Mark Howard was fretting. “Do you know what we had to do? It was an intolerable breach in security to try to reach you through Mr. Roam.”
“Speaking of intolerable, go away.”
“Remo, we need you to do your job.”
“I’m not a doctor. Junior. I’m not on call one hundred percent of the time, okay?”
“Your contract says you are,” Howard replied. Remo rolled his eyes to the brilliant night sky.
“It does?”
“Yes.”
“So what?”
“So you’ll be in violation of your contract if you refuse this job.”
“In three or four days, I won’t refuse it. Come back then.”
Howard’s face became stony. “In four days the U.S. might not have a functional military.”
Remo waited. Howard waited, too, and he was deadly serious.
“Do we really need a functioning military?” Remo asked hopefully.
Howard said nothing.
“Aw, crap.”
Mark Howard was surprised to find several men gathered around his little rental car, which was sitting on its rear fender and leaning with its roof against an adobe wall, exposing its underside.
“Hey, you can’t do that!” Howard barked. “You’re gonna scratch it all up!”
The gathered men turned to Mark Howard with faces like dark auburn sandstone, their features sharpened by the harsh blaze of a drop-cord light hooked to the underside of the car. They began to chuckle, a low grumble.
“What’s so funny?” Howard demanded.
‘You the prince we heard so much about?” asked the only young man in the group.
Mark Howard didn’t know how to respond to that.
“Got a message for Smitty,” said Winner Smith. “Will you take a message to Smitty for me?”
Mark Howard looked desperately at Remo, who was no help whatsoever.
“What’s the message?” Howard asked, as noncommittal as he could.
“‘Rot in hell, you pale-faced son of a bitch,’” Winner said. “Got it?”
Howard’s brain was spinning.
“What’s the matter with the car?” Remo asked.
“Bent rim,” Sunny Joe Roam replied. “Oil leaking from somewhere. Suspension’s whacked out of joint. You’re about to lose this transmission.” Roam cast a benign gaze at Howard. ‘You went off the road, I guess. I told you not to come out here in the dark.”
“I tried to follow your directions,” Howard protested. “It would help if they had road signs out here. I bottomed out in a creek bed.”
There, were more chuckles from the men. “Road signs,” Winner said. “Why didn’t we think of that? I’m going to go write my congressman right away.”
“It’s not driveable, is it?” Remo said.
“Someday, who knows?” Sunny Joe said. “But not now.”
“Fine. We’ll take mine.”
Howard shimmied nervously into the precariously propped-up car and retrieved his bag as Remo quickly and quietly said goodbye to the men. Then, while Remo went into a nearby house, Mark stood there, trying to not look uncomfortable and failing miserably. It wasn’t that the Sun On Jos were trying to be unfriendly—except for the jerk who didn’t even look like a Native American—but it was clear to all present that Howard was an outsider and not necessarily a welcome one.
Remo emerged from the house with his luggage, which consisted of a sleeping mat rolled around some new, still-in-the-plastic shirts and pants exactly like the chinos and T-shirt he wore now.
“C’mon, Junior.”
Remo Williams couldn’t help notice that Mark wasn’t following him. He turned and saw the assistant director of CURE standing there with his jaw hanging all the way to the ground. Mark Howard was looking at Sunny Joe Roam’s house, where a small yellow lantern was illuminating the figure that stood in the doorway.
“’Bye, Daddy,” she called.
“’Bye, sweetheart,” Remo said, then he carried away Mark Howard over one shoulder.
“Put your tongue back in, Junior,” Remo growled.
“Sorry. You didn’t have to cart me off like a sick cat. I looked stupid enough as it was.”
“Letting you stand there drooling on yourself wouldn’t have raised your esteem on the rez,” Remo remarked.
“Sorry.”
Remo glanced over. Mark Howard’s cheeks were a flaming red.
“Chill, dude.”
“Remo, I didn’t know she was your daughter:”
“Now you know.”
“I feel like a stupid teenager who just got busted peeping on the girl next door.”
‘You’re not a teenager.”
“She just kind of caught me off guard, when I saw her standing there.”
“Okay.”
“I mean, I was just kind of, overcome, I guess.”
“You’re rambling, Junior.”
“Yeah, I am.”
Remo could feel the red heat radiating from Howard’s face.
Ten minutes passed in silence.
“This is a little awkward,” Mark Howard finally said.
“Shut up.”
Howard was perplexed when they arrived in Yuma in amazingly quick time. “If you only knew how many hours it took me to get from the airport to the village. Next time I’ll rent something bigger, no matter how much it costs.” He patted the dashboard of Remo’s Ford SUV, which the commercials claimed had enough horsepower to pull frame houses off their foundations.
“Next time don’t come. That’s not advice but a threat, by the way. Where to?”
Howard gave him directions into the unimpressive Yuma airport, to a waiting jet, a sleek and shiny corporate charter.
“You rented this thing?” Remo said. “I guess you are in a hurry.”
“Glad you’re on board with the seriousness of the crisis,” Howard said as he rushed up the aircraft stairs and inside. Remo dawdled but was inside soon enough. The flight attendant was anxious, too. She secured the doors almost before Remo had his foot through the door. The aircraft started rolling.
“Hey, you’re violating IDA rules about me being in my seat with the back in an upright position,” Remo pointed out.
“Let’s get you in, then, before agents of the Food and Drug Administration come for a surprise inspection,” the flight attendant said, not even pretending to be friendly.
Remo didn’t resist as he was shoved into a seat and his belt was latched across his lap. With a brutal yank, the flight attendant tightened it further. Then she took the loose strap in both hands, braced her feet against the seat base, and put her entire body into the effort of dragging the belt as hard as she could.
“Snug enough, sir?”
“I do use the lower extremities, you know,” Remo pointed out.
She came close, her eyes on fire. “Liar!”
Then she stood, smiled and asked a stunned Mark Howard if he would like anything. Maybe a refreshing beverage?
“Just water.” Howard asked worriedly. “Miss?”
“Yes, sir?”
“Do you know this gentleman?”
“Oh, yes, sir, he has flown with us in the past,” she said, her smile brightening to a thousand watts. “He’s a manipulative bastard who uses women then throws them into the garbage heap.”
She went to get his water.
“Happens all the time,” Remo explained.
The aircraft was stopped on the tarmac awaiting the go-ahead for takeoff, and yet the flight attendant still managed to stumble and spill the large plastic cup of water she was bringing Howard. She was disappointed that Remo had somehow, without her noticing, moved to another seat, and the water missed him.
“I’ll get you another, sir.”
“This is fine,” Howard insisted as he took the half- emptied water bottle from her hand. “I don’t need a cup.”