Back in Patagonia it wasn’t quite drink time so he made a cup of instant coffee and thought over some plans he had made. He was thinking about calling Lucy in New York and trying to get her to come to Tucson and infiltrate the cult in the guise of a wealthy woman. The drawback was that she was a tad unstable. He tried to dismiss the question of how long his ex-wife would follow him like a ghost and whether there were other Diane doppelgangers like Lucy? Probably.
He slowly unpacked the contents of the cult bag. There were a half dozen issues of Barely Eighteen, which he leafed through with no particular interest, not being turned on by photos. A spiral notebook with Dwight-Daryl’s handwriting was a severe disappointment. The first page was titled, I Am Many, but the following pages were in code which he would have to FedEx to Mona, or maybe just take back home as he was thinking of hightailing it after Thanksgiving. Comically there were a number of small bottles of Viagra, Levitra, and Cialis to keep the Leader’s pecker up. It added up to not much but then he shook the magazines to make sure and eureka the third contained a printed-out e-mail and digital photo in between the pages featuring Candy the High School Dropout. The photo was an electrifying one of Mona on a sofa with her skirt raised and no undies. Sunderson blushed and turned the photo over on the table. The e-mail was from Carla and read, “Dearest, here’s a photo of the creep, which might turn you on though she’s a bit old for your taste. I went down on her for an hour which you would have liked watching. Love, Carla”
Sunderson began to sweat and reached for the absent whiskey bottle. How could he have forgotten to buy whiskey or wine? Mona had said nothing had happened that evening. One of them was lying and he hoped it was Carla. In any event he had a fine piece of evidence, perhaps not enough to convict but plenty to cause a heap of trouble. He brooded as he made a salad not wanting to fry a rib steak without having a bottle of wine to go with it. The loaf of French bread was fair and he was inclined to feel virtuous even though he had simply forgotten the whiskey. He finally stored his groceries and was amused to see his cell phone in the refrigerator. He had assumed it wouldn’t work in there but he was of course wrong. What the fuck, he thought, being electronically ignorant. He took out his notebook and jotted down messages from Berenice for the Thanksgiving dinner, one from his mother telling him that he was, as always, a disappointment, a cheery one from Marion, and three from Mona saying that someone had broken into her house and stolen her computer. To his surprise there were five messages from Melissa, which frightened him because of Xavier’s threat at dinner. He called anyway feeling a memory-driven nut itch.
“I want to see you,” she said.
“I don’t want to die.”
“Xavier is at his apartment in New York City because there’s a war between everyone. His people are hiding out down in Obregon. Anyway it causes too many problems to kill an American.”
“How nice. Why do you want to see me?”
“Companionship. Everyone else is afraid of me.”
“The Wagon Wheel bar ASAP,” he said, pressing the off button then calling Mona.
“I’m sorry about your computer. I’ll buy you a new one.”
“Everything’s in there. I feel like I lost my past.”
“I can’t do anything about that.”
“No shit. Can you still turn a doorknob? Where the hell were you?”
“Camping in the wilderness without my cell. Cooling off. I found that raised-skirt photo of you in the Leader’s day pack. He can be nailed for possession of child pornography.”
“I’m a child? I better tell the guy that fucked me an hour ago.” She laughed.
“That’s not funny,” he said lamely.
“It was fun. Why should I be faithful to you? You won’t touch me no matter how much I tease you. I don’t really like to do yoga at dawn. Everything was for you, darling.”
He hung up. Now he really needed a drink. He called Berenice and said he’d be there for Thanksgiving dinner and turned off the phone before she could get started on his week’s disappearance.
The first double shot and Pacifico at the bar made him glow. Alcohol beat the shit out of the Shroud of Turin as a miracle though the fair-sized crowd of drinkers didn’t look merry.
“Where you been, cutie?” Amanda asked.
“Camping.”
“Oh bullshit. A pretty Latino named Melissa is looking for you. Also a guy named Kowalski although he didn’t look like a Kowalski. He wondered if you had left town. He doesn’t know that I know his name but he’s a low-rent P.D. from Rio Rico. Mostly divorce cases.”
“Thanks.” Hearing Kowalski’s name made him glad he had the photo and Carla’s e-mail in his sport coat pocket. It occurred to him that Kowalski must have been retained by Dwight-Daryl. He decided to kick his ass if he saw him again.
