The Last King of Texas (Tres Navarre #3)(7)

"Gunpoint," George Berton whispered. "That's good."

Erainya glared over at Berton, twisted her fingers upward in a gesture I could only assume had highly negative connotations in Greece.

George grinned, looked back at me. "She's sending me after your terrorist, you know."

"Terrorist?"

"Whoever. Your death-threat writer. Should be fun."

I studied him to see if he was serious, if he felt at all nervous about tracking down someone who pipe-bombed offices and shot holes in English professors. George had dealt with worse, I knew. He'd done a couple of tours with the Air Force Special Police in Saudi Arabia in the eighties. During the Gulf War he'd been standing just outside the bunker in Bahrain when an Iraqi missile blew it to hell. After Berton returned stateside and tested for his P.I. license, his wife had been killed in some kind of camping accident, leaving George ownership of her small title company and a rather sizable life insurance policy. For the past seven years, George had worked investigations only when he felt like it — usually for Erainya, tracking down skips on the West Side when it was clear Erainya and I couldn't get to them ourselves.

In San Antonio, that happened a lot. Anglo investigators could go through the Latino side of town, offering reward money for locating an heir to a big estate, and they'd come up with nothing. Flip it around — a Latino working the white neighborhoods, same thing. You do P.I. work in S.A., you learn quickly you'd better have a partner on the other side. George Berton was one of the best.

"You know where you'll start?" I asked him.

"Activists, radicals. I can find some. They usually come out from California, stay for a while spouting the La Raza stuff. Then they figure out South Texas isn't L.A. and they go home."

"You know anybody named Sanchez?"

"This is San Antonio, man. I know seven thousand anybodies named Sanchez.

Why?"

"SAPD let that name drop."

Berton shrugged. "I'll ask Erainya. She's been making some calls to the police."

"You worried about this at all?"

"Oh, yeah. You know the last time the FBI had something to do in San Antonio besides polish their sunglasses? They're going to love this. Even if I find this guy first, I won't have time to submit one report before the Feds come in busting heads. UTSA doesn't have much to worry about, Tres. They want to pay us to duplicate efforts, that's fine by me."

"SAPD seems to think the Feds will take a pass."

George laughed.

"That's what they said," I insisted.

George waved the comment away. "Give me a break, Navarre."

Jem kept working on the perpetual motion machine. He had one wheel that turned two others and made the top spin around like a helicopter. He was now trying to figure out how to stabilize the base.

Kelly flipped a page in her magazine. "So, Tres — you still going on that double date tonight? With your face looking like that?"

I flashed George a look to let him know I would murder him later.

He held up his hands. "Hey, Tres, I told her you were doing me an act of charity, man. That's all."

"What a guy," Kelly agreed. "Always giving. Who was the recipient last month — Annie?"

George said, "Yeah. The banker."

Kelly made her lips do a long silent M. "If your love life was a disease, Tres Navarre, it would have killed you long ago."

"You prescribe chicken soup?"

"Among other things. Not that you listen."

George cleared his throat loudly. Erainya gave him another look-of-death. "Hey," Berton whispered to Kelly, "you get tired of waiting, chica—" He curled all his fingers toward his chest.

Kelly actually blushed.

"She did great on the background files for this UTSA case," George told me. "Stuff on the professor, his family. Amazing what this girl can pull together in a morning. You know this dead professor, this Aaron Brandon guy — you know he's part of the same Brandon family that was in that thing a few years ago? "

"That thing."

I looked at Kelly for enlightenment. She didn't give me any.

"Yeah, you know." George made a gun with his hand. "Pow, pow."

"Pow, pow?"

"Yeah." George smiled, apparently satisfied that we were on the same page. "Family's got some bad damn luck. Anyway, Kelly pulled up all of that in one morning. Just on the computer. She's something."

"She's something," I agreed. "Speaking of those background files—"

"You're going to want a copy." Kelly opened my side drawer and produced a thick rubber-banded folder, plopped it in front of me. "Erainya got me started while certain other people were out getting themselves blown up. Regretfully, not completely blown up. Was there anything else?"

Her tone was super-sweet.

I said, "Ouch, already."

She batted her eyes.

Erainya hung up the phone, put her hands on her desk, and hoisted herself to a full imposing height of five-foot-zero. She looked across the office at me, her eyes black and piercing.

"So, what—?" she demanded. "You managed not to get yourself killed. You think that makes your morning successful? Come back here."