No Immunity

long, narrow room. Heads of wolves and cougars, deer—animals who’d been cornered—looked down at her through their blank glass eyes. All it needed was a jukebox whining “Red River Valley.”
    Two men in jeans, plaid shirts (one red, one blue), and work boots huddled over beer glasses at the bar, and an elderly couple with the look of regulars nursed highball glasses at a table across from the music. The rear was taken up by a pool table and, thank the gods, the phone.
    As long as she had to call Tchernak and listen to him crow about his indispensability, after he’d given her the CDC numbers, he could pull up Nevada car-rental agencies on the computer. He could get one in Las Vegas that delivered. It would cost a fortune, but he was no longer in her employ to remind her of that. She dialed; the phone rang. The answering machine picked up. “Tchernak? How could he be out, now of all times? “Tchernak, pick up!” Was he truly off somewhere or just sitting back enjoying her discomfort? She took a breath and sounded light-years more businesslike than she felt as she said, “I may be late. Would you take care of Ezra for another day? You can reach me at”—she read off the phone number. “I’ll be home in the afternoon.”
    She hung up and dialed information and took down five Las Vegas car-service numbers. It took her the better part of half an hour to survey the laughter from the five representatives when she asked for a pickup in Gattozzi on Saturday night. Money was not the issue, the last guy assured her. It would take them six hours to do a round trip to Gattozzi. In that time in Vegas they could make enough to buy Gattozzi.
    She dialed Tchernak again, got his machine again, and replaced the receiver slowly. Bad enough her instructions to the message tape were about to alert the entire bar, but hearing an exchange with Tchernak would provide them amusement all winter. “You’ll be taking the bus?” Tchernak would have howled. “For you a bus is just a slow-moving blockade in your lane.” If she protested, he’d add, “It’s Pavlov’s road law; it pulls out, you honk.” Then he would remind her of the before-today worst day in her life, when she had taken scenic Route 1 going south along the cliff above the Pacific—two lanes, sharp curves, no passing lanes for a hundred miles—and found herself behind a double-wide motor home piloted by an acrophobe.
    Suddenly the saloon seemed louder. In the few minutes she had been on the phone, the patronage had doubled. In a country town like this, 8:30 p.m. was late for regulars to he happening by. These were folks dropping in for the show—herself. Did they know they might have the index ease of an epidemic across the street? She wanted to warn them, but who would believe her over their own doctor and sheriff?
    As she moved toward the bar, she scanned them. Which Piercing eyes might have spotted the dead woman on her clandestine trip into the morgue? Somebody had to know “here she came from. Who had the skinny on Jeff Tremaine? Was the word out that she herself was suspect? Two women in their forties had taken a table across the room. The elderly couple sat silently at a round table, obviously too long married to bother with the pretense of conversation. In a town of limited events, running out of discussion was no shame.
    Kiernan stood a moment longer, listening to the waves and valleys of conversation, again aware how loud it had become. How loud since she had stopped talking.
    Since they had stopped listening.
    She moved to the bar. It was still guarded by the two middle-aged flannel-shirted men, now joined by a woman with short gray hair, jeans, and leather jacket, and a lanky guy in his twenties, swaggering as he held up the chip on his shoulder. The woman stood eighteen inches away from the others, and when the stocky guy moved, she adjusted to keep the distance.
    The shelves behind the bar were surprisingly well stocked. “Dickel and water,” Kiernan ordered. “Is the Dickel the twelve?”
    “Just got the eight. Sorry.”
    She smiled. “I’ll rough it.”
    The bartender nodded and she could tell from his expression that he had slotted her onto a higher shelf. “Over or up?”
    “After today? Up.” She asked without hope, “Is there a car-rental place in town? Or a limo service?”
    “Ma’am, I’m afraid the Dickel is giving you a more cosmopolitan image than Gattozzi deserves. We got the Greyhound in the morning and we’re