Stone Junction (55 page)

Daniel shook his head. ‘You’re hopeless. Of course he can be dismissed –
if
he’s convicted of a felony. But since the money would be gone by the time he even came to trial, the point is moot. Your only other option is a CWBO.’

‘Like I’m supposed to know what the fuck that is?’

‘Actually, you
should
. It’s the Contested Witness Buy-Out. If you can’t get along with an I-witness, you can pay him a two-thousand-dollar buyout severance and replace him with a mutually agreed-upon substitute.’

Robbins was incredulous. ‘You mean I gotta give this dork-snorkeler twenty yards to get him out of my face?’

‘That’s correct. It’s deducted from the administrative costs, by the way, as our auditors will be informed.’

‘Fuck it,’ Robbins said, ‘I gotta think this is some kind of setup here, but it’s your money. Sure.’

Robbins counted out the two thousand and tossed it at Carl. ‘Bye, fuck-face.’

Carl grinned at Daniel. ‘Oh, now I can buy a new dress. But you, Max, I’ll always love you.’ He tried to put some smolder in his voice. ‘Ever since I met you I’ve known where you secretly want it. You’re one of those poor, poor souls who can never admit it to themselves.’ He pivoted on his heel and headed for the employee exit, laughing wildly as he tossed away his rabbit ears.

Since Robbins was glaring at Carl’s back, Daniel, for the fun of it, vanished, leaving by the front wall.

Four cars surrounded the Cutlass, the two with their flashers on imparting a strobed jerkiness to the movements of the men swarming the Cutlass. Invisible, Daniel walked over beside an unmarked car. A description of his bowling shirt was coming over the radio. That wasn’t good news, but wasn’t a major problem, either.

Two cops walked right through him as they headed toward the pizzeria. That was a major problem. They’d impound the money, fingerprint the case. He thought this over. No rides for the kids. No idea whose prints could be on the case, except his own. He went back through the wall just as the cops knocked on the door.

As Daniel entered, he almost lost his concentration in a fit of laughter. Max Robbins was going crazy looking for the briefcase – Daniel had forgotten it would vanish when he did. The case was right on the table where Robbins had left it, but he couldn’t see it. He was down on his knees searching under the tables. His florid face turned fish-belly white when he heard the pounding from the front and the word ‘Police.’

Daniel closed the case, picked up the contract on the table, and left through the back wall. Invisible, he walked about twenty blocks toward town, then turned right on Industrial Way. He walked north for awhile, then turned back east on a dark, quiet cul-de-sac. At the very end was an old, wooden-sided warehouse that was too perfect to be possible –
T. H. Hothman’s Theatrical Supply
. Daniel walked through the closest wall to check it out. Eighty percent of the inside space was a single storage area, aisle after aisle of costumes and props. There was a modest office behind the partition, an adjoining bathroom with shower, and a bedroom. And though the bedroom was hardly the size of two decent closets, it had a firm bed, a narrow dresser, and, on top of the dresser, a thirteen-inch portable TV. Daniel snapped it on to see if he’d made the news.

Almost. The bodies of Elwood and Emmett Tindell, reputed international drug dealers, had been found by a rancher earlier that evening. They had been professionally executed at close range. Unnamed sources speculated that Colombia’s Piscato cocaine cartel had ordered the execution over unpaid bills.

THE FIRST NOTEBOOK OF JENNIFER RAINE APRIL? (LOST TRACK)

I found the truth, and it is simple: Life is amazing. Me and Mia
left the donut shop at midnight, seven hours ago, and now I’m rich,
loaded, and just got laid. Better things could happen to a nicer girl,
but I’ll settle for these.

I owe it all to the DJ. (No, change that to Snake-eyes and Boxcars.
Change it to Lady Luck and wonder drugs and a giant country-and-western outlaw gambler known as Longshot, who is now peacefully
sleeping in the next room after having, as he sighed, ‘his brains fucked
out and danced on.’ Change that to pranced on. Change it to blitzing.)
Oh, them amazing changes. Roll on, river! Roll the dice.

I left the donut shop near midnight and walked downtown. I’d
decided to buy a bus ticket to Jim Bridger’s grave in eastern Wyoming
with the money Billy had given me. If $50 wasn’t far enough, I’d go
as close as I could.

I’d looked up Greyhound’s address in the donut shop phone book, but
when I got there, it wasn’t. It had been torn down to make room for a
new casino. Funny, I can’t remember the casino’s name, but I remember
that the neon outside seemed to pulse, pulse like a gaudy heart.
Hypnotized by the rhythm, dazzled by the colors, I tried to decide what
this meant. Was it a sign that I should gamble the money rather than
play it safe, or was it a temptation that would prove the pain of folly
should I succumb?

I was still thinking – hey, it’s a tough choice – when a guy wearing
this incredible burgundy greatcoat with gold piping and enormous
epaulets grabbed me by the arm, hard, and hissed in my ear, ‘Hustle
it somewhere else, Sugar Hump. There ain’t no independents on the
strip, and I don’t know you. You want to push some pussy, that’s your
business; but don’t hustle it here, take it across the tracks,’ cause if you
don’t, you must not like your face,’ cause I can just about promise if
you stay here somebody will pull it off and fix it so that no one else
will like it either.’

He thought he was doing me a favor, explaining how it was. When
he saw I was listening he let go of my arm.

When he finished, I let him have it: ‘Listen, you presumptuous jerk,
I’m
looking
, not hooking. I’m trying to decide if I want to gamble my
fifty dollars or get down the line. You wouldn’t know a whore from a
horticulture handbook.’ (Girl, you do go on!)

‘What are you saying?’ he snarled. ‘I’m
dumb?’

I realized then he wasn’t a pimp standing his turf, but a casino
doorman. I said, ‘Not dumb,
mistaken
. We all make mistakes.’

He started to say something but glanced over my shoulder and shut
up. When I turned around I saw why: there was a man six foot seven
and a trim 240 who looked just like Jesus if Jesus was a cowboy who’d
got dressed up for the big city. He was wearing snakeskin boots that
probably moved some exotic species from the rare to
endangered
list, a
western-cut sport coat with a beaverskin yoke, a white cowboy hat with
a band of rattlesnake rattles strung on a gold wire, and a solid silver
belt buckle in the shape of a gila monster.
Knocked me out.

Impressed the doorman, too, or at least drained the nasty from his
tone. ‘Evening, Longshot. Still picking winners?’

‘Enough to keep even,’ Longshot said, his voice like polished oak.
He glanced at me – just for a second, but he
really
looked – then back
at the doorman. ‘Slow night, Lyle?’ he said, sounding plumb puzzled
that Lyle had nothing more interesting to do than hassle an absolutely
provocative lady, even if she was a little rumpled and road-grubby.

‘Just telling the sister how it is,’ Lyle shrugged. ‘Spare some grief.’

Longshot’s nod said ‘Understood, appreciated, see ya later.’ He
turned to me and said, ‘Ma’am, I couldn’t help but overhear the
decision you’re struggling with, whether to put it
on
the line or use it
for getting’
down
the line. That’s a rough choice every time you’ve got
to make it; I know,’ cause I’m forty-three years old and had to choose a
bunch o’ times. My name, by the way –’ scuse my rough manners – is
Longshot.’

‘I’m Jennifer Raine,’ I said. (I felt that safe with him.)

He tipped his hat!

So I lifted the hem of my imaginary dress and curtsied.

When he grinned, light danced in his lonesome-prairie, sky-blue eyes.
‘Jenny Raine,’ he repeated softly, as it should be said. ‘Jenny Raine.
Sounds close to “gentle rain,” but I bet you can get stormy, too.’

I smiled right at him. ‘Hurricane,’ I warned, but with what I hoped
was an inviting smile.

‘Have you made your decision, or are you still mulling it around?’

‘Mulling,’ I said, trying to make it sound as if mulling was
something I did with my hips. ‘You said you were a man of experience.
Have any advice for the young?’

‘Matter o’fact, I do: Lay it on the line.’

‘Always?’

‘Nope. But anyone in town can tell you that the best thing I have
going is my ability to know when someone’s about to break loose and
go hog-wild lucky. Jenny, you’re so ripe for a hot roll that I’ll back
you ten grand, right now tonight, for half the action.’

‘Nope,’ I said, imitating his flat inflection. ‘But if you’ll match my
fifty, anything either of us hits we’ll split down the middle.’

He offered his arm. Lyle, who’d faded back to his post, opened the
door as we swept inside.

I know shit about gambling, so I let Longshot choose the game. He
led me straight upstairs to a $10,000-limit crap table, took our pooled
money, and bought one black chip. The guy who sold him the chip
looked amazed. He said to Longshot, ‘Musta been a
nightmare
run to
leave you short.’

Longshot grinned his easy prairie-sky grin. ‘No bad dreams, Ed;
more like good vision.’

He asked what I wanted to bet it on – Come or Don’t at even
money, numbers from two to twelve, Snake-eyes to Boxcars – I stopped
him right there. ‘Boxcars,’ I said. I could hear the roar and rattle
of a train coming down the mountain, see newspaper-wrapped hoboes
watching the stars hurtle by.

Longshot said, ‘Double sixes pays 30–1, but it’s 36–1 against
rolling it. Long odds.’

He was explaining what I’d done, not challenging my choice. I
batted my pretty blue eyes and said, ‘I like long shots, Longshot.’
(Jenny, you’re so
bad
.)

A skinny guy in rimless glasses rolled the dice. Boxcars. Three
thousand dollars.

Longshot smiled at me and said, ‘How much and on what?’ God,
does he have style.

I could still hear the train wailing lonely through the night. ‘All of
it,’ I said. ‘Boxcars again.’

The guy running the game lifted a brow at Longshot. Longshot told
him, ‘The lady says let it ride.’

When I heard ‘let it ride,’ I knew we were rich. We were. Boxcars.
Ninety-three thousand dollars.

Longshot gave me the sweetest smile. ‘It’s a $10,000-limit table.’ I
loved that – not even
asking
if I wanted to stop, right, but
regretting
we couldn’t bet more. Now
that
gave me confidence.

Good thing, because I didn’t hear the train anymore. The train was
gone. And in its place, as if its fading whistle had snagged her breath,
Mia keened softly in her sleep. For an instant I flashed through her
dreams, and she was dreaming again of snakes falling on her in the
darkness, their eyes like tiny beads of moonlight.

‘Snake-Eyes,’ I told Longshot. ‘Last roll.’ And then, because I
wanted him to know me, I said, ‘I have an imaginary daughter I have
to take care of.’

That splendid man looked me right in the eye and said, ‘Whatever
you say. Whoever you are.’

As we girls say, I was swooning.

Hello, aces! Snake-Eyes! Yes. Three hundred thousand dollars.
Three hundred and ninety-three thousand dollars total. One hundred and
ninety-six thousand five hundred each. Minus tips. I gave Lyle $500 on
our way out.

Me and Longshot (Mia, after that one cry, had fallen deeply asleep)
celebrated our good fortune by assaulting his drug supply – cocaine,
killer weed, and disco-biscuits (my first time with any of them except
marijuana, and that was
nothing
like these crusty buds), and then by
joining in those sweet little obliterations that keep us alive.

Life is great.

Nina Pleshette, an R.N. at Oakland’s Kaiser Hospital, dialed the number she’d been given from a pay phone in front of the building. An answering machine picked up her call on the third ring. The message said, ‘Thank you for calling on TNT. At the tone, please punch in your code, followed by the code you seek.’

The tone was a bugle blowing
Charge
, followed immediately by Red Freddie screaming, ‘Smash the State!’

Nina punched in RN43, paused, then punched R77. There were two clicks, then the sound of an autodialer.

The phone rang twice in a concrete bunker three hundred miles northeast before Charmaine put down the research paper she was reading and answered with a soft ‘Hello.’

‘This is RN43. The patient died at 11.45 p.m. without regaining consciousness.’

‘That’s too bad,’ Charmaine said. ‘Did he have any visitors?’

‘No.’

‘Has a cause of death been established?’