Last Call (Last Call 1)

That I'm saving myself for you? she thought. Is that what you imagine?

Her shoulder was aching powerfully. Am I saving myself for him? she wondered. Has all this—stabbing Madame DuLac, running to Las Vegas, using the powers he gave me to avoid sleeping—been nothing but a show of defiance, a gesture, a sop to my self-respect before allowing myself to sink into the secure zombie-Queen role he has planned for me? Maybe I was afraid that Scott Crane could still defeat his father, and I just seized a plausible excuse to run away from him.

Maybe I do want to give in to Ray-Joe Pogue.

No, she thought. No, not even if it's true. Even if I've been living a pretense for the last three months, I hereby declare the pretense real.

She forced her elbow even harder against the tree, wishing she could press the earring right into her flesh.

A noise had risen from the traffic background—someone was driving a car nearby.

Below her she saw Pogue look sharply across the park, and she realized that the car must be driving right over the grass. Then she realized that it was more than one car.

"Shit," Pogue said softly. He took a quick step away from the tree, and then she could only hear him walking quickly away through the grass. She raised her arm and let the earring fall, wondering, even as she did it, if she was doing it too soon, if she had meant to do it too soon.

She could hear car tires tearing up the grass, and she turned around, away from the pond, and pushed aside a cluster of leaves. For an instant she glimpsed a white car flash across the grass; it had been one of those sort of pickup trucks, what were they called? El Caminos. Then she saw another one, identical to the first. Had they followed Pogue here?

She didn't hear any shooting or yelling … and then after several minutes she heard police sirens approaching. The sound of the cars on the grass diminished away in some direction.

When she heard the unmistakable sound of a police car engine approach and then stop and shift out of gear and begin to idle and heard the loopy sounds of a close police radio, she relaxed and began to climb down.

When those cars started tearing across the grass, she mentally rehearsed, I just went straight up the tree, Officer. Bernardette Dinh, sir, I work for the insurance office right over there.

Got lucky this time.

Diana saw Mike's truck pull up and park on the twilit street, and she reflected that she wouldn't have to fake being scared. She only hoped that she was guessing correctly about what he would do.

Hours ago she had eased the sliding glass pane out of the apartment's living-room window, and then she had gone into his bedroom and dumped out all the drawers and dragged all the boxes out of the closet and dumped them, too. She wished she had noticed a brand of cigarettes that Funo smoked so that she could have lit one and stomped it out on the tan rug.

The apartment door was open, and she could hear Mike's heavy tread approaching along the second-floor walkway.

And here he was, smiling and patting his sprayed hair and reeking of Binaca even across two yards of evening air.

"What's the matter, darlin'?" he asked, giving her what she thought of as a there-there-baby-doll look.

"The place was burglarized today while I was at the store," she said tensely.

Mike's smile was gone, though his mouth was still open.

"I didn't know if you'd want to call the cops," Diana went on, "so I've just been waiting here. I can't see that anything's gone, but maybe you can. They hit the bedroom pretty hard."

"Jesus," he said in a whispered wail as he started for the bedroom doorway, "you goddamn bitch, the bedroom, Jesus, make it not be true, make it not be true."

She followed him and watched him shuffle straight to the closet. He stared at the unobstructed ski boots and then peered around at the floor.

"Jesus," he was saying absently, "I'm dead, I'm dead. This was your friend that did this, Hans's friend, that stuff didn't belong to me, you're going to have to tell Flores that it was your fault—no. No, I can't say I let you stay here, a woman who—who led another dealer here. God damn you, you've got to get out of here and never come back, take any shit you brought with you." His face when he turned toward her was so pale and scraped with fear that she stepped back. "That license plate number," he said urgently, "I'll kill you right now if you don't remember that license!"

She recited it to him. "A white Dodge," she added, "roughly 1970 model. His name's Al Funo, F-U-N-O." Remembering to stay in character, she gave him a heartbroken look and said, "I'm sorry, Mike. Can't I stay here? I was hoping—"

He was walking slowly toward the telephone. "Go find a pimp; you're out of my life."

Diana had already shoved the little yellow blanket into her purse, and on the way out of the apartment she picked up the purse and slung it over her shoulder.