"How ... is he"
"What do you mean? I just told you."
"What sort of . . . health is he in? How does he look?'*
"Looks like a man who's been pushing his luck for forty years ought to look. Wrinkled skin, wrinkled suits. Slack but beefy. Got a whiskey nose that W.C. Fields would envy. He looks the wrong side of sixty from the wrong side of the tracks. Women all over this town have sworn out assault complaints, then they usually drop 'em, and it isn't because he's been sending them posies, except to the chops. He's been in jail, but he's never done anything bad enough to keep too long. One thing's certain: he never keeps that prize-winning whiskey nose clean when he gets out again. He's trouble, Mr. Devine. If I were you, I'd forget about finding him. Losers are sometimes best off staying lost."
"I have to find him."
"Sure." Eightball leaned back in the bench seat and pulled a slip of paper from his pants'
pocket. 'That's where he's staying now. Araby Motel. I don't recommend it for your visiting Aunt Sarabeth. I don't recommend it to a nice, clean-cut young fellow like you. I don't babysit, neither, so what you do with that address is up to you."
Matt nodded. He couldn't quite read Eightball's scrawl in the streetlamp, but he knew the information would be accurate.
"What do I owe you?"
"Enough to keep you from getting a car for a while. I make it about eight hundred dollars, give or take a few minutes between friends. Come see me after you visit the Araby Motel and we'll tote it up."
"Aren't you afraid that I might not make it?"
"I don't believe in bilking the dead, Mr. Devine, but I don't believe you're ready for that yet.
Jest don't act too easy. This guy is a hard case to crack."
I know," said Matt, getting out of the car. 'Thanks for your . . . discretion."
''Discretion is my middle name."
Matt slammed the door shut--today's cars sure didn't sound like that. He remembered his stepfather bragging about the solid slam of his car door, a dirty bronze-green '69 Olds Cutlass F85 that Matt would never forget for its smoky, sour smell, for the constant presence of rancid burger wrappers and stale newsprint, for the sounds of yelling, arguing, slapping. ...
Eightball O'Rourke's car gargled off. Matt pushed the hand holding the slip of paper into his pocket, as if afraid that someone would see it--at three o'clock in the morning?
As if afraid that he would see it.
He had his quarry in the palm of his hand now. What would he do? Eightball must be wondering that, too. That's why he had postponed payment. He wanted to hear the end of the story. He wanted to know who would be left standing. He was a born detective. He wanted answers more than he wanted solvency.
Matt smiled as he finished his short stroll toward the Crystal Phoenix. He was looking forward to Caviar's inquisitive greeting, her warm, winding presence and wide, unblinking golden eyes. She welcomed him without asking any unwelcome questions.
He was looking forward to the peace and quiet of his half-furnished rooms. Soon it would be four a.m. Time for lauds. Time for a prayer of thanksgiving. He who was lost, is found.
Too bad that Matt was no longer a shepherd, and that the man he sought had never been a sheep, but a wolf.
Nobody much mourns lost wolves.
Chapter 11
A Thrush in the Bush ...
"I'm sorry," Matt said. "I know I've left you dangling lately; at least I feel like I have."
"Is that what the Ethel M candy and this is all about?" Temple glanced around the restaurant, a dimly lit place as cozy as the small brass lamps that warmed every table, even their intimate, for-two model. "An apology?"
Matt's smile was softer than the incandescent light filtered through their lamp's pleated, mauve chiffon shade. "And I might need some help," was his sheepish answer.
"That's what friends are for," Temple said briskly, unrolling a forest green linen napkin that covered her meager lap like a lawn.
Despite her delight at Matt's sudden invitation to ''a nice dinner," despite this slightly hokey, undeniably romantic atmosphere, she wasn't going to make the classic Casablanca mistake of expecting too much. A kiss is just a kiss, after all.
Especially one committed at a high school prom held on the high desert more than fifteen years too late.
Matt moved his knife and spoon into more perfect union with the fork opposite, so they bracketed the empty, white linen space like spit-polished pewter soldiers on parade.
The "Blue Dahlia" was truly a find beyond the normal reach of a social novice like Matt, Temple thought. How on earth had Max Kinsella--master discoverer of the underestimated asset--missed this gem? Maybe the restaurant was too new; Max was definitely old news now.
Matt, on the other hand, was a front-page item, at least to her. Tonight he wore a lightweight ivory blazer she had never seen before over an open necked pale yellow shirt. She was glad she had broken out her green silk Hanae Mori dress; tonight might be an occasion, after all.
"After all you ... did for me," he was saying, "I feel that I've been derelict--"
"You're the world's worst delinquent all right, Devine," she interrupted. *'Listen: you didn't have to wine and dine me in retaliation for my makeshift prom night on the Big Sandy. That was just an experiment; me being a bit madcap . . . wild, impulsive creature that I am."
Her nonsense didn't break the ice, for there was none, but it broke through the thin skin of self-justification that was draping Matt like a cocoon. Temple hated apologies, especially when they were unnecessary.
Maybe her tactic worked, for Matt decided to quit tiptoeing around the reason for this evening out like a wild duck waddling around the dangerous puzzle of an ice-fishing hole. He inched his spoon a trifle closer to the knife--now was that a Freudian slip or what? Temple speculated--took a visible breath and began.
''I didn't end up in Las Vegas by accident. Temple."
She refrained from saying, too bad, and adding that she had always figured him to be a member of Gamblers Anonymous on the run from a cabal of mob accountants in New Jersey.
"I'm , . . looking for someone," he said.
She refrained from saying that almost everybody is.
'I'm . . . looking for a man."
Oh, no! Was this true confession time? Had Matt discovered that he was gay, after all? Well, hell, a thoroughly modern woman could use a good gay friend or two, of either sex, but it helped a lot if she didn't find them physically attractive. Temple sipped from her water goblet, trying to keep the ice cubes from clicking against her teeth. They were sexy, crystal- clear ice cubes, too, probably made with distilled water. Oh, well. The Blue Dahlia made an ideal romantic rendezvous, but there was no point in being flattered now.
"I've never been here before." Matt had noticed her looking around. ''I hope it's all right."
'Terrific." Temple resisted the urge to let a cold cube slide into her mouth so she could crack her teeth down on it and see if het fillings held.
''He's my father."
"Huh?" Temple was startled enough to scan the room again.
"The man I'm looking for," Matt said patiently.
Temple prided herself on not letting any relief show, although underneath the table her toes uncurled against the satin-smooth purple leather lining her best Kelly-green high heels. "Why the big secret, then?"
Matt wasn't quite listening, at least to her. "He's my stepfather, actually."
She nodded. This was going to be a complex night, given how Matt was leaking vital information at 33 1/3 speed. Laser disc, lightning-fast he was not.