“Not luck,” I contradicted. “More like bad timing on his part.”
“Yeah,” Glottis said. “I usually took the Bone Wagon out on Mondays.”
“And the Lambada sailed Wednesday,” I added.
“And you left on the Limbo on Friday,” Meche finished. “Well,” she said, “maybe he was just hedging his bet. If you didn’t take the bait, he’d take you out of circulation this way.”
“That’s probably it, sweetheart,” I said. “Trouble is…”
“…that doesn’t solve our problem,” Glottis said, finishing my thought.
“No kidding,” I said, exasperated. Not with Glottis or Meche, of course, but with the whole damn situation. “We don’t dare fiddle with those wires while the switch is there. The Bone Wagon’s too close to the ground for any of us to crawl under and remove the switch, and we can’t jack up the car or raise it up with the shocks with the switch still there.”
“Great,” Meche said. “So now what? Do we take a bus?”
“We can’t leave things like this, Manny!” Glottis protested.
“I agree,” I said. “If we don’t take care of this somehow, we’ll be responsible for whatever happens down the line.”
“So… how do we take care of it?” Meche asked when no one else said anything further.
“How did Mr. Hurley ever fit this thing in the first place?” Glottis wondered out loud.
“The switch was probably useless until the wires were attached,” I said. “My guess is they don’t just set off the bomb if the engine is started—they also complete the circuit the switch needs to work.” I saw the questioning look Meche was giving me. “Carla,” I said. “She learned about bombs as part of her job.” I shrugged. “She liked to talk shop.” When she wasn’t griping about Meche, that is.
“So maybe Miss Ashburn could help,” Glottis suggested, in his usual formal way. “She’s smaller than Miss Colomar, you know.”
“We didn’t part on good terms, you know,” I said, in my usual sarcastic way.
“Neither will our arms and legs if we don’t take care of this thing,” he retorted, one-upping me in sarcasm.
“I’ll try the Blue Casket first,” I said.
Meche stopped me before I got to the doors. “Why there?” she asked.
“Well, if my old cell is still around, that’s the best place to start looking for them. If they can’t cope with this, they’ll know someone who can. And if I can’t find them,” I shrugged, “well, I always got the feeling there was more to Olivia than she let on.”
“She was probably just putting on an act,” Meche said.
“Yeah, well, so was I. Be back soon. Don’t sneeze,” I said to Glottis.
“Heh.”
I started walking to the Blue Casket. Assuming it was still there. I kept looking around and especially behind me. Not for Toto; but for what, I didn’t know. Something seemed a little off. It took a while before I finally figured it out. There weren’t enough people. It wasn’t that late. There should have been quite a crowd, but there wasn’t. I could see the lights of the cat track and could faintly hear the roar of the crowd. Max was still in business, at least. The Day of the Dead was over, so everyone who had visited their families ought to be back by now. The town should have been jumping, but wasn’t. It was damned weird.
My route to the Blue Casket took me past Velasco’s office. The old buzzard was perched outside his door, smoking his pipe and staring up at the moon. He did a Cagney double-take when I came into view.
“Manuel Calavera!?” he exclaimed. He started to laugh. “Well… what happened to the Limbo?”
“Oh, hate to tell you, Velasco, but she went down at the Pearl.” I didn’t feel up to telling him about the name change.
“Sorry to hear that, son. She was a good boat.”
“That she was,” I said, walking over to where Velasco sat in a battered chair outside his office door. “Things are kinda quiet around here,” I added as I leaned against an old barrel nearby that had never seemed to serve any other purpose.
Velasco shifted position. “Yeah,” was all he said.
“The Blue Casket still in business?”
“Sure,” Velasco answered. “That Ofrenda dame’s like part of the furnishings, you know?”
“So, does Alexi’s little gang still hang out there?” I tried to ask casually.
There was a pause before Velasco answered. “Well, I ain’t heard much about ’em since the strike,” he finally said. “Some folks say they lit out for El Marrow to stir up trouble there. Can’t say for sure, though.”
“Yeah, I heard a little about that strike aboard ship. It got pretty nasty, going by what the papers said.”
“Worst trouble I’d ever seen in my time, son. They clamped down hard.” Velasco looked around in a cautious-seeming way. “A mite too hard, you could say,” he then said in a softer tone.
I scratched my jaw, thinking about the things Velasco didn’t seem willing to say out loud. Even though the Bone Wagon was a crisis, I needed to know the scene, and I didn’t much like what I was hearing so far. “I ran into Toto on the way over,” I said. “He didn’t look so good.”
“He never was very pretty to look at,” Velasco said with a laugh, then sighed, “but I know what you mean, son. He’s had a rough time of it since you blew outta town. He found out about Lola and…” he shrugged, “…well, I guess he had some real feelings for her under that crotchety-bastard act of his. He’s been hiding out from Virago, so his business has slid a little, but he’s really gone downhill just in the last few days.”
“Yeah? Why’s that?”
“Oh, well, Virago left town for El Marrow, and rumor has it he bought himself a Double-N ticket and cruised right on out of this shit-house of a world.”
I started laughing. Velasco looked at me like he thought I’d gone nuts. I didn’t care. Maybe I was nuts. “That’s fucking perfect,” I said with more laughter, “the best damn news yet! You can tell Toto the next time you see him… I have it on the best authority that money can’t change your destiny.”
“Yeah? What kind of authority?” Velasco asked, sounding merely curious.
“I’ve been to the end of the line,” I said, “and I’ve even seen what happens to people who’re stupid enough to buy Double-N tickets.”
“So, why’d you come back here for?” Velasco asked with a short, sharp laugh. “Did’ja leave the gas on, or somethin’?”
“I’m trying to help some people out,” I said. “I found them after the Limbo went down. They were kind of stranded. Still are, in a way.”
“Stranded? As in shipwrecked?!” Velasco snapped, sounding more concerned than anything else. “How’d you get ’em out with the Limbo sunk?”
“We found a new ship, the SS La Mancha, and managed to—”
Velasco suddenly got very animated. “La Mancha?” he asked excitedly. “My old rusty bucket!? Where is she?”
“Oh, well, we sold her in Puerto Zapato and—”
“That does it!” Velasco exclaimed, knocking out his pipe and stuffing it into a pocket. “I’m out of this stinkin’ mob town!” He strode away before I could react.
“But,” I stammered, “I… mob town?” I stood up, shook my skull, and continued on my way to the Blue Casket.
The joint didn’t look any different from the outside than I remembered it. And yet, somehow, it did. I couldn’t put my finger on why, but every minute that passed made me more and more uncomfortable with Rubacava. I didn’t much like the feeling.