I WOKE UP at 5:48. Daylight was seeping in around the sides of the blackout curtains.
I got quietly out of bed and made it most of the way to the bathroom before I heard, “Excellent. I’m not the only one who slept naked last night.”
“I thought you were asleep.”
“Nope.”
“The hell you weren’t. You were snoring.”
“Faking it.”
“Great. Anyway, keep the histrionics to a minimum. I hate it when women lose it.” Amid laughter I went into the bathroom and shut the door. Three minutes later I came out in a towel and got back in bed. “Your turn,” I said.
I heard her get up. I was asleep by the time she came back.
I woke again at 8:10 and dressed in clothes I’d left on a chair near the bed.
“Morning,” Harper said drowsily as I was buttoning my shirt.
“Sleep well?”
“I had a great dream. There was this naked guy—”
“Time’s a-wasting, woman. Up and at ’em.”
She got out of bed, stretched—quite a sight—then said, “Don’t suppose I have time for a shower, huh?”
“Nope.”
“Great. Thanks. I won’t be long.”
“Why’d you ask, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“It’s that karma thing you’ve got going. I didn’t want to disappoint her since she’s a bitch.”
Sonofabitch. She got me.
For one of us breakfast supported life: Spanish omelet with hash browns, couple of sausage links, orange juice, toast and coffee. For the other it was unbuttered rye toast, two scrambled eggs, and tea.
“Not sure why you’re still alive,” I said.
“I could say the same about you.”
Touché.
The day was warm, headed for hot. Harper was in her short running skirt and tight tank top. She got a moue of distaste or envy from our waitress, twenty years old who looked size twelve, working on fourteen.
By 9:50 we were on Highway 305, straight shot south past Mount Lewis to Austin, middle of the state, then Highway 376 through Kingston and Carvers to Tonopah—205 miles of emptiness that gives folks in New York City nightmares when they make it out this way and take a wrong turn.
We arrived at McGinty’s Café at 2:20 p.m. A Texaco station was next door to the left and Lucy’s seven-year-old Mustang convertible was parked in front of room 8 at the Stargazer Motel to the right.
“Huh,” I said when I saw it.
“Lucy’s here.”
Harper looked around. “Where?”
“Room at the Stargazer, looks like. The Mustang there in front is hers.”
“Cool. Looks like I finally get to meet her.”
“Looks like.”
“Does that worry you?”
“Not a bit, but I usually miss out on hugs when one of my girls meets another one.”
She smiled. “I’m one of your girls?”
“In a strange way, yeah.”
“Even cooler.”
I parked next to the Mustang and we got out, headed to the motel room opposite Lucy’s car. She came out of McGinty’s Café and called to us.
I spun Harper around and we waited as Lucy ran up like a colt and threw her arms around me and gave me the kind of kiss that stops traffic. She had on white shorts and a white tank top, no bra, white sandals. All in white, Lucy looks like a million bucks. And eighteen years old.
“Wow,” I said when she pulled back to let us both get enough air to support life.
“I really missed you, big guy.”
“I can tell. I’ve missed you too.”
She looked to my right with her arms still around my neck. “You must be Harper.”
“I am.”
“I figured. Mort’s never been big on introductions.”
“I am when I don’t have someone attached to my lips,” I said. “Makes it sound funny when I talk.”
“Excuses, excuses.” Lucy looked at me. “You didn’t tell me she was so gorgeous.”
“If I remember, I sort of did, low key. I certainly didn’t say she looked like Wilford Brimley.”
“Um,” Harper said. “Nothing happened, Lucy. I mean, nothing the least bit serious, between Mort and me.”
Lucy smiled at Harper. “I know. He’s a bit backward but, after all, this’s Mort we’re talking about here.”
“Hey, hey, hey,” I said.
“Hey, hey, yourself,” Lucy said. “I know you, Mort.” She gave Harper a brief hug. “I’m so happy to finally meet you.”
“Me too.” She looked at Lucy. “You can’t be anywhere near as old as he said you are. Please tell me you’re not a day over twenty. Or even nineteen.”
“Can’t do that. I mean, I could, but I’d be, you know, lying. But thanks. I’m thirty-two.”
“I might have to kill myself.”
“Okay,” I broke in. “No one here has to kill herself or, I hope, himself. I’m with two of the most beautiful girls in Nevada, either of whom would make Magnum so jealous he would have to kill himself if he saw you with me. Now how about we go over to McGinty’s and have a bite to eat? I’m hungry.”
Lucy looked at Harper. “He’s such a sweet talker.”
“Yeah, I kinda got that the first hour we met. Not so much a sweet talker, but he was mellow and nice. It was sort of weird, since I’d pulled a gun on him.”
“He gets over little things like that pretty quick.”
“It could also have been because I had to, you know, sit on his lap for three hours, dripping wet.”
Lucy grinned. “I had trouble figuring out why you had to do that when Mort told me about it, or tried to. But it sounds like the kind of thing that happens to him. It was something about the tires. Tell me again in the restaurant, okay? You might have to draw a diagram.”
So we sat in a booth and caught up on everything that had been going on—Chase Eystad leaving Harper up in the hills, two flat tires and the balancing problem, the store at Grange, Olivia, Max in the truck, Max in the Denny’s, the Desert Rose Motel, the bodies in the trunk, the drive to Elko. When I got to the remote-controlled bomb attached to my truck’s radiator, I got a stare that would boil water.
“You didn’t tell me that,” Lucy said. “When you were in Elko, supposedly telling me what was going on. And you didn’t tell me about Max following you up to your room in the hotel.”
“I didn’t want to drag you away from your mother.”
“As if I would’ve left her.”
“As if you wouldn’t.”
She was silent for a moment. “Okay, I would have, but you really need to tell me stuff like that, cowboy.”
“Not when a colonoscopy is on the horizon.”
“How often does that happen?”
“Logically, that’s a non sequitur. See, sugar plum. I told you about the explosives so we’re all good now.” I kissed her cheek. “Aren’t we?”
“I’ll think about it.” She turned to Harper. “About the World Naked Bike Ride. You’re still going with us, I hope. It’ll be March 14 next year. I checked.”
“Wouldn’t miss it,” Harper said, looking from her to me and back again. “Especially now that I’ve seen how you two are together.”
“A couple. Inseparable. Perfect together.”
Lucy smiled. “I’m glad he found you on that highway, not some idiot girl, nothing but trouble.”
“Anyone want dessert?” I asked. “Or shall we go find ourselves an Elrood and beat the crap out of him.”
“Great segue,” Lucy said. “First let’s go get Harper a room, then we can beat the mud out of Elrood.”
“Mud,” I said. “Nice.”
It was 3:35 by the time the three of us walked over to the Stargazer’s office and Harper got a room for the night, next door to ours.
We all freshened up, then I suggested a little powwow in our room, Lucy’s and mine.
“A powwow?” Harper said.
“A confab,” I said. “A meeting of the minds.”
“Don’t listen to him,” Lucy advised. “He says things like that all the time.”
“I pretty much got used to it, actually,” Harper said.
Lucy was still in her white shorts, white tank top, and Harper had on the short running skirt and thin top she was wearing when I’d first seen her at dusk in the hills. Both of them had nipple bumps showing. That appeared to be fine with them and I know it was with me. Lucy and I sat side by side on a bed, Harper on the other bed facing us.
Right then, a gentle knock came at the door. I got up, opened it, saw a blur of motion, and lights kaleidoscoped through my head as I tumbled back into the room and hit the floor.
Then all the lights went out.