Fugitive Nights(54)

He looked through the binoculars again and was positive that man and dog were sound asleep now, alone out there by the canyon oasis, shielded from sun and wind by rock and palm, just as the Indians had been shielded since ancient times. He felt very sleepy too. Jack Graves put his floppy hat over his face and laid his head on his own day-pack.

He wasn't close enough to the stream to hear trickling water, but the birds were trilling, and the wind whistled softly. The whine of bees sounded like a plane in the distance. Beyond that was silence, desert silence.

Five minutes later, he was jerked upright by a dream. He was trembling, and droplets of sweat ran from under his hat. He knew that the recurring dream must've started, but it shouldn't come in the daytime! His mind had a new trick: Stop the dream before it gains momentum!

There he was in the darkness, outside the modest little house, the wrong house. He'd been detailed to watch the back door . . .

Nelson Hareem wasn't fooling around anymore. This was his last day with Lynn Cutter so he was going to go for it. He'd even dressed better. He wore a shirt with a collar and long sleeves. And he wore Levi Dockers instead of jeans. But he still wore his red snakeskin cowboy boots.

The sun was high and the desert was warming fast, but Lynn in a short-sleeved knit shirt was chilled from riding in the topless Jeep Wrangler. Hanging on to the roll bar didn't help his sick head. Nelson's jerky driving made him nauseous. Lynn rubbed his arms with both hands trying to help circulation.

Nelson noticed and said, "You still cold, Lynn?"

"Not at all," Lynn said. "Of course I don't expect to find my shriveled balls till April or May, but what the hell, they're useless anyhow."

"How many motels we got left?" Nelson wanted to know, punching his cassette until he got "Miles Across the Bedroom."

Hearing those lyrics, Lynn said, "Please, Nelson, that's the story a my life. Haven't you got something old and appropriate? How about "The Wayward Wind" by Gogi Grant, since you insist on keeping your top down in hurricanes, with snakes and raccoons soaring across the desert like turkey buzzards."

"How many motels, Lynn?"

"Four. We've visited every motel in Palm Springs and Desert Hot Springs that begins with A, B or C. Four more and that's it. I've earned my freedom. Lord a'mighty, free at last!"

"I'm coming back tomorrow alone," Nelson said. "I'm personally gonna check every car rental in this part a the valley. I don't care how long it takes me."

"I believe you," Lynn said, as Nelson made a sharp turn, tossing Lynn against the door of the Wrangler. Without a seat belt he'd have been gone in the first quarter mile. "You march to a different drummer, and a restraining order couldn't stop the beat in your little head."

"I can't help it," Nelson said. "My sergeant says he thinks I'm full a naked aggression."

"Can't we put clothes on your aggression and go home?"

"Only four more motels, Lynn," Nelson reminded him. "There's the next one: The Cactus View."

This one was on the mountain side of Highway 111, in the old residential section of Cathedral City, zoned for single-family residences, apartment buildings and motels. In past years it had been very cheap to live in this part of town, the high-density portion of the working-class community that was sandwiched between big-bucks resorts in Palm Springs and Rancho Mirage. Lately, with the population of the Coachella Valley booming, some very posh homes were sprouting up in Cat City, in the cove near the mountains.

The Cactus View Motel was ripe for redevelopment. It was a one-story, room-and-a-bath accommodation, tucked behind the commercial buildings on the highway. Old bougainvillea had overgrown all of the walls on the sunny side, and was creeping across the cracked and shattered Spanish tile roof. The whitewashed walls on the shady side were blistered, and streaks of rust from the rain gutters stained the stucco.

"This looks like the kinda place a terrorised hide," Nelson observed, as Lynn yawned and looked at his watch. It was 2:25 p. M. Just a few more hours.

The manager's office was wide open. Like rattlesnakes, the desert flies laid low during the winter. A pale, watery-eyed guy, bonier than Jack Graves, sat behind a formica counter on a low stool doing a crossword from The Desert Sun. He had a sparse tattered fluff of hair like a windblown dandelion. His arms were utterly hairless, and Nelson was astonished to see that he had hardly any eyelashes and eyebrows on one side!

Lynn recognized the motel manager immediately.

"Carlton!" Lynn Cutter cried. "It's you!"

"It's me," Carlton the Confessor agreed. "Yeah, it's me it's me."

He dropped the crossword and slunk from behind the counter like a bag-of-bones coyote. If he'd had a tail it would've been tucked.