The Devil Went Down to Austin (Tres Navarre #3)(23)

"You could've told me."

She muttered some more curses, then trudged ahead, apparently determined to get out of scuba country as fast as she could.

I took one last look back at Dwight Hayes, but he was paying us no attention. He was staring out over the edge of the cliff, watching the smooth scars on the water below, waiting for his boss to emerge.

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Date: Sun I I Jun 2000 8:29:180000

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Subject: women

She's intriguing.

Reminds me of Adrienne.

This one's apartment rises from the top of Potrero Hill, above the wine shop, between an Italian restaurant and an antiques store, on that cold stucco and asphalt hill that always smells of roasting coffee.

White inside—stark white. Huge windows. Hardwood floors. Not much else. You can stand at her windows at night—watch the fog pour into the valleys, the lights of downtown, the pearl necklace of the Bay Bridge. You can stand there in a thousand square feet of air and almost believe she's as cold as she lets on.

You have to look deep to find anything softer, anything interesting.

Her closet is a row of beige and white. Good brands, expensive fabrics—raw silk, pure linen. Running fingers through her wardrobe, you can just catch her scent—a perfume she wears too lightly to be perceptible on a single outfit.

In the back of her closet is a shoebox, fastened with rubber bands. Inside are her naturalization papers from 1969. She was ten years old, a cute kid, judging from the picture—but sad, looking like she was just hit and is trying real hard not to cry. There are five or six other photos—not enough for me to take one, unfortunately. Yellowing black and white shots—an old man in a traditional Asian robe. The writing on the back is in Chinese—at least I suppose that's what it was. A few other pictures of old people.

Then there's the photo of the house. I guess you could call it a house. It looks like something from Tijuana or Zaire—a box put together from old doors and corrugated tin, clinging to the side of a rubble mound as if it had just slid there from the top. No grass, just dirt—chickens pecking at rocks. A huge mulberry tree on a hill in the back—the only thing that looks healthy.

I memorized that photo. The old Chinese people didn't interest me. But places. Places are important.

I looked at the photo, then I looked at the apartment—the clean white walls, the glass.

I understood why it had to be perfect, how she must wake up at night and imagine she is six or seven years old—rocks under her straw mat, rain dripping through cracks in the tin roof. I felt close to her, thinking about that.

In her nightstand drawer, on the lefthand side, she keeps a gun—a Sig Sauer. I toyed with the idea of using that information, but no. The right path for her is too obvious, if it comes to that.

I remember sitting on her bed and thinking about Adrienne. This wasn't long after the night on the boat. I still had that small electric current inside, that sense that I'd played it close. Too close. And it had been wonderful.

I attract women like her—the ones who don't know when to stop.

"Yes," I wanted to tell her."I remember what it was like. I remember what happens when a woman steps into your life. And I will step into yours, instead."

CHAPTER 10

I've never shared a quieter fortyminute drive.

We stopped by the Driskill long enough for Maia to change. I waited in the lobby, tried not to look too stunned when Maia appeared in black—a colour she never wore, and one that looked damn good on her.

Jimmy Doebler's memorial service was on Airport Boulevard at a small Unitarian church—a prefab BoxoGod wedged between a Taco Bell and a WhileUWait key shop.

I looked for the drivethru window on the church, didn't find one, and decided we'd have to park.

Inside, pews made a C around the altar. About forty people sat listening to the organist play her prelude—a mournful, highly spiritual rendition of "Cheeseburger in Paradise."

The crowd looked like what you'd expect at a funeral for a Parrot Head, as Buffett fans called themselves. There were scruffy men in jeans and Hawaiian shirts, ladies in tube tops and Indian print skirts—people who knew their way around a margarita machine.

One notable exception in the front row was W.B. Doebler—a blue pinstriped island in a sea of tropical prints. At the opposite end of the pew sat Ruby McBride in black pants and Vneck blouse, white linen jacket, pearl necklace.

Behind her sat her biker bodyguard, Clyde Simms. Clyde had forgotten his Bizon2

this evening, but his fashion statement still

qualified as lethal force—a scarlet silk suit, black dress shirt, silver bola. His blond hair fanned out around his shoulders. The World Wrestling Federation goes to a wake.

Garrett sat beside a pew in the back, where his wheelchair wouldn't get in the way. He was holding note cards for his eulogy. I tried to remember the last time I'd seen him in a coat and tie.

Next to him, at the end of the pew, sat Detective Victor Lopez. Something told me that Garrett had not been the one to pick this seating arrangement.

Maia made a short hissing sound when she spotted Lopez.