ELKO IS A strange place. I’d never really gotten a handle on it. A third of it catered to traffic on I-80 and a third was for the locals. The last third, its backbone, Idaho Street, catered to both. Streets meandered around. You could buy tires, go grocery shopping, and three blocks later drive past 24-hour brothels. You can’t do that in Iowa.
Cruising Idaho Street, I found a CVS pharmacy that would have what we needed to complete Harper’s so-called goth look.
“Really?” she said when we were inside at the makeup aisle. “Black lipstick?”
“And eyeliner and maybe purple eye shadow. Purple’s a good look.”
“I could also black out two of my front teeth.”
“If you want, sure. That’d be great. I’ll send a picture to Lucy so she knows what you look like.”
She slugged my shoulder.
One of Lucy’s favorite disguises is the goth look, but with short lacy black skirts, black leggings and boots, cleavage-rich bodices with huge safety pins and buckles. She might be a goth chick at heart. We weren’t going that extreme with Harper. We didn’t have the right clothes, and she would’ve hit me harder. She got the poor-goth look.
After the CVS pharmacy and after Harper had put on purple eye shadow, I went looking for another motel.
“Why?” she asked, applying black lipstick.
“Misdirection. Watch and learn.”
“As a teacher, I understand misdirection, Mort.”
“Then this will make sense. I returned the truck to Avis, which might register with someone. So that someone would know we’re in Elko, or that we were here recently. I’ll get a room using what might be a blown ID and credit card to keep them off balance in the wrong part of town.”
“Kids in my classes never did anything like that.”
“How do you know?”
I used the Stephen Brewer credit card to get us a room at a motel right off the interstate, Shilo Inn. The room was nicer than what we had at Ruby’s, but we weren’t tempted to stay. We went in, messed the place up a bit, then left.
First up that evening for the Elrood hunt was a lounge at the Red Lion Inn. He had a habit of finding women in bars, although the girl in Tonopah said Wintergarden had met her in the produce section of a supermarket, so the lad was a versatile, low-rent, scamming, half-assed gigolo.
I wasn’t about to buy booze at each of the myriad bars we were likely to hit that evening, but drinks are a form of camouflage. I got a bottle of Pete’s Wicked Ale and Harper ordered a margarita to get the evening started off right and to prime the bartender. Harper looked eighteen and had to produce some ID.
“Yum,” she said, cheeks pulling in as she sucked on a little red straw. “When’re you gonna investigate?”
“We’ve already started.” I waved the bartender back over, a girl in her mid-twenties in black pants and a black vest over a white shirt. “Refills already?” she asked.
“Not yet. I wonder if you know a gal by the name of Olga here in town. Or,” I pulled out a picture of Elrood, “if you’ve seen this guy around.” No point in mentioning his name since he didn’t use the same one twice.
She gazed at the picture. “Nope on him, and I don’t know anyone named Olga, so you probably shouldn’t play the slots this evening.”
“Why’s that?”
“You’re not lucky, ducky.”
What a gal.
She wasn’t done yet, however. She waved the other bartender over, a guy in his thirties. He pulled thoughtfully on a short goatee, then shrugged and shook his head.
“Worth a shot anyway,” I said. Then I had a thought. I described Max to the two bartenders. Again, they shook their heads. It was possible Max was in Elko by now. If so, he would be looking for Harper. And me. We didn’t know who he was, where he was, or anything about him except that he was dangerous and we were on his radar for some reason, a reason that had gotten Nevada’s attorney general killed.
“This’s one bar down,” Harper said, stirring her drink with the pygmy straw.
“A hundred ninety-nine to go,” I replied. “Drink up. Let’s keep moving.”
“Two hundred margaritas? I’m gonna be so drunk, Mort. You’ll have to undress me when we get back and put me in the shower and scrub me then toss me into bed.” She glanced at me out of the corner of her eye.
“Guess what ain’t happenin’, little lady, no matter how drunk you end up.”
She smiled. “We’ll see. Where to next?”
“Anyplace with neon. The night is still young.”
I glanced up at a television above the bar, and there I was in some ancient stock footage from when I’d found the decapitated head of Reno’s mayor. I got the bartender back and asked if she could turn up the volume. She hit a button on a remote. Seeing myself on the little screen, I felt Max’s presence here, close by. If he knew which room we were staying in at Hotel Nevada, he had gotten to the girl at the desk, which might mean he’d found the Stephen Brewer identity. If he could plant explosive charges, I had to assume he could track credit cards and that he’d made it here to Elko. Was he working alone? Was someone with him when he’d torched the truck? I didn’t think he would set it on fire and walk away. It would be too easy to get picked up. Again, I felt the presence of an accomplice.
They had no video of my latest missing-person coup, so it was all footage from the past—a split screen with a pair of talking heads telling viewers that Reno’s infamous PI, Mortimer Angel, had located Nevada’s missing attorney general. He’d found yet another person in the trunk of a car. They made a big deal of that. They had very little real information so they winged it, filled three minutes of air time with conjecture and compared it to my finding Mayor Jonnie in the trunk of Dallas’s Mercedes two years ago. A shot of my face looked like a mug shot, but with a caption under it—shit, a caption: “Reno’s Finest,” which might piss off every RPD officer in the city since they would assume, automatically, that they were the finest. My fifteen minutes of Andy Warhol’s idiot fame got yet another three-minute boost. In fact, what Andy had tried to say is that all fame is fleeting, even for the famous.
He was wrong, of course. I only wish he’d been right in my case. Who the hell needs fame except fools?
A new story started up. My favorite Reno detective, Russ Fairchild, was speaking into a bunch of microphones, telling reporters that the bodies of two teenage girls who had gone missing several days ago had been found in the basement of a house between Locust and Kirman Streets in one of Reno’s older neighborhoods.
“What two girls?” Harper asked.
“Couple of teenagers,” I said with a sigh.
Vicki Cannon and Cathy Jantz had been missing for five days. They’d been found in an unoccupied house that had been on the market for several months. The coroner estimated they’d been dead four days. They’d been hung. They were found by a realtor who was showing the house to prospective buyers. A sale unlikely to go through.
“Hung,” Harper said. “Two young girls. What a lovely world we live in.”
“It can be. It isn’t always. Let’s get out of here.”
We went out to the Explorer. I got us on Idaho Street and we went looking for more neon.
Next up was the Gold Country Inn. No luck, no booze.
Then the Ramada Elko Hotel and Casino. No Olga. No one recognized the photo of Elrood or the description of Max.
Then, in order of appearance: the Stray Dog Pub and Café, Silver Dollar Club, Star Hotel, Jr’s Bar and Grill.
We got a nibble at Good Times Charlie’s. A bartender named Karen leaned closer and said, “I know where there’s an Olga.” She took in Harper’s goth outfit then gave my slicked-back silver Hickok hair a look and a smile. “If it’s the one you’re looking for, she works housekeeping at the Red Lion.”
“Housekeeping,” I said. “Making beds and vacuuming, leaving little mints on the pillows, that sort of thing?”
“Uh-huh. Anyway, that’s the only Olga I’ve ever heard of around here. I don’t actually know her, but my brother’s been dating Bridget, the sister of an Olga, says the two of them work together at the Lion.”
Which had been our first stop of the evening, but it wasn’t surprising a bartender wouldn’t know a room maid. Different hours, different locations within the hotel-casino complex. Red Lion was a good-sized operation.
I showed Karen the photo of Elrood.
“Good-looking guy,” she said. “I would remember him if I saw him, which I haven’t.” She left to whip up a basic rum and Coke and a blue Hawaiian in a hurricane glass for a man and woman in touristy clothes to our left.
“Got a whiff there,” I said to Harper.
“That felt like more than a whiff. Now what?”
“It’s getting late. Back to Ruby’s unless you want to get plastered. Not the royal ‘you’ meaning both of us, but you could get plastered and I’ll watch and get the video.”
“That’d sure be fun, but, nope. Unless you want to get me plastered for a reason you haven’t mentioned, in which case I’ll consider it.”
“Nope.”
“Okay, then. Let’s go.”
We approached Ruby’s Hideaway cautiously. The PI manual says it’s a good idea to be careful around guys who have access to remotely-detonated explosive devices. Last thing I wanted to do was underestimate Max. He might be hundreds of miles away, or he might be right here in Elko.
The night was quiet around Ruby’s as we drove by. I didn’t see anyone obviously watching the place, but that didn’t mean much. I went by at a normal speed and we looked for movement in the parked cars we passed and in the shadows around the buildings.
“Nothing,” Harper said as we left the area.
“Nothing obvious, anyway.” I parked the Explorer six blocks away in the back lot of a Budget Inn. Places like that tend not to tow unknown cars. It might piss off a paying customer, and they have plenty of spare parking. We got out and I locked the car with the key fob.
“We’re leaving the car here?” she asked, looking at me over the hood of the car.
“Observant. That’s why I hired you.”
She rolled her eyes. “And what, we’re walking back?”
“That’s right, Miss marathon-running, cross-country and track coach lady.”
“Fine. Race you back?”
“Take off,” I said. “I’ll give you a head start.”
“I’m sure.” She grabbed my hand and headed out, but I held back which, given our weight differential, gave her a pretty good yank. “Now what?” she asked.
“We forgot our weaponry.”
“Oh. Good idea.”
I unlocked the Explorer. My .357 revolver went in a jacket pocket, her 9mm automatic ended up in her purse. We walked back, keeping on a dark side street.
We stood across the street in deep shadow, watching Ruby’s for several minutes, then finally went in with guns drawn but not in plain view, fingers outside trigger guards. We weren’t exactly a full-on SWAT team, so it was a good thing Max wasn’t inside with an Uzi aimed at the door. He could’ve mowed us down.
“All that sneaking around for nothing,” Harper said once I got the door shut and locked.
“Be thankful.”
“I am.” She whipped off the T-shirt I’d given her. And the tank top and all the rest of it. “Dibs on the shower,” she said, “unless …” She gave me a look, then disappeared into the bathroom.
Unless what? I failed to ask, which might be why she poked her head back out, gave me a three-second look and ducked back inside.
I can’t explain it. I’ve tried, but other than some sort of post-IRS karma, I come up with nothing. I’ve never asked Lucy, but it might be time to do that, get this figured out. She might know because she got topless with me an hour after we met. Maybe she’d heard a little voice in her head, like Ted Kaczynski but with a different message. If so, I wanted to know what it said.
It was after midnight. Late, but she might still be up. Probably was, given what Val was doing, so I called her.
“Hi, Mort,” Lucy answered. “You still okay?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Got a few possibilities, but you sound okay, so what’s happening?”
“Really want to know?”
“Uh-oh. Is your phone on speaker?”
“Nope. And Harper’s in the shower.”
“Groovy. So what’s up?”
“I’d like to know why women take off their clothes in my presence more than, say, any other guy in the country.”
“Any other guy? Do you have proof of that?”
“I took a poll. It’s true.”
“And you called to ask me why?”
“It was on my mind.”
“Is it a serious problem?”
“Nope, not serious. I’m acclimating, toughing it out, and there’s no accompanying drama.”
“Right, toughing it out. How’s that goin’?”
“I don’t have to fend her off, not even close. But she’ll be great on that World Naked Bike Ride next year.”
“As will I, Mort. And Mom.”
“Which isn’t the point, but good to know. And a little disconcerting, that last part.”
“My mother going with us, you mean?”
“Yup.”
“So let me guess—the point you were making is that Harper’s not dressed to the nines all the time.”
“Or to the ones, sugar plum.”
“Got that. But without drama.”
“That’s right. She’s not being the least bit pushy and I’m in Zen mode, detached, able to block out all kinds of irrelevant stimuli. You know how I am.”
“I do. But it’s not Zen mode. It’s something else.”
“Whatever. A bit of playful innuendo has picked up in the last twenty-four hours, but that’s all.”
“Related topic alert—do you remember what Danya was wearing when you knocked on her motel room door that second time in Caliente last year and we sort of barged into her room the moment she unlocked the door?”
Danya. Russell Fairchild’s daughter, married to a girl named Shanna. For a moment I replayed the scene in my head. “Panties,” I said.
“Good memory. What else?”
“Well, nothing. Not even a smile since she was angry.”
“That’s right. And you didn’t freak out or stare, but I don’t think Zen is the answer. Are you sure you didn’t call because you wanted to hear my voice?”
“You got me, Luce. I miss you.”
“Me too.”
I took a deep breath. “Anyway, how’s Val doing? She havin’ a blast?”
“Sure you want to phrase it that way?”
“Oh. No, I take it back. She having a good time?”
“It’s been a laugh a minute around here. I’m not going to have a colonoscopy until it’s too late to care if they find anything. And—gotta go, Mort. I’m being paged. Enjoy the sights, such as they are, and don’t worry about it.”
“Will do.”
She hung up. I still hadn’t told her about the bomb on the radiator or the incinerated truck. If I had, she would abandon Val and drive all night to Elko. Not fair to Val and I didn’t know what Lucy could do here anyway. I didn’t know what I was going to do either, except find Olga and keep after the girl-hopping Elrood.
“Mort?” Harper called from the bathroom.
“What? Before you tell me, you should know I charge ten bucks a minute to scrub anything.” Which was pretty good innuendo, if I say so myself.
Silence for a few seconds, then a girlish laugh. “That’s not it, dope, though I might take fifty dollars’ worth to see what happens. I just wanted to know if I should leave the water on for you. I’m about to hop out and it’s at a perfect temperature, which wasn’t easy to get.”
“Sounds like that would result in a first-degree traffic jam—the two of us trying to shuttle past each other in that little room. Think I’ll step outside for a few and watch the street, make sure no one’s lurking out there.”
“You’re going to leave me all alone in here?”
“If anyone comes to the door, I’ll see them and come charging to the rescue. Also, you’ve got a gun. Don’t shoot me when I come back.”
“I might … just because.”
I didn’t follow up on that bit of innuendo. There was a lot of slippery talk floating around. I went outside, not sure what I thought I might see. Max could be driving anything if he was still around—anything but a Smart car, that is. He couldn’t squeeze into one of those naked and greased.
The truck had been torched three miles up Highway 6, southwest of Ely. He could’ve hiked back to Ely in an hour. An accomplice could’ve picked him up. He could’ve flagged down a ride at some point—though that would be a sloppy move for a killer since someone could get a description of him, or at least a sighting. He would need transportation if he was still after Harper. Or me, since it had no doubt occurred to him that I had lied to him up in the mountains that night in the rain. He would be miffed about that.
Not that it was essential, but an accomplice seemed likely. Max might not be in this alone, even now, after he’d eliminated what had to be one accomplice: Eystad, retired shyster. It depended on how big a deal this was, how many people were involved, who they were, what they wanted.
Why hadn’t Max dumped Eystad in the desert instead of leaving him in his car in the attorney general’s sister’s driveway? Why leave the attorney general there too? Was he sending a message? If so, to whom, and what was the message? As usual, I was so far in the dark I couldn’t even make out dim, shifting shadows.
Speaking of which, I was in darkness beneath a huge oak tree that was blotting out the stars, nothing moving on the street, it was nearly one in the morning, cool outside, Harper was inside wearing nothing but an overall tan, and I was male, a pig, and it appeared that karma still owed me one. Far be it from me to spit in the eye of karma and upset the balance of the universe.
I went back to the room.
She was in bed, reading. I brushed my teeth and took a quick shower, no innuendo involved. I crawled into bed beside her, wearing jockeys.
“Undies off, please,” she said with a little sigh.
“Hah.”
“It’s not as if I’m gonna molest you, Mort.”
“Yup. You had your chance in Grange. And McGill.”
“Well, then. You might as well be comfortable. I am.”
I thought about that, then gave up. I got naked, set my jockeys on a nearby chair. “Happy?”
“Very.” She rolled onto her side and reached under the covers, gave me a two-second squeeze.
“Yowzer!” I yelped.
She rolled back, smiling. “Copped my feel. We’re even now.” She picked up her book, then said, “Revenge is a dish best served cold. And, yes, I will tell Lucy.”
Well, shit. Guess karma really did owe me one.