“Yeah, but you appreciate good music, right?”
Hondo said over my shoulder, “Right.” He’s been on a Classics kick for a while now.
Beggars can’t be choosers and besides, the GTO looked terrific. “Thanks for the loan,” I said.
**
I tried for the Steve Stunning look as I took the long way back to the office, playing the old songs and driving slow by all the young pretties at the beaches and allowing them to stop me so they could come over to ohh and ahh about my car. They really liked the music, too.
It took me an hour to get to the office. Hondo had been waiting fifty minutes when I arrived.
“I was hoping you hadn’t wrecked it.”
I said, “I wanted to get a feel for it, so I took it along the water.”
Hondo said, “I would too, stop every fifty feet or so for the women.”
“Yeah. They like that old music.”
Hondo held his palms out like, What did you expect? He changed the subject, “So John Wesley was driving a different pickup than the one he used to knock her off the road.”
“Uh-huh. I gave the police the license plate number, but I’ll bet it’s stolen, like the truck.”
“He’ll change vehicles after every operation.”
I nodded. “A pro. I just can’t imagine what she must have done to rate all the attention.”
“What was she doing when you saw her?”
“I think she was looking for a particular address, or maybe a particular location on the Strip.”
“You don’t think she found it, though.”
“She was still looking when all the action started.”
Hondo said, “We can think on it, maybe take a drive back there and look around, see if something catches our attention.”
“Sure, and there’s a good eating place near there where you can buy us lunch, too.”
Hondo grinned and said, “We need to get you checked for tapeworms.” He thought of something else and said, “Did you see Magilla?”
“Not before the shooting started, then I got a little busy. I didn’t see him after, either.”
“We need to find him. Fast.”
I knew what Hondo meant. Our girl was running out of time and luck.
**
The next morning we used our phones instead of our legs for the next several hours, but still couldn’t pin down Magilla, or John Wesley, or anything about the girl. We finally took a break at 2PM, walked to the Cow’s End, ate sandwiches, and drank more coffee to get a little afternoon pick-me-up. Emma Storm drove by us as we walked back and said she would meet us at the office.
She hugged us both at the door, which surprised me since she didn’t acknowledge my existence at Hondo’s Budweiser shoot. She was excited, with a cute flush to her cheeks. She sat down and crossed her legs and the airborne foot wiggled nonstop. “Have I got something for you two,” she said.
“Matched Tupperware?” I said.
She frowned a little and said, “No, no, something really terrific.”
“Aw, not Amway.” I said. Hondo made a small motion with his hand, asking me to stop.