Nearly a week had elapsed since my meeting with Carlisle in Las Vegas, when he’d claimed that Echevarria’s investigation of Tarasov’s background had turned up nothing incriminating. But the manner in which he’d said it — rubbing his eyes, running his hand across his mouth — suggested deceit. What, if anything, was my former father-in-law hiding?

The couple next door was still banging around like walruses in heat. There was nothing on TV. I decided for lack of anything better to do to dial up Carlisle and find out what he really knew. Problem was, the battery on my phone was nearly dead, and I’d left my charger back at Savannah’s house. I’d have to use the room phone. I might as well have been calling Saturn for all I knew about what the call was going to cost me. What the hell. It’s only money. At that moment, anyway, thanks to Carlisle, I had plenty.

Lamont Royale answered the phone. Carlisle wasn’t in. He and Pavel Tarasov, Royale said, were out having dinner and drinks, mapping business strategy.

“Is there something I can help you with, or a message you’d like to leave?”

“Just have him call me back if he gets in before midnight.” I gave Royale the number and the extension to my room.

“Area code six-oh-two. That’s what, Arizona?”

“I’m in Phoenix.”

“I could never live there,” Royale said. “Too hot in the summer.”

“Right. Like Vegas is the North Pole.”

He laughed politely. “I’ll tell Mr. Carlisle you called. Have a wonderful evening.”

The grunting and moaning emanating from the love fest next door sounded like Chewbacca from Star Wars times two. I turned off the lamp and tried to sleep.

The free continental breakfast was the usual assortment of stale donuts, soggy Danish, dry cereal in little boxes, mealy apples, overripe bananas, a machine dispensing watery fruit drinks, and coffee that tasted like you could strip antique furniture with it. My fellow travelers and I sat in the motel’s dining area and ate in glum silence, avoiding eye contact.

I was polishing off a Styrofoam bowl of Raisin Bran when Pavel Tarasov walked in. With him were two knuckle draggers in black leather jackets, both working hard to look like the badasses they wanted everyone to think they were. I sat back a little, pressing into the seat back, making sure my revolver was still wedged under my shirt in the small of my back, just in case.

Tarasov muttered something to his bodyguards. They hovered in the lobby while he sat down in the chair across from me and surveyed my meal.

“Why do you Americans insist on calling it ‘continental’ breakfast? On which continent beside your own would people eat such garbage?”

“Americans invented the Oreo — and the deep-fried Oreo,” I said. “We’ll eat anything.”

He smiled. “Mr. Carlisle said I might find you here. The number you called him from, the motel phone, I had my people look up the address and fly me down in my Gulfstream.”

“Nice bird. I’m prepared to trade you straight across. Your jet for my Cessna. I’ll even throw in the headsets. They’re vintage.”

Tarasov wasn’t smiling anymore. “Mr. Carlisle tells me you’ve been quite a busy man.”

“The same can be said for you, running around, killing people.”

“I have no idea what you are talking about, Mr. Logan,” Tarasov said, his voice pitching slightly higher.

Either he was lying or a possible alumnus of the Vienna Boys’ Choir.

He said he didn’t know Gennady Bondarenko or anything about Bondarenko’s murder. Ditto Robbie Emerson. He denied any links to any Russian intelligence agencies.

Breaking eye contact when answering a question conveys possible deception. With each answer, Tarasov held my eyes unwaveringly, like someone who’d been trained in counter-interrogation techniques.

“I am an honest businessman, Mr. Logan, and you are ruining my business. You will stop or you will be dealt with accordingly.”

“Are you threatening me, Mr. Tarasov?”

He stood and stared down at me coldly.

“As you cooked the porridge, so must you eat it.”

“You Russians definitely have the market cornered on obscure proverbs, but I hate to break it to you: Americans don’t eat porridge. We’re all too busy eating deep-fried Oreos.”

There’s a condescending smirk people convey when they think you’ve made a grave mistake. Pursed lips. A subtle side-to-side shake of the head. These were Pavel Tarasov’s gestures as he looked at me.

“A pleasure to see you again, Mr. Logan.”

I watched him walk out of the hotel with his two bodyguards, finished my Raisin Bran, and turned in my room key to the matronly clerk working the front desk.

Savannah’s Jaguar was parked in the shade, around the corner from the motel’s office. I spent the better part of an hour examining the car for hidden explosives, then drove back to California, checking the mirrors frequently, my gun within easy reach.

Savannah was standing in her driveway in a black string bikini, wet from a swim. Her top begged to be untied. I fantasized about slowly undoing the towel wrapped about her hips. She was a vision. Goddamn her.

“How was traffic?”

I climbed out of her Jaguar and tossed her the keys. “You live in Southern California, Savannah. How do you think traffic was?”

A six-hour drive under normal conditions had taken nine, courtesy of a jackknifed big-rig that had shut down Interstate 10 in both directions east of Palm Springs.

“Find anything of interest in Phoenix?”

“Nothing worth mentioning.”

“Nothing is ever worth mentioning with you, is it, Logan?”

“I need to borrow your bathroom.”

She followed me inside. She would’ve followed me into the toilet had I not shut the door.

“I let you stay in my house. I cook for you, loan you my car. This is how you treat me?”

“Do you mind? I’m trying to concentrate in here.”

She growled with exasperation on the other side of the door and stomped away.

After relieving myself, I made my way to the guest room, plugged in my phone recharger and checked my voice mail. There were two messages from some investigator named Bob Ayling at the FAA’s Flight Standards District Office in Van Nuys, wanting to set up a meeting to discuss my incursion of the Vice President’s airspace, and no less than twenty calls from television, radio, and newspaper reporters, all seeking to interview me for the same reason. My name, obviously, had been leaked. They could all take my fifteen minutes of infamy and shove it for all I cared.

I returned the FAA guy’s call. He wasn’t in. I left word on his machine. I called Czarnek. He wasn’t in, either. My phone beeped with an incoming call. I hit the green button.

“Skeeter’s Towing Service.”

“Logan?”

“Who’s this?”

“Marvis Woodley.”

“I don’t know any Marvis Woodley.”

“You was by my house last week. Took my twelve-gauge away fro’ me. Remember?”

Echevarria’s nosy neighbor, Mr. Clean. He of the shotgun in my face.

“How could I forget. What can I do for you, Marvis?”

“He’s here, man. Just down the block.”

“Who’s down the block?”

“The killer! The dude that capped Arlo.”

A squatter had broken into a bank-owned foreclosure down the street from his house and was now encamped there full-time, Woodley said. When he ordered the squatter to leave, he ordered Woodley to fuck off, then shoved a pistol in his face.

“I know I seen this dude somewhere before, right? So I go home and I’m sitting there. All of a sudden — damn! — that’s the fool that shot Echevarria! Same weird-ass walk, same arms. Same fuckin’ dude! I’d swear it on a stack of Bibles.”

“So call the LAPD.”

“Fuck that. I didn’t talk to them racist motherfuckers before they stomped Rodney King and I ain’t talkin’ to ’em now.” No, Woodley said, he was going to apprehend the killer of Arlo Echevarria himself. A citizen’s arrest. With me backing him up.