Charlene leaves to search the Internet for Sri Lankan cobra venom info, Fionna starts typing, I grab my lock pick set just in case I need it and then join Xavier in the hallway to the foyer.
“What’s with the lock pick set?” he says. “Used to be you could use a safety pin, a needle, a paper clip, the prong of your belt buckle, a barrette… You must be out of practice.”
I sigh, set it aside, and pick up a pen. “How about the spring from this?”
“Works for me.” He holds the front door open for me. “We can take my RV?”
“Or we can take my Aston Martin.”
“I was hoping you’d say that.”
Disarray
We take my Skyfall Silver Aston Martin DB9.
I drive.
The streets are quiet.
A stark azure sky watches over my city, and it’s as breathtaking as ever.
I’ll never get tired of seeing the vast, cloudless Nevada skies. If you visit Vegas and spend all your time on the Strip and see only its lush palm trees lining the streets, you’d never guess that we only get four and a half inches of rain a year, that we’re located in the middle of the Mojave Desert.
A stunning amount of water goes into creating the illusion that this is a tropical paradise. Gray water and Astroturf.
A mirage in the desert.
But the sky is not a mirage.
It is stunningly, marvelously real.
Out here in southern Nevada, it’s clear nearly every day, which is one reason the Air Force has such a strong presence in the region. No hurricanes. No tornadoes. No blizzards. Just wide-open, endless blue skies, perfect for flying and, as Xavier has pointed out to me more than once, for testing experimental aircraft.
Although some people need to be at work early, nearly everyone in Vegas is involved somehow in the entertainment business, and the city doesn’t really start stirring until nine or so, even later on a Saturday. Although the casinos are open twenty-four hours, quite a few businesses don’t open until ten o’clock.
We keep different hours than most of America.
Actually, we keep the hours most of America would like to keep.
Before jumping onto I-15, our route takes us past 3650 West Russell Road, which is where Copperfield’s “secret” magic museum is. He has semis parked beside it that say “The Magic of David Copperfield,” so it’s a tad obvious who owns the building. The place used to have a sign out front that read “Butchie’s Bras and Girdles.”
His semis with his name emblazoned on the side were parked in the lot the whole time then too, so I’m not sure how many people he was fooling with the lingerie sign.
Before continuing on to Emilio’s house, I need to stop for gas. While I’m pumping, Xavier places both hands firmly against the metal support beam holding up the roof above the gas pumps, closes his eyes, and breathes in deeply.
“Um, what are you doing, Xav?”
“Discharging my static electricity. You can blow up or start on fire.” He eyes me. “Haven’t you ever read the warnings there next to the gas pumps? It can be fatal.”
“You, of all people, are concerned about an explosion?”
“I like my explosions controlled.”
“Xavier, how many times have you heard of anyone blowing up or starting on fire because he didn’t discharge his static electricity at a gas pump? Or maybe, I’ve got it: keeping the deaths a secret is a Big Oil conspiracy so people won’t be afraid to pump.”
He nods at me knowingly. “Now you’re actually starting to make sense.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Go ahead, discharge your static electricity, you’ll feel better about it.”
“I’ve never discharged my electricity in front of another guy before.”
“I won’t look.” He turns away; I go ahead and discharge my static electricity. I’m not sure how long it should take. I count to five. “I don’t really feel any safer,” I tell him when I’m done.
“Well at least you won’t blow me up. So, I was meaning to ask you, do you have anything special planned for Thursday?”
I join him by the car and wait for the tank to finish filling. “Thursday?”
“Valentine’s Day. With Charlene.”
“Oh. Right.”
“So?”
I top off the tank, replace the nozzle into its slot at the pump. “Not really.”
“So, not at all.”
“Pretty much.”
“You better come up with something special. You know how women can be about Valentine’s Day.”
I close the gas cover, snag the receipt. “Do you have anything special planned?”
“Why would I?”
“Just asking.”
We climb into the car. “About who? With who?”
“Oh, I don’t know. A red-haired hacker mom, maybe.”
A blip of silence. “Nope. I don’t have anything special planned.”
“Well, you know how women can be about Valentine’s Day.”
“She’s not expecting anything from me. I mean, why would she?”
I shrug. “Beats me.”
“Mm-hmm.” A pause. “You think I should get her something?”
“I think she wouldn’t mind if you did.”
I direct the DB9 toward Emilio’s house, and after a little internal debate I decide to go ahead and bring up what’s been on my mind. “Xav, back at the house this morning, before Charlene came downstairs, she asked me if I was thinking about her when I jumped off that cliff in the Philippines.”
“What did you tell her?”
“The truth.”
“Which was?”
“That I wasn’t thinking about her. That I was just thinking about stopping that guy, Agcaoili.”
He shakes his head disparagingly. “The truth can get you into serious trouble, amigo.”
“Yeah, no kidding.”
“But”—now he points an admonishing finger at me—“it’s always a lot less trouble than telling a lie.”
“That might be debatable under certain circumstances, but I hear what you’re saying.”
“Buddy, if you’re looking for relationship advice, I’m the wrong guy to come to. You know that.”
Xavier never married but was left standing at the altar once when he was thirty-two, and as far as I know he never got close to proposing again in the two decades since. He rarely speaks about that day, and I know better than to bring it up. I’m not even sure Charlene and Fionna know about that part of his history.
“Well then,” I press him, “maybe a little perspective at least.”
I can tell he’s carefully evaluating what to say. “Someone once told me that you can tell what’s important to a person by looking at three things — his calendar, his checkbook, and his refrigerator door.”
“Okay.”
“Let’s leave your calendar and checkbook out of this for a minute. Just take the fridge door. You still have photos of Rachel and your boys up there. From that trip to Disney World.”
I still study that photo at least once a week, looking for hints of depression on Rachel’s face, or threads of anger, or something, anything, hidden there that might serve as a clue to what she was about to do only two weeks later.
But all I ever see is a loving mother, a caring wife.
“Yeah.” I’m not sure I want to be talking about my dead family right now. “I know.”
“And you still have the picture up there that Andrew drew of your family.”
Of course I know the one he’s talking about: the drawing with stick figures of the four of us in the desert next to a tall cactus. In the picture, we’re all smiling and holding hands. A happy yellow sun shines down from the top right corner of the page. Andrew’s favorite animal was the turtle, and there are two green turtles walking toward us. Even the turtles are smiling in my son’s picture.