Big Red Tequila (Tres Navarre #1)(59)

Maia shrugged.

Carlon was sitting behind the owner’s desk, chewing slowly on a canapé. He was using one of Beau’s unmatted prints for a beer coaster. His blue eyes reminded me of a buzzard’s—the way they look on while the bobcats are finishing up a carcass, hungry, patient, highly interested.

"So where’s your dad’s murder come in?" he wondered.

Beau’s forehead turned maroon. "Who the f**k is this?"

"We’ve got a lawyer," I told him. "And we’ve got an entertainment writer from the Express-News ready to go for your jugular. What I suggest, Beau, is you just answer yes or no when I ask you something. You tell me you don’t know what I’m talking about one more time, I’ll make sure Carlon here spells your name right in the Sunday edition. Got it?"

Beau decided to stand up. I planted another red hand print on the side of his face. He sat back down, in slow motion. His head bent down into his hands.

"I’ll kill you," he mumbled, without any conviction at all.

"The photos on the disk," I said. "They show the same thing as the cut-up prints in your portfolio—a night meeting in the woods, three people, something that happened between them bad enough to warrant ten thousand a month in blackmail."

I think he nodded. It was so slight I could hardly tell.

I picked up some of the money on the desk. "The 7/31 payment was due today, but there’s a lot more here than ten grand. And Dan must know you’ve lost one of the disks. I’d say you made a deal to sell him the other. You close your accounts and run; he gets insurance that the photos are out of circulation. Only you stalled him tonight. Maybe that’s why he hit you."

"Fuck off. "

"I’ll take that as a yes. Where the hell is Lillian, Beau?"

Beau was shaking slightly, his head in his hands. It took me a minute to realize he was laughing. When he looked up his eyes had turned into puffy slits.

"You’re a f**king joke," he said. "Still playing her goddamn protector."

My throat tightened. "You want to explain that?"

"She’s real good at that—getting people to protect her. I tried it for years. Sheff tried it. If you’re lucky maybe she’s dead and buried, Navarre. Maybe that’s where she is."

Maia had a hell of a grip. It was only her grip on my elbow joint that kept me from disassembling Karnau’s face. She held me in place until my forearm started losing circulation.

Then she leaned close to my ear. "Come on," she murmured. "Enough."

We left Beau collapsed in his director’s chair, still shaking like he couldn’t control his body. I took the bag of money.

We walked past the frowning owner in the yellow shirt and the genie pants, down the metal stairs, and into the parking lot of Blue Star where the black-dressed men were opening another bottle of champagne. It wasn’t until Maia took my hand that I realized how hard it was clenched.

We walked Carlon to his car—a new turquoise Hyundai parked in the loading zone with a fake police light on top. He took a silver flask off the front seat, drank half, then passed it to me.

"Remind me to put you back on my Christmas list, Navarre. I don’t ever want you pissed at me."

I sampled the stuff and grimaced. I stared at him.

"Jesus. Big Red and tequila?"

He shrugged. "Breakfast of champions, Navarre. You gave me the recipe."

"You ever thought about growing up, Carlon?"

Ee snorted. "Highly overrated, man. I’ll wait for the video."

I offered Maia the flask. She shook her head.

"Now tell me the story." Carlon stopped just short of rubbing his hands together in anticipation. "I’ve got a gallery review to write."

“No story, " I told him.

Carlon looked dazed, as if he were translating the two words. Then he laughed. "Right."

I stared at him.

"Wait a minute," he said. "You bring me out here so I can see a high-profile businessman making a payoff to the guy who’s blackmailing him for—what, ten large a month? You bring up Lillian. You bring up—" He paused, then smiled very slowly as he made the final connection. " Shit. You said Eddie. That corpse the mob drove into Sheff’s office wall. Eddie something. And you tell me no story?"

He laughed. I didn’t.

“Twenty-four hours," I said.

"What the f**k for?"

"Lillian’s in this somehow, Carlon. Publishing anything might kill her."

He thought about that for a bit. "What else do I get?"

I was tired and irritated. I stepped a little closer to him, then picked up his Jerry Garcia tie with two fingers and admired it.

"My name back on your Christmas list," I reminded him.

Carlon hesitated. He was breathing so shallow now I couldn’t even smell the garlic. His pale blue eyes looked at me steady, calculating. We could’ve been doing a business deal.

Finally he shrugged. "Like I said before, I’m just trying to help."

I nodded, swallowed the taste of Big Red tequila out of my mouth, and threw the flask back into Carlon’s car. "I knew that, Carlon. I knew that."

36

It was midnight when Maia and I left Blue Star. Seeing as how neither of us had eaten in six hours and most of the town was closed down, I had to swallow my pride along with three chorizo and egg taquitos at Taco Cabana. At least I didn’t compromise myself enough to try the neon pink chain locations. I drove Maia to the original cocimz on San Pedro and Hildebrand, still a sleepy wooden shack that gave no indication of the million—dollar franchise it had spawned.