Last Call (Last Call 1)

Hans forced a shout of laughter. "Archimedes? Have you got Plato out in the car, too? Let him do the talking."

"Wait here," Diana told him. "I'll call you when I know anything."

Ignoring Hans's continuing protests, the five of them hurried out to the cars.

Al Funo's teeth were chattering, and his face was puffy and streaked with tears, but he wiped his eyes on the sleeve of his silk shirt when he saw people hurry out of the duplex down the block.

There's Scott Crane, he thought, with a woman who must be the famous Diana. Mr. Mustache is giving Crane something from the other vehicle, and now Crane and Diana are in the Mustang. And Mr. Mustache and Ozzie and some kid are getting into the other vehicle. What a ridiculous, Jeepy-looking thing!

It sure does scoot, though, he admitted to himself. I doubt that anyone less than a professional driver could have kept up with them the way I did, from that supermarket. I'm glad I noticed that they were chasing the Mustang and not trying to shake me, before I got a chance to pull alongside and shoot them. If I had, I'd never have got a chance to meet Diana.

And she's an attractive woman. I have no problem with that. I'm not one of these guys who feel threatened by attractive women.

He started his engine and patted the wheel. And I can keep up with them this time, too, he thought. This Porsche can outperform anything. You don't find unimportant people driving Porsches.

Diana was driving, her blond hair fluttering in the night wind coming in through the driver's side window. "Nut," she said expressionlessly. "Baker. Maps. Go Fish." She glanced at him. "Who is this guy, and how did he find my son?"

"Well, his name's"—Crane impatiently snapped his fingers twice—"Snayheever, Dondi Snayheever. I think he's crazy. We met him in Baker, and he talks like—like a nut. He's one of the people who've been … waked up, motivated, galvanized, by all the stuff that's going on here right now, with the heavy Easter about to come 'round again, the game on the lake probably due to start up again next week, for the first time in twenty-one years. He's not the only one we met, coming across the desert, and they're probably coming in from other directions, too. In Baker he was talking about you—that is, the Queen of Hearts. He had a bunch of maps that he thought would lead him to you. We stole a couple, but I guess one of them did the trick for him."

"You didn't lead him to me?"

"No. We just arrived in time to help answer the phone. We've been looking for you in every supermarket in town since Saturday night. Barely found you tonight. I recognized you."

A rushing streetlight highlighted the planes of her face for a moment. "So is this all actually true?" she demanded angrily. "All this supernatural shit?"

Crane thought of the thing that seemed to be the ghost of his dead wife. "I think it must be."

"God." She took a deep breath and let it out. "I guess I didn't ever really believe all of Ozzie's warnings."

"Don't feel bad. I didn't either."

"What do you mean, don't feel bad? You sound like that crazy man on the phone: 'I know this must bother you.' My son's life is in danger because I didn't do exactly what that old man said."

"Diana, my wife died because I didn't listen to him. I didn't mean to sound flip."

She glanced at him for a moment. "I know. I'm sorry. I sensed it, when she died. I meant to call you, but I didn't know what to say, and then it was—it seemed too late."

"I would have pretended she was fine. I fooled everybody, even myself eventually."

"So what are we going to do here?"

"Jesus, I don't know. I think he does just want to talk to you, but he might just as likely want to kill you. I don't think he's got anything against your kid—Scat?"

"Nickname for Scott. He's named after you."

He remembered the way she'd written Scott on the crayon portrait of him she'd done when she was eight years old—with one bar through the T's, which she had thought was very sporty—and there were tears in his eyes. "Diana, I swear to you we'll get you and your kids out of this."

She didn't answer, just kept her eyes on the cars ahead. She did reach over and squeeze his hand.

It was the first time they'd touched in two decades.

Waiting for a fare in front of the Four Queens on Fremont, Nardie Dinh fainted at the wheel of her cab. She was unconscious for only a moment, fortunately not long enough for any dreams to illuminate her unconscious mind and pinpoint her location for her brother, but her cab had rolled forward and clanked the bumper of the cab ahead.

She opened the car door and stepped dizzily out onto the noisy, crowded, ripplingly lit pavement, hoping that if she fainted again, the pain of the fall might wake her up, and she fumbled a little plastic bottle out of her shirt pocket and chewed up two crosstops, amphetamine capsules.