"I... I have to see Mr. Flagg," she said. The strength went rapidly out of her voice, and it ended as a whisper.
"You do, huh? What do you think I am, his social secretary?"
"But... they said... to see you."
"Who did?"
"Well, Angie Hirschfield did. It was her."
"What's your name?"
"Uh, Julie." She giggled, but it was only a reflex. The scared look never left her face, and Lloyd wondered wearily what sort of shit was up in the fan now. A girl like this wouldn't ask for Flagg unless it was very serious indeed. "Julie Lawry."
"Well, Julie Lawry, Flagg isn't in Las Vegas now."
"When will he be back?"
"I don't know. He comes and goes, and he doesn't wear a beeper. He doesn't explain himself to me, either. If you have something, give it to me and I'll see that he gets the message." She looked at him doubtfully and Lloyd repeated what he had told Carl Hough that afternoon. "It's what I'm here for, Julie."
"Okay." Then, in a rush: "If it's important, you tell him I'm the one told you. Julie Lawry."
"Okay."
"You won't forget?"
"No, for Chrissake! Now what is it?"
She pouted. "Well, you don't have to be so mean about it."
He sighed and put the handful of cards he had been holding down on the table. "No," he said. "I guess I don't. Now, what is it?"
"That dummy. If he's around, I figure he's spying. I just thought you should know." Her eyes glinted viciously. "Motherfucker pulled a gun on me."
"What dummy?"
"Well, I saw the retard, and so I figured the dummy must be with him, you know? And they're just not our type. I figure they must have come from the other side."
"That's what you figure, huh?"
"Yeah."
"Well, I don't know what the Christ you're talking about. It's been a long day and I'm tired. If you don't start talking some sense, Julie, I'm going up to bed."
Julie sat down, crossed her legs, and told Lloyd about her meeting with Nick Andros and Tom Cullen in Pratt, Kansas, her hometown. About the Pepto-Bismol ("I was just having a little fun with the softie, and this deaf-and-dumb pulls a gun on me!"). She even told him about shooting at them as they left town.
"Which all proves what?" Lloyd asked when she finished. He had been a little intrigued with the word "spy," but since then had lapsed into a semidaze of boredom.
Julie pouted again and lit a cigarette. "I told you. That feeb, he's over here now. I just bet he's spying."
"Tom Cullen, you said his name was?"
"Yes."
He had the vaguest sort of memory. Cullen was a big blond guy, a few cards short the deck for sure, but surely not as bad as this high-iron bitch was making out. He tried for more and came up empty. People were still streaming into Vegas in numbers of sixty to a hundred a day. It was becoming impossible to keep them all straight, and Flagg said the immigration was going to get a lot heavier before it tapered off. He supposed he could go to Paul Burlson, who was keeping a file of Vegas residents and find something out about this Cullen dude.
"Are you going to arrest him?" Julie asked.
Lloyd looked at her. "I'll arrest you if you don't get off my case," he said.
"Nice f**king guy!" Julie Lawry cried, her voice rising shrewishly. She jumped to her feet, glaring at him. In her tight white cotton shorts, her legs seemed to go all the way up to her chin. "Try to do you a favor!"
"I'll check it."
"Yeah, right, I know that story."
She stomped off, fanny swinging in tight little circles of indignation.
Lloyd watched her with a certain weary amusement, thinking there were a lot of chicks like her in the world - even now, after the superflu, he was willing to bet there were a lot around. Easy to slap the make on, but watch out for the fingernails afterward. Kissing cousins to those spiders that gobble up their mates after sex. Two months had gone by and she still bore that mute guy a grudge. What did she say his name was? Andros?
Lloyd pulled a battered black notebook from his back pocket, wet his finger, and paged over to a blank sheet. This was his memory book, and it was chock-full of little notes to himself - everything from a reminder to take a shave before meeting with Flagg to a boxed memorandum to get the contents of Las Vegas' pharmacies inventoried before they started to lose morphine and codeine. It would be time to get another little book soon.
In his flat and scrawling grammar school script he wrote: Nick Andros or maybe Androtes - mute. In town? And below that: Tom Cullen, check out with Paul. He tucked the book back into his pocket. Forty miles northeast, the dark man had consummated his long-term relationship with Nadine Cross under the glittering desert stars. He would have been very interested to know that a friend of Nick Andros's was in Las Vegas.
But he slept.