Tim Powers - Last Call (31 page)

But, he thought, Ozzie says I'm doomed—and if he's right, why should I die sober?

Okay, he told himself, maybe. But not tonight, okay? Just this one night you can do without a drink, can't you? If we find Diana, you want to be functioning at your best, don't you? Such as your best is.

"Watch for Charleston," said Ozzie from the back seat. "You're going to turn left."

"I know, Oz," said Mavranos wearily.

"Well," said the old man, "I don't want you missing it and then cutting capers in this traffic to get back."

"Cutting capers?" Mavranos said, sneaking a sip of his current beer. "Those fish eggs?"

Crane was laughing.

"What's so funny?" Mavranos demanded. "Oh—you mean those little birds people cook on New Year's.
Capons.
"

"He means clowning around," Crane said.

"Why didn't he say so then. I don't know about cutting capers." He drove moodily for a while. "I know about cutting farts."

Even Ozzie was laughing now.

A neon sign over a liquor store read PHOTO IDS. Crane read it as one word,
photoids
. What would that be, he wondered, things
like
photons?
False
light?
Faux
light, as they'd say? Maybe the whole town was lit with such.

But suddenly Crane's heart was thumping and his palms were chilly.
I should have done something,
he found himself thinking.
I've got to get home.
His hands were on the upholstery of the seat, but for a moment he could feel a telephone; his right hand seemed to be hanging it up.

This isn't me, he realized; these aren't my thoughts and sensations.

"Diana's worried," he said tightly, "scared. Something she heard on the telephone just now. She's going home."

"Here's Charleston," Ozzie said, leaning forward over the seat and pointing.

Mavranos nodded. He angled into the left-turn lane and stopped in the middle of the intersection, waiting for a gap in the oncoming northbound traffic. The only sounds in the car were Crane's panting and the
click-click, click-click
of the turn indicator.

Crane could feel Diana walking quickly, stopping, talking urgently to someone. He stared at the headlights ahead of them moving slowly forward, and he wanted to get out of the car and run east, toward the next place on their list of supermarkets—what was it, Smith's.

"We'd better find her tonight," he said. "I think she's losing her job. If you could catch all the green lights between here and there …"

"I
get
it," Mavranos told him.

At last the light turned yellow and Mavranos was able to make the turn. He drove fast to Maryland Parkway and passed it, then turned right, into the expansive parking lot that was streaked and puddled with the white light spilling out from the wide open entrance of Smith's Food and Drug. Ozzie pushed open his door as soon as Mavranos had parked, but Crane turned around and grabbed the old man's shoulder. "Wait," Crane said. "I feel pavement under my shoes, her shoes. And warmer air. She's outside." The old man nodded and hastily pulled the door shut.

Mavranos started the car and backed out of the space, drawing an angry honk from a Volkswagen.

"Drive around," Ozzie said. "I'll know her." He was peering at a woman walking a child across the asphalt, then looking past her at another woman unlocking a car. "Is this the right place, the right store?"

"I … don't know," Crane said.

"She might be at some other store."

"—Yes."

Crane was staring around too, and Mavranos drove the car past the glaringly bright store entrance, past a closed GOLD BUYERS store, then turned right to loop around again.

"Is she still walking?" Mavranos's voice was harsh. "Is she in a car yet?"

Crane reached out with his mind, but couldn't sense anything now. "I don't know. Keep moving."

Lost her job, he thought. If we miss her now, we've missed her for good.

"Worthless windshield," he hissed, rolling down his window and sticking his head out. Everywhere cars seemed to be starting up, driving out of the lot, disappearing up or down the dark street.

"That's—" squeaked Ozzie. "No. Goddammit, my eyes aren't good enough for this! What the hell good am I?"

Crane squinted forward and around and back, trying to make his eyes focus better and still desperately trying to pick up mental impressions.

"Around by the front of the store again?" asked Mavranos.

"Uh," said Ozzie unhappily, "yes. No. Circle out here."

"Been already probably half a dozen women drive away," Mavranos said.

"Do as I say." The old man had already rolled down his window, and now he put his head outside, too. "
Diana
!" he yelled, his parroty old voice not carrying at all. Crane thought of how the old man had, though exhausted, tried to catch up with him in the Mint Hotel stairwell in '69, when Crane had left to play in the Assumption game, and now his eyes blurred with tears.

"Goddammit," Crane whispered, blinking them away. He made himself calm down and look carefully at each person in the lot.

Away from the store, closer to the Jack in the Box restaurant on the Maryland Parkway side of the lot, Crane saw a woman opening the door of a tan Mustang. She tossed back her blond hair and got in. An instant later the car's lights came on, and smoke blew out of the exhaust.

"That's her," he shouted at Mavranos, pointing, "that Mustang."

Mavranos spun the wheel and stepped on the gas, but the Mustang was already in the exit driveway, signaling for a right turn.

"You sensed it, did you?" panted Ozzie, pulling his head in.

"No, I—I recognized her."

"All the way over there? You haven't seen her since she was nine! That's probably not her at all! Arky, go back around—"

"I know it's her," Crane interrupted.

The Mustang had turned right onto the street, and as Mavranos sped to the exit, Crane wondered how sure he really was.
At least I'm sober,
he thought.
If it's a mistake, it's a sober mistake.

Mavranos had turned right onto Maryland Parkway and accelerated after the Mustang, and in the next several seconds he changed lanes twice.

"I think Scott's right," he growled. "She's going like a scalded cat."

"Can you catch up, pull alongside?" asked Ozzie, his breath hot on Crane's neck. "If she saw me, she'd stop, if I waved her over."

"I'll be lucky to keep her in sight." For once Mavranos had both hands on the wheel. His beer can had fallen onto the floor, and rolled against the door with each abrupt lane change. "What do you want me to do if we get a cop behind us with his lights on?"

"Jesus," said Ozzie. "Just keep going."

"Look for my phase-change cancer cure in jail, huh?" No one answered him. The only sound was the on and off roaring of the engine as Mavranos's foot hopped from the gas to the brake and back.

By the time she pulled to a stop at the curb in front of the white duplex on Venus Avenue, the woman obviously knew she was being followed; she hopped out of the car and took off at a flat-out run toward the front door.

Crane leaned out his open window. "Diana!" he yelled. "It's Scott and Oz!"

She stopped then, stared at him and at Ozzie, who was leaning out of the back window and waving furiously, and then she sprinted back across the grass to the Suburban.

"Do you know where my son is?"

"No," said Crane. "Uh … sorry."

Ozzie had his door open and stepped carefully down to the sidewalk, carrying his aluminum cane. "Let's go inside," he said.

A pudgy young man with a scruffy beard was sitting on the worn living-room couch, his eyes closed and his hands waving as if he were conducting a symphony. "If we could all calm down!" he said loudly, on a rising note. "A tad of silence, if you please!"

Everyone did stop talking, and now stared at him. Ozzie was frowning at him angrily, his wrinkled lip quivering with contempt. Crane imagined Ozzie had caught the scent of the young man's cologne.

"Who are you?" the old man asked.

"My name is Hans. I'm Diana's life-partner, and I care for Scat as deeply as if he were my own son, but
he's only fifteen minutes late
." He widened his eyes and looked around. "Di, I'm sorry I even called you. I'm certain he'll be returning at any moment."

Crane looked at Diana, then looked away. She had grown into the beautiful woman he had always known she would become, tall and slim and goldenly blond, and there were twenty years of her life that he passionately wanted to know about, and if he and Ozzie were successful here tonight, he would never see her again.

Diana turned to the chubby little boy who was standing by the fireplace. "Oliver, where did you last see him? How did you lose him? Didn't I tell you to take care of your little brother?"

The boy rolled his eyes. "Which question do you want me to answer first?" he asked, nervously defiant. "Okay!" he said quickly when Diana took a step forward. "We rode our bikes to Hebert Park, and I got talking to some … older kids. They call me Bitin Dog," he added, glancing toward Mavranos and Crane.

"You ditched him again, didn't you?" said Diana.

"Sheesh! He'll be home in a minute, like Hans says."

"I suppose you've lost your job?" said Hans neutrally.

Diana ignored him and turned on Crane, who flinched. "Does this have anything to do with that stuff you told me on the phone Friday?"

"I—I don't know," Crane said. "So far I don't think so."

"How's your leg?"

"It's okay."

"Ozzie," she said, crossing to the old man and hugging him, "it's good to see you; it's just a bad time."

"I know, honey." Ozzie's spotted old hand patted her back. "Listen, as soon as he comes home, you've got to leave town, understand? Tonight. Pack as little as you can—I'll give you money—and then just go away, to some distant place, ditch your car as soon as you can and go on by bus, and give me a call and we'll figure a way to get more money to you. Western Union would be quick enough; you could have the money and be long gone within ten minutes of calling me. I'm sorry about your life here, but you must have known this wasn't smart, living
here
."

Her face was buried in the old man's shoulder, but Crane saw her nod. "Okay, Ozzie," she said, her voice muffled. "Wally, my husband, insisted on living here, and then after the divorce it just seemed too silly to leave."

"It's still silly," said Hans angrily, standing up. "What are you people talking about? We can't leave Vegas; I've got the screenplay deal with Mike. What have you—
you fellows
been telling her?"

Diana had stood back from the old man, and now Ozzie looked at Hans with widened eyes. "A
screenplay
deal? You know what, I think you'd better stay. You can meet another woman to be life-partners with."

Crane glanced at the little boy, who was calmly scuffing the carpet with the sole of his tennis shoe. The idea of leaving town, leaving these friends who called him Bitin Dog, didn't seem to bother him. Crane wondered what the boy's father, Wally, was like.

Hans bit back a quick response, then said loftily, "I have confidence in myself—something I think some people around here should work on."

Mavranos grinned at him through his unkempt mustache. "I can see you've done real well with it."

Diana waved her hands. "Don't fight. I always knew we didn't belong here, and all I really
own
is the stereo anyway. Oliver, throw some clothes in your sausage bag, underwear and socks and shirts, and your toothbrush and your retainer."

The telephone rang. Hans waved dramatically for silence and turned toward it.

"No," said Mavranos sharply. "Let the lady get it. Scott, you listen in."

Diana looked at Mavranos as if he'd slapped her, but she let Crane walk her to the phone on the kitchen counter.

"Hello?" she said when she'd picked it up.

"Isis," said a nervous young man's voice on the other end, "I have your son."

"My name's not Isis, you've got a wrong number—"

Mavranos and Ozzie were both nodding at her.
You are Isis,
both of them mouthed.

"You are so Isis," said the caller. He giggled. "I've seen your face, Mother. On the Queen of Hearts card and in the lines on my maps. Otherwise, what would—would—be the pointing go?"

Crane beckoned to Ozzie and Mavranos, and as they hurried to the open kitchen, he wrote with a pencil on the white Formica counter.

NUT IN BAKER,
he wrote.
MAPS, GO FISH.

Maybe we can help in this, he thought excitedly. Maybe we can rescue her son for her. For Diana, I can stay sober.

"Mother, I need to talk to you," said the caller. "I'm at a telephone right now, as you might say, but I'll be going to my Las Vegas box, which doesn't have a phone, which is where your son is, with tape holding him in a chair. It's a Skinner box, like the bowling pigeons. It's out of town on Boulder Highway past Sunset Road, go till you see a gas station on your right that's boarded up, and there's a dirt road that goes behind it. My box is, can't see it from the road, just."

"Is my son all right?"

"Scat, he tells me. His real name is Aristarchus. He's fine, I didn't tape his nose. I won't hurt him if you'll come and talk to me tonight; if you don't, I'll cut his head off and talk to you later." He chuckled. "A man tried to sink a head in Lake Mead yesterday, can you imagine? The lake made the bats chase him away."

"I'll come and talk to you," Diana said hastily. Her phone-clutching hand was against Crane's cheek, and her fingers were cold.

"I know," the caller went on, "exactly how long it takes to drive from your Isis temple, where you are, to the box, so don't talk to police. If police are in our picture, I'll kill Aristarchus. But you won't call them, and we can talk. You're bothered, by this, and that's arctic should be. I don't mean to—to get you bothered, but I had to do something to make sure you'd talk to me. At least I didn't visit you yesterday, right? It was my day yesterday, and that would have been rude, visiting you with my feathers on."