Last Call (Last Call 1)

"Hi, Scatto," said Diana. "I think you'll be coming home soon." She looked hard back at Dinh, trying to convey through her gaze, Go ahead. Stake your claim to being the earthly Queen of the mother goddess by murdering a mother right in front of the eyes of her wounded son.

Dinh's face was white, and she lowered the gun.

"But what can I do?" she whispered. She blinked at Diana. "Why am I asking you, eh?" Her gun arm bent up sharply at the elbow.

And Diana lunged forward and knocked the blunt silencer out from under Dinh's jaw in the instant before it jerked.

The shot sounded like a bed sheet being instantaneously ripped in half. Dinh fell to her hands and knees on the carpet, but her head was up, and Diana could see no blood in the black hair. Diana looked up and saw the neat hole punched in the acoustic tile of the ceiling.

Diana got down on her knees and lifted Dinh by the shoulders. "You're asking me because I can answer you," she said urgently. "I'm in danger, and I have two children who are in danger." Dinh was staring into her face, and Diana bared her teeth in a cold smile. "I'm going to need help."

Dinh tucked the gun away in her belt, wincing. "You expect me to—"

"No. No, I hope you will. Will help me. Don't answer now, I won't listen to you now with your ears still ringing. But if you will help me, help the Queen instead of be the Queen, if that's something you can do, then meet me tomorrow at dawn, at the—at the Flamingo pool."

Dinh stood up. "I … won't kill you," she said quietly, "I guess. It looks like. But I won't be there."

"I will," said Diana, still on her knees and looking up.

Dinh turned and strode out of the room. Diana got up and walked back to her son's bed.

Scat was weakly flexing his bound hands, and his feet were moving under the blanket. He was moaning weakly; the nasal tube seemed to bother him.

Diana pushed the nurse-summon button and stepped toward the door, but a doctor was just hurrying in. Obviously Dinh had paused on the way out to tell the staff that the boy had awakened.

CHAPTER 43: Pot's Not Right

The dew that was misted and beaded on the pink plastic chaise lounges around the pool seemed brave and forlorn to Diana—fugitive moisture, briefly condensed by the cool dawn air but doomed to be evaporated again as soon as the morning sun cleared the low bulk of the Oregon Building. In the seat of the nearest recliner some of the drops had run down to combine and form a little puddle, but she knew that wouldn't help them.

The moon, hidden now behind the Flamingo's south high rise, was already past full by the tiniest shaving, but her near-clairvoyance would last, she knew, through Easter, four days from now. She stared uneasily at the long, low bulk of the Oregon Building, aware that it was the Tower of the King, and that Scott Crane had been inside it recently.

Nobody was in the pool yet, but the casino doors on the opposite side of the pool were swung open every few minutes to let a burst of the clatter and clang of the perpetual games come shaking out into the quiet dawn air. Though she was still looking up at the dark penthouse of the Oregon Building, Diana knew it when the doors opened to let out Nardie Dinh.

Diana didn't turn around. She heard Nardie's footsteps scuff slowly down the steps and around the pool past the presently closed outdoor bar.

Nardie stopped behind her.

"You saved my life yesterday," Nardie said quietly, her voice not seeming even to reach the dark shrubbery around the building. "I'll try to see to it that it wasn't a big mistake."

Diana turned around. Nardie was wearing a cabdriver's uniform and cap. "How will you do that?"

"By leaving. I've got money—maybe I'll go back to Hanoi. If I stayed here, I'd probably try again to kill you, and that'd be lousy thanks."

"I want you to stay," Diana said. "I've got a lot to do before Easter, and I'm going to need help."

Nardie shook her head. "I might not kill you," she said, "I might let the—the queenhood go, but I'd never help you get it … for yourself."

Diana smiled. "Why not? You've worked hard in this. If you just take off, you're abandoning everything. You won't even know if there'll be a Queen this time; there hasn't been one since 1960—1947, really. At least if you work with me, you're still working with what you hold valuable. Is the Queen thing only good and worth working for if it's you that's being it?"

"You go be valuable without me."