She was thrilled by watching herself in the mirrors. And by watching herself watch herself. And by watching herself as she watched herself watching herself. The infinity of images bounced back and forth between the mirrors on opposite walls, until she could believe that she had filled the universe with replications of herself. The mirrors seemed magical, transmitting all the energy of each reflection back into her own dynamic flesh, overloading her with power, until she was a runaway blond engine of eroticism.
Sometime during the third hour, batteries gave out in a few of her favorite toys, gears froze in others, and she surrendered herself once more to the expertise of her own bare hands. For a while, in fact, her hands seemed to be separate entities from her, each alive in its own right. They were in such a frenzy of lust that they couldn’t occupy themselves with just one of her many treasures for any length of time; they kept sliding over her ample curves, up-around-down her oiled skin, massaging and tweaking and caressing and stroking one delight after another. They were like a pair of starving diners at a fabulous smorgasbord that had been prepared to celebrate the imminence of Armageddon, allowed only precious seconds to gorge themselves before all was obliterated by a sun gone nova.
But the sun did not go nova, of course, and eventually—if gradually—those matchless hands slowed, slowed, finally stopped, and were sated. As was their mistress.
For a while, after it was over, Roy couldn’t get up from his chair. He couldn’t even slump back from the edge of it. He was numb, paralyzed, tingling strangely in every extremity.
In time, Eve rose from the bed and stepped into the adjoining bathroom. When she returned, carrying two plush towels—one damp, one dry—she was no longer gleaming with oil. With the damp cloth, she removed the glistening residue from the rubber mattress cover, then carefully wiped it down with the dry towel. She replaced the bottom sheet that she had earlier cast off.
Roy joined her on the bed. Eve lay on her back, her head on a pillow. He stretched out beside her, on his back, his head on another pillow. She was still gloriously nude, and he remained fully clothed—though at some point during the night, he had loosened his necktie by an inch.
Neither of them made the mistake of trying to comment upon what had transpired. Mere words could not have done the experience justice and might have made a nearly religious odyssey seem somehow tawdry. Anyway, Roy already knew that it had been good for Eve; and as for himself, well, he had seen more physical human perfection in those few hours—and in action—than in his entire life theretofore.
After a while, gazing at his darling’s reflection on the ceiling as she stared at his, Roy began to talk, and the night entered a new phase of communion that was nearly as intimate, intense, and life-changing as the more physical phase that had preceded it. He spoke further about the power of compassion, refining the concept for her. He told her that humankind always hungered for perfection. People would endure unendurable pain, accept awful deprivation, countenance savage brutalities, live in constant and abject terror—if only they were convinced that their sufferings were the tolls that must be paid on the highway to Utopia, to Heaven on earth. A person motivated by compassion—yet who was also aware of the masses’ willingness to suffer—could change the world. Although he, Roy Miro of the merry blue eyes and Santa Claus smile, did not believe that he possessed the charisma to be that leader of leaders who would launch the next crusade for perfection, he hoped to be one who served that special person and served him well.
“I light my little candles,” he said. “One at a time.”
For hours Roy talked while Eve interjected numerous questions and perceptive comments. He was excited to see how she thrilled to his ideas almost as she had thrilled to her battery-powered toys and to her own practiced hands.
She was especially moved when he explained how an enlightened society ought to expand on the work of Dr. Kevorkian, compassionately assisting in the self-destruction not solely of suicidal people but also of those poor souls who were deeply depressed, offering easy exits not only to the terminally ill but to the chronically ill, the disabled, the maimed, the psychologically impaired.
And when Roy talked about his concept for a suicide-assistance program for infants, to bring a compassionate solution to the problem of babies born with even the slightest defects that might affect their lives, Eve made a few breathless sounds similar to those that had escaped her in the throes of passion. She pressed her hands to her breasts once more, though this time only in an attempt to quiet the fierce pounding of her heart.
As Eve filled her hands with her bosoms, Roy could not take his eyes off the reflection of her that hovered above him. For a moment he thought that he might weep at the sight of her sixty-percent-perfect face and form.
Sometime before dawn, intellectual orgasms sent them spiraling into sleep, as physical orgasms had not the power to do. Roy was so fulfilled that he didn’t even dream.
Hours later, Eve woke him. She had already showered and dressed for the day.
“You’ve never been more radiant,” he told her.
“You’ve changed my life,” she said.
“And you mine.”
Although she was late for work in her concrete bunker, she drove him to the Strip hotel at which Prock, his taciturn driver from the previous night, had left his luggage. It was Saturday, but Eve worked seven days a week. Roy admired her commitment.
The desert morning was bright. The sky was a cool, serene blue.
At the hotel, under the entrance portico, before Roy got out of the car, he and Eve made plans to see each other soon, to experience again the pleasures of the night just past.
He stood by the front entrance to watch her drive away. When she was gone, he went inside. He passed the front desk, crossed the raucous casino, and took an elevator to the thirty-sixth and highest floor in the main tower.
He didn’t recall putting one foot in front of the other since getting out of her car. As far as he knew, he had floated into the elevator.
He had never imagined that his pursuit of the fugitive bitch and the scarred man would lead him to the most perfect woman in existence. Destiny was a funny thing.
When the doors opened at the thirty-sixth floor, Roy stepped into a long corridor with custom-sculpted, tone-on-tone, wall-to-wall Edward Fields carpet. Wide enough to be considered a gallery rather than a hallway, the space was furnished with early-nineteenth-century French antiques and paintings of some quality from the same period.
This was one of three floors originally designed to offer huge luxury suites, free of charge, to high rollers who were willing to wager fortunes at the games downstairs. The thirty-fifth and thirty-fourth floors still served that function. However, since the agency had purchased the resort for its moneymaking and money-laundering potential, the suites on the top floor had been set aside for the convenience of out-of-town operatives of a certain executive level.
The thirty-sixth floor was served by its own concierge, who was established in a cozy office across from the elevator. Roy picked up the key to his suite from the man on duty, Henri, who didn’t so much as raise an eyebrow over the rumpled condition of his guest’s suit.
Key in hand, on his way to his rooms, whistling softly, Roy looked forward to a hot shower, a shave, and a lavish room-service breakfast. But when he opened the gilded door and went into the suite, he found two local agents waiting for him. They were in a state of acute but respectful consternation, and only when Roy saw them did he remember that his pager was in one of his jacket pockets and the batteries in another.
“We’ve been looking everywhere for you since four o’clock this morning,” said one of his visitors.
“We’ve located Grant’s Explorer,” said the second.
“Abandoned,” said the first. “There’s a ground search under way for him—”
“—though he might be dead—”
“—or rescued—”
“—because it looks like someone got there before us—”
>
“—anyway, there are other tire tracks—”
“—so we don’t have much time; we’ve got to move.”
In his mind’s eye, Roy pictured Eve Jammer: golden and pink, oiled and limber, writhing on black rubber, more perfect than not. That would sustain him, no matter how bad the day proved to be.
Spencer woke in the purple shade under the camouflage tarp, but the desert beyond was bathed in harsh white sunshine.
The light stung his eyes, forcing him to squint, although that pain was as nothing compared with the headache that cleaved his brow from temple to temple, on a slight diagonal. Against the backs of his eyeballs, red lights spun with the abrasiveness of razor-blade pinwheels.
He was hot as well. Burning up. Though he suspected that the day was not especially warm.
Thirsty. His tongue felt swollen. It was stuck to the roof of his mouth. His throat was scratchy, raw.
He was still lying on an air mattress, with his head on a meager pillow, under a blanket in spite of the insufferable heat—but he was no longer lying alone. The woman was snuggled against his right side, exerting a sweet pressure against his flank, hip, thigh. Somehow he had gotten his right arm around her without meeting an objection—Way to go, Spence, my man!—and now he relished the feel of her under his hand: so warm, so soft, so sleek, so furry.
Uncommonly furry for a woman.
He turned his head and saw Rocky.
“Hi, pal.”
Talking was painful. Each word was a spiny burr being torn out of his throat. His own speech echoed piercingly through his skull, as though it had been stepped up by amplifiers inside his sinus cavities.
The dog licked Spencer’s right ear.
Whispering to spare his throat, he said, “Yeah, I love you too.”
“Am I interrupting anything?” Valerie asked, dropping to her knees at his left side.
“Just a boy and his dog, hangin’ out together.”
“How’re you feeling?”
“Lousy.”
“Are you allergic to any drugs?”
“Hate the taste of Pepto-Bismol.”
“Are you allergic to any antibiotics?”
“Everything’s spinning.”
“Are you allergic to any antibiotics?”
“Strawberries give me hives.”
“Are you delirious or just difficult?”
“Both.”
Maybe he drifted away for a while, because the next thing he knew, she was giving him an injection in his left arm. He smelled the alcohol with which she had swabbed the area over the vein.
“Antibiotic?” he whispered.
“Liquified strawberries.”
The dog was no longer lying at Spencer’s side. He was sitting next to the woman, watching with interest as she withdrew the needle from his master’s arm.
Spencer said, “I have an infection?”
“Maybe secondary. I’m taking no chances.”
“You a nurse?”
“Not a doctor, not a nurse.”
“How do you know what to do?”
“He tells me,” she said, indicating Rocky.
“Always joking. Must be a comedian.”
“Yes, but licensed to give injections. Do you think you can hold down some water?”
“How about bacon and eggs?”
“Water seems hard enough. Last time, you spit it up.”
“Disgusting.”
“You apologized.”
“I’m a gentleman.”
Even with her assistance, he was tested to his limits merely by the effort required to sit up. He choked on the water a couple of times, but it tasted cool and sweet, and he thought he would be able to keep it in his stomach.
After she eased him flat onto his back again, he said, “Tell me the truth.”
“If I know it.”
“Am I dying?”
“No.”
“We have one rule around here,” he said.
“Which is?”
“Never lie to the dog.”
She looked at Rocky.
The mutt wagged his tail.
“Lie to yourself. Lie to me. But never lie to the dog.”
“As rules go, it seems pretty sensible,” she said.
“So am I dying?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s better,” Spencer said, and he passed out.
Roy Miro took fifteen minutes to shave, brush his teeth, and shower. He changed into chinos, a red cotton sweater, and a tan corduroy jacket. He had no time for the breakfast that he so badly wanted. The concierge, Henri, provided him with two chocolate-almond croissants in a white paper bag and two cups of the finest Colombian coffee in a disposable plastic thermos.
In a corner of the hotel parking lot, a Bell JetRanger executive helicopter was waiting for Roy. As on the jet from L.A., he was the only person in the plushly upholstered passenger cabin.
On the flight out to the discovery in the Mojave, Roy ate both croissants and drank the black coffee while using his attaché case computer to connect to Mama. He reviewed the overnight developments in the investigation.
Not much had happened. Back in southern California, John Kleck had not turned up any leads that might tell them where the woman had gone after abandoning her car at the airport in Orange County. Likewise, they had not succeeded in tracing the telephone number to which Grant’s cleverly programmed system had faxed photos of Roy and his men from the Malibu cabin.
The biggest news, which wasn’t much, came from San Francisco. The agent tracking down George and Ethel Porth—the grandparents who evidently had raised Spencer Grant following his mother’s passing—now knew, from public records, that a death certificate had been issued for Ethel ten years ago. Evidently that was why her husband sold the house at that time. George Porth had died, too, just three years ago. Now that the agent couldn’t hope to talk with the Porths about their grandson, he was pursuing other avenues of investigation.
Through Mama, Roy routed a message to the agent’s E-mail number in San Francisco, suggesting that he check the records of the probate court to determine if the grandson had been an heir to either the estate of Ethel Porth or that of her husband. Maybe the Porths had not known their grandson as “Spencer Grant” and had used his real name in their wills. If for some inexplicable reason they had aided and abetted his use of that false identity for purposes including enlistment in the military, they nevertheless might have cited his real name when disposing of their estates.
It wasn’t much of a lead, but it was worth checking out.
As Roy unplugged the computer and closed it, the pilot of the JetRanger alerted him, by way of the public-address system, that they were one minute from their destination. “Coming up on our right.”
Roy leaned to the window beside his seat. They were paralleling a wide arroyo, heading almost due east across the desert.
The glare of sun on sand was intense. He took sunglasses from an inner jacket pocket and put them on.
Ahead, three Jeep wagons, all agency hardware, were clustered in the middle of the dry wash. Eight men were waiting around the vehicles, and most of them were watching the approaching helicopter.
The JetRanger swept over the Jeeps and agents, and suddenly the land below dropped a thousand feet as the chopper soared across the brink of a precipice. Roy’s stomach dropped, too, because of the abrupt change in perspective and because of something that he had glimpsed but couldn’t quite believe that he had really seen.
High over the valley floor, the pilot entered a wide starboard turn and brought Roy around for a better look at the place where the arroyo met the edge of the cliff. In fact, using the two towers of rock in the middle of the dry wash as a visual fulcrum, he flew a full three-hundred-sixty-degree circle. Roy had a chance to see the Explorer from every amazing angle.
He took off his sunglasses. The truck was still there in the full glare of daylight. He put the glasses on as the JetRanger brought him around again and landed in t
he arroyo, near the Jeeps.
Disembarking from the chopper, Roy was met by Ted Tavelov, the agent in charge at the site. Tavelov was shorter and twenty years older than Roy, lean and sun browned; he had leathery skin and a dry-as-beef-jerky look from having spent too many years outdoors in the desert. He was dressed in cowboy boots, jeans, a blue flannel shirt, and a Stetson. Although the day was cool, Tavelov wore no jacket, as if he had stored up so much Mojave heat in his sun-cured flesh that he would never again be cold.
As they walked toward the Explorer, the chopper engine fell silent behind them. The rotors wheezed more slowly to a halt.
Roy said, “There’s no sign of either the man or the dog, so I hear.”
“Nothing in there but a dead rat.”
“Was the water really that high when it jammed the truck between those rocks?”
“Yep. Sometime yesterday afternoon, at the height of the storm.”
“Then maybe he was washed out, went over the falls.”
“Not if he stayed buckled up.”
“Well, farther up the river, maybe he tried to swim for shore.”
“Man would have to be a fool to try swimming in a flash flood, the water moving like an express train. This man a fool?”
“No.”
“See these tracks here,” Tavelov said, pointing to tire marks in the silt of the arroyo bed. “Even what little wind there’s been since the storm has worn ’em down some. But you can still see where somebody drove down the south bank, under the Explorer, probably stood on the roof of his vehicle to get up there.”
“When would the arroyo have dried up enough for that?”