“I’m not going to let some stranger take away my last gun.”
“I didn’t think so.”
With this Joan braked and downshifted, then threw the little coupe into a tire-screeching U-turn that ran them onto the dirt shoulder, then back to the pavement. When they passed the bikers coming up the mountain, Joan honked her horn on the way by. She looked into the rearview and smiled as if she’d really shown them.
She pulled into the motel lot and drove to his cabin. Rovanna looked out where the headlights hit his front door. “Would you like to come in?”
“No, thank you.”
“I want to thank you for helping me.”
“I don’t feel like I’ve done enough.”
“I never feel like I’ve done enough.”
“Bible. Meds. No Stren. No book fair. Pray, Lonnie, pray with all your heart. Start simple, with these seven words: I thank and praise God. Help us. That’s all you need to say.”
“Can I kiss you?”
“Open your door.”
Rovanna unslung his harness and opened his door, then turned to kiss her only to find the sole of her lace-up boot planted in the middle of his chest. She pushed him out of the car so hard he flew halfway to the cabin before hitting the ground butt-first. He felt the strength of five men in her. He crabbed away, momentarily belly up and on all fours, then struggled upright, pissed off. He felt his anger and shame flare and his face flush. He marched forward and braced himself with one hand on the door frame in case she tried anything else and, without taking his eyes off her, he snatched his shopping bag from the floor mat.
“God will bless you if you let him, Lonnie Rovanna. He has spoken to you through me.”
He slammed the car door and didn’t look back. But he did peek out the cabin door half an hour later, just to see if there were tire tracks in the packed dirt where Joan had let him off. Hard to say. So he stepped onto the landing and looked down in the dim porch light and saw what could very well be the neat narrow tracks of an economy car. And he saw a two-orbed impression right where he remembered landing, hard, at least ten feet away from the car tracks. He thought of her astonishing strength and the smell of cherries. An incredible woman. She had known exactly what he was thinking while he stood in the freezing little creek. Still, he knew that he was not sane and that sometimes he saw things that weren’t really there. Then, almost embarrassedly, he turned square to the porch light and looked down at his sweatshirt. There it was, plain to see, the proof he wanted-the dirty outline of her boot on his chest.
21
The following night, in the stately, chandeliered lobby of the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles, Mike greeted Bradley with a strong hug and a grand smile. His tuxedo was notch-lapelled and expertly fitted and somehow gave him added height. With Mike was his lovely associate Owens, inches taller than he was, in a sleek pewter-colored dress that matched her eyes. Pearls around her neck. Bradley hadn’t seen her since she came to visit Erin, shortly after helping her survive the ordeal in Yucatan four months ago. He took her hands and kissed her cheek and glanced at the scars on her wrists and furtively inhaled the scent of her though he tried not to.
“I like your new dental work,” she said.
He’d certainly needed it after Yucatan. “The new teeth complete my smile.”
“And I like your conservative haircut. Are you an old-fashioned conservative, or just one of the new ones out to wreck the country?”
“I love this country. And look at you-the same old beauty you always were.”
“Why, thank you. I hope you don’t find it tiresome.”
“Boys and girls?” Mike handed Owens a small silver flask and she smiled, then sipped.
Bradley took it and swirled and smelled it. Cream? Cucumbers? Mint? It was perhaps nonalcoholic and very cold, in spite of being inside Mike’s breast pocket. Bradley thought of the absinthe bar he’d had at his and Erin’s wedding down in Valley Center. What a night. And another day and another night and morning until the last celebrants were gone. Tents in the hills and all the guest casitas full and someone getting the fighting bulls drunk and letting them out of the corral. They’d made Bacchus proud. “What is this stuff?”
“Let’s head down to the basement ballroom,” said Mike, swiping back the flask. “We can hit the bar for an ordinary drink and work the crowd.”
Owens fell arm-in-arm between the men. They swept down the broad stairway toward the downstairs ballrooms, and with each step Bradley felt lighter and more confident and even more clear in the head. What was that stuff? He felt like stripping to his briefs and diving off a ten-meter board. Just before hitting the water he’d arch his back and spread his arms and fly down to Buenavista, knock out Hood with a left uppercut and zoom back here with Erin on his back. For some reason a conversation he’d had with his mother came back to him now, word for word, their voices exactly as they’d sounded when he was five, like someone was playing a tape of it in his head.
“Exactly what crowd will be here?” asked Bradley. “The marquee in the lobby had New England Dental Association, Model Train International, and Western States Fabrication and Manufacture.”
“The last,” said Mike.
“People in your bathroom-products business?”
“Well, in all fields of fabrication and manufacture, Bradley.” Downstairs Mike flagged a waiter and a moment later their three drinks arrived. Bradley got a Bombay martini up with a twist and told himself to go easy on the booze tonight. Mike had gotten him a room but his plan was to leave early and make Buenavista by midnight. He had a full tank in the Cayenne, a “maybe” from Erin, and a nine-o’clock phone call scheduled. He had no doubt that she would want to see him.
The ballroom was crowded and an orchestra played. There were tables set up for dinner but not many people yet seated. Some were dancing. To Bradley there seemed to be no dress code at all. On the men he saw tuxedos, dinner jackets like his own, suits and sport coats and slacks, open-collared shirts without ties, polo and rugby shirts, work shirts with names stitched on the chests, guys in aloha shirts and shorts and flip-flops. The women had a generally higher level of presentation-mostly dresses and suits-but he did see two women dressed in 1890s prairie calico and heavy boots; and three others in buckskins and moccasins festooned with beads and feathers; and two more wearing sheer bathing suit cover-ups over bikinis, and heeled sandals with rhinestones across the toes. He guessed the age range to be twenties to early sixties. No children. Mostly whites, Native Americans, Latinos and blacks, and a few Asians. There was a giant with razor-cut hair and enormous hands, dressed in a tuxedo, and two dwarves in tails. The room was loud enough with conversation to compete with the music. Entire groups burst into laughter. The laughter struck Bradley as knowing and ironic. Everyone seemed to know everyone and there were no name tags.
Bradley sipped the martini, lightly. He noted that nearly all of the guests were drinking highballs or apparently straight liquor and the waiters and walk-up bar were quite busy. Empty glasses were already stacking up on the bar top and bus trays. He also saw that many of attendees were drinking from silver flasks like Mike’s, often offering the flask around to others, as Europeans offer cigarettes.
The three of them went from group to group, where Mike and Owens unfailingly drew warm hugs and hearty backslaps and words of good cheer. Fantastic work down there in San Diego, Mike-wonderful! Mike introduced him as Bradley Murrieta, the new partner in MFB-Mike Finnegan Bath-a man he hoped would help to “resuscitate MFB’s wheezing bottom line.” The conferees were polite but seemed slightly skeptical of Bradley, which was fine with him. Owens positioned herself at his side, and occasionally held his arm in such a way that drew looks.