to the abandoned dairy barn. The flat sunlight scattered like tiny knives off the corrugated steel walls. I went inside, into the tin shadows to sit on the cot and drink. Sunlight shot through the bullet holes in the wall, shafts of light as solid as the rounds that had given them form. I had a dozen things to think about, but the memories of Molly filled my mind. I dug Tom Ben's worthless option out of my billfold, stared at it until the letters blurred in front of my eyes. Fucking greedy bastards. They had started it, and now I had to finish it. But right now all I had to do was hope that I'd be able to finish the tequila before it finished me.
SIXTEEN
Except for my two-a-day workouts, which CJ refused to let me stop, and a procession of legal messengers, everything came to a halt for a week. When I had the strength, I sat on the front porch with my pocketknife, whittling a pile of thin cedar blades, sipping slow, tasteless beers, and watching the cloud shadows drift across the breaks of the Hill Country. Finally, after lunch one day just as I was finishing the ninth or tenth blade, the kids rebelled, stomped out on the porch to demand action.
'Okay, boss-man,' CJ said sternly, 'we can understand that you've been through some tough times, but quite frankly we're gettin' bored bein' paid for doin' nothin'.'
'That's right,' Bob agreed.
I checked the tips of the wooden blades with my thumb until I found one to my liking, then said, 'Bob, you drive up to Killeen this afternoon, buy a couple of gillie suits for you guys. Pay cash. Cover your tracks. And CJ, I need aerial photographs of Travis Lee's place on the Gulf and a USGS topo map. When you get back, we'll get out the fiberglass tape and build a slightly larger cast for my arm. Cash. No tracks.' They nodded and headed down the walk.
'And before you go,' I added, 'somebody hand me my cell phone.'
I finally returned Sylvie Lomax's calls. She didn't want to take my call, but I badgered and threatened various functionaries until she came on the line, breathless and angry.
'Mr. Milodragovitch,' she said stiffly, 'I thought all our business was concluded.'
'Except for two things, Mrs. Lomax. I want to make a final report, in person,' I said, 'and I want to meet with your husband, also in person.'
'I'm afraid that such a meeting would be quite impossible,' she said.
'Tell him that I've got the signed option for Tom Ben Wallingford's ranch,' I said. 'Maybe he'll be interested in that. And if you're interested in maintaining your life in the current manner, you better make it happen. I'll tear this shit down around your pretty little Cajun head.' She started to say something, but I rode right over her. 'Ten o'clock in the morning three days from now.' I wanted the meeting before the onshore breeze kicked up. No wind to push the rifle rounds. 'And let's meet on neutral ground. Travis Lee Wallingford's place on the Gulf. On the deck. I'll come alone and unarmed. You people can bring as many guns as you want. Just as long as you're there, your aunt, and his Aunt Alma. These are my last days here, lady, so this is your husband's only chance to deal. And your only chance to save your ass.'
'But there's not enough time,' she wailed.
'Make time,' I said. Before I broke the connection, I overheard a burst of Cajun French that I assumed was directed at the fat woman in the wheelchair.
Travis Lee wasn't any more interested in the meeting than Sylvie Lomax had been. Until I dangled the promise to let him broker any deal that might come out of the meeting. When I got hold of Betty, she flatly refused to attend. I reminded her that this was her last chance to influence the future of Blue Creek. Then she reluctantly agreed. Cathy was harder to convince, but I knew enough about her involvement to force her to come.
After the kids took off on their chores, I took the Ladysmith and sacrificed one of Tom Ben's goats. I gave the goat to Maria to butcher, dug the.357 slug out of the rocky dirt. Once I had packaged the revolver and the slug, I called Gannon at the courthouse to ask him to meet me at the bar. He was reluctant, but I made him promise.
Once we had hunkered over our drinks at the far end of the bar, he stopped grousing long enough to ask, 'What the hell do you want?'
I waited, staring into the depths of Blue Hollow. 'I understand Tobin Rooke is missing,' I said slowly.
'You want to tell me how it is you know that, partner?' he said.
'Partner?' I said. 'Is that your new boots talking?'
'Nobody knows outside the department,' he said, blushing about his cowboy boots. 'How the hell do you know?'
'You don't want to know,' I said. 'You search the house?'
Gannon looked around as if somebody might be listening in an empty bar in the middle of the afternoon. 'It looks like somebody came in, tortured him, then took off with the body. My crime scene boys said nothing of value was missing from the house. I guess we're going to have to bring in the FBI.'
'Hold off on that,' I said. 'Three days if you can work it. Then go back, check out the garage. There's a switch under the vise that unlocks the workbench. Pull it out. The pegboard will come with it,' I said. 'You'll find some stairs and some shit in the basement that will make you sick but it will nail down your job permanently and maybe even make you sheriff next election.'
'So what do I owe you for this information?'
'Not much,' I said. 'You're one of the few people down here who never lied to me. But you could take care of this,' I said, then handed him a package. 'There's a Ladysmith.357 in here and a flattened round. Swap it for the one that killed Ty Rooke, fix the paperwork, and bring me the other piece.'
'Not much?' he complained angrily. 'Jesus, you're taking a chance.'
'Right. But you'll do it,' I said.
'Why should I?'
'Because it's the right thing to do,' I said, raising my glass. 'That has to be worth something to you.'
'I hope this is goodbye,' Gannon said, raising his drink.
'As soon as I have the piece in my hand,' I said, 'we can have that last drink, man.'
'You're a son of a bitch,' he said.
I sat at the bar, sipping slow beers and staring down into the sparkling water of Blue Creek as it streamed over the low water crossing in the park below. The afternoon shadows bleached the grass and the pale new leaves. Joggers wound through the paths. Winter seemed forever away. I intended to keep it away.
Gannon came back an hour later and handed me the package. He refused a drink, though, and refused to shake my hand. He was a cop, after all. After one more hard look, a sigh that came with an angry tilt of his thick jaw, he turned, and lurched out of my life. He still hadn't mastered cowboy boots.
Of course the last day had to be a perfect day. During the night before, battalions of storm cells moved through, resplendent with wind and lightning, but this morning, the Gulf was as gray and flat as a lead coin, the shallow swells gasping their last against the hard-packed sand. A breeze swept across the beach, dry enough to keep the humidity down, the air bearable. Great clumps of clouds passed overhead occasionally, providing snatches of shade.
Bob and CJ had been deployed since the night before. Their position wasn't perfect – we had to work the topo map and the aerial photographs by flashlight – but they were invisible, sight lines clear, buried in the dune grass down the beach from Travis Lee's house. I could only hope they wouldn't hesitate to pull the trigger when the time came.
I arrived at Travis Lee's thirty minutes early, but the four Lomax bodyguards were already arranged around the glass-enclosed deck. I came without weapons, except for Betty's revolver, which I carried by the open cylinder. I set it on a table by the door, so I was clean when the bodyguards searched me with both their hands and a metal detector. They took my weighted crutch away, but CJ had made the cast on my left arm heavier than usual and camouflaged it even further with a sling. The bodyguard with the puckered scars on his cheeks hit me in the nuts fairly hard when he searched my crotch. I tried not to give him the pleasure of grunting and bending over, but I couldn't manage it.
