Beth apologized profusely. Peter Kim recommended that people use their own credit cards to find rooms. They’d get reimbursed later. It was a bad way to start their first full day on the ground, everyone thought, as they headed their own way to find hotel rooms. * * * Gene Whitney loved airports. You could almost always get booze. And nobody knew that you hadn’t just flown in from Hong Kong, wherever, and it was really happy hour to you. He returned to Helena Regional and found a chain restaurant serving a full menu of drinks. Plenty of time to find a hotel room later. He hoisted his 250-pound form up onto a stool at the nicked bar. It was wood but no discernible type of wood. Just wood. He ordered a Coors and got a bowl of pretzels without asking. He didn’t get into a fight with the locals for a good hour. It was almost a personal best. LIMA, MONTANA Almost due south of the crash on Highway 15, Calendar’s man, Cates, stood outside in a motel’s parking lot, sipping coffee from a Thermos lid as the sun rose.
