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  "Oh," she says, looking surprised, "Did I really hurt you?"

  "Severely. You bruised my fragile ego."

  "Good, I'm happy now. I do have a little trouble believing that your ego can be bruised. Let's start over?"

  "Absolutely. My pleasure."

  She reaches up and caresses my cheek. "You going for the four-day beard Hollywood look? Trying to prove you've got some testosterone?"

  "Nope, going for the real beard and mustache thing."

  She shrugs then says as she turns, "Everybody's got to be somewhere and somebody. With all the knots and stitches, it looks like you're going for a Frankenstein look."

  I smile, as she's close to right. "Good thing you're hot for rugged-looking men."

  "Good thing," she says and giggles.

  Jennifer heads to the bar. Babs hands her a Manhattan, and it's as if those two failures-to-appear on my part never happened.

  We have a couple more drinks with dinner—a great steak at Cut, a Wolfgang Puck steakhouse—which turns out to be a super supper with lots of laughs. I follow her lead and a half hour after my dessert, am in her apartment having her for my second, and much more delicious, dessert. As good as Puck's dessert was, my second was five star and possibly irreplaceable. Thank goodness she has a Jacuzzi. After an hour rolling in the hay, I need my bones and joints massaged. I still hurt in spots I didn't know I had until those Williston misfits took me apart at the seams. Somehow, I've forgotten those aches and pains for a while.

  I awake to her arousing my interest again and a second bout that I finally concede to her as the flat-out winner as I'm not only sore from the Williston misfits, but from her very athletic performance. I get the distinct impression she wants to make sure I show up on time for any subsequent dates, and I can't imagine ever being late again, much less not showing.

  After a half hour in her steaming shower, I'm beginning to feel human again, so I dress—except I can't find the V-neck t-shirt I had on last night—and join her in her little kitchen where an omelet is almost ready.

  I've found the V-neck that looks much better on her, particularly when that's all she's wearing. My cleavage never looked that good.

  "What's up today?" she asks. "I don't have to be at work until two."

  "I'm off to the beauty shop," I say and can't help but grin.

  That stops her short and she turns and eyeballs me. "If you're gay, you put up one hell of a false front."

  That makes me laugh aloud, then ask, "How do you think I'd look as a blonde?"

  She shakes her head. "With all that hair on your chest and back, it'll take a gallon of peroxide to convince anyone."

  "I've only got to convince a bunch of old boys in a very dark saloon. I've got to head back to North Dakota and have a chat with the boys who gave me this cast, and I don't want them to see me coming. I've got work to do there—work that may require me to be someone other than Mike Reardon for a while."

  "It'll be pretty hard to hide those stitches in your scalp."

  "Come on, you've heard of a wig."

  "And those knots on your cheekbones, and that black eye."

  "They'll be gone before I get back there. I have to wait at least a week to get this arm in shape."

  "I'll dye it for you if you want. That military stubble on your head won't take much."

  "You're too sweet, but I've got a friend in the beauty biz. You know Beauty by Crystal?"

  "Sure, had a pedicure there last year."

  "Can you drop me off there?" I ask. "I need to check on her anyway."

  She stops on the way to the table, a plate of eggs and sausage in each hand, and eyes me suspiciously. "If I'm not going to see you again, this plate is going straight into the garbage."

  "No, no, that's not what I meant. I do want to pick up my van at Pax's office, then I'll meet you wherever, whenever. You're not going to get rid of me that easily."

  She moves on to the table, plops a plate on either side, goes back to her Mr. Coffee and pours me a cup, picking up a couple of slices out of the toaster on the way back.

  "Crystal's it is," she says.

  Crystal Janson was the twin sister of Carol Janson, who hired me just before she was murdered by the cartel in order to convince her husband not to turn state's evidence. Her killing set off a series of events that left bodies strewn around Nevada and California. I'd been hired to find Carol's daughter after the husband absconded with her. As fate would have it, some smart attorney held off on the husband's agreement, arguing for better terms with the Federal Marshal's Service. When the subject of his testimony—a pair of Vegas mobbed up brothers—were killed, the fed reneged, as the agreement had not been signed. He went to the pen for violating the RICO act. The daughter, luckily, ended up with her aunt, Crystal. Unknown to the authorities, we made off with a little expense money, a couple of satchels full, even though we left a couple of satchels full after a gun battle with the cartel, and set up a trust with a chunk of it for the daughter, little Sherry.

  I called and made an appointment to have my hair dyed, and luckily, Crystal was in when I arrived. She was, to say the least, surprised when I knocked on her office door.

  "I thought you were sailing the Caribbean," she said, as she threw herself into my arms. She was equally beautiful, an identical twin of her departed sister, but she was off limits to me. Every time I saw Crystal, I pictured her sister, sans her beautiful head, as the cartel had left her.

  "I was, for months, but I'm back. I'm working up north and need a hair job, so here I am."

  "Doesn't compute," she said as she turned to her desk and motioned to me to take a chair across from hers.

  "A little disguise is in order."

  She sighs deeply, smiles and shakes her head. "You are beyond belief."

  "Believe me, I need to change my looks."

  She laughs again and says, "It looks like somebody has already tried to change them. Or did you get hit by a train?"

  "Nope. Just a trainload of bad guys. Who can give me a dye job and fix me up with a matching dirty blonde wig?"

  She's on her feet and circling the desk, waving me up. "I'll do it myself. We don't get much request for 'dirty blonde.' Sexy satin blonde won't do?"

  "Nope. As close to looking like a homeless person as you can get me—eyebrows, chest hair, arm hair and all—and some way to keep it that way for a while."

  "Let's go to work."

  We talk about little Sherry as she works, and I am proud of the work that Skip, Pax and I did that resulted in the little girl becoming a ward of her aunt. She gives me a ride back to Pax's condo where I've left my van. I leave with a kindergarten picture of Sherry in my wallet. My head, body, and facial hair are blonde, and I have supplies and instructions as to how to stay blonde. I leave with stringy blonde hair to my shoulders, thanks to a wig they had to rework. Had it not been for the fact I still have on my light blue dress shirt; I would look exactly like a dumpster diver. I'll make a transition the rest of the way to 'homeless' or at least ‘dirty Hell's Angel’ type before I get back to Williston.

  The good news is I won't have to wear the itchy damn wig until I cross the North Dakota border.

  For the next several days, I spend the late nights and mornings with Jennifer, the late mornings working out at Gold's and running on the University of Nevada track putting down five miles jogging, the afternoons working with Pax and do some serious 'rest up and heal.'

  On the Thursday before I leave, I ask, "If I'm Frankenstein, how about you being nurse Cratchet?"

  "I forgot to go to nursing school," she says and eyes me a little suspiciously.

  "Okay, did mama teach you to sew?"

  "Yeah, a little."

  "Then get your tiniest scissors. I need these stitches out."

  "Oh, that gives me the willies."

  "You can do it. It's no hill for a stepper."

  "Can I do it with my eyes closed?"

  "You only have to do the ones on the back of my noggin. I can do the ones I
can see."

  In less than ten minutes, I'm unstitched.

  It’s early on a rainy Friday morning when I say goodbye to the beautiful keno runner.

  She hauls my ashes like they've never been hauled before—something to remember her by—then we depart her king-size bed. She fixes me a great breakfast after I've showered and dressed, then follows me out to the van. After a long clinging hug, she asks, "Well, Mr. Reardon, will I ever see you again?"

  "God willin' and the creek don't rise," I answer as I climb behind the wheel.

  "Seriously?" she asks.

  "I'll be back, and when I get back, you'll be the first to know."

  "I wonder…."

  I start the van and give her a wink. "I always do what I say I'll do, darling. If I don't, you can count on me being cold and on a slab."

  She slaps me on my left arm, hard enough that it stings. "Don't you say that. I'm counting on you coming back. Whole."

  I reach out, hook a left hand behind her neck and drag her over for one more deep kiss, then gently push her back.

  "See you soon, Jen Jen."

  And I'm off to clean up the Bakken oil field, at least the Owens-McKittrick Oil Well Service part of it.

  9

  I've got a thumb drive in my glove compartment with dossiers on half the bad guys operating in North Dakota and eastern Montana as well as pictures—mostly mug shots. I also have a keystroke register, thanks to Sol's Trojan Horse being planted in Travis Richter Speck's computer. You can trace everything done on his computer with the keystroke register and, with another program, convert those keystrokes to text. Pax has discovered that Speck owns an Apple laptop, an iPod, and an iPhone on all of which he has foolishly turned on the "find my…" feature. That allows you to search on another device for that device if lost. We now know where he lives, works, and travels. We can track him thanks to him not trusting those who might steal from him, or himself as to where he might inadvertently leave his electronics.

  I make it all the way to Billings before I whip into a truck stop, find a spot to park for the night and feed my face. I barely step out of the van before I'm met by a hooker in purple hot pants over yellow tights. She's a redhead, or so she wants folks to think. Actually, in the yellow no-bug lights of the parking lot, it looks more Sunkist orange than red. And she's wearing yellow lipstick. Few black girls are natural redheads, and, to be truthful, it's all I can do not to laugh.

  "You lookin' for a good time?" she asks giving me a wink. She's got that dislocated look of one who's riding the white horse, but her eyes are not wholly dilated, so she's not completely out of it.

  "If I was, you'd be the one," I lie and return the wink as I lock up the van and, as an extra precaution, check the back doors that are facing away from the restaurant and thus out of sight. I have them barred from the inside, so it's overkill. You'd have to have a cutting torch to get through them.

  "One thin Ben, and you'll have the ride of your life, big boy." She bats her big brown eyes at me coyly. She is cute, for a truck stop hooker.

  I laugh. "Why aren't you working the Bakken like half the girls north of Texas?"

  She gets serious. "I was up there for a while, I was a boomtown girl, but them boys is too damn mean for this Louisiana girl. You know what I'm saying?"

  "Nope, I don't. Walk with me," I say, heading for the restaurant.

  "Sure, I gots to pee anyway. And there ain't no spenders around no how."

  "So, the customers up there around the Bakken are too damn mean?"

  "Nope, the Johns is fine. The family mans are."

  "One more time."

  "The pimps, they all mean as pit bulls to all we wifies. Them Communist cocksuckers are bad, bad, bad. You knows what I mean?"

  "The Russians don't appreciate hardworking capitalists."

  "What's dat?"

  "Hardworking enterprising working girls like you. Have you had dinner?" I ask. I hate to eat alone and may learn something from this hardworking young lady.

  "Why, you don't think you're gonna trade no cheap hamburger for some sweet meat…."

  I laugh and interrupt her. "No, ma'am. I'm thinking you might be hungry, and I hate to eat alone."

  She studies me for a minute as if she can't believe I'm only offering to buy her supper.

  So, I add, "Hell’s bells, girl, you been turning tricks so long you don't recognize a nice guy when you see one?"

  "Sure 'nuf, but I be wanting a steak, you knows what I mean?"

  "I do know what you mean, and if you're having a steak, so am I, and I'm buying. We gonna live it up."

  She hooks an arm through mine, tells me her name is Vanna White, which makes me smile as it's quite a stretch from the Vanna I know from TV to the one I now know in this snow-covered truck stop parking lot.

  I'm allowed to escort the lovely, and colorful, Vanna inside. The receptionist looks at me like a bull at a bastard calf, but picks up a couple of menus and escorts us to the back of the restaurant, as far as she can get from the door and other customers.

  Vanna's not bashful and orders a porterhouse and twice baked, the most expensive meal on the menu, but in this joint that only means twenty-nine ninety-five, plus a drink and a tip. I can handle it and order the same. Hers is well done and mine medium rare, but still tough as a Cajun cage fighter who grew up wrestling alligators for sport. It's Gold's Gym for the jaw.

  In the bright light of the coffee shop I see the makeup covering the needle tracks on her arms.

  I innocently lay my iPhone on the table between us, after activating the audio record app so I won't forget anything she might say of value.

  I don't leave the place with much, other than a couple of places where the girls hang and the nicknames of four different Russian pimps. The Bear, who she thinks is a guy named Bogdan, should be easy to find. She says he's over four hundred pounds, walks with a limp due to bad knees, and is white haired with ice blue watery eyes. Then there’s Vasily, who's nicknamed V-One. Another she thinks is Victor, who's nicknamed V-Two. And last, there’s Alexei, who's called Luthor on the street. I presume it’s a play on Batman's Lex Luthor. He'll be easy to spot. She says he's missing the lobe of one ear and the stub has the rough edge of teeth marks. The two V boys are average height, but muscled up like no-neck gym rats, and Luthor is over six feet tall but thin and sallow-cheeked with a Van Dyke goatee. With her names and descriptions, added to what I imagine are Russian accents, they shouldn't be hard to find. When questioned about dope, she acts as if it's matter-of-fact that all of them are selling meth, crack, and Mexican brown.

  She says she's trying to earn enough dough to get back to New Orleans, and wants to head for the bus station as soon as she earns another hundred—back to where mama lives and where she wants to go back to college. I was born at night, but not last night. I give her a thin Ben nonetheless, as I'm an undying optimist and, undoubtedly, a sucker. She offers to do me a solid in the form of a quick blowjob, but I shake hands with her instead and wish her a good trip. Then, being not quite so much a sucker, I use Purell to sanitize my hands.

  I roll back into Williston with the temperature at ten degrees, but no snow and only a high overcast and whisper of wind. I've been gone an even two weeks and am feeling strong.

  When I drive out at dawn, the girl who calls herself Vanna White is leaning into the window of a Kenworth with a load of bawling cattle on the back.

  So much for a college education.

  I've been lucky so far, but as soon as I head northeast out of Billings on I-94, the weather hits. It's blowing snow horizontally for an hour, then slows down to just making snow snakes on the highway. Wiggling lines of snow move like the highway's covered with hyper-white pythons, and they are dangerously mesmerizing and hypnotizing.

  Then the wind picks back up and I only make it a couple of hours before I get off the highway, believing the roadside signs with great faith. I can't see over thirty yards into the mess and only pray there's an open coffee shop. But the sign is not lying
, and there's a café with windows so dirty you can hardly see inside or read the shimmering neon beer signs trying to attract through the muck, but with great pie if lousy coffee, and, shock of shocks, free Wi-Fi. I kill two hours and a piece of lemon meringue, which is so good I top it off after a couple of cups of float-a-spoon bitter coffee with apple pie ala mode. I spot a chunky Hispanic lady with double chins working the kitchen and am sure the crust is so melt-in-the-mouth-good because it's made with real lard. There go the arteries.

  The good news is, I'll still make Williston in time for a late lunch, not that I'll be hungry. I plan to visit DiAngelo’s and see if the blonde disguise is working.

  Disguise is not only changing your hair color and clothing. Just as important is how you walk, talk, and your general demeanor. I have a tendency to look people straight in the eye in a manner some find almost challenging. Now I'll have trouble meeting someone's gaze and will keep my eyes down. I'll change the timbre of my voice and the pacing of my speech. I also have a pair of dark glasses that a buddy in Hollywood has furnished. They have prosthetic devices that flare your ears out and flat ears become Dumbo ones. I have inserts for my cheeks that fatten them. I've fooled facial recognition software more than once with these little additions, particularly when I add phony paste-on eyebrows and a mustache or beard or both. Now my beard and stache is over a quarter of an inch long and blonde; and my eyebrows are dyed blonde, so I don't need paste-ons. My eyes are brown, but contacts, which I very seldom wear, change them to a spooky dark, dark blue with gold accents. I don't bother with them.

  I drive straight to my new residence—the truck, camper, and Wells Cargo trailer—and am relieved to see my vehicles still as I left them, including the water being frozen up on the camper. I pull a bale of straw aside and place my electric heater under the camper, replace the bale and hope that by the time I'm back from testing my disguise, the pipes will be thawed out.

  I spend a half hour in front of the little mirror in the camper and leave a different guy. I'm wearing well-worn Marine camo pants, a leather flight jacket that's skinned and frayed at the cuffs and knit collar, a gray turtleneck sweater that's obviously been re-woven in spots, and phony Ugg snow boots that are stained and matted with tar. My hat is one of those with the fold-down fur-lined ear covers, and my stringy blonde wig flares out from under it to my shoulders. I wear the glasses that flare my Dumbo ears and use the inserts in my cheek. It's a good thing I'm not hungry as it's hard to eat with the cheek inserts. I'll try the soup.