“Oh my, yes. He has several cases of it in the wine cellar. It’s his favorite.”
We nibbled on the jerky, which was better than most steaks I’d eaten in restaurants, and relaxed and drank champagne until the bottle was empty. Mickey sprang from her seat as if a catapult launched her and hurried into the kitchen, returning with a second bottle. We drank that, too. Hondo mentioned something about not wanting to offend the host. After the third bottle I was feeling no pain. Hondo said that if we drank one more, he’d be at Stage Ten on Dan Jenkins’ Ten Stages of Drunkenness, which is: Crank Up The Enola Gay.
We left Mickey at Landman’s where she planned to spend the night. As we left, Mickey said, “I may check out some things tomorrow, do some investigating.”
“Why don’t you tell us what it is and we’ll do it. That’s what we’re getting paid to do.”
She shook her head, “No, no I’ll do it. Makes me feel like I can make a difference. I’ll do my sleuthing inconspicuously, don’t worry.”
Now she was using words like sleuthing. “Don’t get into any trouble, Mickey. If you even dream it’s dangerous, you call me, okay?”
She nodded and almost fell through the huge doorway as her head went forward. She grabbed my belt to keep from falling. “I guess I had a little too mush to drink. I think I’ll go to bed now.” She closed the big marble door and we walked to the Mercedes.
“You want to drive?” Hondo asked.
“Heck no I don’t want to drive. I had too much champagne.”
“Me too.”
“Then you better drive careful, and slow, and don’t bother me because I’ll be asleep in the passenger seat.”
Hondo didn’t say anything and we drove off.
CHAPTER FOUR
I woke to the sounds of many honking horns. I opened one eye and looked along the back of the convertible. Cars were stacked bumper to bumper in two lines that went back a quarter-mile. No one could pass because the Mercedes was straddling the middle stripe.
I looked over at Hondo and saw he was smiling, wearing his shades and humming along as the Mamas and Papas sang California Dreaming from the speakers. “You realize you’re blocking two lanes of traffic?”
“Sure.”
I waited for more. There was only silence, humming. “You want to tell me why?” I said.
“I noticed everyone passing seemed angry and in a hurry. I thought I could slow things down, let them re-adjust their karma and mellow out. It’s too beautiful an afternoon to have so many angry vibes permeating the highway populace.”
I started laughing, “Sometimes I wonder if you’re not a hippie who got zapped here in a time warp. Some of these people may be in a legitimate hurry. Some of them may be armed with AK’s. You need to let them pass,” I shook my head. “Next thing I know you’ll be wearing love beads and have flowers poking out of your hair.”
Hondo gave me the peace sign, pulled over and waved for the next ten minutes as cars passed, honking their horns and yelling and shooting us the finger. California, land of mellow. When most of them had passed, Hondo sped up and got me home without either of us being shot or maimed by irate drivers.
I checked my phone for messages and had none, went to the bedroom, showered and changed into fresh gym shorts, then checked my e-mail. There were a few jokes sent to me by friends, but nothing extraordinary. I shut it off and went to the living room to catch the local evening news.
One thing about drinking early and then taking a short nap and waking, it left me with a dull headache, fuzzy thinking and a cranky disposition. You’d think I would learn. I went to the kitchen and drank two large glasses of water, dug through the refrigerator and found half a Papa John’s Canadian bacon and pineapple pizza and several Rolling Rocks. I took one of the beers and the pizza and went to the couch.
As I ate the cold pizza, I thought about where in the hell Bob Landman could be. Things, especially considering what we found today, were not pointing in a good direction.
The Mexican women hadn’t heard a thing when Bob’s bike was thrown from the cliff, which indicated to me that Landman himself had thrown the bike and fanny pack, or he had been rendered unable to call out, or the bike and fanny pack had been taken from him on the trail, too far from the edge for the women to hear a yell or scuffle.
I ate a second slice of pizza and drank a second beer, which seemed to help my headache and disposition. The news was long over and I flipped channels through all nine thousand stations twice before stopping on the Discovery Channel and a special on Neanderthals.
I ate the last slice of pizza and was on the last beer when the doorbell rang. I almost didn’t get up because the show was where the Cro-Magnons -- baldheaded guys with dried flaky clay on their faces -- were about to whomp up on the poor Neanderthals. I wanted to see my team win, feel good for a change. The bell rang again and I went to the door and looked through the peep hole.
Bond Meadows stood there wearing an open, knee-length fur coat and black stiletto heels and nothing else, unless you counted the bottle of Cristal champagne in her hand. On seeing the bottle, I pondered opening the door. She rang again and I peeked again. Maybe I only had the strength of seven or eight tonight. I opened the door and she came in.
“I thought you were never going to open the door.”
“I wanted to see how you were holding that bottle before I did.”
A flash went through her eyes, then faded. “That’s not very nice.”