Last Call (Last Call 1)

Scott shook the box, then had to dig in the glove compartment again for a flashlight. "Uh … two tails and a heads," he said, holding the flashlight beside his ear and peering into the box.

"And we're going south," said Ozzie. "I'm going to make some turns. Keep shaking them and reading them and let me know when they come up all heads."

It was when Ozzie turned east onto Westminster Boulevard that Scott looked into the box and saw three heads—three profiles of a woman in silver bas-relief. In spite of himself, he shivered.

"Now they're all heads," he said.

"East it is," said Ozzie, speeding up.

The coins had led them out of the Los Angeles area, through San Bernardino and Victorville, before Scott worked up the nerve to ask Ozzie where they were going. Scott had hoped to spend the evening finishing the Edgar Rice Burroughs book he'd been reading.

"I'm not certain," the old man replied tensely, "but it sure looks like Las Vegas."

So much for The Monster Men, Scott thought. "Why are we going there?" he asked, keeping most of the impatience out of his voice.

"You saw the moon," Ozzie said.

Scott made himself count to ten slowly before speaking again. "What's going to be different about the moon when we're in Vegas than it was when we were home?"

"Somebody's killing the moon, the goddess; some woman has apparently taken on the—what would the word be—goddess-hood and somebody's killing her. I think it's too late for her, and I don't know the circumstances, but she's got a child, a little girl. An infant, in fact, to judge by how close Venus was to the moon when we saw it."

Here I am, Scott thought, holding a vanilla wafers box with three crumb-covered silver dollars in it with pennies taped to them, driving to Las Vegas and not reading Edgar Rice Burroughs—because Venus was close to the moon tonight. Venus is probably close to the moon all the time.

"Dad," said the seventeen-year-old Scott, "I don't mean to be disrespectful, but—but this is nuts. For one thing, there may be a lady being killed in Las Vegas tonight, but you don't know about it from looking at the moon, and if she's got a baby, it's got nothing to do with Venus. I'm sorry, I don't mean to … and even if there was, what are we supposed to do? How is it the job of two guys in California and not the job of somebody in Vegas?"

Ozzie laughed without looking away from the highway rushing up at them beyond the windshield. "You think your old man's nuts, eh? Well, a lot of people in Vegas would like it to be their job, I can tell you. This baby is a daughter of the goddess, and so she's a T-H-R-E-A-T to them, you bet. A big threat. She could bounce the King, if she grows up, which … certain persons … would like her not to do. And there's other people who want her to grow up but would want to, what, be her manager, you know? Boss her, use her. Climb into the tower by means of her Rapunzel hair, yes, sir. Right into that tower."

Scott sighed and shifted on the seat. "Okay, look, if we don't find a baby, will you agree—"

"We'll find her. I found you, didn't I?"

Scott blinked. "Me? Is this how you found me?"

"Yep."

After half a minute of silence Scott said, "You shook coins in a cookie box?"

"Hah! Sarcasm!" Ozzie glanced at him and winked. "You think your old man's nuts, don't you? Hey, I was swimming down in Laguna late one afternoon in '48, and the surf was full of fish. You know how it is when they're bumping into you under the water? And you gotta get out 'cause you know it's gonna attract barracudas? That's how it was, and the sky was full of those cirrus clouds, like they were spelling something out in a language nobody's got a Rosetta stone for. And Saturn was shining in the sky that evening like a match head, and I know that if I'd had a telescope I'd have seen all his moons disappearing behind him, being devoured like the myths say Saturn devoured his children. There's a Goya painting of that, scare the crap out of you."

The signs along the side of the highway were beginning to refer to Barstow, but Scott didn't ask his foster father to stop for dinner.

"So I got me a deck of cards," Ozzie went on, "and I started shuffling and drawing them to see where to go, and it led me straight to Lakewood, where I found you in that boat. And I walked across the parking lot to that boat slow, with my hand on my old .45 that I had in those days, because I knew I wasn't the only one who'd be tracking you. There's always some King Herod around. And I drove to Dr. Malk's in a highly circuitous fashion."

Scott shook his head, not wanting to believe these weird and morbid things. "So am I the son of some goddess?"

"You're the son of a King, a bad one, an honorary Saturn. I grabbed you for the same reason we're going to grab this little girl tonight—so that you could grow up outside of the net and then decide what you want to do, once you're old enough to know the rules of the game."