Desert Heat

“Maybe I should double this,” she said, hefting the weight.

“Good idea,” Joa

She held her breath while she wrote out the check, hoping against hope that it wouldn’t bounce. Friday was payday for both Joa

“Can you tell me where to find a phone?” Joa

“Down the hallway,” the woman answered. “Beyond the bellman’s desk, across from the library.”

Joa

“Hi, Dick,” she said curtly when he answered. “This is Joa

Voland cleared his throat uneasily. “He’s not here right now.”

“Where is he?”

“I can’t say, Joa

As Joa

“Joa

Joa

Carefully, she put down the phone. She had no idea who this man was or what he wanted, but it was clear that he was trailing her openly, in broad daylight as if he had a perfect right to do so.

The long lobby was nearly deserted. An old man sat on a bench next to the wall far beyond the registration desk, but except for him, the bellman, and the man who was following her, there were no other people in the lobby. The sounds of laughter and tinkling glassware came floating to her from someplace else, from a room that sounded like a dining room.

Her pursuer had stepped closer to the bell-man’s desk and was reading one of the news-papers lying there. The door to the dining room was just around the corner from the public telephone. Maybe if she went through the dining room, she could disappear outside through another exit.

Joa

Joa

“One for lunch,” Joa

“This way please.”

The large dining room with its old-fashioned cane-backed chairs was only half-full, but the room hummed with a relaxed, convivial atmosphere. Joa

“Can I get you something to drink?”

“Coffee,” Joa

Sitting with her hands clenched in front of her chin, Joa

What should she do, she wondered. Make a run for it out a side door and hope to elude him long enough to get back to the hospital? She took another sip of coffee and tried to calm herself. Surely there was some way out of this if she could just force herself to think clearly.

“What can I get for you today?” a smiling waiter asked.

Joa

She sat back and took another sip of coffee. Gradually the clanking silver and glassware combined with the enticing smells emanating from the kitchen reminded her that she had eaten almost nothing in nearly twenty-four hours.

She would eat her sandwich when it came and whoever it was who was so interested in where Joa

It would serve him right.

SIX

Angie Kellogg sat on the soft leather couch in the living room, her satin robe untied and gaping open, one naked leg tucked demurely under her. An almost empty and long-forgotten coffee mug was nestled in the soft mound of auburn pubic hair, but coffee in the cup had grown far too cold to drink. Totally a lone, she sat absolutely still.

Her attention was focused on the antics of a pair of comical road ru

With the help of that, she had gradually learned to identify some of her neighbors-quail, dove, road ru

Drinking coffee, reading the newspaper, and watching the various birds and animals provided the sum total of Angie Kellogg’s morning diversions. She was an early riser; Tony wasn’t. When she was awake and he was sleeping, she wasn’t allowed to turn on either the radio or the television set, not even with the volume set on low.

Instead, Angie watched for the glimpses of life her backyard afforded her. She especially enjoyed the hour just before and after sunrise because that was when the cute little cotton-tails sometimes ventured out to eat and play. They came scampering into the yard through a small natural depression where the wrought-iron fence didn’t quite meet the ground. Sometimes she would see a horned toad or a small lizard perched in the sun on the rockery. Less often, she would spy a snake, sometimes even a rattler, su

The first time she had seen one, she had panicked and yelled for Tony. He had come ru

She envied them all-the birds, the rabbits, and yes, even the snakes-because they at least were free to come and go as they liked. Angie Kellogg wasn’t.

All morning long she had itched to go check in the coat closet and see if this was the morning when the newest briefcase would appear, hut she hadn’t dared, not with Tony in the house and only asleep. She had learned that he was a very light sleeper, and she didn’t want him to catch her prowling around where she shouldn’t. Later on, if he went out, which he usually did, she’d have ample opportunity to check.