Don Winslow: While Drowning in the Desert

“Mr. Silverstein,” I whispered while Sami was dialing, “would you mind telling me why these people want to kill you?”

Nathan shrugged, “Maybe they saw the beach movies.”

For some reason I thought he was being disingenuous.

Then again, I had seen the beach movies.

“Hello, Heinz?”

Nathan nudged me. “So this fella Hannigan had a schlong that a horse shouldn’t have. That an elephant shouldn’t have. They called him the One-Eyed Giant, and not because he was tall, either…”

“Sorry, Heinz, I forget, okay? I’m very upset… I can’t do that, Heinz… Because then I couldn’t get away from the scene of the crime…”

“One night we’re in a restaurant,” Nathan continued. “I’m having a nice piece of fish. Hannigan leans over the table to get the salt and his eye falls out. I go to cut my fish, think I’m looking at the fish-eye, but what I am looking at is Hannigan’s eye…”

“Can you come get me, Heinz? I’m sorry. I forget. Where am I? Hold on.” Sami looked around. “In the desert.”

“I start to cut into the fish,” Nathan continued, “and Hannigan looks at me with his one eye and says, ‘When did you ever see a fish with blue eyes?’ Well, he starts to laugh, I start to laugh, Paulette starts to laugh. ‘When did you ever see a fish with blue eyes?’

“Some old mine, or something…” Sami started to give him directions. “Then you go… Hello? Hello?”

“The battery’s dead,” I said.

“Shit.”

“You can recharge it in the car.”

Sami gave me the best dirty look he could with his one good eye.

“I shoot you,” he said.

“Not until Heinz gets here, you won’t.”

So I guess I told him.

“So Hannigan picks up his eye and goes into the washroom. I go with him. He starts to wash the eye under the tap when he loses his grip and the eye goes down the drain. We call the owner, Jack Donahue

…”

“Heinz is coming,” Sami said.

“Yippee.”

“… who was married to the former Dorothy DeLillo, whose sister was Marjorie DeLillo. Together they used to be the former DeLillo Sisters…”

So Heinz was coming. At least we’d get to meet the whole brain trust. Heinz was coming, and I didn’t expect Sami to try anything horrible until the boss got here. In the meantime there was a lot to do. It wouldn’t hurt to get a fire going, because desert nights can get very cold, especially for an old man.

So I gathered up some slats from the old shack, borrowed Nathan’s lighter, and got the fire going. Then I sat back on an old log, watched the fire, and the bright stars, which in the desert night looked like they were about ten feet away, and thought about old men and babies.

And lost chances.

Maybe it was hormones.

But it just bugs me that whenever a woman gets truly emotional about something, men ascribe it to hormones. Like they’re something we made up.

Hormones are real.

So is wanting a baby and wanting it now. I mean, I was no Suzy Creamcheese sorority chick when I met Neal. My biological clock was already ticking and if Neal wanted to wait two more years I just didn’t think I could stand it. My biological clock was becoming a time bomb.

So if it was hormones, so what?

These hips were made for babies.

And the dumbshit would make a great father if he’d just get over his own screwed-up childhood, and he knows it. But I guess I was a little rough on him. Anyway, after I talked to him on the phone I went upstairs and checked the calendar, did the temperature thing, and discovered that the old ovaries were in overdrive.

We’re talking prime time.

And I thought, hell, if I can get my butt down to Palm Desert maybe I could surprise Neal and we could do it before he had a chance to start whining about how screwed-up he is.

So I phoned up Peggy Milkovsky and she phoned up one of the crop-spraying outfits and sure enough there was a pilot heading down to Indio, which isn’t too far from Palm Desert, and he said he’d be happy for the company.

I put a few things in a bag, met the pilot at the airstrip and got to Indio just as the sun was going down. I found Nathan Silverstein’s address in the Greater Coachella Valley phone book, got myself a cab over there and rang the bell.

To tell the truth, I felt kind of pathetic standing there on the front step, with my bag, my bubbling ovaries, and my round heels. Talk about easy.

Chalk it up to temporary insanity, please.

A woman answered the door. I think she was expecting somebody else because she was wearing a white see-through full-length negligee, high heels, and red lipstick.

“You must be Hope White,” I said.

“That’s right, honey,” she said. She gave me a woman’s once-over and added, “And Nathan must be doing better than I thought.”

“Is Neal Carey here, by any chance?”

“No, he’s not.”

Then I did the weirdest thing.

I started to cry. I don’t mean sniffle, either. I started to bawl.

I’m no wussy. I’m a rootin’, tootin’ cowgirl mountain woman. I’ve birthed calves, gelded horses, and stitched up drunken cowboys. I’ve comforted abused kids, stuck shotgun barrels into the crotches of their no-good daddies, even listened to Neal Carey try to sing and never cried. I don’t cry easily.

But there I was, standing in front of a nearly naked woman bawling my eyes out and I don’t know why.

It’s just that at that moment I really needed to see him and he wasn’t there.

So I was weeping and Hope White pulled me inside and sat me on on the couch and actually said, “There, there, dear…”

I was just blubbering.

“You’re looking for Neal?” she said gently.

I blubbered and nodded.

“You really need to find him, don’t you?”

Blubber and nod.

“Honey,” Hope said as she put her arm around me, “are you crying because this Neal got you into trouble?”

“No,” I blurted, “I’m crying because he didn’t!”

Next thing I knew my head was resting in her ample bosom and she was stroking my hair and saying, “There, there… There, there… You just cry and tell Hope all about it.”

And I did.

Dear Diary,

What a night!

After the German fellow left I took a long bubble bath, made myself some dinner out of Natty’s refrigerator, then got all dressed up the way Natty likes. (Blush, blush.)

Sure enough, about an hour later the doorbell rang and I thought it was Natty and he had forgot his key. So I went to the door, flung it open, flung my arms open to show him (blush, blush) the goods, and Surprise! It was a young woman!

At first I was a little upset, Diary, because I thought Natty had himself some young honey and let me tell you, this one is a looker! Thick black hair, gorgeous eyes, and the hips…

Well, it turns out that she’s not looking for Natty after all (A good thing for her. A good thing for Natty!), but for this Neal Carey I met in Vegas. The one who was supposed to be bringing Natty home.

I told the poor dear-Karen is her name-that Neal wasn’t there and the sweet thing starts to cry like her heart is going to break. What else could I do? I brought her in and sat her down and listened to her story.

Diary, the trouble is that this Neal will marry her but not give her a baby. Just the reverse of the usual story. Go figure.

I told her, “Sweetie, you’re going about this all the wrong way!”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

I told her, “Just get him in the sack but don’t tell him that you ‘forgot’ your birth control.”

“I couldn’t do that,” she said. “It wouldn’t be honest. It wouldn’t be healthy for the relationship.”