Big Red Tequila (Tres Navarre #1)(16)

"He comes in here twice a week to be seen," Carlon told me. "Clean-nosed celebrity these days--bailed the symphony out of bankruptcy, goes to the Alamodome for all the games, supports the arts, gets his picture taken with Manuel Flores at charity garden shows. Gone downright respectable. If something new came up in your dad’s case, something that screwed White’s public image to hell, that’d make a nice story."

I shook my head. "You expect me to walk over there right now and confront him?"

"Where’s that old college try? The Tres Navarre I knew would go up to an ROTC captain during live ammunition practice and tell him his girlfriend—"

“This is a little different, Carlon."

“You want me to do it?"

He started to get up. I pushed on his shoulder just enough to sit him back down on his stool.

“What then?" Carlon said. “You asked me for the files. You must have some kind of theory."

I took one more bite of cheesecake. Then I stood, put the manila envelope under my arm, and left my last twenty on the counter.

"Thanks for the info, Carlon," I said.

"Suit yourself," he said. “But you want this thing covered in a friendly way, you know where to come."

I looked back at him one more time as I left. He had pocketed my twenty and was ordering another beer on the Express’s expense account. For a minute I wondered why he had never gone into straight news reporting. He seemed disturbingly well suited for it.

Then it occurred to me that he was probably thriving right where he was, catering to the interests and appetites of the city in the entertainment section. That thought was even more unsettling.

12

Twenty minutes later I’d reparked my VW at the top of the Commerce Street Garage, one row down from the dark green Infiniti in Guy White’s reserved monthly space.

I knew White parked in the garage because it was the only logical place to park if you’re going to Shilo’s. I knew he had a regular space because ten minutes earlier a nice parking attendant had shown me the list of monthly parkers. In fact he’d shoved it in my face, exasperated, trying to convince me that my name, Ed Beavis, was not registered. Normally I would’ve bribed him for the information I needed, but poverty makes for creative alternatives.

A few more minutes of waiting and the elevator door shuddered open. Mr. White’s skinny associate in the ill-fitting beige suit walked out first, bouncing car keys in his right palm. He wasn’t any handsomer from the front. His face had that sandblasted look farmers tend to get—dark pitted skin, permanently squinting eyes, features worn down to nothing but right angles. Mr. White strolled a few steps behind, reading a folded newspaper in one hand and smiling contentedly like there was nothing in there but good words.

We started our cars. Making no effort to hang back, I followed the Infiniti out of the garage, then onto Commerce and east for a mile to the highway. I couldn’t see anything through the silvered rear window of Guy White’s car, but once in a while my friend the driver would glance back at me in his sideview mirror.

Tailing someone well is extremely hard. It’s rare that you can strike the right balance between being far enough away to look inconspicuous and being close enough not to lose the subject. A full ninety percent of the time you’ll lose the person you’re tailing because of traffic or stoplights, nothing you can do about it.

Then you have to try, try again, sometimes for seven or eight days.

That, of course, is assuming you don’t want to be seen. Tailing someone badly is very easy.

When I got about fifteen feet behind the Infiniti in the center lane of McAlister, the driver looked in his side mirror and frowned. I smiled at him. He said something to his boss in the backseat.

If they’d sped up they could’ve easily left me in the dust, but they didn’t. I guess one guy in an orange Volkswagen wasn’t their idea of terrifying. The Infiniti kept cruising at an easy fifty mph, finally taking the Hildebrand Exit and turning left onto the overpass. I followed it into Olmos Park.

Mansions started rising out of the woods and hills. Bankers’ wives jogged by in warm-up suits that cost more than my car. The natives seemed to smell my VW as it went by. It looked like their noses weren’t pleased.

We passed my father’s old house. We passed the police station. Then we turned off Olmos Drive onto Crescent and the Infiniti pulled into the red brick driveway of a residence I knew only by reputation: the White House.

It wasn’t just called that because of the man who lived there. The facade was an exact replica—wraparound porches, Grecian columns, even the U.S. flag. It was an egomaniac’s dream, except the whole building was scaled down to about half the size of the original. Still impressive, but after you looked at it for a while, it somehow seemed pathetic. It was a Volvo trying to look like a Mercedes, a Herradura bottle filled with Happy Amigo tequila.

I pulled over on the opposite side of the road, where the cactus and wild mountain laurels sloped down toward an old creek bed. The driver of the Infiniti got out and started walking toward me. Mr. White got out next. He brushed some invisible speck off his powder-blue suit, then folded his newspaper under his arm and began walking leisurely toward his front door, not looking back.

The skinny guy came down the presidential lawn and across the street. He put his right hand on the side of the car and leaned in toward me. When his coat fell open I got a pretty good view of the .38 Airweight in the shoulder holster.