Fire Lake by Jonathan Valin

enough money for a couple of nights in
a motel," she said as we walked to the door.
    "I'll cover your expenses," I said.
    She shook her head. "I'll pay for my own
mistakes. It's better that way."
    She started down the hall. I took one last look
through the door at the wreckage, and sighed. "God damn it,
Lonnie," I said to myself.
    I pulled the door shut, locked it, and followed Karen
down to the lobby.
    10
    I got Karen a room at the Clarion, downtown. She
wanted something less expensive, but I managed to talk her into
letting me split the bill with her.
    "After all," I said as we rode the elevator
up to her room, "he's half my responsibility now."
    She eyed me sleepily. "I'm too tired to talk
about it. Tomorrow, we find someplace cheaper."
    The room was neat and banal. A couple of double beds,
nightstands with brassy lamps on them, a bureau with a framed mirror,
a painting of a meadow hung over a color TV. As Karen unpacked her
duffel I sat down on one of the double beds. It smelled of dust and
laundry soap--that peculiar young-old smell of hotel rooms, like new
shirts that have been hung in old closets. There was a phone on the
nightstand by the bed. I picked it up and dialed the Greyhound bus
terminal, on Gilbert. Lonnie had left so many possibilities in his
wake that I had trouble keeping them straight. But I didn't want to
let something as obvious as that return bus ticket go by, without
checking it out.
    The clerk at the terminal told me that the next bus
to St. Louis left at three that afternoon. When I asked him if it was
possible to find out whether someone had cashed in a return ticket or
not, he said it could be done, but that it would take some time. I
gave him Lonnie's name and my home number, and told him there would
be some cash in it for him if he could get the information to me
promptly. The mention of money shook the sleep from his voice. He
said he'd get right on it, and I believed him.
    As I hung up the phone Karen glanced at me, from
where she was kneeling by the bureau. "Where are you going to
sleep?"
    "My place, I guess."
    "Aren't you forgetting that you don't have a
mattress?" She gestured to the other double bed. "Might as
well get our money's worth."
    "I don't think so," I said, getting to my
feet.
    Karen stared at me for a long moment. A lock of hair
had fallen across her eyes, and she brushed it back with her hand.
    "You know I wasn't inviting you to sleep with
me, Harry," she said with a touch of asperity. "I don't
make a habit of balling my husband's friends. I'm sixties, but not
that sixties, if you get my drift."
    I smiled at her. "I appreciate the offer of the
bed. But I think I'm going to take a ride out to the Encantada."
    "At this time of night?" She pointed at an
alarm clock bolted to the bureau. It was close to two.
    "If Lonnie is in some trouble," I said,
"the sooner I get going on this, the better. There's a chance I
can make things right, if I know who to talk to or who to pay off."
    "You'd do that for him?"
    "He's still my friend," I said, although I
didn't feel particularly friendly toward him at that moment.
    Karen shook her head wearily. "He doesn't
deserve you, Harry."
    "What about you? You came when he needed you."
Karen glanced around the hotel room and shuddered. "What the
hell am I doing here? I should be home with my kids. I've got papers
to grade." She slapped her right thigh, as if she were
disciplining a child.
    "You know you could go home," I said. "This
is turning into a search for a missing person, and that's my
business. Not yours."
    Karen edged over to the corner of the bed and cribbed
her hands in her lap. "I don't think so," she said after a
time. "I mean I don't believe that Lonnie's been kidnapped. I
think he just blew his stack. He's done it plenty of times before."
She stared at her left hand, at the ring finger. I hadn't noticed it
before, but there was a light band of flesh around the bottom joint
where she'd once worn a wedding band. She rubbed the faded