Last Call (Last Call 1)

"Yes, it does," the old man said, reading the note on the back after having glanced at the picture. "She'll be all right, I'm pretty sure. They'd like to use her, some of them, or kill her, but she's not conspicuous—she never played any Assumption—and even if they captured you and me right now and shot us up with sodium pentothal, it wouldn't help, because neither of us knows where she is." He handed the photograph back. "No, son, the best thing we can do for her is leave her alone."

Ozzie looked at his watch and got down off the planter. "Time's up." With a sort of unhappy formality the old man held out his right hand, and Crane took it. "Now I'm going to go away and enjoy what's left of my life," Ozzie said, in the awkward tone of someone reciting a memorized speech, "and I suggest you … two … do the same. As it stands, I look like outliving, uh, the two of you, and I'm honestly sorry about that. Scott, it's good to have seen you again … and I'm glad to hear you were married. Sometimes I wish I'd got married. Archimedes, I wish you luck."

Crane got down, too. "Diana didn't say where she was living, but she said she was … what was it?"

"Flying in the grass," said Mavranos.

Ozzie's eyes lost their focus for a moment, and his head lowered slightly. Then he inhaled and exhaled, and he straightened up and pumped his fist three times in the air.

Somewhere up the street a car horn honked twice.

Ozzie gave Crane a tense look. "That means 'please confirm.' " Again he pumped his fist three times overhead.

The car honked again, and now a boat in the channel behind them hooted.

"Okay," Ozzie said, his voice shaky for the first time since Crane had met him, "You've bought an extension on your time. Tell me everything she said."

After Crane had recounted everything he could recall Diana's saying, with Mavranos reminding him of a couple of details he'd mentioned last night while he was getting his leg bandaged, Ozzie leaned against the planter and stared up at the blackening sky. After a minute or so Crane started to speak, but Ozzie waved him to silence.

Finally the old man lowered his head and looked at Crane. "You do want to save her," he said.

"It's … nearly all I've got left to want," Crane said.

"Then we're going to have to go back to your telephone, and you're going to have to stab yourself again, or something, shove your hand in the garbage disposal if that's what it takes, and when she calls, I'll tell her to get out of where she is. If she stays there, she's had it, she's dead or worse, especially since she's so naive about all this stuff, the cards and all. I thought she'd be safer that way, but look where the little idiot runs to. But I'll tell her to leave. And I'll tell her how. She'll listen to me. Okay?"

"Put my hand in the garbage disposal."

"Not literally, but whatever it takes. Okay?"

"… Sure, Oz." Crane tried to put some irony into it, but even in his own ears he sounded sick and scared and eager to please.

Mavranos was grinning. "Before you start making sausage out of yourself, Pogo—before we even go back home—let's call your number. No use even going there, much less chopping you up, if they've cut the lines or got somebody there."

"Good thought," said Crane, wishing he had a drink.

There was a pay telephone back up the street in the entry of the Village Inn, and Ozzie put a quarter in the slot and then tilted the receiver aside as he punched out the remembered number.

After two rings there was an answer. "Yeah," a young man's voice said earnestly, "this is Scott Crane's residence, he's—listen, could you hold a minute?"

"Sure," said Ozzie, nodding grimly at Mavranos.

They heard the clunk of the distant telephone being put down; a dog was barking somewhere in the relayed background, and a car alarm was hooting.

After a few moments the voice came back on. "Yeah, hello?"

"Could I speak to Scott Crane, please?"

"Jesus, Scott was in an accident," the voice said, "he—wait, I can see Jim's car pulling up, he was off visiting Scott at the hospital, Jim's a friend of his, claimed to be his brother to be able to get in to see him, you wanna hang on 'til Jim gets in here? He'll be able to tell you what's what."

"I'm just calling for the Orange County Register," Ozzie said, "to see if he wanted to subscribe. Sorry to have disturbed you at a bad time." He pressed down the hang-up lever.

"Wow," said Crane. "They've got a guy in my place."

"Don't talk for a minute," Ozzie said. He walked away from the telephone, staring out the window at the yellow-lit street under the black sky. "I could put an ad in the personals," he said softly. "But I couldn't even hope she'd see it or get it unless I used her name, and I don't dare do that … and I don't even know what her last name is now …" He shook his head, frowning and unhappy. "Let's go outside."