"Ben!" he blurted with a treble whimper, and the word chased him down into warm black water.
ARIZONA: June 29
A light fluttered on the black water, and Jonathan, disembodied, rushed through miles of space toward it. He gained on the spark, and it grew larger, until it developed into a window with stripes of daylight glaring through a Venetian blind. He was in his room. A great flesh-colored glob hung over him.
"How's it going, ol' buddy?"
He tried to sit up, but a thud of pain nailed him to the pillow.
"Relax. Doctor said you're going to be just fine. He says it may hurt for a few days when you piss. George sure gave your kidneys a going over."
"Give me something to drink."
"Beer?"
"Anything." Jonathan inched his way to a sitting position, moving up through strata of thickening headache.
Ben made a clumsy attempt to feed him the beer, but Jonathan relieved him of his heavy solicitude by snatching the can away after a third of it had spilled on his chest. "Where is she?" he asked once his thirst was slaked.
"I got her locked up, and a couple of my staff are watching her. Want me to call into town for the sheriff?"
"No, not yet. Tell me, Ben..."
"No, he hasn't. I figured you'd be wondering if this Mellough had checked out The desk will call me if he tries."
"So it was Miles?"
"That's what George says."
"All right. He's had it. Let's get me into the shower."
"But the doctor said—"
Jonathan's suggestion as to what the doctor could do with his advice was beyond the routine of physiotherapy and, moreover, beyond ballistic probability.
Ben half carried him into the shower where Jonathan turned on the cold water and let it beat on him, clearing the moss from his mind. "Why, Ben? I'm really not that bad."
"The oldest reason in the world, ol' buddy," he shouted over the noise of the shower.
"Love?"
"Money."
The water was doing its work, but with the return of feeling came a pounding headache and pains in his kidneys. "Toss me in a bottle of aspirin. What did she shoot into me?"
"Here." Ben's big paw thrust the bottle through the shower curtain. "Doctor says it was some relative of morphine. He had a name for it. But it wasn't a lethal dose."
"So it would appear." The aspirin disintegrated in his hand with the splatter of water, so he tipped the bottle up to his mouth then washed the tablets down by gulping under the shower head. He gagged as bits of aspirin caught in his throat "Morphine figures. Miles is in the drug business."
"Is that right? But how come he went that far and didn't put you away for good? George said he had promised her nothing serious would happen to you. Just wanted to scare you off."
"Her concern is touching."
"Maybe she just didn't want to die for murder."
"That sounds more like it." Jonathan turned off the water and began to towel himself down, but not too vigorously, because every sharp motion slopped pain around in his head. "My guess is that Miles intended to come in after George put me under and shoot me full of junk. The death would be attributed to an overdose. It's typical Mellough. Safe and oblique."
"He's a bad ass all right. What are you going to do about him?"
"Something massive."
After Jonathan dressed, they went down the hall to the room in which George was being kept. He felt a twinge of regret when he saw her swollen eye and the split lip he had given her, but this quickly faded when the bruises along his spine reminded him of how she had tried to help the morphine put him away.
She looked more Indian than ever, clutching a blanket around her shoulders, under which she was as naked as she had been when Ben broke in to save him.
"How much did he pay you, George?" he asked.
She almost spat back her response. "Goddam your eyes, you shit!"
These were the only words he ever heard her speak.
Ben could not help chuckling as they returned to Jonathan's room. "I guess she's been around me too much."
"It's not that, Ben. They always talk about my eyes afterwards. Look, I'm going to get a couple hours' sleep. Will you have your people at the desk make up my bill?"
"You leaving right away?"
"Soon. Is the Land-Rover ready?"
"Yeah."
"And the shotgun?"
"It'll be on the floorboards. I imagine you don't want Mellough to know you're checking out."
"On the contrary. But don't do anything special about it. He'll find out. Miles is a specialist in information."
He awoke refreshed three hours later. The effects of the morphine had worn off and his headache was gone, but his kidneys still felt a little soggy. He dressed with special care in one of his better suits, packed his suitcases, and telephoned to the desk to have them put in the Land-Rover.
As he entered the lounge he saw the blond wrestler sitting at the bar, a broad strip of tape over his swollen nose.
"Good afternoon, Dewayne." Ignoring the bodyguard's glare of hate, he passed through the lounge, along a walkway, and over a bridge to the table at which Miles sat, poised and impeccable in a suit of metallic gold.
"Join me, Jonathan?"
"I owe you a drink."
"So you do. And we all know what a stickler you are for old debts. You're looking very nice. Your tailor is accurate, if uninspired."
"I'm not feeling too well. I had a bad night."
"Oh? I'm sorry to hear that."
The young Indian waiter who had served them the first day approached the table, his glances at Miles filled with tender remembrance. Jonathan ordered, and the two of them watched the bathers around the pool until the drinks arrived and the waiter departed.
"Cheers, Jonathan?"
Jonathan drank off the Laphroaig and put the glass on the table. "I've decided to forget about you for now, Miles."
"Have you? Just like that?"
"I'm going to be staying here in training for a couple more weeks, and I won't be able to concentrate on it with you on my mind. I have a big climb in front of me." Jonathan was sure that Miles knew he had checked out. The obvious lie was calculated to make Miles think he had him on the run, and Miles was the kind to press such an advantage.
"I sympathize with your problem, Jonathan. Truly I do. But unless this means you are crossing me off your list for good..." He lifted his shoulders in helpless regret.
"I might do just that. Let's have dinner together tonight and talk about it."
"A delightful idea."
Jonathan had to admire Miles's silky control.
Jonathan rose. "See you this evening."
"I'm looking forward to it." Miles raised his glass in salute.
The Land-Rover was parked in the loading zone in front of the lodge. As Jonathan climbed in, he noticed on the floorboards next to the shotgun a thoughtful gift from Ben: a six-pack of cold beer. He opened a can and sipped at it while he glanced over the area map on his lap. He had earlier located a long dirt road running in thin broken lines deep into the desert. Ben had told him it was a little-used rut track that only government rangers drove on. For more than a hundred fifty miles, the road pierced into the core of the western desert, then it stopped abruptly.
Tracing back with his finger, he found the place where the dirt track began, branching west from a north-south gravel access road. This gravel road joined the main highway about a mile west of the turnoff to Ben's place. Considering the difference in speed between the Rover and the rental car at Miles's disposal, that mile of good highway promised to be the most dangerous stretch.