The isolated looks of the men at the U-shaped counter changed into interested, lively looks. The girl had redeemed us all, at least for a few minutes. She’d reacquainted some of us with our lust. For the more romantic, including me, she’d stirred not only lust but that great longing for something resembling true love. She was nice enough to bless each of us with her version of a papal smile (Bless you, my horny lost children) and to stretch a little bit every once in a while so we could see the lift of her small but lovely breasts.
She ate quickly. Probably had a date.
We all took turns pretending not to watch her.
And then she stood up.
She paid her bill and turned toward the door, which she got halfway open before stumbling. It’s something we all do, unless we’re Fred Astaire or Gene Kelly. But usually nothing happens.
We right ourselves and continue on stumbling through.
Then it happened.
First, her entire left side sank down a couple of inches. And then her sweet bow-shaped mouth opened to let out a small sharp cry of pain.
Damned near every one of us came off our counter stools.
What had happened was that she’d not only twisted her ankle, she’d also snapped off the heel of her pump.
We all pushed and shoved to be the one who got to help her back to her seat. The Three Stooges would have been proud of the melee we created. Even with her pain she was able to smile at what dopes men were.
The waitress poured her a free cup of coffee. A man who claimed to have been a medic in the navy had the pleasure of feeling up the ankle she’d turned. Another man offered to drive her to the hospital. Apparently he thought she was in need of some heavy-duty surgery.
You never can tell about sprained ankles. One minute the person’s fine and dandy; the next minute there they are, laid out on the floor, waiting for a funeral home director to stick a red rose in their pale dead fingers. Those darned sprained ankles.
I got out of there and drove around for a time, melancholy as always at dusk. Mostly I thought of Linda and how attached I felt to her after only a few dates. But that appeared to be another brief relationship in a life of brief relationships.
And then I had a thought I should have had some time ago. You don’t need to hit me over the head with a board. You need to hit me over the head with a board and an anvil.
Shoes.
The redhead in the diner had lost her heel.
Jamie had soiled her brushed leather flat.
And Rita Scully had stains on her new desert boots that could easily have come from oil.
Rita knew where Egan kept his car in his aunts’ backyard. Easy enough to sneak in there and cut the brake line, late on some moonless night.
But the ground was soaked with oil from Egan working on his car all the time.
A quick way to stain a brand new pair of light-colored desert boots.
The stables were closed for the night. Moonlight traced the two-story stucco house where the Scullys lived. The light in the windows looked warm and comfortable against the autumn night. The stars sent me all the usual greetings and warnings and reassurances that I’d never been able to understand.
There’d be frost for sure in a few hours.
I parked on the gravel road on the hill below the stables. I went down to a narrow dry creek then up a burr-filled hillside to a barbed-wire fence that just might have been as old as I was.
Even from here I could smell the horse manure and the hay from the barn. The business office, which is where I wanted to go, was dark. Probably locked. Good thing a client of mine, headed back to prison and in no need of them, had given me his burglary tools. Even so, he still owed me $350, which I would see just about the time we put a man or woman on Pluto.
A few minutes later, I joined the stained shoe club. I stepped in horseshit so fresh I actually skidded half a foot or so on it.
It was sort of like ice skating, sort of.
I’d had this fear that the horses would hear me or smell me or take some kind of psychic notice of me and start whinnying their asses off.
Apparently, they were all watching Tv or reading because they didn’t so much as whimper as I crossed in front of the barn doors.
I ducked behind the office and then peeked out again at the lighted windows. I couldn’t see any shadow figures moving behind the curtains but I could hear a burst of laughter and then what sounded like somebody talking loudly to a person up the inside stairs.
I spent a minute trying to get the crap off my shoe by running it through a patch of grass.
I’m not sure it helped much but it made me feel in control of the situation-take that, horseshit-and that’s all that matters.
The only tense moment was getting the door open. I have six picks and three keys. And of course the one I wanted was the last one I tried. I kept glancing up at the house.
Nobody seemed to be peering out.
I got the door open, feeling pretty damned clever, and then I half jumped inside.
I hadn’t taken into account what the effect of horse poop could have on the sole of an oxford when it came in contact with a linoleum floor.
Before I could get the door closed, which would at least have muffled the sound, I slid and tripped forward, cartwheeling my arms as I slammed into the side of a tall metal storage cabinet, the one next to where Rita kept all her shoes and boots lined up. I also said a dirty word.
Well, I didn’t say a dirty word. I shouted a dirty word.
And then I held my breath, like a tot who can’t have another piece of cake and so decides to take his own life right in front of his mommy and show her, by God, what happens to mean, selfish women like her.
Oh, did I hold my breath.
I expected Mr. Scully to come running out here with a couple of flame-throwers and a boxful of grenades. Cliffie would love this, me being caught breaking into some place with burglary tools. And the judge would fire me for sure.
Nothing happened.
I can’t say I was disappointed but I was surprised. The house wasn’t that far away.
Surely they must have heard-But apparently not.
Now I needed to move and move quickly. I dug out the tiny flashlight I carry with me to use in such circumstances-and to check out the tonsils of the girls I date when they say they’re not feeling well and guess they’ll go home early-and the shoes and boots weren’t there.
A few minutes later, I was completing my search of the office when somebody snapped the ceiling light on.
“I could shoot you and get away with it, you know that, don’t you?”
I turned and looked at Rita Scully.
“Three murders aren’t enough, Rita?”
“Oh, shit, McCain. Give it a rest.”
She came in, walked over to her desk, sat down, and said, “How the hell’d you get in here?”
“Where are the boots?”
“What boots?”
“The boots that were lined up against the wall over there.”
“I took them up to the house.”
“Why?”
“Why? What difference does it make to you?”
“A lot of difference. Now tell me why you took those boots up to the house.”
“You are one goofy sonofabitch, you know that?”
“The desert boots Donny Hughes bought you.
Those are the ones I want to see.”
“The desert-” She stopped herself and a cold, superior smile made her particular kind of loveliness hard and mean. “You mean these?”
She pushed back from the desk in her chair and then set both of her desert boots on her desk. “Pretty exciting boots, huh?”
“I thought they were too small for you.”
“My dad let me use these stretchers he had. That helped a lot.” She waggled one of the boots at me. “Pretty exciting, huh, McCain?”
I peered down at it. “Oil stain.”
“Exactly right. If this were a game show, you’d win a refrigerator.”