The Devil Went Down to Austin (Tres Navarre #3)(6)

After that, things got very quiet.

When the ringing in my ears subsided, I said, "Please put the gun away, Garrett.

Okay?"

To my relief, he shoved the Lorcin into his pot bag, then turned his chair toward the road. "Jimmy Doebler wants to ride on my hard work, marry the girl, then bail out in the end, what the hell did I invite him along for?"

I said, "Garrett—"

"Forget it, little bro. You and he finally agree on something, you can both go to hell."

Garrett wheeled across the gravel—popping and tilting over the rocks, trying not to keel over.

We watched him hoist himself into his safari van, fold and stash the chair, roll the side door shut with a SLAM. Brake lights came on. A mushroom of yellow dust blossomed under the back wheels as he peeled out.

Jimmy drained his margarita, stared into the empty goblet.

"Happy Divorce Day," I told him.

"Your brother's upset."

I kept my mouth shut. I looked down at my own mug— wondered how Jimmy had managed such an intricate fishscale pattern in the glaze, deep blues and greens, perfect symmetry. I wondered if he managed the complexities of programming the same way. I'd always thought of Jimmy as, if not an idiot savant, at least an idiot honourable mention.

"Garrett really didn't talk to you about the ranch?" Jimmy asked.

"No."

"He kept telling me he would. I know that isn't right, Tres. Somebody tried to sell this place without telling me ..."

"Difference," I said. "This place legally belongs to you."

Jimmy's face squinched up, like I'd hit him with an invisible pie. "All right. But the last two years have been hell, Tres. You got to understand that. Garrett didn't want you to know how dicey things were."

"I know you're drowning in debt, you have a bailout offer, and my brother doesn't want to take it."

"Pride—"

"He can swallow it."

Jimmy set his goblet on his knee. "Just back off for a few days, okay? Let me work on Garrett."

"Back off," I repeated. "Like you used to tell me down in Rockport: 'Stay out of my way, kid.' "

Jimmy stared at me with that look of hazy consternation, as if he was still wandering among the sand dunes. But he got the message. And I felt petty.

"If it makes you feel any better," he said, "I spent years resenting you, too. At least you and Garrett have each other. Maybe not much of a family, but it's more than nothing."

My third margarita had started seeping into my bloodstream. A flash lit the sky and a peal of thunder rolled one way across the lake, then the other. God testing the balance on his speakers.

"This was your mom's place," I said.

Jimmy nodded.

"Is it ever hard, living here?" I was thinking about the months after my father had died, when I'd been living alone in his house.

Jimmy cracked a twig, sent one half spinning into the dark. "Getting divorced, watching my career fall apart. I start wondering— what have I got left, you know? In the end, there's just family and friends, and for me the family part has always been . . . difficult.

I've got a lot of time to make up for."

He paused uncomfortably.

"What?" I asked.

"I was thinking. You could do a favour for me. You can do background checks, right?"

Most of my nightmares start with those words.

I immediately thought: Divorce. Jimmy's family money, the settlement with Ruby final, but maybe not on terms Jimmy wanted. Knowing him, he'd allowed himself to get bled dry. He'd want detective work in order to appeal the court decision, maybe make his ex look bad.

I said, "Jimmy . . ."

"Forget it."

"It's just, it's not a good idea working for a friend."

He looked at me strangely, maybe because I'd used the word friend.

"You're right," he said. "Forget it."

I wanted to say something else, something that didn't sound like an excuse, but nothing came.

We watched the storm roll above us, the air get heavier, and finally break with a sigh, the first few splatters of warm rain hissing at the edge of the fire.

Jimmy stood. "It's too late to drive back to S.A. Take a couch in the dome. I got plenty of spare clothes and whatever."

Staying overnight hadn't been part of my game plan, but when I tried to stand, I realized how the tequila had turned my legs and my anger into putty. I accepted Jimmy's offer.

"Go on, then," he said. "I'll take care of the fire and the dinner stuff."

"I don't mind helping."

"No. Go on." More of a command now. "I want to stay down here a little longer."

"Fix your kiln goddess?"

He gave me an empty smile, picked up his Tupperware fajita bowl. "Thanks for your help today, Tres."

He headed toward the lake to wash his bowl.

I drove up the gravel road in the rain, parked behind Garrett's van, then got fairly well soaked running from the truck to Jimmy's front door.

Inside, the dome smelled like copal incense. One large room—a small kitchenette to the right, sleeping loft in the back, four high skylights like the slits of a sand dollar. The curve of the south wall was sheered perpendicular at the bottom to accommodate a fireplace and Jimmy's pottery display shelves.