While Drowning in the Desert (5 page)

As Nathan was.

He didn’t have the blankets pulled up over his head, either. Although I thought about arranging it, and maybe forgetting about the airhole.

I didn’t, though. I just lay there awake thinking about babies and stuff.

Chapter 6

After a refreshing twenty minutes of sleep I got up, showered, and changed into yesterday’s stale, sweaty clothes. Then I woke up Nathan.

“You snore,” he said. “I hardly slept a wink.”

“Good morning,” I said.

I ordered room service again for breakfast. I didn’t want to take a chance that Nate would meet some other old love while gumming his oatmeal in the coffee shop.

The dirty rotten old bastard ordered two eggs over easy,
bacon,
a cinnamon roll, a Bloody Mary, tea, and dry toast.

“Dry toast?” I asked.

“Cholesterol,” he mumbled while sucking down a strip of bacon.

“I thought you were Jewish,” I said, pointing my fork at the surviving bacon.

“I am,” Nate answered. “But not a fanatic. And order your own bacon.”

He tried to stab me with his fork.

I chewed on my blueberry muffin and worked on the image of a nice airplane jetting us to the Palm Springs airport. A quick limo ride to Palm Desert and blessed freedom.

“So?” Nathan asked.

“So what?”

“So, aren’t you going to make conversation?” he asked. “What, were you raised by apes? You just stuff your mouth and don’t talk? You’re an escort with no bazookas, the least you can do is make conversation.”

“More bacon?”

“That’s conversation?” Nathan asked, stuffing his mouth with more bacon.

Conversation … conversation. I’d never been very good at conversation. It usually required talking to people.

“Okay,” I said, after a few moments of intense concentration. “So, where do you live?”

Nathan looked at me as if I were an idiot.

Go figure, huh.

Then he said, “You’re supposed to take me home, you don’t know where it is?”

“I know where it is,” I said. “I meant, what’s it like?”

“It’s a townhouse,” he said. “Although why they call it a townhouse I don’t know because there’s no town. It’s in a resort complex right on the golf course.”

“Oh, that’s nice.”

“Why is that nice?”

“So you can just pop out your door and play a nice round of golf,” I said.

“I hate golf,” Nathan said.

“Then why—”

“Because that’s where they built the townhouse,” he said. “Away from the town and on the golf course. What was I supposed to do?”

“Uhhhh, buy a different townhouse?”

“Away from the golf course?”

“Yeah …”

“Then I couldn’t watch them.”

“Watch who?”

“The golfers,” Nathan said. He lit a cigarette.

My muffin was turning to sawdust in my mouth.

“But you hate golf,” I said.

“More than I hate golf,” Nathan said, “I hate golfers.”

“So?”

“So the golfers who play golf outside my townhouse?”

“Yes?”

“They stink,” he said. He took a long drag of the cigarette then spent the next thirty seconds coughing. “I love to watch them play because I hate them and they . stink. I love to watch them get red in the face, say dirty words and bang their clubs into trees. This is fun for me, I’m eighty-six.”

“I hate golf, too,” I said. “In my opinion the only thing that could improve the game of golf is snipers.”

I feel that this would really speed up the game. Instead of standing out there forever contemplating the three feet of grass between them and the cup, golfers in my version of the game would be
sprinting
onto the green, taking a running whack at the ball and diving for the sand trap as bullets stitched at their heels.

It would have a sartorial benefit as well: I mean, you could forget the bright pink shirts and the canary-yellow rayon slacks, right?

Nathan looked at me very seriously.

“Snipers,” he said.

“Snipers.”

“That’s funny,” he said. “You said a funny thing.”

“Thank you.”

“Who’d have thought?” Nathan asked. Then he blew a smoke ring in my face.

We finished breakfast, checked out, and took a taxi to the airport. I whipped out the old gold card, bought two tickets on the next flight and steered Nathan toward the concourse.

We sat at the gate for half an hour while he entertained me with jokes that were doubtless painted on the walls of the Lascaux caverns. After an eternity or two the flight attendant announced it was time to board.

Then Nathan said, “I’m afraid to fly.”

“It’s perfectly safe.”

“What, you never heard of a plane crashing?”

“You stand more chance of dying in a car on the way to the airport than you do in the airplane,” I said.

I’d heard this statistic from someone and it sounded right. Of course, I’d heard it in New York, where you were in more danger in even a
parked
car than you were in an airplane.

“It’s not the dying I’m afraid of,” he said.

“Then what is it?”

“It’s the
crashing.
”

“Now boarding,” the stewardess said with that polite urgency they get when
you’re
causing
them
delays.

“We’re coming,” I told her.

“Speak for yourself,” Nate said. “If God had meant man to fly, He’d have given him—”

“Airplanes,” I said. I’d describe myself as having said this through tightly clenched jaws except it might be misinterpreted as hostile.

“I’m not getting on that thing,” Nate said.

“Final call,” the stewardess warbled.

“We’ll only be in the air for an hour,” I said to Nate.

“Hopefully,” he said.

“The great majority of crashes take place on takeoff or landing,” I answered.

Which clinched it for Nate.

“I’m not getting on,” he said.

“Yes you are.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Yes!”

“Yes or no, gentlemen?” said the stewardess.

“What are you going to do?” Nate asked me. “Make me get on the plane?”

“If necessary,” I said through tightly clenched jaws.

“Go ahead,” Nate said. “Give me a beating.”

Nate dug in, as much as an eighty-six-year-old man can be said to dig in. He stood wobbling on his feet, his cane unfirmly planted in the carpet, his watery blue eyes staring at me in defiance.

The old fart had me and he knew it. What
was
I going to do?

Nothing, that’s what.

I mean, I could hardly grab an old man by the lapels and drag him kicking, screaming and kvetching onto the plane. And the stewardess was looking at me with one of those “I’m about to call security to come and pound you into a pulp” glares.

“I don’t really beat him,” I said to her. “He’s joking.”

“Some joke,” she said. “Are you a relative of his?”

“No,” I answered. “If I were related to him I wouldn’t be standing here smiling through my teeth—I’d be sawing my own head off.”

“What are you to this gentleman?” she asked in a voice that indicated that she was contemplating a 911 call.

“A friend,” I said.

“Some friend,” she said.

“He’s my grandson,” Nate said.

“God forbid.”

“He’s my grandson, the ungrateful little bastard,” Nate said. “He wants I should die of fright on the airplane so he can inherit.”

“That’s ridiculous, I—”

“Well, you can forget it, because you’re out of the will!” He turned to the stewardess. “You’re my witness!”

The stewardess was down the jetway in a shot. After
snake-eyes,
the word
witness
might be the least popular word in Nevada.

Without removing his gaze from the stewardess’s rear end Nate said, “See what you did?”

“Gee, I guess we’ll drive,” I said.

“Driving is better,” Nate agreed.

Yeah right, I thought. Five hours there, two hours to get Nate settled, then another ten hours’ drive back to Austin. Oh yeah, driving is much better.

As we were walking out to get a cab back to the Mirage to pick up the car, the thought finally occurred to me.

“Mr. Silverstein?” I asked.

“Yeeess?” he warbled in the stylized tone of a burlesque top banana.

“How did you get to Las Vegas?”

“I flew,” he said.

Of course.

Then Nate said happily, “This guy with a wooden eye goes to a dance …”

The valet pulled up the Jeep and I gave him a five. He trotted around and opened the door for Nate.

Nate just stood there and stared at the Jeep.

“What?” I asked.

“An army truck?” he said.

“A Jeep.”

“You want me to ride all the way to Palm Springs in an army truck?”

“Actually, I wanted you to fly all the way to Palm Springs in a civilian aircraft,” I said. “But you wanted to drive.”

“Not in an army truck.”

“You’re a Quaker now?”

“Bouncing,” Nate said.

“Bouncing?”

“You think my kidneys are made of steel?!” he hollered. “My bladder is what, a rock? My back, my spine, my neck? You want from the bouncing they should snap?”

Yes.

“I’m not riding in that,” he said.

“How about if we get a rope and I tow you behind?”

“Funny guy.”

“Get in,” I said.

“Forget it.”

“Please.”

“No.”

“Just get in,” I whined.

“No.”

“I’ll give you money.”

“Money I got,” Nate said. “But you can never replace your health.”

So I tried one of the things I’d seen parents do with four-year-olds. I got into the driver’s seat, turned the key, and said, “Okay, I’m leaving.”

“So go.”

“I’m leaving now,” I said in the same singsong tone I’d heard send the little rug-rats sprinting for Mommy and Daddy’s departing heels.

“So leave already,” Nate said.

I put the Jeep into drive and started to ease out of the parking circle. I could see Nate in the rearview mirror leaning on his cane, staring resolutely into space, his little knees wobbling.

“Good-bye!” I yelled.

He didn’t answer.

After a pleasant hour in the rent-a-car line I was rewarded with the keys, unlimited mileage and a full tank of gas. I grabbed Nate from the lounge where he was … well,
lounging,
and dragged him out to the parking lot.

“So what kind of car did you get?” he asked.

“Blue.”

We walked out to slot A-16, where was parked a lovely blue sedan with big cushioned seats. “This is a Japanese car,” Nate said.

“I guess so.”

“What?” he snapped. “You never heard of Pearl Harbor?”

The nice girl behind the counter said, “Back already?”

I nodded.

“Don’t you like the car?” she asked. “I can upgrade you to a BMW for only eighteen extra dollars a day.”

“BMW,” I mulled aloud. “That stands for Bavarian Motor Works, right?”

“You want it?”

“I don’t think so.”

“A Lexus?”

“No Japanese cars,” I said. “No German cars.”

“Huh?”

“I cannot rent any car made in the former Axis powers.

She looked on her computer screen.

“How about a nice Jeep?” she asked.

An hour later I walked Nate out to a Chevy Cavalier and said, “Sit in it.”

“What did you think, I was going to stand?”

“No,” I said. “Sit in it now.”

He sat down.

“Do you like the seat?” I asked. “Are you comfortable?”

“It’s nice.”

“Made in Detroit,” I said. “Any problems with its city of origin? No beef with the General Motors corporation? The color? It’s red, you know. No hang-ups there? No unfortunate associations with the Bolsheviks?”

“Are we going to go, or what?”

“We’re going to go,” I said, and hustled into the driver’s seat before he could change his mind. I turned the ignition and shifted into reverse.

“Go ahead,” Nate said. “And back up.”

Chapter 7

I love the desert.

The desert is not boring, as some would have you believe. Although I am, as are most private eyes, a connosieur of boredom. Boredom is our business, as we spend most of our time waiting for other people to do interesting things (boring), or poring over paperwork (boring), or writing post-investigation reports (very boring). But I basically like boredom, because in this business if something boring isn’t happening it usually means that something scary is. So boring is good.

So is the desert, even though it’s not boring.

Normally a long desert drive is a thing of joy and beauty to me. I love the colors—the muted, subtle shades of tans, browns, and lavenders. I revel in the enormous expanse of open blue sky. I worship the sheer, vast emptiness, the solitude, the quiet.

But after one hour on this particular drive on Interstate 15 through the Nevada desert I was ready to reach down my throat with a pair of pliers and pull my own lungs out. If I’d had a gun I would have shot myself so I wouldn’t have to live with the memory of an hour trapped in a car with Nathan Silverstein, aka Natty Silver.

It started about five minutes into the drive when he said, “Ask me who’s on first.”

“No thanks.”

“Ask me who’s on first!”

“No.”

He started to pout.

Now, I know about pouting. Not for nothing has Karen been known to refer to me as The Incredible Sulk. I am a marathon pouter, a deep Celtic brooder of the darkest sort. But I was a piker compared to Natty Silver. Natty Silver’s unhappiness hung in the confined air of the car like a thick gray cloud. No—not a cloud, something more solid. It filled the car like some sort of toxic Jell-O that hardened around my feet then jiggled up to my neck until I was choking in misery.

Natty could pout.

I broke.

“Who’s on first?” I asked, hating myself for the craven, belly-up dog that I was.

“Right,” he answered happily. “Right’s on first?”

“No, who’s on first,” he said triumphantly.

I chuckled appreciatively and stopped.

He said, “So what’s the matter?”

“Nothing’s the matter.”