by Rick Riordan
Conjunto music was crying on every car radio up and down Blanco.
17
After an hour of tai chi and a shower, my thoughts weren’t exactly clearer, but I’d regained my balance somewhat. Tai chi is good that way. It teaches you to yield before you advance. You let events push you around for a while, you keep your footing, then you push back. And I was pretty sure now where to start pushing.
By noon I was back in La Villita, standing on the porch of Hecho a Mano Gallery and trying to work my Discover card across the sidebolt. I’ve never been very good with the trick, but this time the old oak door gave up almost immediately. It swung open with the same relieved "Arrrr” that Robert Johnson makes in the sandbox.
I closed the door behind me. A sign had fallen off the windowsill that read: "Out to Lunch—B. "
Never a truer word, I thought.
The lights were off in the main room, but huge blocks of sun came in from the craftsman windows. It was enough to see that the place was a disaster. Podiums had been turned over. Skeleton statues lay in colorful pieces on the stone floor, hip bones not connected to the thigh bones. The drawers were upside down on top of Lillian’s big oak desk.
I checked the framing room and the rest room. Both trashed. A twenty-pound wooden milagro-studded cross from Guadalajara was sticking out of the shattered computer monitor. Photographic prints of cowboys had been ripped out of their frames. Even the toilet paper dispenser had been kicked open.
I picked up a black spiral binder from a mount of papers fluttering around under the ceiling fan. Lillian’s datebook. I moved into the shadows of the bathroom and started reading.
Inside, on the July page, one note indicated the day I was coming into town. It was starred and circled. Under Sunday night, the last time I’d seen her, Lillian had written "Dinner 8." Not surprisingly, there was no mention of a trip to Laredo for Monday morning. In fact, no other dates at all.
I flipped back over the last few months. March and April were full of “Dan” messages, especially around Fiesta Week. Then they stopped. Lillian’s last date with Dan, at least the last one she’d recorded, was for the River Parade in late April. My number in San Francisco was written a few spaces after that. Maybe I should’ve been flattered, but something about the timing bothered me.
I flipped ahead. Lillian had scribbled random phone numbers and reminders on the memoranda page at the back of last year, but that was it. None of the information jumped out at me. I ripped out the page anyway. I went back into the framing room and dug around in the ruined prints. Somebody had bashed open a locked storage closet in the corner and strewn its contents around. About the only thing interesting was a canvas portfolio, three by three, with the initials “B.K." on it. The laminated leaves were bent and torn. One had a rather large shoe print on it--no grooves, pointed toe, a boot.
The portfolio made for sad reading. On the first page, ArtNews and Dallas Herald articles from 1968 announced Beau’s arrival on the photographic scene: "New Visions of the West," “Fresh Perspectives on Ancient Vistas," “Dallas Native Follows Dream." The last one took a rags-to-riches angle: the tragic death of Beau’s father, Beau’s childhood with at well-meaning but alcoholic mother, his determination to work his way through community college in Fort Worth, buying film for his photography classes instead of food when he had to. The interviewer seemed to think it was charming that Beau had actually been on welfare. In the middle of the articles Beau’s picture stared back at me—young, dressed in black, his Nikon slung over his shoulder, and the beginnings of smugness on his face.
I flipped through several more pages of his photos--abandoned ranch houses, steers, dew on barbed wire. The announcements for new shows and the glowing reviews got fewer and further between. The last two articles Beau had clipped were from the Austin American-Statesman in 1976. The first, a lukewarm gallery review, commented sadly that "the refreshingly energetic, naive quality of Karnau’s earlier work has all but disappeared? The second, Beau’s letter to the editor, detailed exactly what the reviewer could do with her comments.
Beau’s more recent photographs, from his days as an assistant art professor at A & M to the present, looked like they could have been taken by Ansel Adams if Ansel Adams had downed enough tequila and dropped his camera enough times. More abandoned ranch houses, more steers, more dew on barbed wire. Finally, on the last portfolio page, was a glitzy-looking flier for "The Authentic Cowboy: A Retrospective by B. Karnau." A weathered cowboy peered out at me, trying to look authentic.
The opening was scheduled for July 31 at Blue Star, this Saturday. The list of underwriters showed how much Beau had relied on Lillian’s social connections: Crockett, her father’s bank; Sheff Construction; half a dozen other blue-blooded businesses and foundations. I folded up the flier and pocketed it.
I was just about to put aside the portfolio when I noticed the way the front cover felt between my fingers—a little bit thicker than the back cover, a slight bulge on the inside of the canvas. I found an Xacto knife on the floor and delivered by cesarean two eight-by-tens sandwiched between squares of cardboard. The photos were identical-—an outdoor shot, taken at night. Three people were standing in knee-high grass in front of an old Ford truck, its doors open and headlights on. One of the people was a tall skinny man with his face turned away from the camera. His slicked-back blond hair and his white shirt almost glowed in the headlights.
The other two people, whoever they were, had been carefully cut out of the picture with a razor blade. Nothing was left of them but vaguely human-shaped holes, side by side, slightly apart from the blond man.
From the angle of the shot, and a huge out-of-focus tree branch in one corner of the photo, it looked like the photographer had been uphill from the scene and fairly far away, using a telescopic lens.
The quality of the prints wasn’t bad, but the texture of the paper was wrong for photographs. Looking closely, you could tell they had been laser printed rather than developed. On the back of both photos someone had written “7/31" in black pen.
I was just folding the prints to fit in my pocket when keys rattled in the studio’s front door lock.
I moved to the door of the framing room and listened. Two steps, a moment of stunned quiet, then Beau Karnau cursed under his breath. He kicked something that shattered. A ceramic skull in a pink sombrero came skittering to a. stop at my feet and grinned up at me. When I came out into the doorway Beau was standing with one lizard-skin boot planted on an over- turned podium, surveying the damage. His balding forehead was bright red and yellow. It matched his silk shirt beautifully.
I cleared my throat. He cleared about three feet, straight backward.
“Ah!" he said. Out of some reflex he grabbed his ponytail and pulled it like a ripcord.
When he recognized me he didn’t exactly relax, but his face shifted gears from sacred shitless to pissed. For a minute I thought he might charge me.
“What the fuck—" he said.
“You were expecting the maid?" I asked. “Looks like you had quite a morning rush."
“What the fuck are you doing here?" he said, louder this time.
“Who did you think I was just now, Beau? You damn near wet your boots."
His eye twitched. "What the hell do you think, Mr. Goddamn Smart—ass? I come back from lunch and you’ve wrecked my place. How should I act?"
“Like you know better," I said. "Like you’re ready to tell me what it’s got to do with Lillian."
Beau swore at me. Then he made the mistake of coming up and pushing my chest.
“Where the hell do you get off--"
Before he could finish the sentence he was sitting down. From the tears in his eyes I’d say his balls connected with the stone floor pretty hard. I put my foot on his left kneecap and pressed down, just hard enough to keep him sitting.
He said: “Uhm."
“Lillian is missing," I said. “Now I find out her studio is trashed."
“My studio," he said. He pac
ked a lot of hatred into those two words.
I put a little more pressure on the knee.
"Jesus!" he yelled. “You break into my goddamn place, you assault me, you blame me when that little princess runs out on you—leave me the hell alone!"
“Lillian never made it to Laredo, " I told him. “I don’t think she ever planned on going. What I’m trying to decide now is if she really left a message Monday morning or if you lied to me. I need to know that, Beau."
I give him credit. Beau didn’t scare easily. Or at least he wasn’t scared of me. His neck veins were so purple I thought they’d explode, but he kept his voice even.
"Believe what you want," he said.
“What were they looking for, Beau?" I gestured at the ruined artwork all around us.
“I don’t have a clue," he said. "Nothing."
I took out one of the photos I’d found and dropped it on his chest.
“Nothing?"
All I saw in his eyes was his opinion of me, and I already knew that.
"So it’s a cut-up picture," he said. “Your girlfriend does photo-collages. You expect me to get excited?"
He said it a little too fast, like it was an answer he’d practiced in the mirror many times, just in case he needed it someday.
"I expect some real answers," I said. “Like why did Lillian decide to leave the gallery?"
I waited. Beau’s face was tightly controlled, but the pressure on the knee ligaments must’ve been pretty bad. Little sequins of sweat were starting to pop up all over his forehead.
"When I was starting," he said, almost under his breath, "I didn’t have shit. You know that? Not wealthy parents, not college, nothing. Lillian had everything, including ten years of my time. Now she’s just giving up. The hell with me. The hell with years trying to build up a name in the business. You want to know why she’s leaving, you’re asking the wrong person, asshole. I stuck with her; you didn’t. If you ask me, it’s a little late to show up now and decide you’re her goddamn protector."
We stared at each other. judging from Beau’s expression, I had the option of breaking his kneecap and finding out nothing more, or letting him up and finding out nothing more. Maybe I was having an off day. I took the photograph off Beau’s chest, then I let him up. Beau got to his feet warily.
I looked around the ruined gallery, then picked up a skeleton trumpet player from the floor, dusted him off, and tossed him to Beau. He missed the catch. The unfortunate musician landed between Beau’s boots and broke neatly in half.
“A man without friends should get a deadbolt," I suggested. "I have a feeling, when these people visit you again, they’re going to lack my charm."
Beau kicked the broken statue away. Under his breath he said: “I have friends, asshole."
I saw the next line coming, so we said it together:
“You’re going to regret this."
“That was good," I said. "You Want to try it in harmony now? I’ll go up a third."
His next riposte was just as creative: “Fuck you."
“You artistic types," I said admiringly. Then I walked out, closing the door carefully behind me. Without looking back I strolled across the plaza, around the corner of La Villita Chapel, then turned into a side alley. Even at midday, the shadows under the old villas and live oaks were deep and easy to hide in. I had a great view of the front and rear exits to the gallery. I leaned against the cool of a limestone wall and waited to see what would happen.
Thirty minutes later Beau came out the rear entrance of the gallery. He closed up shop and headed across Nueva, still walking like a man with saddle sores. I followed about a block behind. The moment I stepped out of the shade of La Villita the summer air wrapped around my shoulders like a heavy cat. Everything smelled like warm asphalt, and fifty feet in front of me Beau’s shape became watery from the light and the heat.
It wasn’t until he stopped on the corner of Jack White and stood there for a minute that I realized I’d made a mistake. A car I knew pulled up briefly to the curb, the passenger’s door opened, Beau got in, and the car pulled away, heading south.
The VW was three blocks away, hopelessly far. I couldn’t do anything but stand on the corner watching Dan Sheff’s silver BMW disappear down Nueva Street, just another mirage in the midday glare.
18
I was starting to feel slightly depressed until I got home and saw the police cruiser in front of Number 90 again. Gary Hales, still in his pajamas, was out front, listing backward at about the same angle as his house. He was talking to Jay Rivas and the two uniformed cops, probably telling them how I came and went at all hours and played with swords in the backyard.
Gary shuffled back inside and Jay greeted me warmly as I got out of my car.
“Little Tres," he said. “What a fucking pleasure."
"Jay," I said. "If I knew you were coming I’d’ve half baked a cake."
He motioned toward the house. The two cops hung back under the pecan tree, trying not to sweat out of their uniforms. When we got inside Robert Johnson took one look at our guest, puffed up to twice his size, did a somersault, then ran into the bathroom. I was sorry I hadn’t thought of it first.
“He likes you," I said.
Rivas looked disdainfully at my futon, then decided to stand. I started hunting through my bags for a fresh T-shirt.
"Late night last night, Navarre?" he speculated. "You look like a pile of shit."
I let that pass. I brushed my teeth, splashed some water in my face, laminated my armpits into submission with extra-strength Ban.
Rivas didn’t like being kept waiting. He went over to the wall and lifted my sword out of the rack. He looked at it, snorted, dropped it on the floor. Then he picked up Carlon’s packet of news clippings from the carpet.
“Funny thing, " he said. “Seems like just yesterday we were having this conversation about you staying the fuck out of trouble. But it sounds like you got the monopoly on stubborn and stupid."
I put on a UC Berkeley T-shirt and walked up to Rivas. Calmly, I took the packet out of his hands and put it back on the table.
“You want to tell me about last night," he said, “or do you maybe want to think about it in a cell for a while?"
"You want to tell me what the hell you’re talking about? Then maybe I can be more help."
"Lillian Cambridge," he said.
"I’m interested?
"You’re deeply in shit."
If he was waiting for me to display mortal terror, he was disappointed.
"You’ll have to be more specific, Jay. I’m usually in deep shit."
"How about this," he said. “Mom and Dad Cambridge expect daughter Lillian for dinner every Sunday night. Lillian’s a good kid. She does that kind of thing. She doesn’t show—she doesn’t answer the phone all night or all yesterday. Worried parents call the police. Seeing as Dad is the president of Crockett Savings and Loan and can throw a few million dollars around, the police tend to take his concerns to heart. Are you following this so far or should I talk slower?"
"It’d be easier if I could watch your lips move, Jay, but keep going."
"We check out her house this morning. It’s been trashed, looks like the lady in question left in a hurry, maybe not under her own steam. Then we find out from the neighbors that an orange VW convertible was parked in the driveway late Monday night. There’s just millions of those still running around town. Little neighbor girl gives a pretty good description of the guy she saw in Miss Cambridge’s house. Little girl’s parents recall this same guy having a fight in front of the house Sunday afternoon. Is this starting to sound familiar?"
"I don’t guess these attentive neighbors noticed anything more subtle, like somebody tearing up her house on Sunday, or carrying her away at gunpoint."
“You got something to say, I’m listening."
"Jesus Christ," I said.
I went to the kitchen and got a Shiner Bock. It was either that or beat the crap out of Rivas. At the moment, a beer
sounded more constructive.
"Jay, let me see if I can get through to you on this. I admit I came back to town because of this lady, but are you suggesting I waited ten years and then moved back two thousand miles to abduct an old girlfriend?"
Rivas had one lazy green eye that weighed anchor and drifted astern when he stared at you. It just heightened his resemblance to a hairy reptile.
“You got a temper, Navarre. Old boyfriend meets new boyfriend—sparks fly. Things happen."
I looked out the grimy kitchen window. Outside, the afternoon had officially begun. Warmed up to about a hundred and five degrees, the army of cicadas in the pecan trees had started humming. The two cops were still standing in broad sunlight in my front yard, melting. Every living thing with more brains than them was crawling under a rock or into the air-conditioning to sleep.
Then a second cruiser pulled up. This one said “Bexar County Sheriff’s Deputy" on its side. I had to smile as a big man with flattopped orange hair got out, frowning at the SAPD. My landlord was probably staring out his window too, calmly shitting in his pants.
"Jay," I said, "I appreciate the extent to which you’re fucking up this investigation. That takes real talent. I’m also impressed with the way you follow me around. Whoever’s paying you for that should give you a bonus."
Rivas held up one finger, like a warning. “Your dad was way smarter than you, Navarre, and he had more connections. Still--look where it got him. You should think about that."
I drank my beer. I smiled in a friendly way.
“You’re a piece of shit, Jay. My father scraped you off his boots twenty years ago and you’re still shit."
He started walking toward me.
I glanced behind him and said: "If you’ve got a reason to arrest me, Detective, I’d love to hear it. Otherwise leave me the fuck alone."
"Sounds reasonable to me," said Larry Drapiewski. Whatever Rivas was going to do, he stopped himself. He looked around at Drapiewski, who was leaning in the doorway. Drapiewski was so big I wasn’t too worried about the AC escaping. His left palm was resting casually on his nightstick. In his other hand was the largest benuelo I’d ever seen. It looked like a half—eaten Frisbee.
