19 triangles equals 282437346.
He dug out his wallet, found his Social Security card, examined it, and added hyphens accordingly.
282-43-7346.
Where did the 19 triangles come in? And what good was a Social Security number, anyway?
Oh.
Forget the triangles, and use all eleven digits, and move the hyphens around a little…
1-928-243-7346.
Oh.
Northern Arizona. 928 was the area code for northern Arizona.
He didn’t know anybody in northern Arizona. He didn’t know anybody anywhere in Arizona, not that he could think of. The last time he could remember being anywhere in the state was a while ago, and he’d gone to Tucson on business. The person he was seeking had lived in a gated community surrounding a members-only golf course. Tucson was in southern Arizona, and its area code was 520.
As far as he could see, there were three possibilities.
First, it was all coincidence. That was impossible, because even the long arm of coincidence had a limited reach. It was too complicated a coincidence, of the sort it would take for a monkey at a typewriter to produce Hamlet. Even if he started out okay, sooner or later you’d get a line that read, “To be or not to be, that is the gezorgenplatz.”
Second, the message was from Dot. True, she was dead, but she’d found a way to communicate from beyond the grave. She’d ruled out materializing in front of him, or whispering in his ear, because she’d figured it would spook him, so instead she’d come up with this brilliant idea of running a cryptic ad in Linn’s. But that was impossible, too, because how could someone in the spirit world get an ad in a newspaper?
Third, the message was from the irrepressible Call-Me-Al. He’d know about Keller’s hobby, because it was probably his bully boys who’d carted the collection away. He’d know Keller’s initials, even if he didn’t know that they stood for Just Plain Keller, and he could have hit on Just Plain Klassics by coincidence. But, even if that struck him as a reasonable way to continue the hunt for Keller, would he go so far as to disguise the phone number, counting on Keller to puzzle it out? I mean, why bother? He didn’t have to worry that someone else would get wind of him. All he had to do was put the bait out there and wait for Keller to take the hook.
Anyway, it was flat-out impossible that he would have included the toxic-waste business. Dot and Keller were the only two people on the planet to whom that would make any sense. The case was an old one, and everybody connected with it was long dead, and the murder weapon, if you were hung up on coincidence, was at the bottom of the same river that received the Nissan Sentra, albeit hundreds of miles to the north. And Dot wouldn’t have given up the phrase toxic waste, not even under torture, because it would never occur to her. “Now, woman, give us something to draw him in, or we’ll pull out your toenails.” “Toxic waste, toxic waste!” Yeah, right. Not a chance.
So there were three possibilities, and they were all impossible.
One more possibility. Dot, before she was killed, decided to make a run for it. First, though, she wanted to set things up so she could get a message to Keller when the time came. And how could she do that? Why, through an ad in Linn’s, and a phone number left on a website, something he could access without leaving a trail.
You could set up a website and it would stay up unattended for a long time. You could place a Linn’s ad, pay a whole year or more in advance, and just let it run until it ran out. And maybe the website was under construction, maybe she’d planned to make things a little clearer for Keller. Maybe she’d done this early on, setting up the site, ordering the ad, and then the bastards broke in and killed her, and the ad and the website were out there to no purpose. And, until Julia brought home the paper, to no effect.
Was all of this possible? He didn’t know, and couldn’t think about it anymore. Because no matter how much thought he gave it, when all was said and done there was really only one thing to do.
He found a place where he could buy a prepaid cell phone, and made sure it was set to block caller ID. The police might be capable of determining where the phone was when the call was placed, but it wasn’t the police who had run the ad or set up the website, and if Al had such technological forces at his command, well, that was just a chance Keller would have to take.
Even so, he got on I-10 and drove halfway to Baton Rouge before pulling into a gas station and making the call.
He was expecting no answer at all, or maybe coo-wheeeet!, but on the third ring someone picked up. And then a voice he’d never expected to hear again said, “I just hope this isn’t another damn telemarketer in Bangalore. Well? Whoever you are, say something.”
32
“I know what you thought,” she said, “because what else could you think? But now’s not the time to go into it. I thought the same about you, as far as that goes. Where are you, and how long will it take you to get out here?”
“Flagstaff, Arizona?”
“How did — oh, the area code. Well, not Flagstaff, but that’s close enough. Flagstaff’s got an airport, but it might be easier to fly to Phoenix and drive up. Or for all I know you’re close enough to drive the whole way. Where are you, anyway?”
In for a penny, in for a pound. “New Orleans,” he said, “but as far as coming out there, it’s not easy for me to get away.”
“You’re all right, aren’t you? Not under lock and key, for God’s sake.”
“No, nothing like that, but it’s complicated.”
“Oh? In that case I’ll come to you. The only thing to stop me is a hair appointment, and that shouldn’t be too hard to get out of. Give me your number, I’ll get right back to you… Keller? Where’d you go?”
“I’m here.”
“So?”
“I just got this phone,” he said, “and there’s got to be a card somewhere with the number on it, but I don’t know what happened to it.”
“That’s the last word in unlisted numbers,” Dot said, “where even the owner himself can’t track it down. But don’t get too cocky, because somewhere in India there’s a little guy who’s going to call you on it and try to sell you Viagra. Here’s what we’ll do. You call me. Give me an hour, and by then I’ll know when I’m getting in and where I’m staying. And don’t worry if you can’t find my number. Just press the Redial button and that clever little phone of yours will do the rest.”
An hour later he learned that she wouldn’t be coming for three days, and he thought he’d wait a day or two to figure out what to tell Julia. He drove home and Julia met him in front of the house. She said the weather forecast was for rain but it didn’t feel like rain, and what did he think? He said he couldn’t really say one way or the other. She said neither could she, not really, and was there something on his mind?
“Dot’s alive,” he said.
The weather forecast turned out to be on the money. It started raining late that afternoon and kept raining on and off for the next three days. It never reached downpour proportions, but it never quite cleared up, either, and he had to use the windshield wipers driving downtown to Dot’s hotel.
She had booked herself into the Intercontinental. He brought his new cell phone along and called her after he’d turned his truck over to the valet, and she met him in the lobby and took him up to her room. Two other guests shared the elevator with them, so they didn’t say a word until they got off on her floor.