Last Call (Last Call 1)

He paused in the white glow of an overhead light, and he looked at his hands. They were scarred and calloused from years of gripping tool handles, and some of the scars on the knuckles were from youthful collisions with jawbones and cheekbones. He used to be able to get things done with these hands.

He shoved them in his pockets and resumed walking.

CHAPTER 35: The Partition of Poland—1939

Mavranos paused when he was a few yards away from his parked truck. In the dim parking lot shadows he could see a figure hunched over the hood.

What the hell's this, he thought nervously, a thief? There's two guns in there, as well as my remaining money. But why's he leaning on the hood? Maybe it's just a drunk, pausing here to puke on my truck.

"Move it, buddy," he said loudly. "I'm driving the truck out of here."

The figure looked up. "Arky, you gotta help me."

Though the voice was weak, Mavranos recognized it. This was Scott Crane.

Mavranos walked around to the driver's side, unlocked the door, and swung it open. The dome light lit Crane's face through the windshield in dim chiaroscuro, and Mavranos flinched at the black eye and the hollow cheeks and the stringy hair.

"Ahoy, Pogo," Mavranos said softly. "What … seeeems to be the problem?"

Mavranos got in and reached across to open the passenger side door. "Come in and tell me about it," he called.

Crane shambled around the door and climbed up onto the seat, then laid his head back with his eyes closed and just breathed for a while through his open mouth. His breath smelled like a cat box.

Mavranos lit a Camel. "Who hit you?"

"Some drunk bum." Crane opened his eyes and sat up. "I hope Susan gives him a lot of big bugs."

Mavranos felt the ready tears of exhaustion rise hot in his eyes. His friend—his closest friend, these days, these bad days—was broken. Clearly Crane was not succeeding in freeing himself from his troubles.

But neither am I, Mavranos thought. I've got to go home while I still can; I've got to spend what time I have left with my family. I can't waste any of that time trying to help a doomed man, even if he is—was—my friend.

Womb to tomb, he found himself thinking. Birth to earth.

Shut up.

"Ozzie's dead," Crane was saying now. "The fat man shot him. Ozzie died saving me; he knocked me loose from them for a little while, at least. He saved my life, gave it back to me."

"I can't—" Mavranos began, but Crane interrupted him. "He always used to put … a banana in my lunch bag, when I was in grade school," Crane said, his face twisted into what might have been a smile. "Who wants a mushy old warm banana at noon, you know? But I couldn't bear to throw it out—I always ate it—because—he had gone to the trouble—see?—to put it in there. And now he's gone to the trouble—Jesus, it's killed him—to give me my life."

"Scott," Mavranos said tightly, "I'm not—"

"And then I got a note he'd left for me, saying I should take care of Diana's kids. Diana's dead, too, they blew her up, but her kids are still alive." He exhaled, and Mavranos rolled down the window. "We've got to save them."

Mavranos shook his head unhappily and squeezed Crane's shoulder. Very little of this was making any sense to him—bugs and bananas and whatnot—and he was afraid most of it was hallucinatory nonsense. "You go save them, Pogo," he said softly. "I'm too sick to be any use, and I've got a wife and kids who ought to see me before I die."

"You can—" Crane took a deep breath. "You can pull a trigger. You can see well enough to drive in day glare. When it gets light, I've got to go see a guy who lives in a trailer outside town. I tried to make it yesterday, but I"—he laughed—"but I got so damn depressed. I had the DTs real bad, sat and cried in Diana's car most of the day, in a parking lot. Bugs were crawling out of holes in my face—imagine that! But now I've got some food in me, and I think I'm all right."

You can still eat, at least, thought Mavranos angrily. "Then go," he said harshly. "Where's her car now?"

"Parked down the row here. I've driven through every casino lot in town, looking for this here truck. The Circus Circus said you'd checked out with no messages or anything."

"I don't owe you any messages, none of you. Goddammit, Scott, I've got my own life, what little is left of it. What the hell do you imagine I could do! Who is it you want me to—to pull a trigger on, anyway?"

"Oh, I don't know … me, maybe." Crane was blinking around, and he picked up Snayheever's maps. "If I become Bitin Dog again, for instance. At least I can make sure that my real father doesn't have this body to fuck people over with."

A car rushed by fast, and the reflection of its red taillights flashed through the cracks in the Suburban's windshield like the streak of a tossed-out cigarette butt.

"You want me to make sure of it, you mean," Mavranos said, "and probably go die in the Clark County Jail instead of with my family. I'm really sorry, man, but—"