Page 49 of A Long Con

“’sup?” I asked, taking off my lid and shaking my hair out.

Royal pointed to his phone cradled on his handlebars. “Looks like Twinkletoes texted,” he said as he stripped off his gloves to grab the phone.

I watched Royal’s face closely as he read the text. At first a look of disbelief swept his handsome features. I have sucked that cock, I thought with a smile. And I will do it again given the tiniest chance.

Then he whooped a giant war cry. I dismounted and went over to see what he saw.

“Twinkletoes found him!” he shouted. “He fucking Found Ira Hogshead! He got into the network and tracked him up to . . . “ He squinted at his cell screen. “Many Farms, Arizona?” He looked at me and shrugged with joy.

“Whatever!” I cried, grabbing his phone. Yup. Many Farms was north on the Navajo rez. “So this is where he was last seen, how long ago?”

Royal gestured grandly. “Ten minutes ago, about! Let’s go get ourselves a Fast Riding Award and haul ass up there!” He sobered up. “Oh. I mean, if you want to. What with your mom and all. I could go alone up to Many Farms, while you go back to Lake Havasu—”

“No!” I proclaimed. “Not on your fucking ass! I want to get this motherfucker just as bad as you, if not worse.” Yes. He’d thrown my mentor down a manhole. But he also had my painting and to be honest, I was getting into owning Roosevelt’s rug. I was even pondering displaying them side by side, wherever I wound up living. Just because I could. Like Cloud had said, I could always paint new ones.

To show my determination, I grabbed Royal by the back of the neck and laid a giant kiss on him. He relaxed into it, even smacking his lips with pleasure against mine. I purred against his mouth.

“You’re incredible, Royal.”

We smacked each other’s mouths some more, then pulled apart as if caught by our fathers. Was it possible I’d finally lucked out meeting Royal?

“You’re a fucking chiseled stud, Berkeley.” I was glad he called me by my new name. He’d fallen in love with the new me. “I won’t let Hogshead get away with this shit.”

I jammed on my lid and headed north on 77 toward Holbrook. It would take us another three hours, around sunset, to reach Many Farms. The southwest sky was taking on an ominous charcoal shade. Although beautiful to paint, it wasn’t so much fun to ride in that weather. That’s why I had a habit of checking the forecast, and that morning it had warned about a strong storm moving northeast, dumping snow all over New Mexico. I wanted to bust into Hogshead’s house and take our shit at gunpoint, then leave. Simple as that.

But when we gassed up in Holbrook, Royal noticed something amiss on the GPS.

“What the fuck?” he muttered to himself.

I munched potato chips. “What’s wrong?”

“I can’t seem to find street names on the rez. This has happened to me before when picking up some artifacts from Indians.”

“They prefer Native American,” I said.

Royal looked up from his phone. “If it’s a native tribal road, they don’t want tourists stopping by. I think the mapping companies have agreed to honor this, if I recall correctly.”

“But doesn’t Twinkletoes have eyes on Hogshead? Like, even if we don’t get a street name, he can see where he’s pinging?”

“That’s what I’ll find out,” Royal said, thumbing Twinkletoe’s number.

I wandered off as Royal talked, and stared at a tattered billboard mentioning the Wigwam Motel. I thought of our own Pie Town Motel the night before. When Royal was out getting tacos, I’d flung off my clothes, whipped out the lube, and started stroking myself, imagining him.

I knew what I wanted. I wanted to switch it up, maybe a bit like the roles I’d played with Split. But different. Royal was too young to play the daddy, and I didn’t need any Daddy Dom anyway. It was fun to scene, but Royal and I were equals, like he said. His long, plump copper cock was delicious, his semen tasted like he’d been drinking champagne, he was built like a machine, and his face was so beautiful it should be memorialized on Mount Rushmore.

Bugger me. I’m really in love.

Back at our bikes, Royal was thumbing his phone call to an end and looking thoughtfully at the flat, featureless desert.

“’sup?”

“He can’t give me an exact address, or the sort of vehicle Hogshead is driving. But hacking into his texts showed that he’s meeting someone named Myra Mains, so that’s something. He said shit like ‘I’ll see you in an hour’ about an hour ago.”

I frowned. “My Remains?”

Royal chuckled. “No, it sounds like a woman named Myra Mains. Twinkletoes looked around, and there is a Myra Humpbacked Mains in Many Farms. Just doesn’t have an address.”

I thought. “Maybe we could ask some fellow Navajo in town?”