“Yes.”

“As if we aren’t alone.”

“It’s crazy,” he said, “but I feel eyes on me.” She shivered. “But no one’s really there.” “No. I don’t think anyone is.”

They continued to squint at the inky blackness, searching for movement. She said, “Are we both cracking under the strain?”

“Just jumpy,” he said, but he wasn’t really convinced that their imagination was to blame. A soft cool wind sprang up. It carried with it the odor of dry desert weeds and alkaline sand. It hissed through the branches of a nearby date palm.

“It’s such a strong feeling,” she said. “And you know what it reminds me of? It’s the same damn feeling I had in Angela’s office when that computer terminal started operating on  its own. I feel . . . not just as if I’m being watched but . . . something more . . . like a presence . . . as if something I can’t see is standing right beside me. I can feel the weight of it, a pressure in the air … sort of looming.”

He knew exactly what she meant, but he didn’t want to think about it, because there was no way he could make sense of it. He preferred to deal with hard facts, realities; that was why he was such a good attorney, so adept at taking threads of evidence and weaving a good case out of them.

“We’re both overwrought,” he suggested. “That doesn’t change what I feel.”

“Let’s get something to eat.”

She stayed a moment longer, staring back into the gloom, where the purple mercury- vapor light did not reach.

“Tina . . . ?”

A breath of wind stirred a dry tumbleweed and blew it across the blacktop.

A bird swooped through the darkness overhead. Elliot couldn’t see it, but he could hear the beating of its wings.

Tina cleared her throat. “It’s as if … the night itself is watching us … the night, the shadows, the eyes of darkness.”

The wind ruffled Elliot’s hair. It rattled a loose metal fixture on the trash bin, and the restaurant’s big sign creaked between its two standards.

At last he and Tina went into the diner, trying not to look over their shoulders.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

21

THE LONG L-SHAPED DINER WAS FILLED WITH glimmering surfaces: chrome, glass, plastic, yellow Formica, and red vinyl. The jukebox played a country tune by Garth Brooks, and the music shared the air with the delicious aromas of fried eggs, bacon, and sausages. True to the rhythm of Vegas life, someone was just beginning his day with a hearty breakfast. Tina’s mouth began to water as soon as she stepped through the door.

Eleven customers were clustered at the end of the long arm of the L, near the entrance, five on stools at the counter, six in the red booths. Elliot and Tina sat as far from  everyone as possible, in the last booth in the short wing of the restaurant.

Their waitress was a redhead named Elvira. She had a round face, dimples, eyes that twinkled as if they had been waxed, and a Texas drawl. She took their orders for cheeseburgers, French fries, coleslaw, and Coors.

When Elvira left the table and they were alone, Tina said, “Let’s see the papers you took off that guy.”

Elliot fished the pages out of his hip pocket, unfolded them, and put them on the table. There were three sheets of paper, each containing ten or twelve typewritten questions. They leaned in from opposite sides of the booth and read the material silently:

1. How long have you known Christina Evans?
2. Why did Christina Evans ask you, rather than another attorney, to handle the exhumation of her son’s body?
3. What reason does she have to doubt the official story of her son’s death?
4. Does she have any proof that the official story of her son’s death is false?
5. If she has such proof, what is it?
6. Where did she obtain this evidence?
7. Have you ever heard of “Project Pandora”?
8. Have you been given, or has Mrs. Evans been given, any material relating to military research installations in the Sierra Nevada Mountains?

Elliot looked up from the page. “Have you ever heard of Project Pandora?” “No.”

“Secret labs in the High Sierras?”

“Oh, sure. Mrs. Neddler told me all about them.” “Mrs. Neddler?”

“My cleaning woman.” “Jokes again.”

“At a time like this.”

“Balm for the afflicted, medicine for melancholy.” “Groucho Marx,” she said.

“Evidently they think someone from Project Pandora has decided to rat on them.”

“Is that who’s been in Danny’s room? Did someone from Project Pandora write on the chalkboard . . . and then fiddle with the computer at work?”

“Maybe,” Elliot said. “But you don’t think so.”

“Well, if someone had a guilty conscience, why wouldn’t he approach you directly?”

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