“Don’t look around, just walk! This way!”
“It had to be Parmenter. He must have known I was going to get pulled into Mandy’s collective mass. He had the Machine spit me out someplace safe—more than nine hours ago.”
“No, I mean, what are you doing here? Are you crazy?”
“Have you found her?”
Arnie walked him under the ribbon and toward the trees on the edge of the visitor parking. “Oh, yeah, right, we had a lovely reunion in the lobby while all hell was breaking loose. You kidding? The place is nuts right now. They’ve blocked off the basement, all the doors, everything.”
“We’ve got to find her.”
“No, you’vegotta get out of here, that’s what you’vegotta do. The place is crawling with cops and cameras and everybody’s asking questions. And the two of you seen together? Eeesh! Why don’t you just hang a sign on her? What are you thinking?”
They ducked on the other side of a tree, keeping their faces toward it.
“We were wondering what happened to you. One minute you’re there, the next minute—man, what didhappen to you? You look like you had a scrape with somebody.”
Dane nodded. “Twice.”
“Ehh. Figures. Nothing halfway about you.”
Dane tried to look around the tree, but Arnie yanked him back. “Hey! Stick with your own plan. If she’s here, we’ll find her.”
“She’s got to be here.” He nodded toward the doves. “They made it.”
Arnie chuckled and wagged his head. “I hope to shout they did, and not a feather out of place.” And then, just taking in all the doves, he had to laugh. “Dane, you always were the idea man, I gotta tell ya!”
“Thank Parmenter.” Dane smiled, not in joy but in hope. “And Preston must have called in a thousand favors.” His attention lingered on some doves perched in the branches above them.
“Well let’s get you out of town. I’ve already gotten some calls, people wondering if you were mixed up in this.” Arnie noticed Dane staring. “What?”
There were four doves perched side by side. They were fidgeting, nodding, and bobbing in Dane’s direction, as if they knew him. He spread his arms out straight.
They flew down and perched on his arms, two on the left, two on the right.
Arnie did a jaw drop—then stood in front of Dane and the birds, trying to hide them. “What do you say we get ’em out of here?”
“They’ll let you hold them.”
Cradling a bird in each hand, they stole away.
On the far side of the hospital, as firemen, police, animal control people, and hospital maintenance personnel hurried through a loading door with a variety of fish, bird, and butterfly nets, a maintenance lady in coveralls and billed cap walked by them carrying a broken lamp. She dropped the lamp into a Dumpster beside the loading dock, then continued toward the street, not looking back.
chapter
53
Rancher Jack Wright never heard from or saw the weird scientists again, which was fine with him; it was part of the deal. As for the 35.76 concrete blocks, they also were part of the deal. He hauled them away to use in a new pigsty, leaving that isolated little piece of his ranch looking as if no one had ever been there—if anyone even cared to look.
On Saturday evening at about seven, Dane stepped through the back door into his kitchen. The place was quiet.
“Hello?” he called, but there was no answer.
He walked through the house, checking the living room, the downstairs guest room and bath, the rooms upstairs. He stopped by his closet where Mandy’s costumes and wardrobe still hung neatly, touching the sleeve of the blue gown. Passing by his dresser, he studied a recent photo portrait; she was still so lovely.
He checked his answering machine. No messages. Well, that was part of the plan, cell and land phone silence until they knew which way the winds were blowing, whether the bad guys were listening.
He drove to the Quik Stop on Highway 95 to use the pay phone. Somewhere in Las Vegas, in a hotel room, a rented office, perhaps the home of one of Arnie’s friends, a telephone rang, but no one answered. He rechecked the number Arnie gave him and dialed again. Still no answer. He returned the receiver to the cradle less than gently, then sighed, resigning himself to a little more waiting, a little more not knowing.
He returned to the ranch, carried in his luggage, and then brought in Mandy’s four doves in their cage. They were tired, ready to sleep, so he set them in the utility room with the light off so they could call it a night.
Shirley had left all his mail in a pile on the kitchen counter and a note catching him up on the spraying she’d done, getting a new drive belt for the lawn mower, replacing the bulbs in the shop with the brighter wattage he wanted, having Susan the housekeeper skip a week and … blah blah blah, thank you, Shirley, he was too tired, too edgy to read the rest.
He fixed himself a bowl of oat flakes, something quick and easy, and settled in front of his computer to see if he could get any news.
The EPA had taken immediate interest in the “hazardous waste spill” in that vacant lot. A remediation crew showed up within an hour, cordoned off the area, and worked through the night to sanitize it, replacing six inches of topsoil and hydroseeding grass. The agency also took over the subbasement of the hospital, declaring those floors an environmental hazard and sealing them off. Dane had to wonder why a hospital was allowed to remain open sitting on top of an environmental hazard, but of course there was no explanation.
Public outcry prevented any killing of the doves, so they were being captured to be sold on the Internet, distributed to pet stores, employed by local magicians, adopted by bird lovers from all over the country. White doves were free for the catching and selling dirt cheap in Las Vegas.
As for deaths, casualties, missing persons, even what became of Mandy Whitacre, the newspeople had nothing, and the government was strangely, silently uninvolved.
Dane sighed and let his head drop. He didn’t know, would probably never know, what Parmenter’s “contingency plan” was, but if Dane threw Mandy’s collective mass off, there would have been only one way to counterbalance it. He probably would never see the venerable scientist again.
The Orpheus Hotel Casino had already booked another act for the big room in the aftermath of the great and mysterious tragedy: Gabriel’s Magic, featuring the famous television magician Preston Gabriel, who just happened to have some time available. Well, that worked. The Orpheus got a spike in name recognition no amount of money could buy and a great show besides. Now Dane didn’t feel quiteso bad.
He closed the computer and rubbed his eyes, so very tired. To stay out of airports where he might be seen or looked for, he’d driven Preston’s Wrangler from Vegas to Salt Lake City, where he slept in a cheap room, then drove all day Saturday to get home … to an empty house, and no word.
He tried to sleep that night and finally dropped off. The telephone let him sleep; it never made a sound.
Sunday morning the weather was cheerful, a rare occurrence for March in Idaho. It helped. There wasn’t a swelling bud or a new blade of grass in sight, but it helped. Dane checked the answering machine again—it was a little irrational, but he might have missed something. No messages.
All right. He’d take another trip down to the Quik Stop and try the number again. He grabbed his coat from the closet—
A cooing from the utility room stopped him. Oh, brother. Can’t it wait?
Well …
If all things were ordinary, he would have left them there until he got back, but these were not just four little doves among many, these were Bonkers, Carson, Lily, and Maybelle. They were stars, ultimate aviators, and most of all, heroes. He saw them fly with Mandy through the whole thing and it tugged at his heart like crazy. However things turned out, he owed them.
And, of course, there was Mandy. She’d want them well taken care of.
He brought them into the kitchen and they were glad to see him, sidestepping back and forth on their perches, chirping, bobbing around. He gave them some breakfast—fresh seeds, water, celery tops from the refrigerator—and leaned on his elbows watching them scarf it all down. “I wonder if you guys even have a clue what you did.”