Big Red Tequila (Tres Navarre #1)(36)

"What the f**k is that supposed to mean?" he spat.

Kellin had come up next to me to monitor the situation. I decided it was time to stand up, slowly and calmly.

"Look, Dan, I want to find the lady, that’s all. You want to help, great. You want to tell me Beau Karnau got a lift from the gallery in somebody else’s silver BMW yesterday around one o’clock, I don’t have time to argue with you. Lillian might not have that kind of time.

Dan stared at me. I couldn’t tell whether his expression was incredulity or outrage. For a minute we were all totally still, listening to the thunder.

Then Dan shut down almost as quickly as he’d blown up.

"Lillian," he echoed. The red trickled out of his face. He slid back into his chair with one long exhale. "Jesus, I need a drink."

Maybe jesus wasn’t listening but Kellin was. He took away the orange juice and replaced it quickly with a tumbler of bourbon. Instead of drinking it, Dan pressed the glass against his cheek like a pillow and closed his eyes.

"Beau called me," he said finally. "He wanted—some money: He said Lillian had made his life difficult by leaving, that he needed a few thousand dollars as a loan."

"Why you?" I asked.

I waited. Dan moved the bourbon to his lips.

"Things weren’t always smooth between us—Lillian and me," he said into the glass. "Sometimes Beau helped me get things back on track. Flowers, telling me her plans, that kind of thing."

"The crazy sentimental fool," I said.

Dan looked up and frowned. "Beau is all right. He’s been Lillian’s friend for years. He would never do . . .anything to Lillian, nothing bad."

I’m not sure who he was trying to convince, himself or me. judging from his tone of voice I don’t think he succeeded either way.

“So you agreed to see Beau yesterday," I said.

Dan looked up at me and said nothing. The rain was dying down. Lightning flashed, and I counted almost to ten before the thunder. Dan scowled as he drained the bourbon from his glass.

Afterward he looked up at me in surprise, as if I’d just appeared there. He seemed to ask himself a silent question, then nodded. He brought out a square leather account book from the desk.

"How much?" he said.

I stared at him.

"I’ll hire you, ass**le," he said. "Lillian said you did this for a living, this . . . stuff. I’ll pay you to find her. How much?"

I felt a little slimy just for being tempted, but I shook my head. "No."

"Don’t be a prick," he said. "How much?"

I looked at Kellin. Kellin stared back, his face about as expressive as Sheetrock.

"Look, Dan," I said, "I appreciate it. I promise you I’ll find her. But I can’t take your money."

Then I turned to leave before I could change my mind. "Navarre," he called after me.

I turned around in the doorway. From across the room Dan looked about ten years old, dwarfed behind his father’s huge mahogany desk, drowning in oversized maroon robes, his blond hair in disarray as if Dad had just come by and tousled it.

"You know what it’s like," he said. “Living in the old Man’s shadow, I mean? You know about that, at least."

It was some kind of peace offering, I guess. Looking back, maybe I should’ve taken it.

"Like you told me," I said, “we don’t have shit in common."

Kellin walked me to the door, where Mrs. Sheff was waiting to see me off. That brilliant hostess smile must’ve been sitting in a glass in some other room, because when she spoke she hardly opened her stern little mouth at all.

"Mr. Navarre," she said, "I would highly recommend that you avoid my household in the future unless you are invited."

"Thank you for the hospitality, ma’am."

I stepped out onto the front porch. The rain had stopped and the clouds kept rolling south toward the Gulf of Mexico. Ten minutes from now there would be nothing left of the storm but bent trees and wet cars drying in the sun.

"I care deeply about my family," Cookie told me. "I have a sick husband and a very dear son to look after, along with the reputation of the entire Sheff family."

"And a rather large construction firm."

She gave me the slightest sour nod. "I will not allow our family, or our friends, to be dragged through the mud."

"One question, ma’am," I said.

She just looked at me.

"Are you normally a spectator at your son’s fist-fights?" I asked. "Somehow I would’ve thought you’d fight them for him."

For a woman of good breeding, Cookie Sheff did an excellent job of slamming the door in my face.

24

I waited almost two hours on the shoulder of I-10 South with no company but my AM radio before Dan’s BMW sped by at a leisurely eighty-five miles per hour. By a combination of good luck and bad traffic, my talk-show host and I managed to keep up with Mr. Sheff as he headed toward downtown.

It had been a sobering moment when I had tuned into WOAI and hadn’t turned it off immediately. Here it was two hours later, still on. I kept telling myself it was nostalgia for those torturous trips to Rockport with my parents. Surely I couldn’t be interested in this stuff. Surely I wasn’t approaching thirty.