in a sack that had once contained weed killer, he got to see the less public side of the club's management. The manager was a thick-bodied bald man who wore dark trousers and a wine-colored sports jacket, and he was flanked on each side by a security guard.
'You're telling me Jack Vanzandt's son did this?' he said.
'Yes, sir, that's right. It was Darl set it up.'
The manager pointed his finger into Lucas's face. 'You listen to me, you nasty thing, you tell these lies to anybody else, I'll have you put in jail,' he said. 'Now, when the sheriff's car gets here, you go home, you never mention this to anyone, and don't you ever come near here again.'
'It was Darl. I'll say it to anybody I want. It was Darl, Darl, Darl. How you like that, sir?' Lucas's eyes went in and out of focus, and a vile-tasting fluid welled up in his throat.
'Get him out of here. And wash off that bench, too,' the manager said.
It was noon the next day, and I stood in Bunny's backyard and listened to the last of his account. He buffed the hood of his car while he talked, his triceps flexing, his voice flat and distant, as though somehow he were only a witness to events rather than a participant.
He finished talking. He rubbed the rag back and forth in the thin horsetails of dried wax on the hood. Finally he looked at me over his shoulder, his hair bunched in a thick S on his cheek.
'You ain't gonna say nothing?' he asked.
'He told me you were stand-up. I thought you might want to know that.'
'Who said that?'
'The kid you delivered up like a trussed hog.'
The color flared in his cheeks. I turned to walk away.
'Maybe I'm a Judas goat, but there's a question you didn't ask,' he said at my back.
'What might that be, sir?'
'How come he went out there to begin with. It's 'cause Darl got the girls to tell him you were gonna be there. So maybe I ain't the only one hepped pour cow shit on that boy.' chapter twenty-one
I drove from Bunny's house to Jack Vanzandt's office. His secretary said he had already gone for the day. She went back to her work, concentrating her gaze on a computer printout as though I had already left.
'Where did he go?' I asked.
'To one of the lakes, I think.'
'The yacht basin?'
'I'm not sure.'
'Do you know if Darl is with him?' I asked.
She stared thoughtfully into space. 'I don't think he mentioned it,' she said.
'I'd really like to have a talk with them. Both of them. Would you get Jack on his cell phone?'
She removed her glasses, which were attached to a blue velvet cord around her neck.
'Please, Mr Holland. I'm just the secretary,' she said, her face softening to an entreaty.
'Sorry,' I said.
She smiled at me with her eyes.
The lake where Jack usually kept his sailboat was in a cup of wooded hills that sloped down to cliffs above the water's edge. The western cliffs were in shadow now, the stone dark with lichen, but out in the sunlight a solitary boat with enormous red sails was tacking in the wind, the hard-blue chop breaking like crystal needles across its bow.
Jack Vanzandt stood barechested behind the wheel, his skin golden with tan, his white slacks tight across his hips and the ridges of muscle in his abdomen.
I waited for him at the boat slip, where a black man was grilling steaks by a plank table under a shed. If Jack was uncomfortable with my presence, he didn't show it. In fact, he seemed to take little notice of me. He was talking to his two guests, who sat in chairs by the cabin with tropical drinks in their hands-the Mexican drug agent, Felix Ringo, and a man from Houston by the name of Sammy Mace.
Jack stepped off his boat, laced a rope around a cleat, and walked toward me. His eyes were flat, but they took my full measure and watched my hands and expression.
'You going to lose it here?' he asked.
'Can't ever tell,' I said.
'Don't.'
'Your kid's a coward and a sadist. But you probably already know that. I just wanted to tell you he's hooked up with Garland T. Moon now.'
'You want to eat, or insult me some more?'
Felix Ringo and the man named Sammy Mace were at the end of the dock, watching a yellow pontoon plane come in low over the hills and skim across the water.
'Sammy Mace is mobbed-up, Jack,' I said.
'Then why isn't he in Huntsville? Look, I don't feel good about some things Darl has done. So I've tried to help out.'
'Oh?'
'Felix Ringo is an old friend I knew at Benning. He's got a lot of ties in the Hispanic community. He found a kid who might clear Lucas.'
I didn't reply. I looked into his eyes.
'Eat with us. Let's end all this foolishness,' he said.
'Found which kid?' I asked.
'A biker. Belongs to a gang called the Purple Hearts. He's had a couple of beefs with Bunny Vogel.'
Then Felix Ringo and Sammy Mace were under the shed, smiling, nodding, while the black man ladled steaks onto metal plates. Out on the boat, Emma Vanzandt stepped out of the cabin with sunglasses on and shook out her hair.
Sammy Mace was in his fifties now, his hair silver and combed straight back on his head, his face distinguished, almost intellectual with the square, rimless glasses he wore. Except for his eyes, which did not match his smile. They studied me, then flexed at the corners with recognition.
'You were a uniform in Houston? A Texas Ranger got in some trouble later?' he said.
'Good memory, Sammy,' I said.
'You remember me?'
'You bet. You killed a Houston cop.'
'Hey,' he said playfully, raising a finger on each hand, as though he were warding off bees. 'I shot a guy coming through my bedroom window without no shield in his hand, in the middle of the night, in a neighborhood with cannibals mugging old people down at the church.'
'What's with this guy?' Felix Ringo said.
'Nothing. Billy Bob's all right. He's just trying to work some things out,' Jack said.
'You take it easy, Jack,' I said.
I walked back down the dock toward my car. The wind was warm on my back, the water sliding through pebbles and sand onto the grass. I heard Jack's leather sandals behind me.
'That kid's going to come to your office. His name's Virgil Morales,' he said.
'Why are you doing this?' I asked.
'Because you keep laying off your problem on Darl. Don't make it hard. Take the favor.'
'Does Sammy Mace come with it?'
'He's got the biggest chain of computer outlets in south Texas. I lit up villages in Vietnam; you killed people in Mexico. Why don't you get your nose out of the air?'
When I drove away I saw Felix Ringo screw a cigarette into a gold holder, then stop what he was doing and rise from his chair when Emma Vanzandt joined their table. The black cook took a bottle of chilled wine from an ice bucket, wrapped it in a towel, and poured into the goblets on the table. The diners cut into their steaks and ate with the poise of people on the cover of Southern Living.
I wanted to take Jack Vanzandt off at the neck.
After dinner I took out my mother's old family photo album and began leafing through the stiffened pages of forty years ago. At the top of the page my mother, always the librarian, had written the year each group of pictures
