Big Red Tequila (Tres Navarre #1)(9)

"Lovely," I said. "So this is the way you remember our road trips?"

Lillian stared at it without replying, a little sad. Then she smiled at me.

“Take it," she said. "A housewarming gift. At least this car won’t break down on you."

“We are not amused, " I grumbled.

I let her wrap it up in tissue paper for me anyway. If nothing else it would be good for scaring the bejesus out of Robert Johnson.

Beau came back with a salad-in-a-box forty-five minutes later. He had gone from inflamed to smoldering, but still said very little. He just nodded when Lillian said she was leaving early.

When we got back to Lillian’s house that afternoon a new silver BMW had pulled up over the lawn and parked sideways across her driveway. A well-built blond man in a disheveled Christian Dior suit was sitting on the trunk, waiting.

He’d put on a few pounds since high school but it was definitely Dan Sheff, former water polo team captain for the fighting Alamo Heights Mules, heir to the multi-million-dollar Sheff Construction empire, jilted ex-hunk of Miss Lillian Cambridge. By the angle of his tie it was fairly easy to see that he’d gotten a little too happy at happy hour. It was also obvious he was not there to welcome me to town.

7

"I want to talk to you," he said, meaning me.

Dan was speaking clearly enough but he was listing slightly to port. Lillian had otten out of the car first and was standing in front of him with her hands out. It was hard to tell whether she was trying to hold him back or catch him if he fell.

"I think I’ve got a right to talk to him," Dan told her.

“This isn’t fair, Dan," Lillian said.

“You’re damn right."

She was trying to corral him back toward the BMW, but he wouldn’t move. He looked at her and for a few seconds his expression wavered between angry and injured. He put out his hands.

"Lillian—"

"No, Dan!" she said. “I want you to go."

The Rodriguez brothers next door were out on their porch, drinking beer in their tank tops and swim trunks. They watched us, grinning. One circled his temple with his finger and said something in Spanish I couldn’t catch. The other one laughed. I touched Lillian on the shoulder.

“I can talk to Dan if he wants," I said.

She looked back at me, her face incredulous. "Tres, no. I mean, you don’t have to do that. Dan, leave now."

She pushed him back. He wobbled a little but didn’t fall over.

“I’rn not leaving until I get my say," he said.

Dan and I looked at Lillian.

"I don’t believe this," she snapped. She gave us both a withering scowl as she retreated toward the house, then slammed the screen door behind her. One of the Rodriguez brothers opened a new beer.

“I just want to know something." Dan rubbed the side of his face with two fingers that had gold rings the size of walnuts. “I want to know what makes you think that you can come back to town after ten f**king years and act like you’re Christ Descended. You ditch this town, you ditch Lillian, you run away from the whole f**king scene, and then you come back and expect everything to be waiting for you just like it was. You ever heard of burned bridges, Navarre?"

Sheff was getting warmed up now, almost sober. As he talked he got faster and angrier, slapping one hand into the other to make his point. His perfectly combed hair had come unraveled, one little curl hanging down in his face Superman style.

"You want an answer?" I said.

"Some of us stayed in town, man. Some of us don’t run away from people we care about. We’ve been building something, Lillian and me, for six months now. `What the hell gives you the right to come out of nowhere and stomp on that now?"

I thought about what to say to that. Nothing came to mind.

"You’re pathetic," Dan said. "You can’t make a life for yourself out there, go someplace else and leave us alone. You don’t get another chance here."

I exhaled, looking over at the Rodriguezes, who seemed highly entertained, then back at Dan.

“Pathetic might be a little strong," I said.

“Fuck you."

"Lillian called me, Dan," I said, trying to keep my voice even. “Not the other way around. If you were building something, I think it was collapsing way before I got here."

In itself, that didn’t strike me as that much of an insult, but there were at least two months of pent-up anger in Dan’s first punch. I admit I wasn’t ready for it. It caught me square in the stomach.

You don’t ever want to fight an emotionally distraught person, especially one who’s in good physical shape. What they lose in coordination they gain in power and unpredictability. When he hit me I had to ignore the nausea and the instinct to double over in order to avoid a haymaker swing that would’ve caught me in the head.

I slid down under the punch on my left leg, a little awkwardly, and used my right leg to knock Dan off his feet with a sweep-kick. He didn’t know to roll, so he fell on his back pretty hard.

I got up and backed away. My gut felt like a piece of sheet metal that was hardening as it cooled.

Dan scrambled up and started toward me. I held up my palms, offering a truce.

"This is stupid, Dan, " I said.

He tried one more punch but this time I was ready for it. I stepped out of the way and let him punch air. After that he just stood there for a minute, breathing heavily.