J Jance - Queen of the Night

The pickup truck was something else Donald had done for Delphina. He was the one who made that happen. He and Leo Ortiz, the man who ran the garage in Sells, were good friends. Someone’s old truck had broken down and been towed into Leo’s garage. When Leo gave the owner the bad news about how much a new engine would cost, the guy had walked away-without bothering to pay for the towing.

Pickups were always in demand on the reservation, so Leo had gone ahead and put a new engine in the vehicle. He was getting ready to sell it when Donald asked if he would sell it to Delphina-on time. All she had to pay was one hundred dollars a month, and that’s what she was doing. In another year, the truck would be all hers. In the meantime, because she hadn’t been able to buy insurance, she drove it only on the reservation, not in town.

By the time Delphina and Angie got home, the place was like an oven. She turned on the swamp cooler while she put away the groceries, then went into the bedroom-the coolest room in the house. Without having to be told, Angie had gone there to take a nap. After a moment’s thought, Delphina joined her.

That’s what you do the day before an all-night dance, Delphina thought as she drifted off. You sleep in the afternoon so you don’t get too tired.

Much later, when Delphina woke up, she remembered the wonderful dream that had come to her while she was sleeping. In it, she and Donald were very old people who had been married for a long, long time. They were old but content.

And on that June afternoon, the thought of that made Delphina Escalante very happy. It seemed to her that with Donald Rios in her life, her future looked bright. Things were finally changing for the better.

Tucson, Arizona

Saturday, June 6, 2009, 4:00 p.m.

93º Fahrenheit

Jack Tennant counted his lucky stars that Abby had zero interest in golf. She wasn’t interested in playing, didn’t care where he played or with whom, and she never asked questions about his rounds. Oh, he volunteered information on occasion, but only bits and pieces here and there. Today he’d had plenty to do during his very busy morning, none of which involved golf, but he had a properly filled out scorecard ready and waiting.

“I broke a hundred today,” he told Abby proudly when she came in from her trip to the beauty shop that day. Abby insisted on calling the place she went a spa. It seemed like a beauty shop to Jack. As far as he could tell, the difference between the two meant that a spa was more expensive.

“Did you?” she asked. “In all this heat?”

“Yup.” He grinned, tossing the phony scorecard in her direction. “Today Ralph, Wally, and Roy didn’t stand a chance. I took all three of them to the cleaners. But you’re right. It was hot as blue blazes out there. By the time I got home I needed a shower in the worst way.”

Ralph, Wally, and Roy were Jack’s usual golf partners. It was easy for him to beat them since they didn’t exist anywhere except as names on bogus scorecards he had gathered from various public courses around town. He called them his Phantom Foursome. As far as Abby knew, he played golf with them at least three rounds a week, usually with very early tee times.

Those faux golf games came in handy on days like today, when Jack had needed several hours that were entirely his own. If you figured on two hours coming and going, four and a half hours to play, on a slow day, and another hour or so for lunch or a beer afterward, that’s how much time it took to be part of a foursome, which Jack was not.

Oh, he liked golf well enough, but he wasn’t into groups, not anymore. He’d cultivated a couple of good golf buddies once upon a time, long ago, but one of them had died of melanoma and another had put a bullet through his head. These days when Jack played golf, he tended to show up at various public courses without a reservation. He’d go out as a single attached with some other group. He played well enough to hold his head up, but he resisted being invited to play again. He preferred playing on his own, except for occasional times when he needed his imaginary pals to provide suitable cover. The fact that Abby never showed any interest in meeting them made it that much better.

He was about to ask how party preparations were going when Abby’s cell phone rang. “It’s Shirley again,” Abby told him, glancing at the telephone readout. “She has a terrible case of opening-night jitters.”

“She’ll do fine,” Jack said reassuringly.

“That’s what I told her.”

While Abby spoke to Shirley, Jack turned his phone back on. On golf mornings-even pretend golf mornings-he always turned his own phone off completely. On golf courses, Jack couldn’t tolerate playing with guys who held up everybody else by gabbing on their cell phones. “Just leave me a message, if you need to,” he had told Abby. “I’ll turn the phone back on once we finish our round and call you back as soon as I can.”

“Everything under control, I hope?” he asked when Abby ended the call.

She nodded. “I think so. At least I hope so. They’re just used to having me around to run the show.”

“And you will be again,” Jack said, giving her a quick kiss in passing. “But today’s our anniversary, and we’re going to celebrate in style. Right now, though, I’m going outside to have a smoke. I won’t ask if you’d care to join me,” he added with a grin. “I know better.”

“Oh, Jack,” she said, wagging a finger at him in mock disapproval. “You really should give up that nasty habit.”

“Why?” he returned with a sly grin. “I have no intention of living forever. Do you?”

“Well, no,” she said.

“See there?” he asked. “I’m determined to enjoy the time I’m here, and I really like cigars.”

“All right, then,” she said resignedly. “Go smoke ’em if you’ve got ’em. Would you like me to mix up a batch of Bloody Marys while you’re gone?”

“Please,” he said. “I’d like that a lot.”

Outside, in the shaded ramada Abby referred to as his “smoking room,” Jack Tennant sat on a chaise longue and thought about the rest of the day. It had taken him months of time and plenty of effort to put his plan in place. Now it was.

Two days ago, when he told Abby that he had scheduled an event that would preempt her being able to attend the annual party at Tohono Chul, he had worried that there might be a major blowback from her. That certainly would have been the case with his first wife, the departed and not much lamented Irene. If he had presented her with a last-minute change of plans that would have disrupted something on Irene’s calendar, all hell would have broken loose.

With Abby, however, that hadn’t happened. That was one of the things Jack appreciated about this second-time-around marriage. Abby was flexible where Irene was not. And she actually liked surprises. Irene had hated them. Once Abby learned there was a conflict, she had simply brought Shirley to the plate as her party-supervising pinch hitter. No fuss, no muss.

Blowing a cloud of smoke in the air, Jack gave himself a silent pat on the back. He felt slightly guilty that Abby had gone to the trouble and expense of having her hair and nails done. In fact, she had hinted that Fleming’s would do very nicely for dinner, but the truth was, where Jack was planning on taking her, no one was likely to notice her hair and nails-no one at all.

Yes, he thought. This is going to blow her socks right off.

Tucson, Arizona

Saturday, June 6, 2009, 4:00 p.m.

93º Fahrenheit

Jonathan had followed Jack Tennant all day long. Early that morning, thinking his mother’s husband was on his way to a golf date, he had been surprised when, rather than stopping off at a nearby golf course, the man had headed out of town. Jonathan was new to Tucson. As the city limits fell behind them, he assumed they were heading for some upscale resort. When they crossed into the reservation, he was even more convinced. There was probably a casino somewhere up ahead-a casino with a golf course.