James Burke - Rain Gods

“Just under the size of a softball. It was elongated. It looked like the eye of a Chinaman staring out the window.”

“You don’t remember the license number, do you?”

Pete was still holding the sixteen-ouncer. He set it on the ground outside the booth. He pushed it over with the sole of his boot. “One letter and maybe two numbers. Y’all already got a report on it?”

“You could say we may have had contact with the driver.”

A few moments later, Pete picked up the cans he had dropped and took them back inside the store and set them on the counter. “Can I get a refund?” he said.

“If you hold your mouth right,” the cashier said.

“What?”

“That’s a joke.” She opened the register drawer and counted out his cash. “There’s some showers in back. Hang around if you feel like it, cowboy.”

“I got someone waiting on me.”

She nodded.

“You’re a nice lady,” he said.

“I hear that lots of times,” she said. She stuck another filter-tip in her mouth and lit it with a BIC, blowing the smoke at an upward angle, gazing through the window at the way the two-lane warped in the heat and dissolved into a black lake on the horizon.

“I didn’t mean anything, ma’am.”

“I look like a ‘ma’am’? It’s ‘miss,’” she said.

TWO DAYS AFTER the invasion of his home by Jack Collins, Hackberry Holland and Pam Tibbs flew in the department’s single engine plane to San Antonio, borrowed an unmarked car from the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office, and drove into Nick Dolan’s neighborhood. The enclave atmosphere and the size of the homes, the Spanish daggers and hibiscus and palm and umbrella trees and crepe myrtle and bougainvillea in the yards, and the number of grounds workers made Hackberry think of a foreign country, in the tropics, perhaps, or out on the Pacific Rim.

Except he was not visiting a neighborhood as much as a paradox. The dark-skinned employees-maids retrieving the trash cans from the curb, yardmen with ear protectors clamped on their heads operating mowers and leaf blowers, hod carriers and framers constructing an extension on a house-were all foreigners, not the repressed and indigenous people Somerset Maugham and George Orwell and Graham Greene had described in their accounts of life inside dying European and British empires. Those who owned and lived in the big houses in Nick Dolan’s neighborhood were probably all native-born but had managed to become colonials in their own country.

When Hackberry had called Nick Dolan’s restaurant and asked to interview him, Dolan had sounded wired to the eyes, clearing his throat, claiming to be tied up with business affairs and trips out of state. “I got no idea what this is about. I’m dumbfounded here,” he said.

“Arthur Rooney.”

“Artie Rooney is an Irish putz. I wouldn’t piss in his mouth if he was dying of thirst. Let me rephrase that: I wouldn’t cross the street to see a pit bull rip out his throat.”

“Has the FBI talked with you, Mr. Dolan?”

“No, what’s the FBI got to do with anything?”

“But you talked to Isaac Clawson the ICE agent, didn’t you?”

“Maybe that name is familiar.”

“I appreciate your help. We’ll be out to see you this evening.”

“Hold on there.”

It was late when Hackberry and Pam arrived at Nick’s house, and shadows were spreading across the lawn, fireflies lighting in smoky patterns inside the trees. Nick Dolan ushered them right through the house into his backyard and sat them down on rattan chairs by a glass-topped table already set with a pitcher of limeade and crushed ice and a plate of peeled crawfish and a second plate stacked with pastry. But there was no question in Hackberry’s mind that Nick Dolan was a nervous wreck.

Nick began talking about the grapevine that laced the trellises and the latticework over their heads. “Those vines came from my grandfather’s place in New Orleans,” he said. “My grandfather lived uptown, off St. Charles. He was a friend of Tennessee Williams. He was a great man. Know what a great man is? A guy who takes things that are hard and makes them look easy and doesn’t complain. Where’s your gun?”

“In the vehicle,” Hackberry said.

“I always thought you guys had to have your gun on you. You want some limeade? Try those crawfish. I had them brought live from Louisiana. I boiled and veined them myself. I made the sauce, too. I mash up my own peppers. Go ahead, stick a toothpick in one and slop it in the sauce and tell me what you think. Here, you like chocolate-and-peanut-butter brownies? Those are my wife’s specialty.”

Pam and Hackberry looked at Nick silently, their eyes fastened on his. “You’re making me uncomfortable here. I got high blood pressure. I don’t need this,” Nick said.

“I think you’re the anonymous caller who warned me about Jack Collins, Mr. Dolan. I wish I’d taken your warning more to heart. He put a couple of dents in my head and almost killed Deputy Tibbs.”

“I’m lost.”

“I also think you’re the person who called the FBI and told them Vikki Gaddis and Pete Flores were in danger.”

Before Hackberry had finished his last sentence, Nick Dolan began shaking his head. “No, no, no, you got the wrong guy. We’re talking about mistaken identity here or something.”

“You told me Arthur Rooney wants to murder both you and your family.”

Nick Dolan’s small round hands were closing and opening on the glass tabletop. His stomach was rising and sinking, his cheeks blading with color. “I got in some trouble,” he said. “I wanted to get even with Artie for some things he did to me. I got mixed up with bad people, the kind who got no parameters.”

“Is one of them named Hugo Cistranos?”

“Hugo worked for Artie when Artie ran a security service in New Orleans. We all got flooded out by Katrina and ended up in Texas at the same time. I don’t got anything else to say about this.”

“I’m going to find Jack Collins, Mr. Dolan. I’d like to do it with your help. It’ll mean a lot for you down the line.”

“You mean I’ll be a friend of the court, something like that?”

“It’s a possibility.”

“Stick your ‘friend of the court’ stuff up your nose. This crazy fuck Collins, excuse my language, is the only guy keeping us alive.”

“I’m not sympathetic with your situation.”

“You don’t have a family?”

“I looked into Collins’s face. I watched him machine-gun my deputy’s cruiser.”

“My wife beat the shit out of him with a cooking pot. He could have killed both of us, but he didn’t.”

“Your wife beat up Jack Collins?”

“There’s something wrong with the words I use that you can’t understand? I got an echo in my yard?”

“I’d like to speak with her, please.”

“I’m not sure she’s home.”

“You know what obstruction of justice is?” Pam Tibbs said.

“Yeah, stuff they talk about on TV detective shows.”

“Explain this,” Pam said. She picked up a brownie from the plate and set it back down. “It’s still hot. Tell your wife to come out here.”

Nick Dolan stared into space, squeezing his jaw with one hand, his eyes out of sync. “I caused all this.”

“Caused what?” Pam said.

“Everything.”

“Where’s your wife, Mr. Dolan?” Pam asked.

“Drove away. Fed up. With the kids in the car.”

“They’re not coming back?” she asked.

“I don’t know. Vikki Gaddis came to my restaurant and applied for a job as a singer. I wish I’d hired her. I could have made a difference in those young people’s lives. I told all this to Esther. Now she thinks maybe I’m unfaithful.”

“Maybe you can still make a difference,” Hackberry said.