"Must be kind of scary," I said.

"On your own all at once."

"Yeah, it is, but no scarier than my life has been. I know you want to help me, and as much as I can, I appreciate it. I'm grateful. I am. But damnit I can't depend on a man, even you."

"It's a good thing to change," I said.

"But it's kind of hard to do alone. And it's kind of hard to do all at once."

"This is the first step. Don't you get it? I can't turn to you. I want to. For God's sake I'm scared to death Marty will find me. But I simply cannot."

I looked at Hawk.

"I don't think I'm winning this conversation," I said.

" Tears not."

"Okay," I said.

"You want to go back to your hotel?"

Bibi was quiet for a bit, looking at me.

"Yeah," she said, "I do."

"Would you prefer to walk back alone?"

She took a deep inhale.

"Yes," she said.

"I would."

"You know if Marty can find you, he'll kill you. Anthony too, I think, if he had the balls."

"He doesn't," Bibi said.

"Can never be sure," I said.

Bibi looked at me grimly with her lips clamped shut.

"Okay," I said and made a be-my-guest gesture with my hand and stepped aside. Bibi began slowly to walk back along Las Vegas Boulevard toward Convention Center Drive. After a few steps she turned.

"I get some money," she said, "I'll pay you back."

"Sure," I said.

She went a few more steps back along the empty street. Again she stopped and turned.

"I appreciate what you've done, both of you."

"Glad to help," I said.

CHAPTER 49

She kept walking. Hawk and I watched her as she went past the Desert Inn and turned right onto Convention Center Drive.

"We spend weeks looking for her," Hawk said.

"And a lot of dough. And we fly three thousand miles and when we find her she gives you a speech and you let her walk."

"Always had a soft spot for feminism," I said.

"Of course," Hawk said.

"Me too. Wouldn't be correct, I suppose, if we sort of kept an eye on her while we having it?"

"Paternalistic and exploitive," I said.

"What if she don't spot us?" Hawk said.

"Then it's fine," I said.

The rest of the way back to The Mirage, Hawk and I had a lengthy discussion as to who would tail Bibi in the morning and who would sleep in. My argument was that early rising was in his genes from all those ancestral generations of chopping cotton before the dew had faded. He felt that this was a racist stereotype.

He decried racial stereotyping, and explained to me that I was a white-bread paddy with a plantation mentality. I argued that, being of Irish descent, I had no mentality at all, plantation or otherwise. And he insisted that no one was too stupid to be a bigot. He had me there, but I didn't admit it and when we got to The Mirage we stopped in the lobby and flipped a coin and he lost.

As it turned out the argument was aimless, because forty-five minutes after I got to my room the phone rang and it was Bibi.

"I'm in the lobby," she said.

"Marty's here."

She sounded out of breath.

"In the lobby?"

"No, I saw him in the lobby of my hotel when I came back from walking with you."

"He see you?"

"No, I ran all the way here."

"Room ten twenty-four," I said.

"Come up."

I had my pants on, and a pair of loafers, when she rang my doorbell. Being a careful person I picked up my gun before I opened the door, but she was alone.

"Lock it," she said when she came in. Her breath was still coming heavy, and her face was flushed.

"I ran all the way here," she said.

"Put the chain on."

I pulled the spread up over the unmade bed. When I'm not with Susan I don't need a suite. The room was all there was. No view of the volcano.

"Sit down," I said.

"Want a drink?"

She shook her head. She continued to stand.

"Was Marty alone?" I said.

"The little man was there, that was with you tonight. I saw him through the door and never went in. There might have been other men too. The minute I saw Marty I turned and ran."

"Bernard J. Fortunate," I said.

"The little man that was with you?"

"Yeah," I said.

"Looks like he sold you twice."

She had her arms folded and she walked back and forth in the small room, staying away from the window though we were on the tenth floor.

"You mean he called Marty?"

"I'll bet," I said.

"Double the profit, double the fun."

"I'm scared."

"Don't blame you."

"I don't know what to do."

"Stay here," I said.

"That's the first thing. Don't take off on me."

"I feel so stupid after all that stuff I said tonight about men."

"What you said made sense," I said.

"You're just not quite ready to do it all without help. Nobody does it all without help.

And this is my kind of help."

She stared at me.

"Without your shirt on… I didn't realize. You're a big man, aren't you."

"Yeah, and you don't need to slip into the admiring-woman disguise," I said.

"I'll help you regardless."

"I wasn't… maybe I was. But Marty is a huge man, and he's so vicious. Nobody can stop Marty."

"Hawk and I will stop him," I said.

"You're going to be fine."

"Will you kill him?"

"We'll see," I said.

"Kill him," she said.

Her voice was soft and flat, and earnest.

"You have to kill him," she said.

"It's the only way."

"We'll play it as it lays," I said.

"If you kill him," she said, "I'll do anything you want me to do."

"No charge," I said.

"Either way. I'll go to Hawk's room and you can sleep here."

She shook her head.

"I can't be alone," she said.

"Okay. I'll put the mattress on the floor. One of us can sleep on it and one on the box spring."

"That's very nice of you."

"Yeah. And listen. The way you were talking earlier was the right way. There's things some people can do and other things other people can do, and if you need help, it doesn't mean you're dependent. So don't be dependent. Stay with no-more-assholes."

She nodded, still clenched inside her folded arms, still avoiding the tenth-story window. I unmade the bed, dragged the mattress onto the floor, folded the spread over to serve as padding on the box spring, found an extra blanket in the closet, put a pillow on the mattress, and left a pillow on the box spring.

"Your choice," I said.

"I can't just lie down and go to sleep," she said.

"You can do whatever you like," I said.

"All I want to know is when you do lie down, where you wish to lie."

"I don't have any pajamas."

"Me either," I said.

She still stood, hugging herself, looking like she didn't know what to do. I looked at the box spring. It was probably less comfortable than the mattress.

"The bathroom's there. Use anything you find in there. I got a*: big day tomorrow, wrestling with Marty and such, and I need my rest."