
'Wait here,' she said. 'It'll only take me a minute to change.'
When it comes to changing clothes, women's minutes and men's minutes are often quite different. She was back in less than one, still wearing the same clothes. 'Let's go,' she said, climbing into the car and slamming the door behind her.
'I thought you were going to change.'
'Never mind that. Can't we go now, please?'
Something was seriously wrong, but she wasn't ready to tell me what it was, so I swung the Subaru in a tight circle and wheeled back toward the nearest exit on Lincoln.
'What happened in there?' I asked. 'What's the matter?'
'Somebody's been in my room,' she said.
'Who? The maid? Room service?'
'No, I mean somebody broke into my room. They've torn the place apart.'
I stepped on the brake. 'Are they still in there?'
Rhonda shook her head. 'No. I don't think so.'
'You don't think so? Jesus Christ, woman, you mean you don't know for sure?'
'As soon as I saw it, I didn't even go inside. I came straight back to the car.'
I turned the wheel savagely and almost ran over a golf cart ferrying guests to their rooms.
'Where are you going?' Rhonda demanded.
'To the desk. We need to report this.'
'No.'
'No?' I echoed. 'What the hell do you mean, ‘No'?'
'Just what I said. Reporting it could take hours. I want to deliver those pictures first.'
God keep me from stubborn women!
Exasperated, I started to argue and then thought better of it. After all, if she didn't feel an urgency to report it right away, why the hell should I?
'Which way do we go?' I asked.
'Right on Lincoln,' she said. 'Then south on Invergordon.'
Following directions, I turned back onto Lincoln eastbound. I was only a block or so away when I saw a set of headlights come up fast behind us. He had his high beams on, so I noticed him right away. At first I didn't think that much about it. I could tell it was one of those big four-wheel-drive jobs driven by somebody with the typical four- by-four attitude-the-world-is-my-ashtray mentality. I expected him to race around us, and he almost did. But then suddenly, for no apparent reason, he dropped back behind us and stayed there.
That worried me. When yahoos like that don't pass, they've got to have a reason. I glanced in the rearview mirror, trying to get a better look at the vehicle, but the bright lights blinded me.
It was early evening on an October Saturday, and traffic was fairly light. I tried speeding up, so did he, maintaining the same distance between the two vehicles.
'What's wrong?' Rhonda asked anxiously.
'Don't look back, but I think we've got a tail. Where do we turn?'
'The next light.'
It was just turning green as we approached. There was no chance of catching a red. Abruptly, I stepped on the brakes and almost stopped, forcing the vehicle behind us to come far closer than the driver of the pickup had intended. I could see enough detail then to know it was a dark-colored, late-model Toyota 4-X-4 with huge, outsized tires. In the glow of the headlights from the car behind him, I could see the silhouettes of four round driving lights, 'asshole lights' we call them, studding the top of the cab.
Behind us a horn blared.
'What are you going to do?' Rhonda asked.
Without a weapon of any kind, there was no point in forcing a confrontation. 'Lose him,' I said.
It sounded good, but it didn't mean a goddamned thing. Back home in Seattle, where I know all the streets and their intersecting nooks and crannies, it would have been easy to do, but there in Arizona, in unfamiliar territory driving a car with no guts, it was a bad joke. My only hope was to drive erratically enough to attract the attention of some passing traffic cop. With luck I might manage to offend some poor bloke into reporting me on his cellular phone.
Jamming the accelerator to the floorboard, I fishtailed onto Invergordon with the 4-X-4 right behind me. Far ahead of us the orange light at the next intersection turned red.
'What's that street up there?'
'At the light? Chaparral,' she answered. 'The one after that is Camelback.'
I recognized Camelback as one of the heavily traveled arterials.
'Make sure your shoulder strap's on tight,' I warned grimly, snapping my own across my chest. 'This could get rough.'
Mentally I timed the light as I wound the Subaru up as tight as it would go. I sailed through the first one on green and made a mad dash for the second. I could see the passing headlights of cross traffic as vehicles moved sedately across Invergordon on Camelback. A pair of headlights approached the intersection from the other direction. Desperately I hoped that the light on Invergordon was a demand light set on a short cycle in our direction.
We were three blocks away and still accelerating when the light facing us turned green. It switched back to orange as soon as the oncoming car moved into the intersection.
I'm still not sure if Rhonda knew what I was planning, but she didn't say a word. The light was red as we started through the intersection. Naturally, there was one hotshot who jumped the light. He clipped our back fender and spun into the path of the 4-X-4, which dodged crazily from side to side. There was a chorus of honking horns in our wake, but I was too busy fighting to get the Subaru back under control to see exactly what happened in the intersection behind us.
