He smiled modestly as he approached Graver who stood, and the two of them shook hands.
“Sit down,” Graver said, motioning to the chair across from him.
Last nodded and sat down. Graver could see him better now and was surprised to see that Last must have had some hard years. Though he still was lean and had a good tan-the sun had streaked his dun hair with blond strands — his face was incredibly wrinkled, his eyes pinched with crow’s feet and the corners of his mouth beginning to pucker. He looked like he had suffered a lot of sun and had given in to the rum and tequila of former days. Whatever he had been doing in the last eight years, he had done it with a vengeance.
Last grinned at him from across the table, slumped back rakishly in his chair with his legs crossed at the knees. Graver noticed his teeth were still white and even.
“You don’t look any differently, Graver,” Last said. “You must’ve made a bargain with the Deevil himself.”
“You know I don’t make bargains, Victor,” Graver said. “The Devil will have to stand in line like everybody else.”
“Shit” Last grinned broadly. That was all he ever did. He didn’t laugh. There were only small grins or large ones. No laugh.
Graver noticed that Last’s nose had suffered a severe break. It had not been flattened; it still had a strong narrow bridge, but it was seriously out of line. Graver guessed that as far as women were concerned, it hadn’t hurt his looks at all.
“Well, I’m glad to see you,” Last said.
And Graver believed him. Eight years earlier Last had been Graver’s key informant in Graver’s final and largest case as a CID investigator. They had worked closely together for nearly a year and had, indeed, become friends, though Graver thought that Last’s definition of the term was probably much more fluid than his own. Graver noticed that Last’s Masonic ring with its garnet stone, of which he was so proud, was missing from his ring finger.
“Can I buy you a beer?” Graver asked, motioning to the crooked waiter.
“Absolutely.” Last reached into his coat pocket and took out a pack of cigarettes. He looked at Graver. “You still don’t smoke?”
Graver shook his head.
Graver ordered himself another beer and one for Last, and Last watched the crooked waiter drift away toward the outside bar.
“Jesus,” Last said, and sucked hard on his newly lighted cigarette. He turned back to Graver. “El capitan, huh?” Another grin, a small one.
“Yeah, about four years ago,” Graver said. He was watching Last closely.
“I understand… I gather… you must’ve divorced.”
Last’s expression had changed to one of sympathy. Graver thought it odd that he would bring this up. Everyone was “gathering” that. The gossip columns had kept the masses appraised of Dore’s imminent remarriage.
“He’s ‘socially prominent,’ then? Must’ve been painful.”
“I didn’t much like it,” Graver said. What was Last trying to do?
“Well, I’m sorry,” Last said.
The crooked waiter brought the beers, and Last wiped the mouth of the bottle and held it up for a toast. Graver raised his bottle also, and they clinked them together.
“To the good old yesterdays,” Last said, “and better tomorrows.”
Last drank the cold beer like it was a glass of water, glubbing down throatfuls. When he lowered the bottle to the table it was more than half empty. He pursed his mouth, savoring the aftertaste, and looked around the dance floor.
“Place hasn’t completely gone to piss.” He dragged on the cigarette. He studied the women. “Whores used to be better ladies than these, though.”
“Nothing’s changed here, Victor. Maybe your taste is improving,” Graver said.
Last smiled at this and turned to Graver again and smoked his cigarette. Victor Last was an unusual informant In fact, he was an unusual man. He had a university background in the fine arts and when his criminal tendencies kicked in to gear they did so with a distinctly arty flair. His entire criminal history consisted of two years spent in a minimum security unit of the Texas Prison System for selling rare books and botanical prints and engravings that had been stolen from British libraries, museums, and private collections.
By the time Graver came across him, Last had served his sentence and had drifted back into the business, only now the danger of his game had gone up several notches. He had spent almost a decade as an “exporter” from Mexico with a sideline trade selling stolen pre-Columbian artifacts. And he was dabbling in forgeries of historical eighteenth-century colonial documents. Graver pegged him as raw material for a first-class informant, which he became. Graver looked the other way regarding some of Last’s rumored involvements, and within a year an appreciative Last had put Graver onto a network of illegal arms dealers which developed into one of the largest gun-running operations on which the CID had ever tracked information.
As it turned out, Last liked the nature of the game. He liked the matching of wits involved in being a “spy,” and he even liked the spurt of adrenaline that accompanied the edge of danger inherent in all high-dollar criminal schemes. Victor Last was indeed a gentleman adventurer, as at home in the jungles of Central America as in the mansions of Houston’s wealthiest residents who collected the artifacts that he “acquired.”
“Okay,” Graver said, setting down his bottle, “what happened to you?”
Last nodded and slowly swallowed his mouthful of beer. He smiled almost apologetically.
“Dropped out of sight, didn’t I?” He pulled on the cigarette again, looking across the concrete dance floor washed in patches of soft colors. “I overplayed my hand a little on that last one, Graver. It was time for a sabbatical. Went to Oaxaca first. Got back into the exporting business. But it wasn’t what it used to be. I’d heard there was a new market opening up in Hispanic colonial documents. I checked into it; it was indeed a coming field. I moved to Madrid and spent a year combing the archives there. Fantastic archives. God, cavern-sized museums and extensive private collections. Some of the museums don’t even know what they’ve got. Hell, some of those places don’t even know how much they’ve got, let alone the value of it. Wonderful places.”
He paused and polished off his beer. He held the bottle up and waved it at the crooked waiter across the patio. The waiter held up two fingers with a questioning look, but Graver shook his head.
Last ground out his cigarette in the tin ashtray on the table. The muggy night was stifling now in the early hours of the morning and beads of perspiration began to show up on Last’s forehead and upper lip. He took a handkerchief from the breast pocket of his jacket and dabbed at his face, at his upper lip.
“Was in Spain, what, almost two years,” Last continued, stuffing the handkerchief back into his pocket, deftly leaving a puff of it showing. “Made a bit of money, some good contacts. But all in all I preferred dear old Mexico. It’s got a more ‘entrepreneurial’ quality about it” He smiled. “So back I came. Mexico City. I started working with private photographic archives. Surprisingly lots of them there. You know, all that European influence during the Porfiriato, before the Revolution. Some of the older families who have these big mansions in the grand parts of the city, they’ve got all kinds of things stuck away in those dowdy old places.”
The crooked waiter brought Last’s beer and took away their empty bottles. Last picked it up, the cold amber bottle already beaded with condensation, and held it to his forehead and temples. Then he took several big swigs.
“I got into some trouble in Mexico City,” he continued. “They have finicky laws there about archives and things… historical artifacts… I don’t particularly have anything against their legal system… you know, based on the Napoleonic Code… but you add to that all the corruption and it’s hard to make a buck down there. Legitimately.” He shrugged, looked at the people around the patio. “Even so, I kept at it for a couple of years.”
He reached into the side pocket of his jacket again and took out another cigarette and lighted it He tilted his head back and blew the smoke up into the still night.
“About six months ago,” he said, “I went to Veracruz looking for some colonial maritime documents that were rumored to be in the possession of a family whose ancestors had been dockmasters in the port there during the Spanish viceroyalty. I was flush then, having just made a good deal on the sale of a collection of Mexican Revolution photographs, so I treated myself by staying at a very expensive little inn not far from the beach. I met a Houston couple, and during the next three or four days we became acquaintances. About a month after returning to
