Big Red Tequila (Tres Navarre #1)(2)

He told me he’d sue, I think. He told me a lot of things, but I wasn’t listening much anymore. I was tired, it was hot, and I was starting to remember why I’d stayed away from San Antonio for so many years. The coach was in enough pain not to fight much as I tucked him into the cab with most of his stuff and paid the cabby to take him to a motel. Leaving the TV and easy chair in the front yard, I brought my things inside and shut the door behind me.

Robert Johnson slunk out of his cage cautiously when I opened it. His black fur was slicked the wrong way on one side and his yellow eyes were wide. He wobbled slightly getting back his land legs. I knew how he felt. He sniffed the carpet, then looked at me with total disdain.

"Row," he said.

"Welcome home," I said.

2

"Was fixing to evict him one of these days," Gary Hales mumbled.

My new landlord didn’t seem too concerned about my disagreement with the former tenant. Gary Hales didn’t seem too concerned about anything. Gary was an anemic watercolor of a man. His eyes, voice, and mouth were all soft and liquid, his skin a washed-out blue that matched his guayabera shirt. I got the feeling he might just dilute down to nothing if he I got caught in a good rain.

He stared at our finalized lease as if he were trying to remember what it was. Then he read it one more time, his lips moving, his shaky hand following each line with the tip of a black pen. He got stuck on the signature line. He frowned. “Jackson?"

"Legally," I told him. "Tres, as in the Third. Usually I go by that, unless you’re my mother and you’re mad at me, in which case it’s Jackson."

Gary stared at me.

“Or occasionally ‘Asshole,’ " I offered.

Gary’s pale eyes had started to glaze over. I thought I’d probably lost him after "legally," but he surprised me.

"Jackson Navarre," he said slowly. "Like that sheriff that got kilt?"

I took the lease out of Gary’s hand and folded it up. "Yeah," I said. “Like that."

Then the wall started ringing. Gary’s eyes floated over listlessly to where the sound had come from. I waited for an explanation.

"She axed me for the number here," he said, like he was reminding himself about it. "Told her I’d change the name over to you t’morrow."

He shuffled across the room and pulled a built-in ironing board out from the living—room wall. In the alcove behind it was an old black rotary phone.

I picked it up on the fourth ring and said: “Mother, you’re unbelievable."

She sighed loudly into the receiver, a satisfied kind of sound.

"Just an old beau at Southwestern Bell, honey. Now when are you coming over?"

I thought about it. The prospect wasn’t pleasant after the day I’d had. On the other hand, I needed transportation.

"Maybe this evening. I’ll need to borrow the VW if you’ve still got it. "

“It’s been sitting in my garage for ten years," she said. "You think it’ll run you’re welcome to it. I expect you’ll be visiting Lillian tonight?"

In the background at my mother’s house I heard the sound of a pool cue breaking a setup. Somebody laughed.

"Mother—"

"All right, I didn’t ask. We’ll see you later on, dear."

After Gary had shuffled back over to the main part of the house, I checked my watch. Three o’clock San Francisco time. Even on Saturday afternoon there was still a good chance I could reach Maia Lee at Terrence & Goldman.

No such luck. When her voice mail got through explaining to me what “regular business hours" meant, I left my new number, then held the line for a second longer, thinking about what to say. I could still see Maia’s face the way it looked this morning at five when she dropped me off at SFO—smiling, a sisterly kiss, someone polite whom I didn’t recognize. I hung up the phone.

I found some vinegar and baking soda in the pantry and spent an hour cleaning away the sights and smells of the former tenant from the bathroom while Robert Johnson practiced climbing the shower curtain.

A little before sunset somebody knocked on my door.

“Mother," I grumbled to myself. Then I looked out the window and saw it wasn’t quite that bad—just a couple of uniformed cops leaning against their unit in the driveway, waiting. I opened the front door and saw the second ugliest face I’d seen through my screen door so far today.

"You know," the man croaked, "somebody just handed me this complaint from one Bob Langston of 90 Queen Anne’s Street. Guy’s a G-7 at Fort Sam, no less. Assault, it says. Trespassing, it says. Langston claims some maniac named Navarre tried to karate him to death, for Christ’s sake."

I was surprised how much he’d changed. His cheeks had hollowed out like craters and he’d gone bald to the point where he had to comb a greasy flap of side hair over the top just to keep up appearances. About the only things he had more of were stomach and mustache. The former covered his twenty-pound belt buckle. The latter covered his mouth almost down to his double chins. I remember as a kid wondering how he lit his cigarettes without setting his face on fire.

"Jay Rivas," I said.

Maybe he smiled. There was no way to tell under the whiskers. Somehow he located his lips with a cigarette and took a long drag.