The Widower's Two-Step (Tres Navarre #2)(35)

"You think I like being known as Jackson Navarre's kid every time I work a case? You think that makes it easier on me?"

Garrett took a toke. "Maybe that's exactly what you like. Saves you the trouble of growing up and being something else."

"My brother, the expert on growing up."

He grinned. "Yeah, well—"

I leaned back farther in the recliner.

Garrett noticed how short his joint was getting and reached behind him to get a roach clip out of the ashtray. His left leg stump peeked out briefly from his denim shorts. It was smooth and thin and pink, like part of a baby. There were no signs of scars from the train tracks that had long ago severed Garrett's lower third.

"You remember Big Bill?" he asked.

Garrett's favourite strategy. When in doubt, bring up something embarrassing from Tres' childhood.

"Gee, no I don't. Why don't you remind me?"

Garrett laughed.

Big Bill had been a roan stud Dad used to keep out at the ranch in Sabinal. Randiest, meanest sonofabitch stallion ever born. The horse, I mean, not my dad.

The Sheriff had insisted that I learn to ride Big Bill when I was a kid on the theory that I could then handle any horse in the world. Each time I tried, Big Bill would intentionally head for lowlying tree branches to try and knock me off. On our third ride together he succeeded, and I'd gripped the reins so tightly as I fell that I couldn't let go when I hit the ground. My hands stayed wrapped around the leather straps as Big Bill galloped on for a good quarter mile, dragging me through as many cactus patches as he could find. When I returned home with half the back forty stuck to my clothes and my hair, my father had judged the ride "a little too wild."

"I found his saddle at the ranch last month," Garrett said. "Had it polished up. I've got it back in my bedroom if you want to see it."

"For the biker women, no doubt."

Garrett tried to look modest. "Actually it made me think of my little brother. I still got this image of you, man—nineyearold kid being dragged behind a runaway horse."

"Okay. I get the point."

"How old are you now, twentyeight?"

"Twentynine," I said. "There's a difference."

Garrett laughed. " 'Scuse me if I don't feel sorry for you. Just seems to me you got time to try some different things, little bro. Maybe you could get yourself a life that doesn't get you shot at so often and your girlfriends pissed off and your old brother kicked out of bars when you come to visit."

"I'm good at my work, Garrett."

"That what your boss says—you're good at your work?"

I hesitated.

"Yeah," Garrett said. "Like I said, you never could let go when you needed to."

"You saying I should've been like you—hop a freight car every time things at home started to get bad?"

It was a mean thing to say, but Garrett didn't react. He just kept smoking and looking at a point somewhere above my head.

After a while the heavy metal music from the downstairs neighbour started up again, rattling the halfempty tequila bottle on Dad's army footlocker that Garrett used as a coffee table.

Garrett looked down at the floor with tired resignation, then he reached over to pick a new CD.

"Hope you can sleep to music," he said.

17

"Mr. Navarro, isn't it?"

Miranda's dad shook my hand with both of his ^r and most of the rest of his body. This was a good trick, considering that to do it he had to put his walking stick in the crook of his arm and lean on his good leg and still keep from falling over.

"Navarre," I said. "But call me Tres."

Willis Daniels kept shaking my hand. His face was bright red, beaming like he'd just run the Iron Man triathlon and loved every minute of it.

"Course. Navarre. I'm sorry."

"No problem," I said. "San Antonio. Navarro. Historical connection. I get that all the time."

We were standing in the doorway of Silo Studio on Red River near Seventh. The studio was a singlestory refurbished warehouse with metalframed windows and brown stucco outer walls the texture of shredded wheat. The main door was at the rear of the building, where the parking lot was.

The Widower's Two it Step 119

We were standing right in the doorway, me on my way in and Mr. Daniels on his way out and the guy with a dollyful of electrical equipment waiting two feet behind Daniels shit out of luck. Daniels didn't seem to notice him.

The old man squinted and leaned his face into mine, like a preacher about to offer me important words of comfort as I filed out of church. He smelled like wet leather and Pert.

"I apologize for last night," he said. "Hard situation, Cam getting out of control like that.

I surely didn't mean to misjudge you."

"Don't mention it."

"Cam was fired, of course."

I nodded amiably.

The guy with the dolly cleared his throat loudly. Daniels kept beaming at me.

With the solid red flannel shirt and black jeans and the curly gray hair now minus straw hat, Daniels looked even more like Santa Claus than he had the night before. He was mighty perky for somebody over sixty who'd played music until two that morning.

"You know you do look Hispanic," he decided. "I suppose that's why I thought Navarro.