'I found you.'
'What about Laurence Smith? He's dead, too.'
'Yes, he is.'
'Was he trying to find Frankie?'
'Yes, but his death had nothing to do with her. Someone tried to rob him. Look, Andy, you're over-thinking again.' He pointed up Trinity Street at the law school sitting on a low rise. 'Remember, you were a C student over there.'
'I don't test well.'
Russell Reeves stared at Andy, and Andy saw in his client's eyes something he had not seen before: desperation.
'Tell me the truth, Russell.'
'Andy, the truth is, there's a million dollars in your trust account, for Sally Armstrong in San Diego. You can keep it. Just tell me where Frankie is and you can go on with your life… but with a lot more money.'
Andy stared up at the UT clock tower, the white sandstone highlighted against the blue November sky. It was a magnificent sight. At the base of the tower, carved into the south facade of the Main Building, were the words Ye Shall Know The Truth and The Truth Shall Make You Free. What was the truth? The legal truth was simple: Andy Prescott was a lawyer; Russell Reeves was his client. Andy owed a legal duty to Russell to tell him where Frankie was; he had paid for that information. The client was legally entitled to know what his lawyer knew.
What was Frankie entitled to?
Andy Prescott, Attorney-at-Law, owed no legal duty to Frankie Doyle. He wasn't her lawyer; she wasn't his client. She was simply the object of his client's desire, whatever that desire might be. And what a billionaire client desired, his lawyer obtained. That's how the legal system in America worked. For rich people. Who made their lawyers rich. All Andy had to do was tell Russell Reeves what he wanted to know, and he would have one million dollars. More money than he had ever dreamed of having. He would be rich. Suzie, Bobbi, the loft, the life. It would all be his. Forever. All he had to do was tell his client what he knew.
Instead, he ran.
'Andy!'
He ran back across the footbridge, hopped on the bike, and stood on the pedals down the sidewalk along the west side of the building. Darrell gave chase, but he had no foot speed; halfway across the bridge, he turned back. Andy cut through the parking lot to Trinity Street and turned north. He powered up the hill and veered east past the law school; the street turned down, and he picked up speed. At the bottom of the hill, he swerved south on Robert Dedman Drive and sped past the LBJ School.
He heard tires squealing. He glanced back and saw the limo turning behind him. So he turned west on Twenty-third Street and hammered the pavement past the football stadium and across San Jacinto Street. He entered the campus at the East Mall fountain.
From there the land climbed steadily to the clock tower.
Construction on the sloping terrain required concrete retaining walls, which cut the campus into terraces. Andy carried the bike up two flights of concrete steps around the retaining wall on the east side of the fountain; once atop the first terrace, he looked back. The limo screeched to a stop down below. Darrell jumped out and gestured helplessly up at Andy.
They couldn't follow him up there.
He saddled up again but took it easy through the East Mall. He couldn't go fast anyway; fifty thousand students changing classes crowded the sidewalks. He tried to think. He couldn't go back to his office; Russell's goons would be waiting for him. He couldn't even go back to SoCo. But he could go to the loft. Russell didn't know he lived there and had no way of finding out.
Andy was about to turn south and head toward downtown when he heard screams and shouts from behind-'Hey, watch out!' — and now high-pitched buzzing noises, like high-powered weed-whackers… like… motocross bikes. He looked back.
Shit.
Two riders dressed in black and wearing black helmets with dark visors on black dirt bikes were parting the crowd of students like Moses parting the Red Sea in that movie. Kids dove out of their way. They were coming for him. But Andy Prescott had grown up on this campus. He knew every path, walkway, alley, and road on the three hundred and fifty acres.
Andy stood on the pedals past Simkins Hall-named in honor of a former UT law professor and KKK member- and cut between the ROTC indoor rifle range and the old Gregory Gymnasium, bounced hard down onto Speedway Drive, bunny-hopped the curb, whipped around the business school and across Campus Drive, and climbed concrete steps up two more terraces to College Hill. His pistons were burning by the time he arrived at the clock tower. He wiped sweat from his face and looked back.
He saw one dirt bike behind him.
The other rider would try to cut him off heading south toward downtown, so he turned north past the Will C. Hogg Building-Governor James Stephen Hogg had a son he named Will and a daughter he named Ima; is that cruel or what? — and raced around the tower to the West Mall. He heard screams and saw the riders coming at him from the South Mall. He cut between competing student protesters-a pro-abortion group versus an anti-abortion group- and pedaled hard. He planned to exit the campus on the west side and lose them on the Drag, but he arrived at the west exit only to find the limo parked at the curb and Darrell standing there with his thick arms crossed.
Not good.
He spun around and rode straight back at the dirt bikes speeding toward him. Just before they collided, he cut the handlebars to the right and caught air; he flew over a set of stairs leading down to a courtyard fronting Goldsmith Hall. He bounced hard on reentry then turned west down an alley that led back to College Hill. He swung south and careened down 'Confederate Hill' past statues of Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States, Albert Sidney Johnston, General of the Confederate Army, and Robert E. Lee, General in Chief of the Confederate Army. When he hit Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, he left the campus and the two black riders behind.
He had lost them.
He sat up on the bike. He cruised down Guadalupe and caught his breath… until the dirt bikes cut him off at Sixteenth Street.
Shit.
He stood on the pedals again and swerved east on Sixteenth and then south on Lavaca against oncoming one-way traffic; the dirt bikes followed. He turned east on Fifteenth then south on Colorado, hopped the curb, rode on the sidewalk around the north side of the Supreme Court Building, and carved the corner at the Statue of Liberty replica. They followed.
The state capitol now loomed large in front of him.
They were right on his tail, so he pedaled past the gardens and around the chain traffic restraint and straight up the wheelchair ramp at the north entrance of the capitol-'Hold the door!' — and through the tall door being held open by an old man.
'Thanks, dude.'
He looked back; the dirt bikes had not followed.
The interior of the Texas State Capitol boasted marble statues and terrazzo floors, fine hand-carved wood and delicate glass doors, massive staircases and well-armed state troopers. Andy wanted out. Straight through to the south entrance was the fastest route out, so Andy rode through the north foyer and into the rotunda where framed portraits of every Texas governor hung on the wall and two dozen blue-shirted school kids on a field trip stood on the Great Seal of Texas. The tour guide was saying, 'Our capitol is the biggest in the country…'
'Coming through!' Andy yelled.
The startled tour guide jumped out of the way.
'Hey! Call security!'
Someone already had. Two state troopers were running from the south foyer; they blocked his exit. So Andy turned right into the west wing then hung another right behind the wide staircase-even a Stumpjumper couldn't climb those stairs-and circled back around to the north foyer. He'd leave the way he had come. But two more troopers were now blocking that exit, so he rode across the foyer and straight into an open elevator.
He punched the second floor button. The doors closed just as the troopers arrived. They weren't happy. Andy
