Fugitive Nights by Joseph Wambaugh Page B

hand. It looked like a popcorn kernel.
    â€œShall we sit over here?” Breda indicated a banquette in the corner, far enough from the piano.
    â€œVodka martini,” Rhonda Devon said to Lynn, the way she’d say it to a waiter. “Dry, a twist, no olive.”
    While Breda and Rhonda Devon got settled at the low banquette Lynn ordered the martini, and another Scotch for himself. Then he sat opposite the two women, across a low enameled cocktail table. Rhonda Devon was smoking and looked not at him but at the martini he’d fetched.
    Breda noticed. Another rummy, she thought.
    Speaking deliberately, having poured too much down on an empty stomach, Lynn described in detail the events of his first day of surveillance. When he’d finished, Rhonda Devon was not quite as contained as when she’d walked into the bar.
    Breda detected a perceptible quiver when Rhonda Devon said, “This is unbelievable. I can’t imagine it. A young Mexican woman?”
    â€œProbably Mexican,” Lynn said. “She was dark.”
    â€œWhy would he want to have a baby with a Mexican woman?” she asked her martini.
    â€œWhy not?” Lynn said. “I wouldn’t mind. For starters there’s Vikki Carr and Linda Ronstadt. Then there’s Millie Valdez, she owns half of a Toyota dealership down in Indio. And there’s …”
    Vowing to cut off his booze, Breda interrupted him. “How about the rusty old Plymouth, Mrs. Devon? Is it familiar?”
    â€œThe car, the woman, the dog—none of it means anything to me.”
    â€œHow about the guy your husband picked up in Painted Canyon?” Lynn asked. “Baseball cap. Husky. Late thirties maybe. Probably another Latino. How about him?”
    â€œI can’t understand that either,” Rhonda Devon said, and now Breda thought that both her voice and her chin quivered. “The man must’ve needed a ride. My husband would pick up any stray. He’s always been that way. When we’re in Los Angeles he gives money to every beggar on the street.” Then she said angrily: “He’s a child, really. He never had to work for anything in his whole life. He doesn’t understand how … vile people are. I don’t understand what he’s doing!”
    â€œHe’s a man of a certain age,” Breda said. “This sort of thing happens, Mrs. Devon.”
    â€œBut to want a baby when he can’t have sex. And with a …” Rhonda Devon realized that she’d raised her voice, and covered her discomfort by taking a sip of the martini. Then another. Her hand trembled when she smoked.
    â€œHow far do you want us to go, Mrs. Devon?” Breda asked, with more compassion in her voice than Lynn thought she owned.
    â€œI have to know it all now,” Rhonda Devon said.
    â€œYou’re still not ready to confront him and just ask ?”
    â€œNo. This is his affair … I guess that’s an apt word, isn’t it? And … he’s never questioned me about anything in all our years of marriage.”
    â€œWere you married before?” Lynn asked.
    â€œYes,” she said. “Twice.”
    â€œAnd was he?”
    â€œNo,” she said. “I was his first and only love. He always said. ”
    Lynn glanced at Breda and said, “When Breda phoned you a little while ago and asked you to talk to your husband, did you?”
    â€œYes, I asked him very casually about his day, after I’d told him all about my rotten day on the golf course.”
    â€œAnd did he tell you he went hiking?”
    â€œYes,” she said, “but not in Painted Canyon. He said he’d driven down to the Indian reservation and hiked in Andreas Canyon. He said it was wonderful because there were no tourists. He said it was spectacular looking at cottonwoods and sycamore and wild tamarack. He said the water in the creek was especially cold … and sweet.”

B efore Rhonda