Now he wished the Probe hadn’t been repainted white. Driving it in daylight was like bareback-riding Moby Dick. He’d never let Woody see him with the cap on. That might set Wetherly’s retired cop instincts on edge. What did Matt have to hide?
Plenty, now that he’d glimpsed a ghost at the nudie bar. And now Matt was wondering if Woody had something to hide. He hung back far down the block, watching the beater of a different color he’d tailed to Woody’s doorstep. He’d backed into an empty driveway with a screen of yuccas and waited for the beater car to leave.
The ancient Chevy was ugly enough to be a stand-out, yet a common sight. The dry Las Vegas climate allowed cars to cruise its streets for decades, even automotive dinosaurs just past the tail-fin stage, huge and wallowing, with trunks big enough to convey the cast of Le Miz. This seventies beauty had originally been a deep moss green, but the sun had bleached the car’s paint job into a dull pea green pocked with dark gray, psoriatic spots.
Although Matt was too far away to see the driver, his features were burned into Matt’s retinas. He was wearing the same ubiquitous baseball cap so useful for shading features and concealing hair, only this one had a greasy, graying ponytail trailing through the circle at the back.
Matt might have glimpsed a sparse soul patch above his chin. Or not. Either way, he was unshaven in a way that said “lazy” rather than trying for a fashionable stubbled look.
Age? Hard to tell. He had the slouching lope of an idler, but it could have as easily been an adolescent affectation as a sixtyish spinal curve. Something about him said “smoker”, although Matt had never gotten close enough to tell or smell…hadn’t dared to get that close in case he was recognized back.
Now, it was getting dark and that scabrous car had been parked outside Woody’s house for a couple hours.
No less a law enforcement power than homicide lieutenant C. R. Molina had referred Matt to Wetherly as a possible source of information on old-time Vegas crime figures. Had she been helping him out, as Matt expected? Or setting him up in some way?
Molina had been pretty grim about something. She’d warned him against obstructing the law, at the same time as she’d sent him on a path that led to a nudie bar, of all places for an ex-priest to “frequent”. Vegas entertainment venues equated getting “naughtier” with getting “nakeder”. Even now the Circle Ritz population was reeling in deep legal trouble with an adult entertainment venture moving into the neighborhood, along with a truly nasty murder.
Matt spotted a shadow moving off Woody’s old porch and around to the car’s street side. Matt’s prey was on the move. Matt started the Probe and drove a block over before taking the same direction. This older neighborhood didn’t have confusing curved streets and cul-de-sacs, like the newer suburb of Henderson.
The familiar grid structure would allow Matt to avoid cruising past Wetherly’s house in his own distinctive ride. Matt shook his head. Now that his prey had turned up at his recent mentor’s home, Matt needed a second tailing car…or maybe a partner in tailing. Rafi Nadir came to mind. Someone had sicced Nadir on Matt, probably “for his own good”. Could have been Molina. Or Max Kinsella before he’d left town, and probably the country.
Matt checked his rearview mirror. No vehicle was remotely near in this sleepy neighborhood occupied by aging people who’d paid off their modest mortgages years ago.
At the next cross street he spotted the Chevy’s broad, undistinguished rear. The seventies sure manufactured ugly cars. Now that the sky was growing dim, Matt realized a white vehicle was a liability for nighttime tailing too.
Ninety minutes later Matt found himself back in Las Vegas, scratching his head. The Chevy had made a round trip almost to where it had started in Wetherly’s neighborhood.
The driver had headed toward Red Rock Canyon, a popular tourist area north of Summerlin housing development, what was left of Howard Hughes-owned land in the valley. The canyon was thirty minutes outside of Vegas, so Matt had no trouble fading into the bus and SUV traffic.
Then the Chevy jolted off-road east into the desert just before the canyon, on a rough ranch road like many nameless paths branching off. The slow sunset in the west painted what was naturally orange-red by day a deep blood-red scarlet.
Matt could hardly stop watching the National Geographic-quality panoramic scene to keep an eye on his quarry. He had to bring Temple out here some evening as a surprise. Not long after they met, as he was fumbling toward his first romantic relationship after years of priestly celibacy, Temple had brought him out into the desert for a make-up “prom date”. There’d been champagne and appetizers and some great CD music she’d selected.
“We’ve Got Tonight” by Bob Seger was now his favorite song. They’d “danced” and then they’d “made out” in the innocent fifties version of the phrase.
The memory had Matt’s libido sizzling. He’d hardly known what to do then, but now he could imagine a pre-wedding dessert rendezvous at this same hour that would match the sunset for beauty and heat and seal their love for eternity.
Matt shook off the potent combo of scenic overdose, romance and lust. Sam Spade wouldn’t be plotting to sweep “some dame” off her feet on a stakeout.
There was just enough light for him to see the driver bent over near a camel-shaped rock, digging something up.
A body?
Whatever it was required heaving into the seventies Chevy’s huge trunk. The heavy steel frame did the car equivalent of “grunting”. It swayed low for a moment.
Matt sensed departure and drove farther down the road. Tourist time was over so he did a Uey on the empty main road, pulled the Probe onto the southbound shoulder, and crouched by the front wheel well.
He stood up, gimme cap low over his bowed face as the Chevy turned south on the main road and headed back to Vegas. Even a white car was shadowy in this deep a dusk, and a driver who’d changed a tire or had a bit of trouble would be expected to limp back into town after one of the few vehicles heading that way.
It played like Matt had laid it down in his mind.
Until…
The Chevy ended up, not at Wetherly’s place, but in an empty parking lot very near…the Circle Ritz.
The big dark car pulled up cozy-close to the semipermanent construction RV near the building. And didn’t exit the car.
Matt parked the Probe down the street, noticing a faint light from the building’s second-story windows. The murder scene.
Holy Christ. What was going on here? Well, he’d just have to do what Jesus had told his Disciples. Wait and watch.
He had a feeling he’d be glad the Lord was with him before this night was over.
38
Psychrisis
Most of us guys do not go in for this psychosomatic stuff—you know, supposed sixth sense abilities like precognition, clairvoyance, astral projection, telekinesis, telepathy and the like.
I must say my breed is more sensitive than most to unseen things, but that is because our vision operates on multiple focus, our spidery vibrissae sense every little stir in the atmosphere, and our spines are so agile that we are noted for always landing on our feet, which results in the belief of some that we have nine lives. I admit that we do seem to possess a mystical mojo.
However, I pooh-pooh “woo-woo” on principle. I do not wish to be taken for a ditsy dame of any species. Although I will admit to having plenty of telegenesis…that is not a real word, just a wee bit of word-play on my once and future career as an ace TV commercial personality.