The Last King of Texas (Tres Navarre #3)(74)

She stopped herself, searching my face. I think she realized she couldn't explain to me what she was thinking. She was probably right. Ralph as a lover of women was not something I wanted to understand. Especially not with this woman.

"I can see why Ralph would be loyal to you," she said.

"Are you insulting his intelligence?"

She smiled thinly. "No. You two have some things in common."

I got a sudden intrusive image of Ralph outside the U-Best Scrap Yard. He was grinning, checking out his newly washed Cadillac, his thick glasses circles of gold.

Ana looked at her empty glass. "Never mind. The tequila is talking."

"Let it talk. This week sucked."

She leaned toward me, clicked my glass with hers. "Amen."

We were shoulder to shoulder again, the way we had been this afternoon in my living room when she'd introduced me to my make-believe girlfriend. Maybe it was the similarity in scenes, or the killer margaritas, but the next thing I knew I was leaning toward her and kissing her — tasting lime and triple sec, my vision reduced to her temple and a sweep of glossy black hair.

We touched at the mouths only. Our arms stayed where they were — mine, at least, too paralyzed by disbelief to take further liberties. Finally, when I felt dizzy from oxygen loss and the margarita buzz that mixed very well with the scent of Ana DeLeon, she put her hard, long fingers gently on my chest and pushed me back.

She blinked slowly, sleepily, pulling her lips inward as if to reclaim them. She shook her head, then laughed as if she'd just caught herself doing something extremely silly.

"Mm-mm," she mumbled. "Not a good idea."

"You want to try again, just to be sure?" I was astonished my voice still worked.

She was still close enough that when she turned her head and sighed, her breath made a cool path across my arm. "No — listen, I need to go. You need to go visit your friend George."

"Ana—"

"Really, Tres. I've got to."

Deliberately, slowly, she slid down from the stool. She retucked her T-shirt into her jeans, brushed off her denim shirt, pushed the strands of hair out of her eyes.

"I'll call you tomorrow," she said. "About the Brandon case."

I nodded.

"You'll let me know if Ralph calls?" she asked. "He won't call me."

"I will. If he's speaking to me."

She reddened just slightly. "Good night."

"Night."

When the sound of her car engine faded down Queen Anne, drowned out by the sounds of conjunto music from the Suitez party across the street, I looked at Robert Johnson, who was still sitting on the counter. His eyes were contentedly half-closed and his fur still raked into furrows from Ana's fingers. He was purring.

"Don't gloat," I told him.

Then I went to get the margarita pitcher and see about emptying the damn thing.

THIRTY-NINE

My body refused to get drunk. At least not drunk enough to forgo visiting Brooke Army Medical Center later that night. Definitely not drunk enough to handle the sight of George Berton.

Kelly Arguello was waiting for me outside the private room. We relieved two of George's friends from the Elf Louise program, then took their still-warm and very uncomfortable chairs next to his bedside.

No nonrelatives should've been allowed in George's room, of course, but the nursing staff seemed to have caved to Erainya and Jenny's vigil plans as docilely as George's friends had. Two of us would be with Berton at all times until he woke up — if he ever did.

Kelly and I watched the lights on the bedside monitors, the glow from nighttime fluorescents reflecting on George Berton's Bryl-ed hair, the moisture that was crusting around his unblinking eyelids. His chest rose and fell with the ventilator's beat.

George looked like an insect half-chrysallized — small desiccated patches of his old self just barely recognizable under white swells of bandages, tubes, tape, and sheets. The skin of his face, what was visible beneath the breathing apparatus, looked thin as rice paper, streaked with capillaries. His hands lay at his sides palm up, curled, and motionless.

We listened to the ventilator. The accordion pump went up and down in its clear plastic tube, filling George's lungs and deflating them with dispassionate efficiency.

"I want to bolt out of this room," Kelly whispered. "Do you feel like that?"

She'd changed into jeans and a man's white button-down, probably Uncle Ralph's. The sleeves were rolled up and I caught the mixed scents of Ralph's bay rum on the linen and chlorine from Kelly's skin and hair. I imagined she'd made time this evening to visit the Alamo Heights pool, done a few hundred laps. Her hair was tied back in a pony tail and the roots were still slightly damp. She looked at me, her eyes soft and brown and gently pulling as Gulf Coast surf.

"Put on a brave face," I said. "Sound happy. Tell George he's looking good."

"He looks terrible, Tres. It's like he isn't even in there."

"He's not a corpse."

"I know. It's just... Sorry. I'm talking like a wimp."

I stared at a photo someone had put on George's bedstand — a silver-framed picture of Berton, perhaps ten years younger, and a pretty woman that I decided was his wife Melissa. They were standing on a curve of granite overlooking the hill country — probably the summit of Enchanted Rock. I'm sure the photo was meant as a nice "get well" gesture for George, but somehow the smile of that woman murdered so many years ago, the image of her with her arms around George, made me uneasy.