While Drowning in the Desert

Now Neal is assigned to escort monkeyish octogenarian Natty Silver home from Las Vegas to Palm Springs. Natty, once a burlesque top banana, has a nonstop barrage of corny jokes, an eye for an aging cocktail waitress, and a chronic disappearing act.

When Neal catches up with him, he can see why Natty doesn't want to go home. Sole witness to a crime, he's now the quarry of hard-faced suits, a fascist con artist, and a career-track assassin. And bodyguard Neal, scorching through the trackless desert at eighty miles per hour, brooding on his inner child by freezing starlight, and looking down the barrel of one gun too many, is soon dodging vultures and on the brink of a surprise watery grave.