At Burbank Airport I parked in the long-term lot, got my bag out and took the tram to the terminal. At the Southwest counter I used a credit card to buy a round-trip ticket to Las Vegas on a flight leaving in less than an hour. I kept the return open. I then proceeded through the security checkpoint, waiting in line like everybody else. I put my bag on the conveyor and dropped my watch, car keys and the camera’s memory card into a plastic bowl so I would not set off the metal detector. I realized I had left my cell in the Mercedes and then thought, just as well, they might use it to triangulate my location.

Near the departure gate I stopped and bought a ten-dollar phone card and took it to a nearby bank of pay phones. I read the instructions on the phone card twice. Not because they were complicated but because I was hesitant. Finally, I picked up the receiver and called long distance. It was a number I knew by heart but had not called in almost a year.

She answered after only two rings but I could tell I had woken her up. I almost hung up, knowing that even if she had caller ID she would not be able to tell it had been me. But after her second hello I finally spoke.

“Eleanor, it’s me, Harry. Did I wake you up?”

“It’s okay. Are you all right?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Were you playing late?”

“Till about five and then we went for breakfast. I feel like I just got to bed. What time is it?”

I told her it was after ten and she groaned. I felt the confidence go out of my plan. I also got stuck wondering who the ‘we’ she referred to was but didn’t ask. I was supposed to be long past that.

“Harry, what is it?” she said into the silence. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. I didn’t get to sleep till about the same time, too.”

More silence slipped into the wire. I noticed that they were boarding my flight.

“Is that why you called me? To tell me your sleeping habits?”

“No, I, uh… well, I sort of need some help. Over there in Vegas.”

“Help? What do you mean? You mean like on a case? You told me you retired.”

“I did. I am. But there’s this thing I’m working on… Anyway, I was wondering if you could meet me at the airport in about an hour. I’m flying in.”

There was silence while she registered this request and all that it might mean. As I waited my chest felt heavy and tight. I was thinking about the single-bullet theory when she finally spoke.

“I can be there. Where am I taking you?”

I realized I had been holding my breath. I exhaled. Deep down in the velvet folds I knew that would be her answer but hearing it spoken out loud, the confirmation of it, filled me immediately with my own confirmation of the feelings I still carried. I tried to picture her on the other end of the line. She was in bed, the phone on the bed table, her hair messy in a way I always found to be a turn-on, that made me want to stay in bed with her. Then I remembered that this was a cell number. She didn’t have a landline, at least one that I had the number for. And then that “we” thing came up again, intruding like a telephone solicitor. Whose bed was she in?

“Harry, you still there?”

“Yeah, I’m here. Uh, just to a car-rental place. Avis, I guess. They try harder. Supposedly.”

“Harry, they have buses that come by the airport every five minutes for that. What do you need me for? What’s going on?”

“Look, I’ll explain when I get there. My flight’s boarding. Can you be there, Eleanor?”

“I said I’ll be there,” she said in a tone I was too familiar with, as if she was relenting and reluctant at the same time.

I didn’t dwell on it. I had what I needed. I left it at that.

“Thank you. How about right outside Southwest? Is it still the Taurus you had before?”

“No, Harry, it’s a silver Lexus now. Four-door. And I’ll have my lights on. I’ll flick them if I see you first.”

“Okay, I’ll see you then. Thanks, Eleanor.”

I hung up and headed for the gate. A Lexus, I thought as I moved. I had priced them before buying the used Mercedes. They weren’t outrageous but they weren’t cheap. Things must be changing for her. I was pretty sure I was happy about that.

By the time I got on the plane there was no room in the overhead compartments for my bag and only middle seats left for me. I squeezed in between a man in a Hawaiian shirt and thick gold neck chain and a woman so pale I thought she might detonate like a match the moment she was hit by the Nevada sun. I zoned out, kept my elbows to myself, though the Hawaiian shirt guy didn’t, and managed to close my eyes and almost sleep for most of the short flight. I knew there was a lot to think about and the memory card was almost burning a hole in my pocket as I wondered about its contents, but I also instinctively knew that I needed to grab rest while I could. I wasn’t expecting to get too much of it once I got back to L.A.

Less than an hour after takeoff I walked out through the terminal’s automatic doors at McCarran and was hit with the oven-dry blast of heat that signaled arrival in Las Vegas. It didn’t faze me. My eyes intently searched the vehicles stacked in the pickup lanes until they held on a silver car with its lights on. The sunroof was open and the driver’s hand was reaching through it and waving. She was flicking the brights at me, too. It was Eleanor. I waved and trotted to the car. I opened the door, threw my bag over the seat into the back and got in.

“Hi,” I said. “Thanks.”

After a moment’s hesitation we both leaned to the middle and kissed. It was brief but good. I had not seen her in a long time and I was suddenly shocked by the realization of how fast time could slip between two people. Though we talked every year on birthdays and Christmas, it had been almost three years since I had actually seen her, touched her, been with her. And immediately it was intoxicating and depressing at the same time. For I had to go. This would be quicker than any of those birthday calls we made each year.

“Your hair’s different,” I said. “It looks good.”

It was the shortest I had ever seen it, cut cleanly at the midpoint of her neck. But it wasn’t a false compliment. She looked good. But then again she would have looked good to me with hair to her ankles or even shorter than mine.

She turned from me to check traffic over her left shoulder. I could see the nape of her neck. She pulled into the through lane and we headed out. As she drove she reached up and held her finger on the button that closed the sunroof.

“Thank you, Harry. You don’t look that different. But you still look good.”

I thanked her and tried not to smile too much as I got my wallet out.

“So,” she said, “what’s this big mystery that you couldn’t tell me about on the phone?”

“No mystery. I just want some people to think I’m in Las Vegas.”

“You are in Las Vegas.”

“But not for long. As soon as I pick up the car I’m heading back.”

Eleanor nodded like she understood. I pulled my ATM and American Express cards out of my wallet. I kept my Visa card for the car rental and anything else that might come up.

“I want you to take these cards and use them over the next couple of days. The ATM code is oh-six-thirteen. Should be easy enough to remember.”

It had been our wedding day.

“Funny,” she said. “You know, this year it falls on a Friday. I checked. That’s bad luck, Harry.”

Friday the thirteenth somehow seemed appropriate. For a moment I wondered what it meant that she was checking on when future anniversaries of a failed marriage landed on the calendar. I dropped it and came back to the present.

“So just use them over the next few days. You know, go have dinner or something. If I were here I’d probably buy you a present for letting me stay with you. So go to the ATM and get some money and buy something you like. The AmEx still has my full name on it. You shouldn’t have a problem.”