"I couldn't have called you," Paltz said in summation. "I would have and I was planning on it but she had me in the back of the van all night. Look at this, man."

He turned and leaned across the seat. Karch raised the gun and Paltz held his hands up, palms out. He then pointed to the corners of his mouth, where there were matching cuts that looked fresh and painful.

"That's from the fucking snap cuff she used to gag me. I'm telling you the truth, man."

"Sit back."

Paltz moved back to his side. They drove in silence for a minute while Karch thought about Paltz's story.

"You're not telling me everything. Did she know you snitched them off to me last time?"

"Nope. Nobody knew that except you."

Karch nodded. There had never been any trial so he had never had to tell his story in public. Only to the cops – and one of the leads was Iverson.

"Who was she working with this time?"

"She was by herself. She just showed up at the counter yesterday and it went from there. I never saw anybody else."

Still, Paltz's story didn't make complete sense.

"You're not telling me everything. You did something to her. You try to rip her off?"

Paltz didn't say anything and Karch took that as confirmation.

"You did. You saw she was alone and you tried to hijack her. Only she was ready for it and got the drop on you. And that's why she couldn't cut you loose until she finished the job."

"All right, so I did. So fucking what?"

Karch didn't answer. They were well out from the city now. Karch liked it out here, especially in the spring before it got too hot.

"What was she doing in L.A.?" he asked.

"Didn't say and I didn't ask. Look, where are we going? I told you everything I know."

Karch didn't answer.

"Look, Karch, I know what you're doing. You think I walked out of there without telling anybody exactly who I was going to see out in the lot?"

Karch glanced over at him, a bemused look on his face.

"Yeah, Jersey, that's exactly what I think you did."

It was hardly a bluff worth calling. Karch knew that the relationship he and Paltz had shared over time dictated that Paltz would tell his fellow countermen that he was stepping out for a smoke, nothing more.

He turned the big Lincoln left on an unmarked road he knew was called Saddle Ranch Road on the county plat books. It was part of a subdivision that had been platted and surveyed three decades before. A few roads had been put in but the plan went bust and no houses were ever built. The city, spreading as quickly as it was, was still a decade or so away from catching up. Then the houses would come. Karch hoped he wouldn't be around for that.

He stopped the car in front of an old and abandoned sales office. The windows and door were long since gone. Bullet holes and graffiti marked every wall inside and out and the floor inside was covered with broken glass and beer cans. The morning sun caught on a silvery spider web that hung in the open doorway. Karch looked past the structure to the Joshua tree growing about ten yards behind it. He had planted it many years before to simply mark a spot. He was always surprised to see how full it had grown in such a desolate place.

He killed the engine and looked at Paltz. The blood seemed to have drained from his passenger's face.

"Look, man, now I've told you everything I fucking know about the bitch and what happened. There's no need for – "

"Get out."

"What, here?"

"Yeah, out."

He held the Sig up as a reminder and Paltz tried to open the door. It was still locked. Karch looked on with amusement as his passenger's hands scrabbled over the door, looking for the unlock button. He finally found it and opened the door. He got out of the car and Karch followed him out from his side.

Karch came around the front of the car toward Paltz. He held the Sig at his side.

"What are you going to do?" Paltz asked, holding his hands up in surrender.

Karch ignored the question and looked about their surroundings.

"This place… I've been coming out here for years. Since I was a kid. My father used to drive out here at night so we could see the stars. In the winter we'd sit on the hood of the Dodge and the heat from the engine would keep us warm."

He turned and looked back in the direction of the city.

"Man, at night he could look back at the Strip and pick out the casinos just based on the color and glow of the neon. The Sands, the DI, the Stardust… I loved this place then. Now it's just… bullshit. Amusement parks and bullshit. No class anymore. Sure, the bent nose bunch ran the place back then but it had class. Now it's just…"

He didn't finish. He looked at Paltz as though he had just noticed him for the first time.

"How much did she pay you?"

"Nothing."

Karch started to advance on him and Paltz blurted out a new response.

"Eight grand. That's it. But that was for the equipment. She didn't cut me in on anything. She just gave me the eight and cut me loose."

It occurred to Karch that it was odd that Cassie Black had let Paltz go – and had even paid him – after she had not let Hidalgo live. It was a pattern conflict that he would have to think about. Something had happened in that hotel room and there was probably only one person who could tell him what it was.

"Where's the eight grand?"

"In a strongbox in my house. Let's go. I'll show you. I'll give it to you."

Karch smiled without humor.

"She tell you about the job when she cut you loose?"

"She didn't say jack to me. She just cut me loose and got out of the van. I found the eight grand on the front seat with the keys."

"What about the briefcase?"

"What briefcase?"

Karch paused for a moment and decided to let it go. He doubted she would have shared knowledge of the briefcase with Paltz. She had probably recognized the case as being electronically trapped and hadn't even opened it at that point anyway.

Karch concluded he had all he was going to get from Paltz – except maybe the eight thousand in his house.

"Come over here," he said, pointing to the hood of the Lincoln. "Put your wallet down on the hood. And your keys."

Paltz did as instructed, standing at the front of the car while Karch stood to the side by the left fender.

"You people stole from the wrong people. And she shot the wrong man."

Paltz dropped his mouth open but then quickly recovered.

"I don't know what the fuck you're – I didn't steal anything. I – "

"You helped and that makes you just as guilty. You understand that?"

Paltz closed his eyes and when he spoke his voice was a desperate whine.

"I'm sorry. I didn't know. Please, I need a break here."

Karch looked past him at the surrounding scrub land. His eyes lingered again on the Joshua tree and then moved on. The desert was truly beautiful in its desolation.

"You know why I come out here?"

"Yes."

Karch almost laughed.

"No, I mean to this place. This specific spot."

"No."

"Because thirty years ago when they charted this place and started selling lots to the suckers they had the whole place graded so it would look like it was ready to go, that they'd start building your house as soon as they got your money. It was part of the scam and it worked real well."

Paltz nodded as though he found the story interesting.

"My old man bought a lot…"

"That's why you come out, huh?"

Paltz's conversational tone was forced and desperate. Karch ignored the question.

"Thirty years is a long time. The ground's pretty hard again but you go anywhere else out here and start digging and you got about a foot of top sand and then after that it's like digging through solid rock. People think it's like digging at the beach. But it isn't close. The earth below the top sand hasn't been touched in a couple million years. The fucking shovel bounces off it."