I walked away from him, into the trees, into the cold air rising off the river in the shadows. Molinari followed me and scooped up a pine cone and threw it at my head.
"Don't turn your back on me, Mr. Holland," he said.
"Your problem is not with me, Nicki. It's back in Laos, on that helicopter skid."
His hands opened and closed at his sides. His hired man followed us into the trees, his silhouette gargantuan against the sunlight. Molinari turned and said, "Everything's cool here, Frank. Take a smoke. I'll be along in a minute." I started to speak but Molinari shook his finger.
"You got no right to stick that information in my face," he said.
"Hell is a place you carry with you. I hope you get out of it one day."
"Save the shuck for people who are easily impressed," he said.
But he didn't leave. He stared at me, the veins in his forearms pumped with blood.
"Say something," he said.
I shook my head and walked around him, out into the sunlight, into the glory of the day and the humped blue-green chain of mountains that lined each side of the Blackfoot Valley. Frank, the hired man, looked at Nicki, waiting for instructions.
"Leave him alone," Nicki said.
I WAS BY MYSELF that evening. The sky was blue, the sun glowing like a red spark through a crack in the hills. The Blackfoot had dropped, and the rocks along the bank were white and dry and etched with the skeletal remains of underwater insects. When the wind gusted I could smell a meat fire in a neighbor's yard and the cold odor the river gave off inside the shade.
It was an evening to put aside thoughts about Nicki Molinari and Carl Hinkel and their minions and all their nefarious enterprises. I called Temple Carrol at her motel.
"How about dinner and a movie?" I said.
"I guess that could be arranged," she said.
"Thank you," I said.
"Don't be smart," she replied.
Well, that's a start, I thought, and went into the bathroom to shave.
A minute later the phone rang.
"Hello?" I said.
"We need to talk," the voice said.
"Cleo?"
"At least you haven't forgotten the sound of my voice."
"I'm going to ring off now," I said.
"Come on, stop pretending you're a victim. I apologize for my behavior at the Joan Baez concert. Can't you show a little humility?"
"Have a good life," I said.
"I'm turning off the dirt road right now. It doesn't look like Doc's at home. That's good. You and I have a lot to talk about," she said.
I hurriedly put on a fresh shirt and my hat and headed out the door for my truck, just as she drove around the side of the house and parked by the porch. She wore a yellow sundress and a pink ribbon in her hair. But for some reason that had no exact physical correlation, she looked sharp-edged, aged, her eyes intent with an animus that would never allow her to acknowledge any perception of the world other than her own.
She walked toward me with a box wrapped in satin paper.
"A little present," she said.