Last Call (Last Call 1)

Crane and Mavranos followed the old man out onto the Marine Avenue sidewalk and matched his slow pace south, back toward the water. Shingled roofs steamed in the sunlight on the houses along the street, even as rain silently made spots on the pavement.

"I haven't held a hand of cards since that game in the Horseshoe in '69," Ozzie said. "I couldn't take the chance on being recognized, and word getting back to you. I was sixty-one years old, with a car and twenty-four thousand dollars and a nine-year-old foster daughter and no skill, no trade."

Crane had started to say something, and Ozzie waved him to silence. "You already said you're sorry," the old man went on, "and it was a long time ago. Anyway, she and I went somewhere a person can live cheap, and after a while I got a job—first time in my life—and Diana went to school. I made some good investments, and for these last … say, ten years … I've been comfortable. I know enough about how things work to get help like I had this morning, and if it's only once in a long while, I can even afford it."

Ozzie laughed. "You know what I do for work now? I make ashtrays and coffee mugs and pots, out of clay. I've got a kiln in my back yard. I sell 'em to these boutique-type shops, the kind of place that's mostly for tourists. I've always signed 'em with a fake name. Anytime the demand for 'em gets serious, I stop making 'em for a year or so, 'til people forget they wanted 'em. One time a local paper wanted to do an article on me; I quit making the damn things for about six years after that. Publicity I don't want."

The rain was coming down more steadily now, and the light was fading.

"You ever been in jail, either of you?" Ozzie asked.

Both men nodded.

"Tell you what I hate, that little toilet with no seat, and you got six guys who gotta use it. And I hate the idea of someday maybe living behind a dumpster, wearing four dirty shirts and three pairs of weird old pants at the same time … and the idea of getting seriously beat up, you know, where you can feel stuff breaking inside you and the guys won't stop kicking. And I hate the idea of being in a hospital with catheters and ventilators shoved into me every which way. Bedpans. Bedbaths. Bedsores."

He sighed. "What I like is my house, little old Spanish-style place I live in, all paid off, and my cats and my Louis L'Amour books and my Ballantine scotch and an old Kaywoodie pipe stuffed with Amphora Red cavendish. And I've got all the Benny Goodman and Glenn Miller and Bing Crosby on cassettes."

"That's what you like," said Mavranos softly.

"Right," Ozzie agreed, staring ahead at the water. "Diana I love." His wrinkled old face was wet with rain. "But I wonder … if I can even do anything. Of course, that's my cats and L'Amours and cassettes talking: There's nothing an eighty-two year-old man can do about it—so, sad as it is, stay home, with us."

"What's 'flying in the grass' mean?" asked Crane uncomfortably.

Ozzie blinked and looked over at him. "Hmm? Oh—it's an old pilots' term for flying very low, crowding the ground, to avoid showing up on radar screens. Scoot in around the hills and barely clear the power lines, and you're just one more bit of the base-fuzz that's the features of the terrain. You can be right under the enemy's nose, but you're keeping such a low profile that he doesn't even see you."

They were back to the storm drain warning sign, and Ozzie led them to the right along the waterfront walk, toward the ferry. Mavranos, evidently impatient with the slow pace of his companions, was walking backward in a zig-zag pattern ahead of them.

"What have you got in the way of travel necessities?" the old man asked. "I don't think it'd be smart to go anywhere near your place."

"Actually," said Crane, touching his pocket, "I've got about two grand on me."

"I've got some bucks, too," said Mavranos, "and Scott's got a .357 in the car, and I've got a .38 Special in the glove compartment, and I gather you've got a gun. A shotgun and ammo we can pick up on the way—and a locking box so we'll be legal when we cross the border."

Ozzie was nodding.

"Border?" repeated Crane. "Where are we going?"

"To where your foster sister is," said Mavranos impatiently, "to the Chapel Perilous in the Waste Land. Las Vegas."

Ozzie was shivering. "Yes. Back to Las Vegas." He began walking faster. "Let's step it up here, gentlemen," he said in a brittle, nearly cheerful tone. "Do you have a heater in your fool truck, Archimedes? I probably forgot to say that being cold is also one of the things I hate."

"Got a heater that'll hard-cook eggs in your shirt pockets," Mavranos assured him. "But I got no air conditioner; that'll be a factor when we're out in the nowhere middle of the Mojave Desert."