The widower’s two step tn-2

by Rick Riordan

  He whistled silently and closed the folder. "You completed a fiveyear program in three years. These letters of recommendation are extremely strong. How is it after all that you got into…"

  He looked for a polite word.

  "Thug work?" I offered.

  He chuckled. "Let's go with 'investigations.' "

  "Just luck. And the fact that the only job I could get with my Ph. D. at the time was tending a bar on Telegraph Avenue. And the fact that a friend of mine introduced me to someone, a criminal lawyer who sort of-took me in."

  Maia Lee probably would've laughed at that. "Took me in" was a nice euphemism for teaching somebody to break a window the right way, disarm a security system, do a skip trace, blackmail somebody with photos to keep a civil case from going to trial.

  Maia's associates at Terrence amp;C Goldman had frowned on her methods until Maia made junior partner.

  Mitchell was looking at me, still smiling but with a little more wistfulness in his expression.

  "And the fact your father was a lawman," he suggested. "I suspect your mother is right-that had a lot to do with your career getting sidetracked."

  I didn't answer. Sidetracked?

  "So why would you go back to Academia now?" he asked.

  I think I told him something about wanting an intellectual challenge and applying real world experience to the classroom, blah, blah, blah. My mind was pretty well disconnected with my spiel by the time someone knocked on the door.

  Mitchell excused himself. He went into the hall and mumbled briefly with one of the other members of the hiring committee.

  He came back in and sat down. He kept his face impassive.

  "That didn't take long," he said.

  I got ready to leave, to tell him thanks anyway.

  Mitchell broke into a grin. "They'd like to see a demo next week. Dr. Gutierrez said you're the most refreshing candidate he's interviewed in a long time."

  When I left Mitchell's office I had a little slip of paper confirming my demo lesson to the medieval undergrad seminar on Monday. I also had a dazed, sticky feeling, like somebody had already started wallpapering me with Peanuts cartoons and Scotch tape.

  36

  A red Mazda Miata was parked in front of 90 Queen Anne Street with its right tires over the curb. When I walked around to my side of the house Allison SaintPierre came out my front door and said, "Hi."

  She was wearing white Reeboks, a pleated white skirt, and a white tank top that wasn't lining up with her bra straps very well. A terrycloth sweatband pushed her hair into bangs. Her smile was alcoholfortified. Tennis lesson day at the country club.

  She was holding two Shiner Bocks. One bottle was almost empty. The other she gave to me.

  "Damnedest thing," she said.

  She leaned sideways in the doorway so I could pass if I wanted to do the mambo with her.

  I stayed on the porch.

  "Let me guess. My landlord let you in."

  She smiled wider. "Sweet old fart. He picked up that envelope on the counter and asked me if I knew anything about this month's rent."

  "Yeah, Gary has a thing for blondes. Rent money and blondes. Maybe if I brought over more blondes he'd ask less often about the rent."

  Allison raised her eyebrows. "Worth a try."

  Then she turned inside like her back was hinged to the doorjamb. I almost thought she was going to fall into the living room, but at the last minute she put her foot out and walked in. She said, "Wooo."

  I drank some of my Shiner Bock before following her inside.

  Allison had taken Julie Kearnes out of the cassette deck and put in my Johnny Johnson. She'd pulled an old Texas Monthly off the windowsill and left it open on the coffee table. The ironing board was down and the phone had been pulled out from behind it.

  Allison sat on the kitchen counter stool and spread her arms along the Formica.

  "Somebody named Carol called. I told her you weren't here."

  "Carolaine," I corrected. "That's just great. Thanks."

  She shrugged. Happy to help.

  I looked for Robert Johnson but he'd buried himself deep. Maybe under the laundry.

  Maybe in the pantry. Unlike my landlord, Robert Johnson didn't go much for blondes.

  "You send Sheckly a getwell card yet?" I asked.

  Allison had a happy drunk going that was about as thick as battleship skin. My question pinged against her, a small annoyance but not nearly enough to make her change course.

  "One of his lawyers left me a message this morning- something about the medical bills." She was turning the tip of her right sneaker in time to the music. Back, forth, back, forth.

  I waited.

  "You're in my apartment for a good reason, I'm sure. Mind telling what it is?"

  Allison appraised me while she bobbed her head, starting at my feet and working her way up. When she got to my eyes she locked on and smiled, approvingly.

  "You look good. You should dress like that more often."

  I shook my head. "This outfit reminds me of too many funerals."

  "That's where you were this morning?"

  "Close enough. Why are you here?"

  Allison lifted her fingers off the counter. "You were listed in the book. I felt bad about you getting hit last night."

  "You felt bad."

  She grinned. " I'm not that terrible, sweetie. You don't know me well enough."

  "The guys who know you well enough seem to get flesh wounds."

  "Like I said, Tres, I grew up with four brothers."

  "How many of them made it to adulthood?"

  Her eyes sparkled. No making her mad today. "Maybe I was just curious. Miranda's dad called me this morning. He wanted to know if Miranda was with me last night."

  "Yeah?"

  She gave me a smirk. "Yeah. Seems she disappeared last night after the party. So did you, for that matter."

  She waited for information.

  Fortunately for me the phone rang. Allison offered to get it. I told her thanks anyway. I moved the phone to the bathroom doorway, which was as far as it would stretch, then picked up the receiver.

  Erainya Manos said, "RIAA."

  "Is that Greek?"

  The next thing she said was Greek, and unflattering. "No, honey, I'm telling you something you never got from me. Recording Industry Association of America. When it comes to enforcing copyright laws in the music industry, they're it. They've got a branch office in Houston. For all of South Texas, they contract through Samuel Barrera."

  I looked across the room at Allison. She smiled at me pleasantly, still moving her feet to the Johnny Johnson.

  "That's great," I told Erainya. "I'm glad it was nothing serious."

  Erainya hesitated. "You got visitors?"

  "Uhhuh."

  "Just listen, then. Sheckly's been in court half a dozen times the last few years, sued by bigname artists who've appeared at his place. They all claim he's taped their shows for syndication and given them no rights to anything, no percentage."

  "I've heard about that."

  "They also claim bootleg CDs of their shows have been turning up all over Europe.

  Excellent quality recordings, made at firstrate facilities. My friends tell me it's pretty common knowledge Sheckly is the one making the tapes, getting a little extra money out of them. He speaks German, goes over to Germany frequently, probably uses the trips to strike some deals, distribute his masters, but nobody can prove it. Since the shows are taped for syndication they could've been copied and distributed at any radio station in the country, by anybody with the right equipment."

  I smiled at Allison. I mouthed the words sick friend. "Doesn't sound like anything that would kill you. Just a minor annoyance."

  Erainya was silent. "It doesn't sound like anything to get killed over, honey. You're right. Then again, how much money are we talking about? What kind of guy is Mr.

  Sheckly? You got a sense for that?"

  "I'm afraid I might. Why haven't they caught t
his before?"

  "I hear Sheckly keeps things pretty modest. Doesn't import the music back into the U.S., which would make it more profitable but ten times easier to bust. He sticks to the European market, only live tapes. Makes him a lowpriority target."

  "Got it."

  "And, honey, you heard nothing from me."

  "Room twelve. All right."

  "If you can use this to squeeze Barrerra's balls a little bit-"

  "I'll do that. Same to you."

  I hung up. Allison looked at me and said, "Good prognosis?"

  "You mind if I change clothes?"

  She pursed her lips and nodded. "Go ahead."

  I pulled a Tshirt and jeans out of the closet and went into the bathroom. Robert Johnson peeped out the side of the shower curtain.

  "Not yet," I told him.

  His head disappeared back into the bathtub.

  I'd just taken off the dress shirt and was pulling the sleeves rightside out when Allison came in and poked her finger in my back, touching the scar above my kidney.

  It took great effort to control my backward elbow strike reflex.

  "What's this?" she asked.

  "You mind not doing that?"

  She acted like she hadn't heard. She poked the scar again, like the puffiness of the skin fascinated her. Her breath dragged across my shoulder like the edge of a washcloth.

  "Bullet hole?"

  I turned to face her, but there wasn't much place to back up unless I sat in the sink.

  "Sword tip. My sifu got a little excited one time."

  "Sifu?"

  "Teacher. The guy who trained me in tai chi."

  She laughed. "Your own teacher stabbed you? He must not be very good."

  "He's very good. The problem was he thought I was good too."

  "You've got another scar. That one's longer."

  She was looking at my chest now, where a hash dealer had stabbed me with a Balinese knife in San Francisco's Tenderloin District. I put on my Tshirt.

  Allison pouted. "Show's over?"

  I waved her out and closed the bathroom door in her face. She was still smiling when I did it.

  Robert Johnson stared at me as I put on the jeans. He looked about as amused as I was.

  "Maybe if we rush her," I suggested. "A twoflank approach."

  His head disappeared again. So much for backup.

  When I came into the living room Allison had opened another beer and relocated to the futon.

  "This reminds me of my old place in Nashville," she said, studying the waterstained plaster on the ceiling. "God, that was bad."

  "Thanks."

  She looked at me, puzzled. "I just meant it's small. I was living on nothing for a while.

  Kind of makes me nostalgic, you know?"

  "The good old days," I said. "Before you married money."

  She drank some beer. "Don't knock it, Tres. You know what the joke was in Falfurrias?"

  "Falfurrias. That's where you're from?"

  She nodded sourly. "We joked that you only go to college for an MRS." She tapped her wedding ring with her thumb. "I bypassed the degree plan."

  She closed all ten fingers around the beer bottle and kicked her feet up on the futon. I stared at the beer, wondering how many it would take for me to catch up with her.

  "When I was eighteen I was working during the summer as a secretary at A1 Garland's auto dealership." She looked at me meaningfully, like I should know A1 Garland, obviously a bigwig in Falfurrias. I shook my head. She looked disappointed.

  "I was trying to sing at a few clubs in Corpus Christi on the weekends. Next thing I know A1 was telling me he was going to leave his wife for me, telling me he would finance my music career. We started taking weekend trips to Nashville so he could show me how rich and important he was. He must've sunk ten thousand into the wallet doctors."

  "Wallet doctors?"

  She grinned. "The guys in Nashville that smell smalltown money a mile off. They promised A1 all kinds of stuff for me-recordings, promotion, connections. Nothing ever happened except I showed A1 how grateful I was a lot. I thought it was love for a while. Eventually he decided I'd become too expensive. Or maybe his wife found out. I never knew which. I got left in Nashville with about fifty dollars in cash and some really nice negligees. Stupid, huh?"

  I didn't say anything. Allison drank more beer.

  "You know the bad part? I finally got up the courage to tell somebody in Nashville that story and it was Les SaintPierre. He just laughed. It happens a hundred times every month, he told me, the exact same way. The big trauma of my life was just another statistic. Then Les told me he could make it right and I got suckered again. I was a slow learner."

  "You don't have to tell me any of this."

  She shrugged. "I don't care."

  She sounded like she'd said it so many times she could almost believe it.

  "What happened with the agency?" I asked. "Why did Les decide to push you out of the business?"

  Allison shrugged. "Les didn't want somebody bringing him back to earth when he went really far out with an idea. He didn't know when to stop. Most of the time, it turned out well for him that way. Not always."

  "Such as?"

  She shook her head, noncommittal. "It doesn't really matter. Not now."

  "And if he doesn't come back?"

  "I'll get the agency."

  "You sound sure. You think you can keep it afloat without him?"

  " I know. Les' reputation. Sure, it'll be tough, but that's assuming I keep the agency.

  The name is worth money-

  I can sell it to all kinds of competitors in Nashville. There are also contracts in place for publishing rights on some hits that are still bringing in money. Les wasn't stupid."

  "Sounds like you've been looking into it."

  Allison shrugged. Slight smile. "Wouldn't you?"

  "You must've run down his assets, then."

  "I've got a pretty good idea."

  "You know anything about a cabin on Medina Lake?"

  Allison's face got almost sober. She stared at me blankly. I told her about the probate settlement from Les' parents' property.

  "First I've heard about it."

  But there was something else going on in her head. Like something that had been bothering her slightly for a long time was now coming to the forefront. I looked at her, silently asking her to tell me about it. She wavered, then looked away. "You have a plan, sweetie?"

  "I thought I'd head out there. Check things out."

  I regretted my answer as soon as I said it.

  Allison tottered to her feet, held up her beer to check how much was left, then smiled at me. "You'd better drive. I'll navigate."

  Then she began that job by trying to locate the front door.

  Allison was quiet for the first half of the trip.

  She'd complained bitterly before we left about me making her a thermos of coffee rather than tequila, then making her change clothes into something more utilitarian. I'd found a pair of Carolaine's drawstring Banana Republics and a crewneck pullover in the back of the closet. They fit Allison well. Once we got going, she curled into the passenger's seat of my mother's Audi with her knees on the dash and her face behind the coffee mug and a pair of my mother's purple sunglasses she'd pulled out of the glove compartment. For a while she made occasional "uhh" sounds and I thought she was going to be ill, but once we got out of the city she began to perk up.

  She even decided to come with me into the tax assessor's office when we got to Wilming. Wilming was a small county seat consisting of an American Legion Hall and a Dairy Queen and not much else. The assessor's office was open Saturday because it was also the post office and the grocery store. After successfully scoring the deed and the last five years of tax records on Les' property I had to grudgingly admit that having the subject's wife with me, the subject's pretty blond wife, had helped expedite matters somewhat.

  When we got back in the car Allison poured herself more coffee
and said, "Gaah."

  "It's just strong," I said. "You're not used to Peet's."

  She shuddered. "Is this like Starbucks or something?"

  "Peet's is to Starbucks what Plato is to Socrates. You'll appreciate it in time."

  Allison stared at me for about half a mile, then decided to turn her attention back to the tax assessor's documents and the coffee.

  She flipped through the paperwork on Les' cabin. "Bastard. Two years ago he changed the billing for the tax statements so they wouldn't come to the house. Exactly when we got married."

  "He wanted a place you didn't know about. He might've already been thinking about getting away someday, leaving himself an exit route."

  She made a small, incredulous laugh. "What's this billing address in Austin? A girlfriend?"

  "Probably a mail drop. A girlfriend would be too risky."

  "Bastard. You think you can find this place?"

  I shook my head. "Don't know."

  We had the exact address for the cabin but that didn't mean much at the lake. Most people had their address registered as a mailbox along the main highway, and there would be hundreds of those, all plain silver, many of them with incomplete or weathereddown numbers. Even if we found the right box it wouldn't necessarily be near the cabin. Most likely that would be a mile or two down some unnamed gravel road, the turnoff marked only by wooden boards displaying the last names of some of the families that lived that way. Often there was no sign at all, no way to find someone out here unless you had wordofmouth instructions. If you could avoid the notice of the locals, Medina Lake wasn't a bad place for a missing person to hide out.

  We passed Woman Hollow Creek, wended our way through some more hills, down Highway 16. The ratio of RVs to cars began to climb.

  Allison examined my mother's medicine pouch on the rearview mirror, letting the beads and feathers slip through her fingers. "So how do you know Milo anyway? You two don't seem-I don't know, you're like the Odd Couple or something."

  "You know that scar on my chest?"

  Allison hesitated. "You're kidding."

  "Milo didn't do it. He had this idea. He thought I'd make a good private detective."

  The road was too twisty for me to look at Allison's face, but she stayed quiet for another mile or so, the purple sunglasses turned toward me. I missed the noise and the wind and rattling of the VW. In my mother's Audi, the quiet spaces were way too quiet.