Big Red Tequila (Tres Navarre #1)(8)

"Some things you don’t choose," I said.

"Isn’t that the truth."

I’m not sure either of us bought it. On the other hand, I figured it was as close to an understanding about what had happened between us as we would ever get. She told me she was on her way to interview a client whose teenage son had been charged with setting part of the Presidio on fire. It was going to be a long morning. I promised to call in a few days.

“Drink one of those frozen strawberry margaritas for me," she said.

"Infidel," I said.

By noon the movers had everything out of the truck and into the living room without any major accidents. I gave them directions back to Loop 410. Then I headed down Broadway toward downtown.

Ten minutes later I turned up Commerce and started looking for street parking. Fortunately I was used to San Francisco traffic. I U-turned across three lanes and beat a Hilton valet to a nice meter spot without so much as a fistfight, then walked south into La Villita.

The place hadn’t changed over the last few hundred years. Except for being cleaner and having higher rents, the restored four square blocks of original settlement were not much different than they’d been back in the days of the Alamo. Tourists wandered in and out of the white limestone buildings. A family of large Germans, severely overdressed for the heat, sat at a green metal table in the sun outside one of the cantinas. They were trying to look like they were having fun on their vacation, mouths open, fanning themselves with menus.

I wandered down the narrow brick lanes for almost twenty minutes before I found the Hecho a Mano Gallery, a tiny building in the shade of a huge live oak behind the La Villita Chapel. The gallery didn’t seem to be getting much business at the moment. I came in the door just as a glass paperweight flew past, banging into the wall and rattling a few framed pictures of Guatemalan peasants.

A male voice around the corner of the entryway said: “God damn it!"

A loud disagreement followed.

“Lillian?" I called, loudly.

I looked around the corner, cautious for more flying objects. Lillian was standing up at a small wooden desk near the opposite wall. She was pressing her fingertips against her temples and glaring at a man who looked nothing at all like the Beau Karnau I remembered.

What I remembered from the few times Beau had condescended to shake my hand a decade ago was a short, burly brunette with a crew cut, black clothes, and a face smoothed over with acne scar tissue and smugness. Now in his late fifties, Karnau looked more like one of the Seven Dwarfs. He sported a potbelly, a scraggly gray beard, a receding hairline, and a braided ponytail. He’d traded in the black clothes for a gaudy silk shirt, boots, and jeans. His forehead was almost purple with anger.

“God damn it," he shouted. "You can’t."

Lillian saw me, told me with a shake of her head that she wasn’t in danger, then "Jesus Christ, Beau! You’re going to kill somebody with your tantrums."

“Tantrums my ass," he said. "You will not do this to me again, Lillian."

He crossed his arms, huffed, then seemed to notice me for the first time. judging by his sour face he must not have been impressed by my rugged manliness. "This must be Mr. Wonderful," he said.

"Dr. Wonderful," I corrected. "Ph.D., Berkeley, ’91."

“Har-de-har. "

How can you fight against lines like "har-de-har"? I looked back at Lillian.

"Beau," she said slowly, staring down at her desk, "can we please talk about this later?"

Karnau shifted his weight from foot to foot, obviously thinking of the most withering comment he could  make. Finally he decided to make a grand silent exit. Arms still crossed, he stormed past me to the front door, slamming it shut behind him.

When Lillian’s facial expression told me she had depressurized I came over to the desk. I waited.

"Sorry," she said. “That, of course, was Beau."

"Your great inspiration," I remembered. “Your biggest fan. Your ticket to—"

She cut me off with a look. "Things change."

"Mm. My finely honed deductive skills tell me he was slightly miffed at you."

She sat on the edge of her desk and made a dismissive gesture. “He’s been getting like that over a lot of things."

“You want to say what?"

She gave me a tired smile. “Nothing. I mean I didn’t want to get you involved in this yet. It’s just—I’ve decided to pull out of the business. I want to do my own work full-time, without Beau. I’m getting tired of selling to vacationing Midwesterners."

"It’s about time."

She took my hand. "I figured the time was right, after we talked last night. Time to get back on track in a lot of ways. "

I came closer. After a few minutes Lillian’s mood had improved enough for her to give me a tour of the gallery.

They specialized, she told me, in “Border Morbid."

The main room was devoted to ceramic Day of the Dead sculptures by artists from Laredo and Piedras Negras. There were skeletons playing guitar, skeletons making love, mother skeletons nursing baby skeletons in cribs. Every scene was thickly glazed in primary colors, hideous and comical.

"I’ve been saving this one for you, Tres," Lillian said.

The statuette was tucked away on a corner podium--a dead man’s road trip. The skeletal driver had his arm around his skeletal girlfriend. They were both grinning of course, holding up miniature tequila bottles as they careened along in a bright orange car that looked suspiciously like my Volkswagen.