Big Red Tequila (Tres Navarre #1)(28)

Then he started toward the door.

“And, Jay," I said.

He turned.

"Pick up the goddamn sword."

It was worth it just to see his face. He didn’t pick it up. He wanted to say something. I wanted him to say it.

Then Drapiewski said: “Good-bye, Detective," and moved his bulk out of the doorway.

Rivas took the out.

When the door closed, Drapiewski just looked at me, his bushy red eyebrows raised. Cautiously, Robert Johnson came out of the bathroom, lured by the shower of sugar and crumbs that was falling from the deputy’s berzuelo, then tried to climb Drapiewski’s pants. I don’t think Drapiewski even noticed.

Larry took a thick bundle of police reports from under his arm and dropped it on the coffee table.

"Want to tell me about it?"

19

By the time I’d told Larry Drapiewski my tale of woe he had relieved me of my leftover lemon chicken, four Shiner Bocks, a couple of beef fajitas, and half a box of the former tenant’s Captain Crunch, dry. Robert Johnson sat on his lap, sniffing the food, but was careful to stay away from the big man’s mouth.

"Holy hell," Drapiewski said. He put his boots up on the coffee table and the room suddenly seemed smaller. “Lillian Cambridge? As in Zeke Cambridge’s daughter? I guar-un-tee you, if this goes down as a kidnapping, this town will be boiling by tomorrow morning. That’s some large dollars moving, son."

I’ll give him this, the deputy got my mind off my problems. Now I was thinking about my empty refrigerator and my empty wallet. I was hoping to God that Larry didn’t want something else to eat.

"If it goes down as kidnapping?" I said.

Drapiewski shrugged. "Just seems strange I haven’t heard about it over the telex yet."

"Some kind of waiting period?"

He laughed, sprinkling Captain Crunch across Robert Johnson’s fur. Robert Johnson vaporized from his lap and reappeared on the kitchen counter, looking indignant.

“That’s a damn myth, son. The network treats it just like an APB, puts it all over South Texas. You wait twenty-four hours to report something like that, usually the missing person is dead."

Then he realized who we were talking about.

“Sorry," he said.

I swallowed. "What about Guy White?"

Larry kept looking at me. “It was a damn stupid thing to do, pushing yourself in his face. You don’t do that to somebody who’s had as many people killed as Mr. White has. But if you’re talking about your lady friend disappearing on Sunday, and you didn’t see White until Monday afternoon—"

“I know. The timing’s wrong."

I must not have looked too convinced.

Larry leaned forward, lacing his thick fingers around his beer bottle. "You know how many true abductions San Antonio has had in the last decade, son? I remember exactly two—both kids, neither had anything to do with the mob. If there was any suspicion of kidnapping, ransom demands, anything like that, the Feds would become lead agency immediately. So I can only assume there’s reasonable evidence to let Rivas keep this in-house, to stick with the idea that Lillian disappeared of her own free will."

"Bullshit," I said.

Larry looked at me. “You sure?"

It irritated me that I couldn’t answer. “So why is Rivas on the case? And into everything else I touch?"

Drapiewski raised his eyebrows. "There’s some fine, decent people at SAPD. Honest cops."

"And Rivas is not among them," I suggested.

Drapiewski smiled.

"So," I said, “either he’s screwing with me for personal reasons or because somebody’s pulled his strings—but either way he’s screwing with me."

“Listen, son, Zeke Cambridge will get the police to do a damn good job, Rivas or not. Eventually they’ll have to bring the Feds in on this and things will happen."

“Like they did with my father?" I said.

Larry looked at me the way people do to somebody who grew up while they weren’t looking. He laughed again. "Holy hell, Tres, I don’t believe you. That face you just made—that’s your dad’s ‘shit list’ expression, plain and simple."

There was such honest pleasure in his voice I had to smile. For a second it didn’t matter that Lillian was missing, or that my father’s murder was coming back like the worst acid flashback. You heard Drapiewski laugh and you knew there had to be a nice clean joke in there somewhere. But it only lasted a second.

“Karnau and Sheff? " I asked.

He didn’t smile at that. He looked back down at the two photos I’d shown him—the ones with human figures cut out.

“I don’t know," he said. "I’ll look into it, but I doubt there’s much to find. Either way, there’s nothing you can do except sit tight."

“I can’t stay out of this, Larry. "

He did me a favor and acted like he hadn’t heard that. Instead he got up and appropriated the last Shiner Bock from the refrigerator. Then he found my tequila and brought that back to the table too. We sat there listening to the cicadas and passing the bottle. Finally Larry leaned back, stared at the bubbled molding on the ceiling, and started laughing under his breath.

“Your father—you ever hear that story about the one-balled flyboy?"