.....Just short of being accepted as part of town, The Watergate Motel hunched resentfully in a patch of scrub and dust, a loose collection of adobe and faded tile roofing. The cracked neon of the marquee hung loose against faded dreams.
.....The Valiant kicked up some of that dust as it rolled in.
.....The door chime chimed as Wolfe stepped inside, the sound of sitar music playing gently from behind a curtain of beads. As the door closed behind him, the music cut off guiltily. It was replaced by some old school country and western.
.....George Jones.
.....He didn’t sound happy to be there. Who would?
.....Wolfe rang the desk bell. As if on cue, the beads parted and the proprietor of the desert inn stepped on stage. He was pretty styling for a middle-aged East Indian, dressed as if he stole his wardrobe from the costume room of a mid-sixties television western.
.....He tipped back his red cowboy hat, tassels swinging jauntily from the sleeve of his buff suede jacket.
.....“Help ya’?” he asked in a soft, lilting drawl.
.....Wolfe managed to keep his sartorial opinion down to a couple of blinks. “I’ve got a reservation for tonight. Wolfe, Daniel Wolfe.”
.....The clerk made a show of checking the book, despite the nearly full bank of keys hanging behind him.
.....He was a slow reader, so Wolfe looked around the office as he waited. An American flag took up one wall, and photos of the president had been liberated from news magazines and framed to take up any available free space.
.....In the office of The Watergate Motel, no one would ever mistake the proprietor of being a terrorist or sympathizer. That is, no one but an ignorant fool who didn’t have his ethnicities down straight and didn’t have the decor of the office as a handy frame of reference.
.....Omkar Singh rarely left the Watergate anymore, not since the month after 9/11 when a pissed-off cowboy outside The Larkspur had mistaken him for an Arab. In the ensuing whupass, the cowboy’s platinum HHS Class of '86 ring had nearly torn the man’s ear off.
.....He still couldn’t hear properly out of that ear. Although now he kept a fully loaded Bulldog .44 under the counter of the check-in desk, just in case someone else was unclear of the vast difference between an Arab and a Punjab.
.....He didn’t have all that much faith in the American myth of John Wayne anymore, but he’d worry about dealing with the American judicial system when he got there, if circumstance demanded.
.....Finally, Singh turned and pulled a key from the hook and dropped it to the counter.
.....“Room 22,” he informed Wolfe. “Checkout time is 11 am.”
.....“Good thing I called ahead.”
.....“Yes?” Singh blinked. Although having become admirably fluent in American, he was still a little slow in recognizing facetiousness.
.....Wolfe nodded at the collection of keys. Now there were two gaps in the bank.
.....“Yes,” the clerk sighed. “This time of the year is big with the tourists.”
.....Singh had a native knack for sarcasm, though.
.....“I’ll bet,” Wolfe said. “There’s just so much to see around here.”
.....Singh shrugged.
.....Wolfe signed off in the log and eyed the clerk. “Is there anywhere good to eat around here?”
.....“There’s an Applebee’s out by The Mall...”
.....“This town has a mall now?”
.....“Sort of,” the clerk nodded. “We share it with Lumbeck down the road.”
.....“Right... but I was in the mood for some homestyle-type cooking.”
.....“Well, Applebee’s is America’s Hometown Restaurant...”
.....Wolfe imagined it was. “Thanks.”
.....But no thanks.
.....The corporate mission statements of chain restaurants operated on the understanding that most people feel reassured by a menu that tastes uniformly the same from Seattle to Miami, New York to Los Angeles, with all the flyovers in between offering the same tepid product.
.....All he knew is that it tasted like overpriced pulp product with watery gravy, no matter where he went. Personally, he liked to taste his food and he wanted it to taste good.
.....He scooped up the key and headed for the door.
.....“No guests,” Singh called out to him. “This isn’t that kind of establishment.”
.....Wolfe threw his dufflebag on the bed and inhaled a breath of stale air. It was laced with a traditional lingering undertone of ancient cat piss. He picked up the remote and aimed it towards the television, thumbed the power button.
.....And thumbed it...
.....There was no response from the television.
.....He took the extra step from the side of the bed and hit the power button on the set. A white dot appeared on the screen, split in a horizontal line before opening up into the flickering image of a televangelist.
.....Wolfe turned back to unpack. He unzipped the leather duffel bag and pulled out a toothbrush, tube of Pearl Drops paste, and a Gillette razor locked into its plastic mount.
.....Putting the gear aside on the bed, Wolfe began to dig for some clean underwear. He buried his nose in a pair of boxers and sniffed. He hoped that they had installed a Laundromat in the town since he’d left. Finally, one pair was deemed acceptable and he dropped it on the nightstand.
.....“... beware the number of the Beast, for it is a human number...” the televangelist cautioned.
.....Wolfe amused himself considering that the evangelical might have actually been an Iron Maiden fan in his youth. He doubted it. The man had the self-important bloat of someone who had burned more than his share of LPs in his younger days.
.....He wondered what the neo-Puritans used these days as fuel for the purifying flames in the digital age. MP3 files just wouldn’t seem to be able to burn with the same righteous glory that vinyl had.
.....He opened the drawer below the phone, pulling the slim volume of battered phonebook from beneath an uncracked Gideon’s Bible. He paused to change the channel, only to find no other options but varieties of snow.
.....Wolfe turned off the set and sat down on the bed to let his fingers do the walking.
.....It was a short walk to the Restaurant section, and an even shorter menu. It was not a good sign when McDonald's was listed under Restaurants in the Yellow Pages.
.....It didn’t take him long to find what he was looking for:
.....The Teapot Dome Cafe.
.....He slid the slim volume under the telephone and retrieved his shaving gear as he turned to see what awaited in the shower.
.....A half-hour later the Valiant was rolling back down Main Street. A few minutes of that timeframe was occupied with the reflection of a Hummer 2 cruiser looming large in the rearview mirror.
.....Finally, the light bar of the cruiser sprung to life and the siren chirupped.
.....Wolfe muttered an obscenity and eased the car over to the curb. At least I got to shave and wash my hair before I met the welcome wagon, he mused.
.....From the reflection of the sideview mirror, Wolfe watched as the door of the Hummer opened and a jackboot slid out, ground in the gravel as the bulk of the officer followed; black paramilitary jumpsuit with a utility belt hanging low on the hip.
.....A gloved hand reached down to unsnap the holster, revealing the grip of a .50 Desert Eagle semiautomatic.
.....Not exactly standard police issue, but not much about the local police seemed standard to Wolfe. The officer slammed his door and approached the Valiant with thumbs tucked into the belt to frame the buckle, fingers cupped and ready to play.
.....The cop looked down at Wolfe, tipping back his Stetson to reveal mirrored aviator shades and a neatly trimmed black mustache.
.....HICKS read the name tag, and Wolfe held his tongue.
.....He had his license and registration ready. “Afternoon, officer.”
.....“Afternoon,” the deputy nodded. “License and...”
.....Wolfe handed them over.
.....A plank face eyed him over the driver’s license. “Hm. Been through this one a lot, huh?”
.....Wolfe shrugged. “Can I ask what...”
.....“Your taillight was flickering.”
.....“Taillight?” Wolfe frowned. “How did... it’s daylight, right? How would you...?”
.....The plank face hardened. “You tellin’ me how to do my job?”
.....“No, Sir…I wouldn’t dream of it.”
.....The officer unsnapped a pouch on his utility belt and withdrew a capable-looking little black gadget, roughly the size of a paperback book. He swiped Wolfe’s license through the little machine and examined the card as the numbers ran. The device chirped busily as it went about its duty.
.....“California, huh?” the deputy remarked offhandedly.
.....“Yep,” Wolfe replied.
.....“You speak pretty good American.”
.....Wolfe blinked up at the cop. “Excuse me?”
.....“The national language there is Commie, right?”
.....Wolfe wondered if The Man might be having some fun with him. But then, the cop's unlined face didn't seem to have much experience with humor.
.....“Oh... right,” he replied, winging it. “I took ESL at an early age.”
.....The cop tilted his head. “ESL?”
.....“English as a Second Language.”
.....“You being smart with me?”
.....Wolfe smiled carefully. “I don’t think that’d be a good idea.”
.....“You’d be right about that, Hoss.”
.....The officer keyed numbers into the machine and a ticket scrolled out. He tore it loose and handed it to Wolfe with the license and registration.
.....“You might want to take care of that problem ASAP,” he offered. “Wouldn’t want to get rear-ended in the dark, would you?”
.....“No... no, I wouldn’t.”
.....The cop waited.
.....“Sir,” Wolfe finally added.
.....The officer gave Wolfe a two-finger salute from the broad brim of his hat and turned back to his cruiser.
.....As he waited for the cop to move on back to his vehicle, Wolfe’s attention was distracted by the building snap of heel taps, the sound of high-gloss Maurader boots stabbing the sidewalk.
.....The sharply-dressed recruiter that had been trolling the arcade was in the 'hood. The aftermarket boots were a violation of Army dress code, but he liked the flash and having his own soundtrack pleased him.
.....Ramrod stiff and marching as on a mission, the soldier maneuvered his way down the sidewalk past the Valiant and snapped a razor sharp hard right. He went up the path to a modest but responsibly maintained ranch-style home.
.....He rang the doorbell which lie just beneath a pleasant sign that read The Zieglers.
.....The Valiant kicked up some of that dust as it rolled in.
.....The door chime chimed as Wolfe stepped inside, the sound of sitar music playing gently from behind a curtain of beads. As the door closed behind him, the music cut off guiltily. It was replaced by some old school country and western.
.....George Jones.
.....He didn’t sound happy to be there. Who would?
.....Wolfe rang the desk bell. As if on cue, the beads parted and the proprietor of the desert inn stepped on stage. He was pretty styling for a middle-aged East Indian, dressed as if he stole his wardrobe from the costume room of a mid-sixties television western.
.....He tipped back his red cowboy hat, tassels swinging jauntily from the sleeve of his buff suede jacket.
.....“Help ya’?” he asked in a soft, lilting drawl.
.....Wolfe managed to keep his sartorial opinion down to a couple of blinks. “I’ve got a reservation for tonight. Wolfe, Daniel Wolfe.”
.....The clerk made a show of checking the book, despite the nearly full bank of keys hanging behind him.
.....He was a slow reader, so Wolfe looked around the office as he waited. An American flag took up one wall, and photos of the president had been liberated from news magazines and framed to take up any available free space.
.....In the office of The Watergate Motel, no one would ever mistake the proprietor of being a terrorist or sympathizer. That is, no one but an ignorant fool who didn’t have his ethnicities down straight and didn’t have the decor of the office as a handy frame of reference.
.....Omkar Singh rarely left the Watergate anymore, not since the month after 9/11 when a pissed-off cowboy outside The Larkspur had mistaken him for an Arab. In the ensuing whupass, the cowboy’s platinum HHS Class of '86 ring had nearly torn the man’s ear off.
.....He still couldn’t hear properly out of that ear. Although now he kept a fully loaded Bulldog .44 under the counter of the check-in desk, just in case someone else was unclear of the vast difference between an Arab and a Punjab.
.....He didn’t have all that much faith in the American myth of John Wayne anymore, but he’d worry about dealing with the American judicial system when he got there, if circumstance demanded.
.....Finally, Singh turned and pulled a key from the hook and dropped it to the counter.
.....“Room 22,” he informed Wolfe. “Checkout time is 11 am.”
.....“Good thing I called ahead.”
.....“Yes?” Singh blinked. Although having become admirably fluent in American, he was still a little slow in recognizing facetiousness.
.....Wolfe nodded at the collection of keys. Now there were two gaps in the bank.
.....“Yes,” the clerk sighed. “This time of the year is big with the tourists.”
.....Singh had a native knack for sarcasm, though.
.....“I’ll bet,” Wolfe said. “There’s just so much to see around here.”
.....Singh shrugged.
.....Wolfe signed off in the log and eyed the clerk. “Is there anywhere good to eat around here?”
.....“There’s an Applebee’s out by The Mall...”
.....“This town has a mall now?”
.....“Sort of,” the clerk nodded. “We share it with Lumbeck down the road.”
.....“Right... but I was in the mood for some homestyle-type cooking.”
.....“Well, Applebee’s is America’s Hometown Restaurant...”
.....Wolfe imagined it was. “Thanks.”
.....But no thanks.
.....The corporate mission statements of chain restaurants operated on the understanding that most people feel reassured by a menu that tastes uniformly the same from Seattle to Miami, New York to Los Angeles, with all the flyovers in between offering the same tepid product.
.....All he knew is that it tasted like overpriced pulp product with watery gravy, no matter where he went. Personally, he liked to taste his food and he wanted it to taste good.
.....He scooped up the key and headed for the door.
.....“No guests,” Singh called out to him. “This isn’t that kind of establishment.”
.....Wolfe threw his dufflebag on the bed and inhaled a breath of stale air. It was laced with a traditional lingering undertone of ancient cat piss. He picked up the remote and aimed it towards the television, thumbed the power button.
.....And thumbed it...
.....There was no response from the television.
.....He took the extra step from the side of the bed and hit the power button on the set. A white dot appeared on the screen, split in a horizontal line before opening up into the flickering image of a televangelist.
.....Wolfe turned back to unpack. He unzipped the leather duffel bag and pulled out a toothbrush, tube of Pearl Drops paste, and a Gillette razor locked into its plastic mount.
.....Putting the gear aside on the bed, Wolfe began to dig for some clean underwear. He buried his nose in a pair of boxers and sniffed. He hoped that they had installed a Laundromat in the town since he’d left. Finally, one pair was deemed acceptable and he dropped it on the nightstand.
.....“... beware the number of the Beast, for it is a human number...” the televangelist cautioned.
.....Wolfe amused himself considering that the evangelical might have actually been an Iron Maiden fan in his youth. He doubted it. The man had the self-important bloat of someone who had burned more than his share of LPs in his younger days.
.....He wondered what the neo-Puritans used these days as fuel for the purifying flames in the digital age. MP3 files just wouldn’t seem to be able to burn with the same righteous glory that vinyl had.
.....He opened the drawer below the phone, pulling the slim volume of battered phonebook from beneath an uncracked Gideon’s Bible. He paused to change the channel, only to find no other options but varieties of snow.
.....Wolfe turned off the set and sat down on the bed to let his fingers do the walking.
.....It was a short walk to the Restaurant section, and an even shorter menu. It was not a good sign when McDonald's was listed under Restaurants in the Yellow Pages.
.....It didn’t take him long to find what he was looking for:
.....The Teapot Dome Cafe.
.....He slid the slim volume under the telephone and retrieved his shaving gear as he turned to see what awaited in the shower.
.....A half-hour later the Valiant was rolling back down Main Street. A few minutes of that timeframe was occupied with the reflection of a Hummer 2 cruiser looming large in the rearview mirror.
.....Finally, the light bar of the cruiser sprung to life and the siren chirupped.
.....Wolfe muttered an obscenity and eased the car over to the curb. At least I got to shave and wash my hair before I met the welcome wagon, he mused.
.....From the reflection of the sideview mirror, Wolfe watched as the door of the Hummer opened and a jackboot slid out, ground in the gravel as the bulk of the officer followed; black paramilitary jumpsuit with a utility belt hanging low on the hip.
.....A gloved hand reached down to unsnap the holster, revealing the grip of a .50 Desert Eagle semiautomatic.
.....Not exactly standard police issue, but not much about the local police seemed standard to Wolfe. The officer slammed his door and approached the Valiant with thumbs tucked into the belt to frame the buckle, fingers cupped and ready to play.
.....The cop looked down at Wolfe, tipping back his Stetson to reveal mirrored aviator shades and a neatly trimmed black mustache.
.....HICKS read the name tag, and Wolfe held his tongue.
.....He had his license and registration ready. “Afternoon, officer.”
.....“Afternoon,” the deputy nodded. “License and...”
.....Wolfe handed them over.
.....A plank face eyed him over the driver’s license. “Hm. Been through this one a lot, huh?”
.....Wolfe shrugged. “Can I ask what...”
.....“Your taillight was flickering.”
.....“Taillight?” Wolfe frowned. “How did... it’s daylight, right? How would you...?”
.....The plank face hardened. “You tellin’ me how to do my job?”
.....“No, Sir…I wouldn’t dream of it.”
.....The officer unsnapped a pouch on his utility belt and withdrew a capable-looking little black gadget, roughly the size of a paperback book. He swiped Wolfe’s license through the little machine and examined the card as the numbers ran. The device chirped busily as it went about its duty.
.....“California, huh?” the deputy remarked offhandedly.
.....“Yep,” Wolfe replied.
.....“You speak pretty good American.”
.....Wolfe blinked up at the cop. “Excuse me?”
.....“The national language there is Commie, right?”
.....Wolfe wondered if The Man might be having some fun with him. But then, the cop's unlined face didn't seem to have much experience with humor.
.....“Oh... right,” he replied, winging it. “I took ESL at an early age.”
.....The cop tilted his head. “ESL?”
.....“English as a Second Language.”
.....“You being smart with me?”
.....Wolfe smiled carefully. “I don’t think that’d be a good idea.”
.....“You’d be right about that, Hoss.”
.....The officer keyed numbers into the machine and a ticket scrolled out. He tore it loose and handed it to Wolfe with the license and registration.
.....“You might want to take care of that problem ASAP,” he offered. “Wouldn’t want to get rear-ended in the dark, would you?”
.....“No... no, I wouldn’t.”
.....The cop waited.
.....“Sir,” Wolfe finally added.
.....The officer gave Wolfe a two-finger salute from the broad brim of his hat and turned back to his cruiser.
.....As he waited for the cop to move on back to his vehicle, Wolfe’s attention was distracted by the building snap of heel taps, the sound of high-gloss Maurader boots stabbing the sidewalk.
.....The sharply-dressed recruiter that had been trolling the arcade was in the 'hood. The aftermarket boots were a violation of Army dress code, but he liked the flash and having his own soundtrack pleased him.
.....Ramrod stiff and marching as on a mission, the soldier maneuvered his way down the sidewalk past the Valiant and snapped a razor sharp hard right. He went up the path to a modest but responsibly maintained ranch-style home.
.....He rang the doorbell which lie just beneath a pleasant sign that read The Zieglers.
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