Last Call (Last Call 1)

Crane gathered up the pieces. "Let's go out to the bow," he said to Mavranos. "I'll scatter them in the lake, like somebody's ashes."

"And let's be quick," Mavranos said. "I'd really like to be away from here, you know?"

Crane paused before stepping out onto the deck, for the lyric hung uncompleted in the face of all the years to come.

" 'What's my name?' " he whispered.

" 'Sonny Boy.' "

Half an hour later the old truck was rattling along north on Highway 95, through the desert toward the McCullough Range and Las Vegas beyond.

"And when we came back inside," said Crane, finishing the story for Nardie and Diana, "he was dead." Crane's arm was around Diana, and Oliver was squeezed against the window on Diana's left. "And even though he—" Crane sighed deeply and squeezed Diana's shoulder. "Even though he couldn't have been dead more than a minute, he was as cold as the lake water when I touched him. I cut the seat belt on the wheelchair, and then we went outside again and I threw the knife into the water. When it—"

"I'm sorry about your father," Diana said.

"I don't think you should be, at all," Crane said. "I don't think I should be, at all."

Oliver shifted, and Crane thought he was going to say something, but the boy just stared out the window.

"And," Crane went on, "when the knife was about to hit the water—you couldn't really see, with the sun glittering on the waves—I swear a hand stuck up out of the water and caught the knife! And then just sank back down under with hardly a ripple."

That caught Oliver's attention. He whipped his head around. "A hand?" he squeaked. "Like someone alive under the water caught it?"

"I don't know about alive," Crane told him.

"I still say it was a turtle," commented Mavranos from the front seat. He took a sip from his can of Coors without taking his eyes off the road. "I saw a turtle stick its neck up and catch the knife, in its mouth."

"I like Arky's version," put in Nardie.

"What about … Siegel?" asked Diana.

Crane shook his head. "He was still standing there when we left the boat. Didn't even look at us. And then you all heard that boom."

"I guess the verdict will be that Art Hanari, whoever he once was, committed suicide in the parking lot," said Mavranos.

"The last of the deaths," said Diana, and Crane knew she was thinking of Scat, who was expected to be released from the hospital in the next week or two.

"For a long while, at least, let's hope," Crane said. He thought about crossing his fingers, but clasped her hand instead.

And the old truck sped on up the highway in the morning sun. And in the desert all around, the Joshua trees were heavy with cream-colored blossoms, and the glowing cholla branches shaded the flowering lupine and sundrops, and in the mountains the desert bighorn sheep leaped agilely down to the fresh streams to drink.