Last Call (Last Call 1)

"Well," said Crane, mystified, "that's good. Hey, take it quiet past these rooms; it's all newlyweds sleeping off their wedding night champagne."

Then he just winced and closed his eyes, for Mavranos swore harshly and leaned on the horn all the way out onto the street.

CHAPTER 36: Some Kind of Catholic Priest?

"That's the place," Crane said two hours later, leaning forward and pointing at the big rusty Two of Spades sign rippling in the heat waves ahead.

"Shit," said Mavranos. He tipped up his current can of Coors, and when it was empty, he tossed it over his shoulder into the back of the truck. "I thought you said you have a lot of money."

Crane had to agree that the trailer-and-shacks structure standing alone by the side of the desert highway didn't look affluent. "I don't think this guy's in it for the bucks," he said. He held out his palm with two shiny silver dollars on it. "This was all I was told to bring."

"Huh."

The two of them had hardly spoken during the drive out from town. Crane had spent most of the drive watching the traffic behind them, but he had not seen any gray Jaguar. Perhaps the fat man had died of a concussion from his gunshot wound, or couldn't track him when he was … avoiding Susan.

Mavranos slowed the truck now and signaled for a turn off the highway, and Crane peered at the odd little settlement that was their destination. A big old house trailer—shored up with wooden frameworks and patched and haphazardly painted several faded shades of green—seemed to be the original core of it, but a lot of corrugated iron-roofed sheds had been added onto the back, and there seemed to be pens and chicken coops attached to the side. Two pickup trucks from about 1957 sat in rusty ruin in the unpaved yard between the trailer and the highway, with a newer-looking Volkswagen van behind them. The whole place had clearly been baked and warped by decades of merciless sun.

"Chez Spider Joe," said Crane with false cheer.

"That guy was hosin' you," Mavranos said as he slowed almost to a halt and turned onto the dirt yard. "The one who told you about this place." The truck shook, and the tires made popping and grinding sounds as they revolved. "Hosin' you."

At last he switched the engine off, and Crane waited until the worst of the kicked-up dust had blown away and then levered the door open. The breeze was hot, but it cooled the sweat on his face.

Aside from the ticking of the engine and the slow chuff-chuff of their steps as he and Mavranos plodded toward the front porch, the only sound was the rackety whir of an air conditioner. Crane could feel attention being paid to them, and he realized that he had been feeling it for the last mile or so.

He stepped up and rapped on the screen door, beyond which yawned the dimness of some unlit room with a couch and a table visible in it.

"Hello?" he called nervously. "Uh … anybody home?"

He could see the blue-jeaned legs of someone sitting at a chair inside now, but a fast scraping sound from around the western corner of the trailer made him look in that direction.

And then from out of the trailer's shadow strode a thing that for one heart-freezing moment seemed to Crane to be a giant walking spider.

He and Mavranos both jumped down off the porch, but when Crane peered more closely at the figure that was now stopped in front of them, he saw that it was a man, with dozens of long metal antennas sprouting and bobbing from his belt, all the way around; they were all bent into different arcs, some brushing against the side of the trailer and some tracing lines in the dirt.

"Jesus!" said Mavranos, his hand on his chest. "Curb feelers! What are you, Mister, worried about scraping your fancy hubcaps when you park your skateboard?"

Crane had seen that the man's gray-bearded head was tilted back toward the sky, and that he was wearing sunglasses. "Take it easy, Arky," Crane said quietly, catching Mavranos's arm, "I think he's blind."

"Blind?" Mavranos yelled, obviously still angry at having been scared. "You had me drive you all the way out here to consult a blind card reader?"

Crane remembered the other person inside. "I don't think this is the guy," he said. "Excuse me, sir," he went on more loudly, his own heart still pounding from the fright of the man's sudden, bug-leggedy appearance, "we're—"

"I'm Spider Joe," the man said, talking loudly over Mavranos's building laughter. "And I am blind."

Above the unkempt beard the man's face was sun-darkened and deeply furrowed, and his dirty overalls gave him the look of a down-and-out car mechanic.

"I," said Crane helplessly, "was told that you could … uh, read Tarot cards."

Mavranos was shaking with laughter now, bent over and holding his knees. "Hosin' you, Pogo!" he choked.

"I do read Tarot cards," the man said calmly, "when I feel I have to. Come inside."