Last Call

by Tim Powers

  She had alternately dozed and worried for most of the day on a grassy hill at Clark County Community College, using the balled-up old baby blanket as a pillow. Often in the past she had thought it would be nice to get some time away from Scat and Oliver, but now that she had it she could hardly make herself think of anything but them. Had Ozzie got Oliver to Helen Sully’s house in Searchlight? Diana had called Helen’s number, but there was no answer there. Had Funo or somebody followed Ozzie and killed him and her son? Had some player in this terrible mess gone to the hospital and killed Scat since her last call?

  Ever since the explosion she had been insisting to herself that the boys were safer away from her—but the very sight of bright sunlight on green trees made her nauseous with guilt, and she simply couldn’t permit herself to think about Scat waking up alone in the hospital, or dying alone in the hospital, or about Oliver alone among strangers and supposing that she was dead.

  She stopped in front of apartment 27 now, and she made herself breathe deeply and remember her purpose. She had been here only once before, at night, and didn’t remember the layout very well, but according to the mailbox downstairs this was Michael Stikeleather’s place.

  She knocked, and after a few moments she saw the light through the peep-hole darken; then she heard the chain rattle out of its channel and the door was pulled open.

  Aging surfer boy, she thought when Mike grinned at her in pleased surprise, in the middle of the desert.

  Stikeleather was wearing sky blue slacks and a white shirt open halfway down to show his curly blond chest hair. The shirt was untucked—to conceal a potbelly, she assumed.

  “I know who it is!” he said happily, holding up one hand. “It’s…” His face suddenly fell as he visibly remembered, and he frowned responsibly. “You’re Hans’s girl friend. I was sorry to read about that. He was good people, Hans was. Hey, come on in.”

  Diana walked into the living room, which was lit by modernistic track lights. Aluminum-framed pastels of pretty women and tigers hung on the tan walls, and a black, glass-doored stereo stood in the far corner by a low tan couch.

  “Your name was…?” said Mike.

  “Doreen,” Diana told him.

  “Right, right, Doreen. Doreeen. Can I get you a drink?”

  “Sure, anything cold.”

  Mike winked and nodded and stepped into the fluorescent-lit kitchen alcove. Diana could hear him open the freezer and bang an ice tray against a counter. “Do you feel able to talk about it?” he called.

  Diana sat down on the couch. “Sure,” she said loudly. Six copies of Penthouse magazine were fanned out on the glass-topped coffee table.

  Mike walked back into the room with two tall glasses. “Seven and Seven,” he said, handing one to her and joining her on the couch. “In the papers the police said it was a bomb.”

  Diana took a long sip of the drink. “I don’t think so,” she said. “He was trying to make PCP in the back room, had a lot of…ether and stuff. I think he blew himself up with it.”

  Mike’s arm was lying along the back of the couch behind her shoulders, and now he patted her head. “Ah, that’s a goddamn shame. I guess the police figure a bomb is better for the tourist business than a dope factory, hah?” He laughed, then remembered to frown. “Shit, angel dust—he should have told me, I could have got him all he wanted.”

  “He always said you were reliable.” Diana made herself look into Mike’s blue eyes. “He said if I ever needed help, I should come to you.”

  Clearly this was going the way Mike had hoped it would. His hand was kneading the point of her shoulder now, and his round, tanned face was closer to hers. His breath smelled sharply of Binaca; he must have had one of the little bottles stashed in the kitchen.

  “I understand, Doreen. You need a place to stay?”

  She stared down into her drink. “That, yeah—and I want somebody to go to his funeral with me tomorrow morning.”

  Specifically a dope dealer, she thought, if things work out the way I hope they will.

  “You got it,” he said softly.

  He might have been about to kiss her, but she smiled and leaned back, away from him. “And can I use your phone to call my kid? He’s staying with a friend; it’s here in Nevada, a local call.”

  “Oh, sure, Doreen, phone’s on the kitchen counter there.”

  Diana stood up and crossed to the telephone. As she punched in Helen Sully’s number, she noted that Stikeleather didn’t leave the room.

  The line rang six times, and her heart had begun to thud heavily in her chest when finally there was a click and she heard Helen’s voice say, “Hello?”

  Diana exhaled sharply, and she leaned her weight against the counter. “Helen,” she said, “it’s…me. Is Ollie with you?”

  “Jesus!” exclaimed Helen at the other end. “Diana? Oliver and that old guy told us you were dead! Is this Diana? God, I—”

  “Yes, it’s me. That was a mistake. Obviously, right? Listen, is Ollie there? Can I talk to him?”

  “Sure, honey, maybe you can get him to say two words or look somebody in the eye. How long are we gonna have—I mean, when are you—”

  “Easter, I’ll have picked him up by Easter—” Or else I’ll be dead, Diana thought. And what will become of my boys if I’m dead? Ah, Christ. “Helen, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this—I owe you—”

  “Oh hell, Diana, a week and a half, what’s one more kid around the house? I—yeah, it’s your mom—”

  There was a clatter at the other end of the line, and then Oliver was gasping into the phone: “Mom? Is it you, Mom?”

  “Yes, Ollie, it’s me, darling, I’m okay. I’m fine.”

  “I saw the house blow up!”

  “You did? God, I’m sorry about that, you must have thought—never mind, I’m absolutely unhurt. Okay? And I’ll be—”

  “Mom, I’m sorry!”

  “For what, you didn’t—”

  “For getting Scat killed and for getting the house blown up, I—”

  “You didn’t do either one! Honey, they were like lightning hitting people, you didn’t do it! And Scat’s gonna be fine, the doctors say—” She pretended to be coughing as she fought back sobs. “Scat’s going to be out of there in no time, really, good as new. And I’ll be picking you up on Easter or before, week and a half at worst.” She covered the mouthpiece and took a couple of deep breaths. “So—how is it at Helen’s? The food all right?” She instantly regretted the words, remembering how she had tried to restrict his diet, even when he had only wanted an apple or some pickles.

  “Well, we haven’t actually eaten anything yet. I guess we’re gonna have hot dogs for dinner. How soon can you come and get me? You—you know what, Mom?”

  “I—what, Ollie?”

  “Uh…actually, I love you. I just wanted to say.”

  Diana’s heart seemed to stop. He had never said that to her before; perhaps she had never said it to him either. “God, I love you, too, Oliver. I’ll come and get you—”

  She looked across the carpeted room at Mike Stikeleather.

  “I’ll come and get you,” she said, “as soon as I get a thing or two done here, okay?”

  Both Oliver and Stikeleather said, “Okay.”

  Vacuum cleaners hummed between the tables, and men in uniforms were moving up and down the rows between the slot machines, turning keys in keyholes in the sides of the machines and dumping the change into plastic buckets while bored security guards looked on.

  Archimedes Mavranos leaned on the padded edge of a Craps table and wished he hadn’t thought about eating the fish in his pocket.

  An hour ago he had decided that the sun must be nearly up in the real world outside, and he had made himself go to the coffee shop of whatever casino this was and force down some scrambled eggs and toast, but he had got dizzy and had to run to the bathroom and vomit it all back up. The cashier had been waiting for him outside the men’s room door for her money.

 
But he was still hungry somehow, and a moment ago, after wondering if the goldfish in the water-filled Baggie in his pocket could still be alive, he had momentarily considered eating it.

  He forced down his nausea and stared at his bet. There were two black hundred-dollar chips on the Pass Line now, instead of the one he had put there, and three now stood outside the line where he had taken the free odds. His bet had won while he hadn’t been paying attention, and the dice were rolling again, so he was now involuntarily letting the Pass bet ride. He pulled in the three chips outside the line, ready to put a couple back again as soon as the shooter got a point.

  The dealer moved the white disk to the four at the top of the green felt layout. This was the sixth consecutive time the current shooter had got four as his point, and the boxman, a dour old fellow in a string tie that seemed to be choking him, made a show of picking up the dice and examining them closely.

  Mavranos remembered to put two black chips outside the Pass Line for the free odds, and a moment later the shooter rolled another four.

  The boxman was staring coldly at Mavranos now, clearly wondering if he was a partner in some sort of cheating here. Mavranos couldn’t blame him; what must the odds be against making a hard point like four six times in a row? Especially with a sick-looking bum following the run with black chips and letting the last bet ride?

  Mavranos had made nearly two thousand dollars just off this one shooter, who had only been betting his own luck with orange ten-dollar chips; but Mavranos was dizzy and sick, and he couldn’t help touching the handkerchief tied around his neck, feeling the lump under his ear. It was definitely bigger now than when he and Scott and the old man had driven out from California. He was losing weight, losing his very substance; no wonder eating even the goldfish had fleetingly seemed like a good idea.

  And he was seeing strange things in gambling, but nothing that he could get a useful handle on.

  He wondered how Scott and Ozzie and Diana were doing with their own hopeless quests, and he wondered if the boy in the hospital was getting better. Mavranos shuddered at the memory of the boy’s head torn open by the bullet.

  For a moment he felt bad about having moved out of the Circus Circus without leaving them any way to get in touch with him.

  He shook his head. Let them hire a chauffeur. Mavranos had problems of his own.

  He scooped up his chips in both hands and walked away from the table. No use attracting attention. At some casino tonight—last night, if it was daytime outside—he had won so much at the Blackjack table, raising and lowering his bets to try to conform to the almost reggae pattern of the slot machine bells, that the personnel had assumed he was an accomplished card counter, and two men had demanded to see his ID and then told him that if he ever came into that casino again, he’d be arrested for trespassing.

  He frowned worriedly now as he dumped his pile of chips onto the counter of the cashier cage; he couldn’t remember which casino that had been. He might go back there by accident….

  “Jesus,” said someone behind him. Mavranos turned around and saw a man staring at him with amused contempt. “What’s the matter, sport, your luck was running too good to duck to the men’s room?”

  Mavranos followed the man’s gaze downward and saw that the left leg of his faded jeans was dark with wetness. For one horrified moment he thought that the man must be right, that in his exhaustion he had wet his pants without noticing it. Then he remembered the fish, and his trembling hand darted into the pocket of his denim jacket.

  The Baggie was limp; he must have popped it with his elbow when he was carrying the chips to the cage. The goldfish, which he had been carrying around as a “seed crystal” because he had read that they never died of natural causes, was certainly dead or dying now.

  He hadn’t slept for twenty-four hours, and somehow the thought of the little goldfish dying in his pocket struck him as unbearably sad; so did the idea that his daughters’ father was standing in a casino at dawn seeming to have wet his pants.

  Tears were blurring his vision, and he was breathing unevenly as he pushed out through the front doors into the oven heat of the morning.

  The passenger-side door of Mike Stikeleather’s Nissan truck had a rearview mirror bolted to it, and after the brief and sparsely attended funeral service had broken up and they had walked back out to the parking lot, Diana had twisted the mirror so that she could watch the traffic behind—and she was tensely pleased now to see that the white Dodge was following them.

  Last night Mike had taken her to an Italian restaurant near the Flamingo, and when they got back to his apartment, he had tried to kiss her. She had fended him off, but with a wistful smile, saying that it was too soon after Hans’s death; Mike had taken that pretty well, and had let her sleep on his water bed alone, while he took the couch—albeit with a just-for-this-first-night manner.

  At the first light of dawn, listening carefully to Mike’s snores from the living room, she had got up and searched his bedroom, and in the closet she had found a briefcase. She had memorized its position, how it leaned against a pair of ski boots, and had then taken it out and opened it. The white powder in a well-filled Ziploc bag had had the numbing taste of cocaine, and the bundles of twenty-dollar bills added up to more than twenty thousand dollars. She had put it all back the way it had been and got back into bed. Later, while making coffee, she had managed to slide a stout steak knife into her purse, though it was no part of her plan to have to use it.

  So far so good.

  And at the funeral a few hours later she had said a thankful prayer to her mother, for one of the mourners was Alfred Funo himself.

  She had hoped he would show up there. It was the only way she could think of for him to find her, and it would fit in with his weirdly sociable approach to assassination.

  And there he had been, standing behind Hans’s parents under the canvas pavilion on the grass, smiling sadly at her across the shiny fiberglass casket. She had smiled back at him and nodded and winked, helpless to imagine how he could suppose she wanted to see him, but understanding from his answering wink that he did suppose it.

  The car he had got into afterward was a far cry from the Porsche he had been driving when she’d seen him Monday night—the Porsche from which he had shot Scat—but he was at least managing to stay behind Mike’s Nissan.

  When Mike pulled in to the curb in front of his apartment building, the white Dodge parked a hundred feet behind them.

  Diana got out of the truck and waited for Mike by the front bumper. “Don’t turn around,” she said quietly, “but a friend of Hans’s followed us back from the funeral. I think he wants to talk to me.”

  Mike frowned worriedly but didn’t look around. “Followed us here? I don’t like that….”

  “I don’t either. He’s a dealer himself, and Hans never trusted him. Listen, let me have the keys, and I’ll follow him when he leaves.”

  “Follow him? Why? I’ve got to get to work—”

  “I just want to make sure he leaves the area. I’ll be back in ten minutes at the most.”

  “Well, okay.” Mike began sliding a key off his ring. “For you, Doreen,” he added with a smile.

  She pocketed the key and blew him a kiss and then started walking back toward the white Dodge.

  Walk upstairs, Mike, she thought as the soles of her shoes knocked slowly along the sunny sidewalk and her purse swung at her side. Don’t spook this guy by hanging around and watching.

  She didn’t look back, but apparently Mike had not done anything to alarm Funo. When she walked up to his car, he reached across and unlocked the passenger-side door.

  She opened it and sat down on the seat, leaving the door open.

  Funo was smiling at her, but he looked pale and exhausted. His white shirt and tan slacks looked new, though, and his laced-up white Reeboks shone, she thought, like the bellies of albino lobsters.

  “My mystery man,” Diana said.

  “Hey, Diana,” he said earnest
ly, “I’m sorry we got off on the wrong foot the other night. I didn’t realize you were worried about your children.”

  She forced her shy smile to stay in place—but how could this man say that to her? After shooting one of her children?

  “The doctors say the boy is going to be fine,” she said, wondering if Funo might have called the hospital and found out that that was not true. She thought it probably wouldn’t matter; she sensed that this was some kind of tea party charade, in which statements were only expected to be pleasant.

  “Hey, that’s great,” he said. He snapped his fingers. “I’ve got something for you.”

  She tensed, ready to snatch the steak knife out of her purse, but what he pulled out from under the seat was a long black jewelry box.

  When she opened it and saw the gold chain on the red velvet inside, she knew enough to show only pleasure, not astonishment.

  “It’s beautiful,” she said, making her voice soft and breathy. “You shouldn’t have—my God, I don’t even know your name.”

  “Al Funo. I’ve got a present for Scott, too. Will you tell him?”

  I’ll tell him when I meet him in hell one day, she thought. “Of course. I know he’ll want to thank you.”

  “I already gave him a gold Dunhill lighter,” Funo said.

  She nodded, yearning for the normal daytime street outside the car windows and wondering how long she could continue to do this fantasy dialogue correctly. “I’m sure he’s grateful to have such a generous friend,” she ventured.

  “Oh,” said Funo off-handedly, “I do what I can. My Porsche’s in the shop; this is a loaner.”

  “Ah.” She nodded. “Can we take you out to dinner some time?”

  “That’d be fun,” he said seriously.

  “Do you—is there a number we can reach you at?”

  He grinned and winked at her. “I’ll find you.”

  The audience seemed to be over. “Okay,” she said cautiously, shifting her weight onto her right foot, which was on the curb. “We’ll wait to hear from you.”

  He started the car. “Rightie-o.”

  She ducked out of the car and stood up on the curb. He reached across and pulled the door shut, and then he was driving away.