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He said, “Driver’s license says Louis Bell.”
14
I had my plan for that evening. Mexican food with Lindsey at Los Dos Molinos and then some reconnect time at home. The restaurant sat near the foot of the South Mountains in a building that was once Tom Mix’s house. And even though the cowboy star was long gone, the place was the best in town for the kind of New Mexico-style cuisine that is so spicy it makes you sweat. Even with the tourists fleeing the impending summer, Los Dos was crowded. The hostess was so unbending I’m convinced even Peralta couldn’t just walk in and get a table. So, after putting our name on the waiting list, we did the usual penance with the crowd on the patio, eased by beer and chips.
“So he was killed while playing slots?” Lindsey kept her voice down and her eyes wide with interest. “Talk about hitting God’s jackpot.”
“Or not,” I said. “Catching the suspect with the victim’s wallet in front of a hundred witnesses ought to be enough that even Patrick Blair c
ould get a conviction.”
“Dave,” she laughed. “What has he ever done to you?”
Part of me would have loved to ask. Ask, that is, what has he ever done to Lindsey? Part of me cowered in primitive emotions and another part was alive with aroused voyeurism. How odd: to have lived a life of the mind; that life was supposed to tame and mediate those nasty feelings, take them out and study them, make them safe, even boring. Mountbatten, the last British viceroy in India, was cuckolded by Nehru—that gave the historians a laugh. And it wasn’t as if I hadn’t enjoyed enough romantic adventures to make up for my youthful awkwardness. Then I won the great prize that sat across from me, sipping her Modelo Especial and dipping a chip into the hottest salsa. So I didn’t ask…and I didn’t tell, either, about Gretchen. Lindsey said she didn’t want to know that much about my old lovers, that it was better for her mental health. She was wise as always.
“Professor…” she said, squeezing my hand. “You have that faraway look.”
I smiled at her. Her dark hair shone lustrously in the dimness. It brushed her collar when she moved her head.
I said, “Tell me about your day.”
“Just computer stuff,” she said. “Still helping our good friends at the Justice Department.”
“You are such a big deal.”
“To you. And I’m glad of that. It kind of scares me what we can do now—how little privacy people have, and they don’t even know it. But it scares me that bad guys like terrorists can hide their money in cyberspace and move it with the touch of a finger. So…”
She let the words trail off. Inside the cantina, I could hear the third rendition of “Hotel California” by the guitarist. He had drunken accompaniment from some patrons.
Lindsey went on, “Robin thinks what we do is a threat to civil liberties. I never thought of it that way. But maybe she’s right.”
“How is she doing? Peralta wants to know.”
“Really? Peralta courting my sister. That’s too weird to contemplate.” She made a face. “I think she’d be a handful for any man, so I’m glad she’s got this Edward. Although I’d like to meet him. Why do you think she hasn’t introduced us to him? Am I being a typical big sister?”
I shook my head, nodded. She laughed. My insides were so relieved that our spat of the morning was forgotten.
“I don’t know how to be a normal sister,” she said. “I don’t know what that’s like. Maybe there’s no such thing. But the training sure wouldn’t have come from my family. Sometimes I can’t figure Robin out. We’ll be going along, and something I say will set her off. She can be very emotional. We had a fight yesterday where she essentially blamed me for Linda killing herself. Then it was over and she apologized and we made up. It can be a roller-coaster.” She brushed back an errant strand of hair. “I heard a radio report the other day…I kind of half heard it. But some expert was talking about how relationships are like physics, and if you’re really into somebody you feel everything—love, hate, fear. It made me think, at least. So if I seemed like a bitch this morning, I’m so sorry, Dave.”
“No, no,” I said. “I was out of line. I’m being too hard on Robin.”
“She likes you, Dave. She thinks you’re very smart and attractive.”
I was going to speak, but then the loudspeaker called our name and we went toward the cantina. Another round of “Hotel California” was starting up.
By the time we paid our bill and headed for the parking lot, it was closing in on eleven o’clock. But instead of turning north on Central toward the city, Lindsey steered to the right.
“What?”
“You’ll find out.”
Now it was clear that Lindsey had her plan for the evening, too. She turned on Dobbins and avoided the closed entrance to the park. We headed east past houses that hadn’t been there when I was a kid—that statement could be my standard disclaimer about virtually any Arizona vista. Then the park came closer to the road. Lindsey pulled off the road and gave me a long, luxurious kiss.
She pointed to a sleeping bag in the back seat. “You could carry that.”
“The park closed at sunset,” I mumbled.
“So call the police.”
