Desert Heat

In the searing noontime heat, they took Lefty’s Samurai and drove slowly through the little gringo retirement enclave outside Guaymas. It was high noon, siesta time, and none of Lefty’s friends or neighbors were anywhere in evidence. The Samurai traveled north through the barren Mexican desert. Thirty miles from town, where the narrow ribbon of cracked blacktop seemed to melt into the mist of a road-eating mirage, they turned off the pavement into trackless, powdery sand. They drove for several more treacherous miles be-fore, on a small rocky knoll, Vargas told Lefty to stop.

“This will be fine,” he said.

“What now?”

Lefty had been paying close attention to the way they had come, remembering landmarks. Several months out of rehab, he was in good physical shape, better than he had been in years. Even in the afternoon heat he could probably make it back to the road.

“Get out,” Vargas said. “Now you walk.” Lefty O’Toole’s mouth was too dry to speak. “From here?” he croaked.

“It’s not as far as you think,” Vargas returned.

Slowly Lefty started to get out of the Samurai. Then, in one final act of defiance, he grabbed the keys from the ignition and flung them as far away as he could throw them. He had been a hell of a passer for the University of Arizona in his day, and the keys sailed far into the air, with the sun glinting off them as they sped away. The sudden, unexpected movement caught Vargas unawares and for a moment he was too stu

“You crazy bastard!”

Before the keys came to rest thirty or forty yards away, Lefty O’Toole spun around and bolted across the desert. A strangled noise that was half-sob/half-cackle rose in his throat and escaped his parched lips. He felt good, weight-less almost, gliding effortlessly over the powdery sand. It was like one of those good old LSD trips, the early ones, that had been more like flying than flying.

Lefty had tricked Antonio Vargas by God! He had caught him flat-footed. The very idea filled him with unreasoning delight.

In fact, he was just starting to laugh when the first powerful bullet caught him directly between the shoulder blades, propelling him forward faster than his legs could move, smashing him face forward into the yielding, smothering sand.

Not even Lefty O’Toole ever knew that he died laughing.

Cursing the dead man under his breath, Tony Vargas didn’t bother to go searching the trackless sand for those missing keys. His early training had taught him how to hot-wire cars, and he did it now with only a minimal amount of difficulty. Driving carefully, he made his way back to the deserted airstrip where his plane and pilot were waiting.

“You took care of him?” the other man asked anxiously.

“I’m here, aren’t I?” Tony returned. “Let’s go.”

“Is it going to work?”

“Don’t worry. I told you I’d handle it.” Once the plane was airborne and heading north, Tony leaned back in his seat, closed his eyes, and thought longingly about Angie Kellogg’s lush, lithe body. He could hardly wait to get home and take her to bed. Killing people always made him horny as hell, and Angie always did what he wanted.

ONE

Joa

“Where is he, girl?” Joa

Up on the highway, a pair of headlights rounded the long curve and emerged from the mountain pass. Speeding tires keened down the blacktop, passing the Double Adobe turn-off without even slowing down. That one wasn’t him, either. Disappointed, Joa

In the living room she could hear the drone of her mother’s favorite television game show while Je

“Is Daddy coming now?” Je

Joa

Despite Joa

“A little,” Joa

At the time Andy had suggested it, Joa

The election was now less than six weeks away. Joa

Joa

Well, six had long since come and gone and he still wasn’t home. Eleanor Lathrop, Joa

“Maybe he had car trouble,” Je

“You’re right,” Joa

“Are you going to tell Grandma to go on home?” Je

Joa

Je