Last Call (Last Call 1)

Diana waved her hands. "Don't fight. I always knew we didn't belong here, and all I really own is the stereo anyway. Oliver, throw some clothes in your sausage bag, underwear and socks and shirts, and your toothbrush and your retainer."

The telephone rang. Hans waved dramatically for silence and turned toward it.

"No," said Mavranos sharply. "Let the lady get it. Scott, you listen in."

Diana looked at Mavranos as if he'd slapped her, but she let Crane walk her to the phone on the kitchen counter.

"Hello?" she said when she'd picked it up.

"Isis," said a nervous young man's voice on the other end, "I have your son."

CHAPTER 21: Old Images Out of the Ruins

"My name's not Isis, you've got a wrong number—"

Mavranos and Ozzie were both nodding at her. You are Isis, both of them mouthed.

"You are so Isis," said the caller. He giggled. "I've seen your face, Mother. On the Queen of Hearts card and in the lines on my maps. Otherwise, what would—would—be the pointing go?"

Crane beckoned to Ozzie and Mavranos, and as they hurried to the open kitchen, he wrote with a pencil on the white Formica counter.

NUT IN BAKER, he wrote. MAPS, GO FISH.

Maybe we can help in this, he thought excitedly. Maybe we can rescue her son for her. For Diana, I can stay sober.

"Mother, I need to talk to you," said the caller. "I'm at a telephone right now, as you might say, but I'll be going to my Las Vegas box, which doesn't have a phone, which is where your son is, with tape holding him in a chair. It's a Skinner box, like the bowling pigeons. It's out of town on Boulder Highway past Sunset Road, go till you see a gas station on your right that's boarded up, and there's a dirt road that goes behind it. My box is, can't see it from the road, just."

"Is my son all right?"

"Scat, he tells me. His real name is Aristarchus. He's fine, I didn't tape his nose. I won't hurt him if you'll come and talk to me tonight; if you don't, I'll cut his head off and talk to you later." He chuckled. "A man tried to sink a head in Lake Mead yesterday, can you imagine? The lake made the bats chase him away."

"I'll come and talk to you," Diana said hastily. Her phone-clutching hand was against Crane's cheek, and her fingers were cold.

"I know," the caller went on, "exactly how long it takes to drive from your Isis temple, where you are, to the box, so don't talk to police. If police are in our picture, I'll kill Aristarchus. But you won't call them, and we can talk. You're bothered, by this, and that's arctic should be. I don't mean to—to get you bothered, but I had to do something to make sure you'd talk to me. At least I didn't visit you yesterday, right? It was my day yesterday, and that would have been rude, visiting you with my feathers on."

Crane scribbled, HUSBAND. Above it he wrote, BRINGING YOUR.

Diana nodded. "I—I don't—I have to bring my husband. If he can't come, he won't let me see you ever."

There was a long pause, and Crane wondered if he'd ruined everything, if the young man would now simply hang up. Then, "My father's with you?" said the voice on the phone.

Crane bared his teeth in indecision, then shrugged and nodded.

"Yes."

"Sure. You both leave right now. The clock has begun to tick." There was a distant rattle, then the dial tone.

Diana hung up. "Let's go, Scott," she said.

"Right," said Crane, tense with an excitement that was almost joy, in spite of the evident fear that had bleached and leaned Diana's face. To Mavranos he said, "You guys can follow us, but way back. We're going to take a dirt road by a boarded-up gas station out of town on Boulder Highway, past something called Sunset Road, on the right. I'll have the .357 under my shirt."

"You're crazy," yelled Hans, "I'm calling the police! You always call the police with a kidnapping; they're trained—"

Ozzie's lined old face was twisted, as if he faced a painfully bright light. "This guy knew who Scott was, Diana, and he knows who you are: the Queen of Hearts, Isis, her daughter at least. He might just be able to know it, too, if you called the cops. Anyway, the police would make you stay in town for a while. And I really think you'll be killed if you stay. Your sons, too."

"What's this, supernatural?" Hans squalled. "You think she's Isis, the Egyptian goddess? Give me that phone."

"I'm the parent," Diana said forcefully to him. "It's my decision. I'm going, and the police won't be called. And we've got to go now."

Hans was shaking his head and taking deep, whooping breaths. "Okay! Okay! You're the parent, it's your decision. But I'll go with you, then, at least. I am your husband, practically, and I can certainly speak more effectively than this bum."

At the door Diana turned. "No. You're nothing like a husband."

Ozzie pointed at the fat little boy. "Oliver there should come along with Archimedes and me."