Minor in Possession by J. A. Jance Page B

but it’ll be better’n nothin’.”
    â€œAny place at all will be fine,” I said. “Thanks for all your help, Shorty. Not only for the ride tonight, but also for what you did with Jennifer this afternoon. Having her go along when you moved horses was just what the doctor ordered.”
    â€œPoor little tyke,” Shorty agreed. “Felt real sorry for her. Dropped her off with her mother when I saw Mrs. Rothman packing the boy’s things out of the cabin and loading them into the car. As I walked away, Jennifer was getting her ass chewed because her uniform was wet. That’s one mean mama,” he added.
    â€œDon’t worry about it,” I said. “From the delighted look on Jennifer’s face when you put her down on the saddle in front of you, I’m sure she thinks the ride was worth it.”
    We drove to the Joshua Tree Motel, four blocks from downtown Wickenburg proper. Shorty letme out and drove away, reaching under the seat for the no longer cool Coors. Even though beer isn’t my drink of choice, it was still thoughtful of him to wait until I was out of the truck before he opened it.
    The Joshua Tree Motel turned out to be a barely habitable relic from another era. I found myself standing in front of a run-down office where a faded but hand-lettered cardboard vacancy sign still leaned against the glass in one corner of a bug-speckled window.
    The place consisted of a series of crumbling stucco edifices, cabins I suppose, that must have dated from the earliest days of motels. Or before. The AAA rating, if one ever existed, had fallen by the wayside years ago. Tiny arched carports, far too narrow for many contemporary vehicles and ideally suited to Model Ts, were attached to every free-standing unit. Inside the office all available flat surfaces were covered with price-tagged, church-holiday-bazaar-type bric-a-brac and handicrafts.
    At the counter, a pillow-faced, cigarette-smoking manager pushed a leaky pen and registration form in my direction while announcing that the Joshua Tree didn’t take American Express—only Mastercard, Visa, or cash. I paid cash, twenty bucks, and considered myself lucky.
    As I finished filling out the form, the office door opened again to admit a harried young father trailed by three obnoxious little kids. The father eagerly snatched up the Joshua Tree’s only remaining room. It was, he told me with obvious relief as he began filling out his own registration form, the last available room in town. While the three children raced around the office, screeching with joy at being let out of the car and manhandling the handicrafts, I retreated to the welcome safety and solitude of my own threadbare room.
    Clearly most of the furnishings, interior design, and plumbing were still the original equipment. The room reeked of years of cigarette smoke, mold, and benign-to-active neglect. Dingy wallpaper peeled away from the walls and ceiling. The fitfully meager spray of lukewarm water from the shower head hit me somewhere well below the shoulder blades, but even the short, tepid flower with a tiny sliver of nondescript soap was better than no shower at all.
    Putting the same clothes back on, I tried the phone, an ancient black model with no dial, but was told by the manager that the phones in Wickenburg were all out of order. That wasn’t exactly news.
    Unable to reach Ames, I sat there being frustrated for several minutes before I realized that part of what was wrong with me was hunger. My afternoon of unaccustomed physical labor hadn’t been followed by dinner. I had walked out on my plate of roast beef and mashed potatoes. That was a problem with an accessible solution, so I left my room and walked the four blocks back down to Wickenburg’s main drag, where the entire three-block area between the stoplight and the bridgewas full of parked cars and milling people.
    If a town is small enough, I guess any excuse for a party