Shopping for clothes is a Boyfriend Thing. You stand around and look blankly at a bunch of pieces of fabric and you look at the price tags and you wonder how something that’d barely cover your right nut can cost the price of a kidney and you watch the shop assistants check you out and wonder what you’re doing with her because she’s cute and you’re kind of funny-looking and she tries clothes on and you look at her ass in a dozen different items that all look exactly the same and let’s face it you’re just looking at her ass anyway and it all blurs together and then someone sticks a vacuum cleaner in your wallet and vacuums out all the cash and you leave the store with one bag that’s so small that mice couldn’t fuck in it. Repeat a dozen times or until the front of your brain dies.
Point being: it’s a Boyfriend Thing. And it’s not just you, the Boy, who thinks so. Every shop assistant on the way will assume you’re the Boyfriend.
Especially with the laughing and the teasing and the hugging and the kissing and the holding of hands. And the carrying of bags. Very Boyfriend Thing.
The United States government bought Trix quite a lot of clothes.
I hope it’s clear that I was really, really trying not to be weird about the way things were. All the time, I was telling myself, just enjoy it for what it is, don’t be weird, don’t get all screwed up over something it isn’t. The usual mantra when you’re with someone who you’re not really with and desperately want to be.
Have you noticed how telling yourself all that shit never actually helps?
Chapter 24
Aob picked us up outside our hotel, wearing his Same Old Bob face, not a hint of his earlier breakdown. I decided not to push it, and Trix read me. She was wearing tight black things: still very much her, but covering her tattoos, and had traded her boots for kitten heels. “You know he’s going to be looking to see what anyone thinks of him,” she’d said to me. “Why make it hard for him? It’s not like I’m swapping my brain for a Stepford Wife’s. You need his help, right? So let’s not give him anything to freak out over.”
For my part, I was just hoping for a quiet night.
The steakhouse was called Ma’s Place.
“Take it easy,” Trix whispered as I tensed up. “Just a coincidence.”
“It’s a sign from God that he’s going to shit on my dinner.”
“No such thing as God. You relax, too. I don’t want to have to manage two freaked-out men tonight.”
“I’ll have the Special.” Bob grinned at the waitress, spreading out in his chair.
“You sure?” said the waitress, eyeing him dubiously. With one eye, as the other was under an eyepatch. I saw Trix looking at the tattoo on the waitress’s forearm, which, in blotchy bluish letters, read SKEETER.
“Hell, yes.” Bob laughed. The Texas in his accent got stronger. “Been a busy day, and a man needs steak.”
“If you’re sure,” she muttered, and turned to Trix and me. We were still working our way through the menu. “Any vegetarian options?” Trix asked. “I don’t eat a lot of meat.”
“This is a steakhouse, ma’am,” the waitress hissed. “If it don’t come off a cow, we don’t sell it.”
“There’s a ladies’ option,” Bob said, trying to be helpful.
Trix caught a swearword in her mouth before it came out. Swallowed it and gave up a “that’ll be fine. Medium? With a salad?”
“No salad. Cows only shit salad, ma’am.”
Trix laughed. “Okay. The small portion of fries, then. Mike?”
“Jesus.” I scanned the menu hopelessly. It was all dish names, rather than useful descriptions. “Um…Rump steak? Well done. Some fries?”
“So that’s one Special, one Ma’s Dainty Plate, and one Cattle Mutilation, ruined. Drinks?”
“Ma’s Dainty Plate?” Trix scowled as the waitress rolled off. “I should’ve had the Special.”
“The Special’s for men only. Says on the menu,” said Bob, flapping the damp cardboard pamphlet at us. “See? ‘The Special—For Men.’”
“You get a club to kill it with, too?” Trix said, deeply unimpressed.
“I wish!” Bob laughed. The waitress returned with drinks. I reached for beer like a drowning man. Not that drowning men tend to want beer. You know what I mean.
Bob was given a veritable pot of iced tea. It was so full of sugar that the straw stood up. You could see Bob’s chest laboring to suck the stuff up into his head. The surface of the drink moved in slow viscous waves, like a lake of tar.
Bob sighed and belched. “I tell you,” he smiled, “when you find a place in this town that does good iced tea, you stick to it like glue. So. Let’s talk about your case.”
Again, I gave him the lightest details—missing book, handed around all over the country, collector wants it back but isn’t sure where it ended up, paper trail leading to the Roanokes. “What we need to do is talk to the Roanokes and find out if they still have the book. All I need to do is confirm that I can turn it over to the client afterward.”
“So we need to get you inside the ranch. Mano a mano, eh?”
“Something like that. Just a conversation.”
“You don’t just turn up on the Roanokes’ doorstep, Mike.”
“Well, this is why I’m talking to you, Bob. You’ve got the local knowledge. How do we get in to talk to them?”
