Wild Country

the prospect of explaining that. 'Yessir, if I have to. But I didn't come here for confession. All the same. I don't even care who took Mills out, or why. It couldn't happen to a nicer guy,' he finished, grinning.

'I'll buy it,' said Street, laying down the clippers. 'Why did you drop in? To watch the Teasippers and Horned Frogs on the holo this afternoon?' Like most native Texans, the old man would never outgrow his passion for football. Names like Cy Leland, Jack Crain, Doak Walker, and Earl Campbell were permanently etched into his memory.

'Should be a close game,' said Quantrill, and followed as the old man's exoskeleton walked him to a library that smelled of leather and wood polish. 'I had two reasons, Gov, both business — besides seeing you again.'

Street waved away the pleasantry, took his hand comm set and used it to order a tray of munchables before folding himself into a semiupright couch and adjusting the wall holo set. 'Good news or bad?' he asked, dialing the audio low.

'Both, I think. You knew I took Judge Anthony Placidas's dying statement?'

The old man seemed to be watching the pregame show but shook his head. 'I didn't even know he had died.'

'I thought as much. So you can't know he admitted being part of a drug-running operation and fingered a young rancher while he was bleeding out.'

Street sighed and dialed the audio completely out. 'Maybe you'd better take it from the top, son.'

Top to bottom, the account lasted through the first quarter (Texas 14, T.C.U. 3). Quantrill kept skipping details he assumed the old man knew, and Street kept spearing after those details like a linebacker. Gradually, Quantrill began to appreciate that this tenacious old codger now watched over a dominion far greater than Wild Country, with interests far more diverse than a handful of high-tech rebels. It was astonishing, now that he thought about it, to find America's top cop willing to give personal attention to the unease of a deputy marshal. Still, Texas tradition overflowed with such experts at informal one-on-one: Houston, Allred, Johnson.

'So Steams has been trying to dump you, but now he dangles a commendation at you to keep the heat off this young Garner fella,' said Street, adding an excited, 'Dump it off!' as a purple-jerseyed quarterback on the holo disappeared under behemoths in orange and white. No doubt about it, Jim Street could boss two outfits at once.

'And the judge said to tell you that your channels are not secure. I'll give you odds that's not audible on the tape you get, Gov. If you get it at all.'

The old man shook his head in disgust at a broken play. 'The horny toads got to settle down if they're gonna win this one,' he said of the T.C.U. team. 'So do you, son. Now let me tell you something that doesn't go out of this room: I've known my channels were tapped for a long time. If it's Stearns, I'll soon know.'

'Look, look,' Quantrill burst out happily, always elated when the underdog rolled to the top. A horned frog receiver had taken a pass on a dead run from between two defending Longhorns and was streaking for a distant goal.

'Always expect that fourth down pass when the other fella's rattled. Get him desperate enough and he'll do anything,' Street said, cackling. 'We don't want the other side rattled, son,' he added soberly. 'And we don't know if Stearns is ours or theirs. You aren't an unbiased observer.'

'True. I know Marv Stearns's record, it's good,' Quantrill admitted. 'A week ago I would've thought he was immune to a bribe.'

'Nobody's immune if the right coin comes along, son. Take me, now; I might do most anything for a new set of bones that'd let me run eighty yards for a touchdown. But there's only one thing I can do, outside normal channels. That's to use the one man with young bones that I can sure-'nough trust in this matter.' He watched the extra point, Texas 20, T.C.U. 10, then tapped a forefinger toward Quantrill.

Ted Quantrill slid down in his overstuffed chair and groaned. 'Christ, and I was about ready to pack it in. I was telling Lufo Albeniz the other day, it was time I turned in my ID.'

Street: 'Good. Spread that news around.'

Quantrill: 'I don't get it.'

'Long as you're a deputy,' said the old man, 'Steams can put you in whatever fix he likes. If you soured on the job, got into a ruckus with him, and told him to stick his badge sideways, you'd be free to move.'

'Yeah. And broke as the Ten Commandments,' Quantrill said.

'Oh… the Justice Department funds its informants, and pays a few informal brick agents, boy. You might find it's a raise, getting a monthly check for consulting with war historians. Or some gawdam thing. But it'll be direct from me, and when I say 'frog,' boy, I want to see you hop! Some of the contraband through Wild Country goes quicker'n scat. Goddammit, are you listenin' to me?'

Quantrill had just watched an on-side kickoff recovered in midair by a frenzied T.C.U. player. It looked like frenzy might win the day in Austin. 'I'm a rich consultant,' he said, palms out.

Not yet he wasn't, Street replied, and explained how it should work. Ideally, Marvin Stearns would be able to show cause to demand Quantrill's badge within a week or so. That way, nobody would wonder why Quantrill had quit. What did Quantrill have to sign? Nothing, Street replied. His handshake had always been enough. The handshake came immediately.

Quantrill stood up and stretched hard as the half ended with the Longhorns leading by a thin 20–17. 'I can't leave now,' he said.

'Dead right, son; in the second half you learn why it's nice to have strength three deep in the trenches.'

Quantrill assembled a sandwich from cold cuts; popped the top from a Lone Star bock; sat back and studied the old man carefully as he began: 'And you may get a hot potato in your lap. Governor. You remember that toy-sized synthesizer Eve Simpson lost? Well, what if I could put it in your hand one day soon?'

Chapter Thirty

The grizzled eyebrows lowered as old Jim Street regarded his new brick agent. 'I don't believe I'm hearin' this, right on the heels of the F.R.A. announcement.'

'That's what smoked the little gadget out, sir,' Quantrill replied, taking a swig of beer. 'Would it be worth a lot to whoever has it?'

'Who does have it?'

Pause. Then, soft but firm: 'My question, then yours.'

Street looked at the ceiling for help while his jaw twitched. 'Ted Quantrill, you are the most insubordinate son of a bitch I ever met! Do you know who you're talkin' to?'

Still soft: 'Yessir. I'm talking to the only man on Earth I trust with my questions — and one who understands about protecting sources.'

'Then you don't have it yourself?'

'It doesn't belong to me,' Quantrill replied with a shrug.

The old man nodded to himself, took his time smearing a corn chip with salsa that could have blistered paint, popped it into his mouth, and relished it. 'I can think of several uses for the thing,' he mused, dialing up the holo sound for the second-half kickoff. 'Medicine on the spot; a fuel converter for those little bitty space probes; and of course a lot of foreign powers would love to get one so they could copy it. I reckon you could trade it even-steven for, say, the Star of India.'

'The owner is afraid of its side effects. I mean, couldn't people use it to get drugs?'

'Depends. Some of those smart-ass gadgeteers could prob'ly limit the stuff a synthesizer makes, but as for ginnin' up cheap drugs, I sure hope so.'

Quantrill chuckled and glanced at the old man, then did a double take. 'You're kidding — whoa, you're not kidding.'

The second half was just beginning. Street killed the audio again and, for the next few minutes, gave Quantrill his undivided attention. 'Son, any adult who wants to kill himself with drugs, it shouldn't be gummint business. I grant you he's a peawit, but it's his life. This country's tried tight controls, and wound up with too much