remember the Pontiff, and Max’s woman troubles didn’t interest them. One or two of them looked like they might reply to his questions with violence. Owen couldn’t get him to shut up, and he couldn’t get him to go back to the Rocket.
Max was muttering morosely into his pint of stout when a man sat down beside him. Owen noticed he had a cool haircut and a lightweight pinstripe suit that made him look like a hip lawyer, if there could be such a thing. He ordered a margarita and stared up at the Sports Channel behind the bar, where a baseball player was being interviewed while unrelated captions unreeled beneath his image.
The man swivelled around, bored. He didn’t pay Owen any mind, but when he saw Max he squinted a little.
“Max?”
Max gave him a bleary look.
“Max, is that you? Stu Quaig, Max. We worked together one time.”
“Stu?” Recognition seemed to pull him from a heavy fog. “As I live and breathe, the very man. How now, good Stu?”
“I’m fine, Max. How you been?”
“Couldn’t be better. My nephew, Owen. Owen, this is Stu. Freelancer I was foolish enough to hire.”
They caught up on mutual friends. Whatever became of Bobo Valentine? Is Sylvester still in stir? Shame about the Pontiff.
“Max, I think we better head home now,” Owen said for the tenth time.
“Nonsense, boy. Just got here.” He batted Owen away like a troublesome fly and turned back to his old acquaintance. “Good man Stu, speaking of our hallowed Pontiff, peace be upon him, were you aware he had a daughter?”
“Never met the man in person,” Stu said. “Don’t know anything about him.”
“He had a babe,” Max said. “One Sabrina. And that babe has now grown up. I promised Ponti I’d look in on her now and again while he was away at Oxford.”
“That’s a good thing to do for a friend,” Stu said.
“Good, it turns out, is not always wise. Because this baby witch, this Sabrina, this devil child in Guess jeans has made off with my score, my security, my nest egg, my rainy day fund, my little something to fall back on. The girl has rooked me. And from this moment on,” Max said, raising a hand in oath, “I, Magnus Max Maxwell, do consecrate my life-or whatever frayed, splayed and gossamer threads may remain thereof-to finding the little horror.”
“What are you going to do when you find her?”
“I shall do such things as will be the terror of the earth.”
“You’re not going to do anything to her,” Owen said. “Max, please. It’s time to go home. Don’t listen to him,” he said to Stu. “He makes shit up. He’ll say anything when he’s had too much to drink. Come on, Max, let’s go.”
“Yeah, I figured,” Stu said.
“I shall be extremely sarcastic,” Max said. “I shall be a verbal Subtractor. I shall attack her with cutting remarks until, writhing in guilt and shame, she hands over my swag.”
Stu leaned forward and said in the quietest voice, “Let me get this right. Some girl stole your score?”
“Thou sayest true.”
“The entire thing?”
“Kit and caboodle.”
“Max, have you ever thought about retiring?”
“
“Max,” Owen said, taking him by the shoulders and shaking him, “can we please get the hell out of here?”
NINETEEN
Working for Zig was an unpredictable business. When it paid, it paid well-fine restaurants, fancy clothes, buy yourself a cool stereo-but there were times when you’d be better off hoisting garbage cans with the sanitation department. Clem had been sitting in the car for the entire day-turning the wipers off and on, and his lumbar region going at his spine with a couple of shivs-and why? So he could keep an eye on this stupid girl. She was cute, all right-she had the kind of body Clem had never got close to without handing over hard cash. But the truth, at least as Clem put it to himself, was that this girl probably knew nothing about nothing.
In fact, when she got out of the cab, a suitcase and backpack got out with her, and she lugged them into the Ford dealership. This was not someone with a deep connection to the guys they were closing in on. But he had to sit there and wait while she examined all the Mustangs, and follow her when she took one out for a test drive. She didn’t take long to make up her mind, but then he’d had to sit there with his back screaming at him while she dealt with the paperwork.
It didn’t make sense. One minute she’s living in a trailer with a couple of thieves, the next she seems to have moved out and she’s buying a car. How does that work? Part of him wanted to pose this question to Zig, but Zig was in a pissy mood and Clem didn’t feel like putting up with it. While he was chewing this over, something interesting finally happened. The girl’s still inside finalizing her car when a beefy guy in a forest green Chevy Blazer pulls up right behind Clem and kills the motor but doesn’t get out of the car. He sits there staring across the street at the dealership as if he’s going to eat it.
It was the same guy he’d seen coming out of that broad’s driveway, same Chevy Blazer. So why is he sitting here watching her go car-shopping? Maybe he’s related to her in some way, a rich uncle. But if that’s the case, why is he just sitting there watching? Or maybe he’s got a jones on for the girl and he doesn’t want the wife to know. But if that’s the case, how did he know to find her at this dealership? He hadn’t been following her; Clem would have seen him.
Clem didn’t like having him right behind, so he got out of the car as if he’d just arrived and bought himself some time on the meter, put the ticket on the dash, and went for a little walk. Nevada plates on the Blazer, he noticed, and kept walking. Had he followed her here all the way from Vegas?
Clem went into a convenience store and checked out the magazines, keeping an eye on the guy and the dealership. He bought the latest
When he came out, the guy was gone. Ten minutes later the girl came out. She put her backpack into the trunk, and Clem had to admit, watching her bend over, that she was one hot babe.
“I am so fucking sick,” he said under his breath, “of beautiful women.”
The salesman was looking happy as hell, trundling her suitcase. He hoisted it into the trunk, they shook hands, and she zipped right out of the lot.
Clem followed her out to Highway 80, and was wondering just how far he was supposed to stay on her tail when she pulled into the first motel that came up, a Red Roof Inn. Man, parts of Texas were about as ugly as a place could get. The glass towers of Dallas glinted in the background, but right here there wasn’t anything in sight that wasn’t concrete or cinder block, including this Podunk hotel.
Clem parked at a gas station across the street, pretending to be having pressure trouble with his tires, keeping an eye on the motel for half an hour, forty-five minutes. He thought of calling Zig to ask how long he expected him to watch this girl, when who should turn up again but the beefy guy in his forest green Blazer.
He swung into the parking lot and drove dead slow past the room with the fire-engine red Mustang out front. He stopped just for a moment, then swung back out on the highway the way he had come. This put Clem in a tough spot: should he stick with the girl or follow the guy? If the guy was a cop, Zig would want to know about that.
“Time to make a decision, Clem,” he said to himself. It wasn’t as if he was just a lackey. A man had the right to use his own judgment once in a while, even at the risk of sending Zig into a rage. The girl looked to be settling down for the night, and Mr. Beef could mean real trouble.
“Hell with this bitch,” he said. He tore out of the gas station lot and caught up to the green Blazer, careful to keep a car or two in between. He stayed on the guy all the way into Dallas, right downtown to the Hyatt Regency
