Weird.

Not that I was gambling. I wasn’t. In the first place I don’t like gambling and in the second place I was too busy looking for Natty Silver and dreading the phone call I had to make.

I finally pulled my sorry ass into a phone booth and made the call.

“So how’s Palm Springs?” Graham asked.

“Uhhh,” I answered, “it’s a nice town.”

There was a long pause.

“You’re not there, are you?” Graham asked.

“Uhhh, yes,” I said.

“Yes, you’re there?”

“Yes, I’m not there.”

I don’t have any bananas, either.

Another silence.

“How’s Silverstein?” Graham asked.

“Funny,” I said. “He’s a funny old guy.”

A sigh of resignation then, “He’s not there, is he?”

“No.”

“Where is he?”

“That’s sort of the question of the hour, Dad.”

I hated saying it. Hated explaining it to Graham. Hated the sound of the words as they came out of my mouth. But it was the truth.

I’d given Nathan and Hope an hour and when I went back to the room no one answered. I ran down to the lounge, checked it and several other lounges, ran through the gaming tables, the slot machines, the sports room, the pool complex and then thought of the white tigers exhibit.

They weren’t there, either. Oh, the white tigers were there, just no sign of Nathan or Hope.

“How do you lose an eighty-six-year-old man?!” Graham yelled. “What did he do, Neal, outrun you? Cold-cock you with his cane? Gum you into unconsciousness?”

“He got out of my sight, I guess.”

Graham screeched, “Why did you let him get out of your sight?!”

So he could get laid or whatever, I thought. But I was too embarrassed to say it so I settled for, “We bumped into an old friend of his and they took off together for a few minutes.”