Daisy called out, “Hey, tell us the joke.”

Captain DeLoach’s head fell forward and he gave a soft snore.

Dane started to shake the old man, then drew back his hand. “I should take that gun,” he said to Nick. “I really should.”

“I’ll bet you that Velvet would just buy him another one.”

Dane nodded. “You’re right. Let’s go wait with Sherlock and Savich.”

An hour later there was still no sign of Weldon DeLoach. Everyone stayed at their stations until it was dark. Then Detective Flynn and Gil Rainy called everyone in.

Sherlock said, “All a hoax. A distraction, to get us all focused on Captain DeLoach and away from him.”

Gil Rainy said, “You feeling okay, Dane? You look better today than you did yesterday.”

Dane just nodded. “Arm feels better. All I am is depressed. Captain DeLoach seemed fine, then he was laughing so hard I thought he’d choke on his own breath, then he was just gone, asleep, making light little snores like women make.”

“I don’t snore,” Nick said. “You’ve slept close enough to me to know I don’t snore.”

Everyone turned to stare at her.

“Bite me,” Nick said to everyone in general, and stalked off to the Taurus.

The phone rang in Dane’s Holiday Inn room at ten o’clock that night.

“Yeah?”

“Dane, Savich here. Captain DeLoach-no, don’t worry, he isn’t dead, but he fired a gun at someone. Maybe it was Weldon, but nobody knows. When the staff got into Captain DeLoach’s room, he was on the floor, unconscious, the gun beside him, and there was a big hole in the wall just behind that small sofa. The glass sliding doors weren’t locked but they usually aren’t, so that doesn’t necessarily mean anything.”

“Is Captain DeLoach going to make it?” Dane asked.

“I think so,” Savich said. “I couldn’t get exact information about his condition, only just what I told you. The people there are on top of it. We’ll go out there tomorrow.”

“What about the two cops Detective Flynn had out there covering Captain DeLoach’s room?”

“They didn’t see a thing. Didn’t hear a thing until the shot.”

Dane cursed again, real low so Savich wouldn’t hear him. “He’s our only lead, Savich.”

“Maybe not. Now, get a good night’s sleep. Sherlock says to tell you that tomorrow you’ll be ready to rock and roll again.”

Dane grunted into his cell phone, laid it on the bedside table, looked over at Nick, and told her what had happened.

“I’ve decided,” Nick said slowly as she handed Dane two pills and a glass of water, “that Weldon DeLoach doesn’t exist. Maybe he’s just a name Hollywood made up, someone they’ve all created for us like some huge Hollywood production, an epic that pits reality against art, and reality loses. You know, lots of money, all big stars, lots of hoopla, a cast of thousands, murder and mayhem.”

“You know,” he said once he’d swallowed the pills, “that’s something to think about.”

“No,” she said, “it isn’t. I’m just talking, all blah, blah. I guess I’m just really tired, Dane.”

She turned off the overhead light in his room and went through the adjoining door into her own.

TWENTY-EIGHT

“The doctor told me it wasn’t an accident,” Mr. Latterley said, looking distressed. His bald pointed head, Nick saw, was shiny with sweat. It was obvious he’d never had to deal with anything like this before.

“Evidently Captain DeLoach was struck just above his left temple. The doctor said that the wound wasn’t consistent with his simply falling out of his chair. I’ve reported this to our local police and they’ve been interviewing everyone, but so far, we have very little. Every time they try to interview Captain DeLoach, he starts cackling like he’s some old crackpot, shouts that he’ll win and surprise everybody, but that’s it. Over and over, that’s all he says. I don’t think he wants to talk to them. He won’t give them the time of day.”

Dane said, “We’ll have two round-the-clock guards on him now.”

“That’s good. This is all very disturbing, Agent Carver. Violence at Lakeview. Not at all good for business.” He shook his head. “And your suspect is his own son. I must say, Weldon DeLoach has always appeared to be a very nice man. Every time I have spoken to him, he’s been solicitous of his father, very caring, always paid any and all charges on time. I’ve e-mailed him and spoken to him on the phone countless times over the years.”

Dane handed Mr. Latterley a photo. “Is this Weldon DeLoach?”

Mr. Latterley looked down at the grainy black-and-white photo that they’d had shot off the VCR reel. He didn’t say anything for a very long time. Finally, he raised his head, and he was frowning. “That’s Weldon. Bad photo, but yes, Agent Carver. You know, it’s entirely possible that it wasn’t Weldon who was here today. In fact, I simply can’t accept that it could have been him. He takes too good care of his father to want to hurt him.”

“All right. If not Weldon, have you any idea who else it could be?” Dane asked.

Mr. Latterley reluctantly shook his head. “No, no one else visits him, at least I’ve never seen anyone else. We do have security here, but I suppose some criminal from Captain DeLoach’s past could have gotten in.”

“It would have to be a criminal with a very long memory,” Dane said. He rose. “I want to speak to Daisy.”

They found Daisy in the rec room, this time reading a very old Time magazine, chortling about Monica’s semenstained blue dress and how the president was dancing around that blow. “A hoot, that’s what it was,” Daisy said. “He wanted history to judge him as a great president”-she laughed some more-“now he’ll be known as the moron who couldn’t keep his pants zipped.”

Daisy was wearing a different loose housedress today, sandals, her toenails painted a bright coral that matched her lipstick.

“I’m Special Agent Dane Carver and this is Ms. Jones.” Dane showed her his FBI shield.

“I remember you two. You were here yesterday. I’m Daisy Griffith,” she said, and grinned up at the two of them, a full complement of white teeth in her mouth. Nick believed they were hers. “Now, you’re here because of poor old Ellison. Knocked himself out again, didn’t he? Never did have a good sense of balance, did Elly. Always hurling himself about in that chair of his whenever he gets excited. Of course, he’s old as dirt-hmmm, maybe even older.” Daisy paused a moment, tapped her fingertips on a photo of Clinton shaking his finger at the media, and said, “I heard some of the nurses talking; they claimed it wasn’t an accident, that his son tried to knock him off. Is that true?”

“We don’t know,” Dane said. “Have you ever met Weldon DeLoach?”

“Oh yes, nice boy. Polite and attentive, not just to Elly, but to all of us.” She paused a moment, sighed. “Elly talks about him a lot, says he’s real talented, with lots of imagination, a good writer. He’s a Hollywood type, you know.”

“Yes, we know. Did Captain DeLoach ever speak to you about his son, other than what he did for a living?”

“Well, sure. Elly said he was just too old when Weldon was born, that Weldon had been a big accident. The boy had needed a younger man to raise him, and then his mother up and died on the two of them. Here he was, an older cop, and he had a little kid to raise.

“Just last week I think it was, he said his boy hadn’t turned out the way he would have liked, but what could he do? He said he was tempted, particularly now, to let everyone know what the real truth was. He said it would scare the hell out of me. I asked him what he meant by that, and he just threatened to throw a billiard ball at me. Mortie thought that was real funny, the old buzzard.”

The old buzzard, Mortie, was scratching his forearms incessantly. He said, yes, of course he’d spoken to Weldon over the years. “Oh sure, Elly talked about him sometimes, but I got the idea there was no love lost between the two of them. Did you know that Elly used to be a wicked pool player? Then his hands started shaking and the arthritis got him.” Mortie shook his head and scratched his forearms again.