Last Call (Last Call 1)

Leon was in the bandy-legged old Benet body now—he'd have to make sure no one went on calling it Beany—and he dreaded trying to give harsh orders, convey authority, with it. The face was too round and red, the cheeks and eyes were too deeply etched with the fatuous grin Leon had let the thing assume when he had left it to its automatic-pilot job as a Poker shill at several casinos. He looked like Mickey Rooney. Even the voice, as he had helplessly noticed on the phone just now, kept trying to be squeaky.

Of course the beautiful Art Hanari body still rested in physical perfection in a bed at La Maison Dieu, but he did very much want to debut that body Wednesday night, at the first of the Holy Week games on the lake.

Well, that was only four days away. He could work out of Benet for that long.

And then on Holy Saturday he could begin assuming the bodies he had defined and paid for in 1969.

High damn time. This had been a long twenty-one years. It would be good to get into some fresh hosts. That Scott Crane looked all right—Leon glanced out the window to make sure Crane's motel room was still dark—and several of the ones Trumbill had already captured and sedated looked damn good. People took better care of themselves these days.

He could hear water running now, and Trumbill grunting as he toweled himself off. The RV rocked a little on its shocks.

A few minutes later Vaughan Trumbill came stumping into the narrow room, his voluminous pants cuffs billowing around his bare blue and red feet, buttoning a sail-like shirt around his enormous belly. The bandage above his ear had begun to blot red again. The man's blood pressure must be like the penstocks in Hoover Dam, Leon thought.

"They coming?" Trumbill asked.

"Not until tomorrow, he said. And it's got to be away from crowds, and all he'd agree to do was haul away an unconscious body. I don't think his guys will even be armed."

The bandage wobbled as Trumbill's eyebrows went up.

"Moynihan doesn't know me," Leon went on, keeping his voice level. "I said I was Betsy Reculver's business partner, and he said I should have her call him, or at least Richard Leroy. I told Moynihan he should ask you about it all, and he just said he heard you'd been shot. How's your arm and leg?"

Trumbill rolled his massive left shoulder. "Just feels strained now, like I've been digging ditches. Not numbed anymore. And I've been eating stuff to restore all the lost blood." He glanced out the window at the dark motel room. "I hate head wounds."

"You were lucky. Richard and the guard both took it square." Leon touched the forehead he had now. "Twice in a week I've been shot right out of a body."

Trumbill turned away from the window and stared at him impassively. "A drag, right?"

Leon grinned, then stopped when he remembered how the expression looked on this clown face. "At dawn I'll call the garage," he said "and have them send the Camaro over here. This thing can follow, but it can't chase."

" 'Kay. And I've got the tranky gun loaded up."

Leon sat down and shifted the chair to face the window. "I'll take the first shift watching," he said. "I'll get you up at"—he glanced at the clock on the plywood wall paneling—"four."

" 'Kay." Trumbill shuffled sideways into the back of the RV, where the bunk was. "Bathroom might be a little high by morning."

"As soon as we've got Crane in a cage, we'll sell this thing as is."

The sun was up and the air was already hot when Crane, still disheveled from sleep, walked back from the motel office and kicked the room door. When Mavranos opened it, blinking in the daylight, Crane handed him one of the cold cans of Coke.

"They don't have coffee," Crane said, stepping inside and closing the door. "This'll do; it's caffeine at least."

"Christ." Mavranos popped the top, took a sip, and shuddered.

Crane leaned against the battered dressing table. "Listen, Arky," he said, "did you ever do any scuba diving?"

"I was a city boy."

"Damn. Well, you can wait in the boat."

"That's what I'll do, all right. I'll wait in the boat. Your dead King's underwater somewhere?"

"I think he's in Lake Mead," said Crane. "I think his head is, anyway."

Mavranos took another sip of the Coke, then put it down and stalked outside. Crane heard the truck door clunk, and when Mavranos came back in, he was carrying a dripping Coors can.

"I did see the flies buzzing around the cards," Mavranos said slowly, after he'd taken a deep sip, "and I heard that guy Snayheever's words coming out of Buggy Joe's mouth. And those things were weird. And I'm willing to admit that there's a lot of weird shit going on. But how the hell are you going to have a conversation with a cut-off head, underwater?" He laughed, though not happily. "And with a scuba gadget in your mouth?"

"Oh," said Crane, slapping the air carelessly with the back of his hand, "as to that—I don't know."

Mavranos sighed and sat down on the bed. "Why do you think he's in the lake?" he asked quietly.