"After the Porsche, say." For a moment Frits continued to stare at him. Crane just stared back, a little more wide-eyed than before. "Where do you know Alfred Funo from?" Frits asked.
Crane exhaled. "I suppose that's the name of the guy registered next to us at the motel? I've never heard the name before. How would I know him? Does he live in Orange County?"
"L.A. County."
"I've never heard the man's name. I never saw the car before yesterday, unless it passed me on the freeway sometime."
After three more long seconds Frits looked back down at his papers. "You're staying at the Circus Circus?"
"Right. The room's under Mavranos's name."
"Okay." Frits sat back and smiled. "We'll be in touch. Thanks for coming in."
Crane leaned forward with a concerned frown on his face. "Look, maybe this is standard procedure, this … threatening attitude, these insinuations, but if you really think I'm involved in this thing, I wish you'd just say so, so I could explain whatever it is you've got wrong. I don't—"
Frits had been nodding sympathetically, and now he held up his hand, and Crane stopped talking. "Thanks for coming in," Frits said.
Crane hesitated, then put the coffee cup down on the desk. "Uh … thank you." He got up out of the chair and let himself out of the office.
Mavranos was waiting in the truck. "Didn't take long," he said as Crane climbed in and pulled the door closed. "Were Diana and Ozzie in there?"
"No," Crane said, "I guess he talked to them earlier. I wish Ozzie hadn't swooped everybody away before we got a chance to discuss the story a little. 'Happened to meet Ozzie in Balboa and then just dropped everything and drove straight to Vegas!' How did that detective act with you?"
"Like it was a—a formality." The Suburban shook as he started the engine. "Just had me recite it all. Why, did he lean on you?"
"Yeah, some."
"Huh. Well, at least you're still at large."
Mavranos swung the blue truck across the parking lot toward the exit onto the Strip. "Listen, I'm gonna try the Sports Book at Caesars—they've got one airplane-hangar-size room that must have a hundred TV screens on the wall, and the effects of what's on the screens go rippling across the people that're watching, like wind over a wheatfield. I might find a clue there. You want to come along, or should I drop you somewhere?"
"Yeah, you can drop me off—at the next card-reading parlor you see."
Mavranos glanced at him curiously. "I thought Ozzie said you were supposed to stay away from that kind of thing."
Crane rubbed his face, wondering if he looked as exhausted as he felt. "That's if I'm just going to run and hope to hide. If I want to … do anything, I think I've got to turn and face … it, them, whatever it is."
Mavranos sighed and touched the bandanna under his jaw. " 'Because there were no graves in Egypt,' " he said quietly, almost to himself, " 'hast thou taken us away to die in the wilderness?' "
"Your man Eliot?"
"Exodus. Lots of good stuff in the Bible, Pogo."
Crane shook his head, "Ozzie told me not to start any long books."
CHAPTER 24: Fragments of the Book of Thoth
By early afternoon Betsy Reculver had called Trumbill a dozen times, asking if Diana had shown up yet, or if Crane had, and complaining about everything from pains in her joints to the bad card readings she was getting in her solitaire games.
During this latest call, after cautioning him yet again not to let Diana Ryan get away from him, he heard over the phone the bong of her doorbell, followed by LaShane's barking.
"Is that Newt already?" asked Trumbill.
"Let me haul my weary old bones to where I can see the screens." He heard her breathe harder, and the reception on the portable telephone faded as she walked through a doorway.
Trumbill reflected that it would be a relief when the new game was over and done with and the soul of Georges Leon had a batch of fresh bodies to animate, all the ones that had been conceived and paid for in 1969.
The guy must miss his balls, Trumbill thought. Twenty years is a long gestation period if you need the kids, especially when you've got to conceive more before you can get at the original lot.
It's a weird way to be this king, he thought.
Trumbill gathered that in the past the Fisher Kings would just have children, not kill their children's minds and steal their bodies—and that such a King would reign over a fertile green land and not a sterile desert—and that he would share his power with a Queen—and that he would deal face-to-face with the vast old entities that were known as Archetypes or gods, not through the formal, at-a-distance mediation of the terrible cards.
He heard Reculver grunt in surprise.
"My God, Vaughan," she said, "it's that guy, Al Funo! And he's a mess—all unshaven and shaky-looking." Over the line Trumbill heard the click of Reculver's intercom. "Yes?"
Then he heard Funo's voice, tinnily filtered to him through two speakers. "Mrs. Reculver, I need to talk to you."
"Make an appointment," said Trumbill. "Figure a place where we can meet him."
"Uh," said Reculver, speaking loudly into the intercom, "we can meet you … at Lindy's again, at the Flamingo—"
"I need to talk to you now!" came Funo's voice.
"No," said Trumbill instantly.
The intercom clicked off. "Vaughan, he'll leave if I don't talk to him! And he's the only lead we've got to Diana! She won't go back to the apartment you're watching; she's not that stupid; it's a waste of time you sitting there like a damn toad! I've got to do everything, don't I?"
"Betsy, get into Hanari, will you? This Funo guy is a nut—"
"He's starting to leave—" Trumbill heard a clunk, and realized that she had put the phone down on the table by the front door. Again there was the click of the intercom. "Very well," Trumbill heard her say, "come in then." He heard the snap of the dead bolt being switched back.
In the bare apartment overlooking Venus Avenue, Trumbill had stood up, his multicolored belly swinging in front of the window. "Get a gun, at least!" He shouted into the telephone. "Damn you, Betsy, get a gun!"
Then over the telephone line he heard LaShane barking, followed by the unmistakable bam of a close gunshot. A moment later he heard a second shot. The dog stopped barking.
"Shit," Trumbill muttered, staring impatiently out at the duplex across the street and holding the telephone receiver tight. "Betsy?" he yelled. "Betsy, are you all right? Answer me quick or I'm calling 911!" He knew that if she could hear him, she'd get on the line and order him not to do that.
All he could hear over the phone was the vague background sigh of an open line.
"Betsy!" he shouted again. Outside the window glass the empty street yawned at him. "Betsy, what's happened?"
He threw down the tube of Ban and switched off the two fans so that he could better hear any sounds from Betsy's end of the line.
Finally there was a click as though someone had picked up an extension, and then a young woman's voice said, "Five-five-five three-eight-one-zero, this is the Operator with an emergency interrupt from Richard Leroy at five-five-five three-five-nine-three. Will you release the line?"
"Yes," he said through clenched teeth.
There came another click, and then a man's shrill voice: "Vaughan, this is me, I'm in Richard." Richard was panting. "J-Jesus, he shot me!" He paused to cough, and Trumbill was glad he hadn't called from the asthmatic Beany body. "Funo did. I bled to death right on the doorstep, no more than ten seconds after he shot me and ran off." For a moment Trumbill just heard him panting; then Richard went on, "Merde, Vaughan, the Reculver body's lying half in and half out of the front door over there!"