by George Wier
“I’ll tell you what I hate, Bill. I hate ignorance. I detest inattention to crime and greed and graft. I can’t stand it that people won’t look at evil, and see it for what it is.”
He pulled hard on his beer, draining most of it.
I waited. I knew there was more coming.
“Also I hate that I’ve wasted most of my life. That it has to be so goddamned short. But I guess it’s okay. You know? It’s hate itself that shortens life. So everything that’s happened to me, I’ve pretty much been the author of it.”
I decided right then that I liked Milo Unger.
“So,” he said. “I’ve given up writing articles on Sawyer. I’ve quit it. I’m working on a novel now. Can’t let anyone read it, though. Not ‘til it’s done.”
A cool breeze wafted in through the screened doorway. Out in the darkening trees frogs were beginning their nightly chant. Maybe it was an endless prayer of some sort. ‘Thanks for flies and moths, thanks for good water, thanks for little frogs.’ Something like that. I don’t know.
“I’ve got something for you,” Milo said. He got up, walked through the galley and disappeared down a short flight of steps. He was back inside of thirty seconds.
“Here’s everything I have on Sawyer.”
It was a full banker’s file box. I could see yellowing newspaper clippings, e-mail printouts, scanned and printed photographs.
“Are you going to want this back?” I asked him.
He stood there, staring off into space. Maybe in his head he was working on his book.
“Naw. When you’re through with it... burn it. I should have done it a long time ago.”
CHAPTER FOUR
We Texans are proud of our State. Our history, our forests, wetlands, deserts, mountains, beaches and cities, not to mention our sports teams and our celebrities. So when I inadvertently stumbled upon the firecracker that in the right hands could be used to blow the lid off the governor’s office, I felt more than a little back-off.
I was thinking about Texas, there in my home, up on the second floor in my study as I sifted through the pages and pictures from Milo’s box and put them in neat little piles on my library table-top; Texas like it was when I was a kid, watching the wagons circle beneath a larger than life Texas flag and too-bright lights at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo inside the Astrodome, clapping and cheering with what seemed like a million other Texans; Texas the way I had always imagined it to be from the nineteenth century etchings in my seventh grade history book, where brave men faced down innumerable military odds and challenging landscape and somehow carved out a nation. Back then, men were men, to quote Archie Bunker.
What had happened? There were almost as many bullshit theories on the subject as there were on the subject of the human mind, but the only answer that seemed to make sense to me was that the twentieth century had happened. And with it, men like Dick Sawyer had happened.
It was getting late. I felt a warm hand on the back of my neck. It was Julie.
“Hey,” she said. “You’re caught up in something, aren’t you?”
“I don’t know if you’d call it ‘caught up,’ Babe.”
“Well,” she said. “I haven’t seen you like this since... You know.” She leaned against the table, her eyes moving from mine down into the box.
“Oh,” I said. Just three months before, Julie, myself, and an old client of mine named Hank Sterling had run off to North Texas chasing down two million dollars. I don’t exactly welcome trouble, but sometimes it has a way of walking right on in and pulling up a chair. Even though I never felt that my life was interesting, particularly, things have a way of happening.
“No,” I told her. “Not exactly like that time, or at least I hope not.” I dropped the papers that were in my hand back into the box, turned to her. Her eyes met mine.
My woman is a looker. Reddish blonde hair and green eyes. She’s sexy in an almost feline way. She would have made a good Cat-Woman in the old Batman serials.
We hugged. Kissed. She pulled away. The instant she did I reached for the papers again.
“These don’t look like nice guys,” she said after a moment. I glanced over. She had a photo in her hand. It was blurry and old. A black-and-white. I hadn’t looked at it yet, so I pulled her hand over where I could get a better look.
“No,” I said. “They don’t.”
It was a picture of Dick Sawyer in his younger days, probably late teens, early twenties or so, and he stood next to the senior Sawyer (I never could remember his name). There were some other guys posing with them, looking like a gaggle of goons just in from a lynching, with knowing, smirkish smiles and slitted eyes. And in the center, squatted down and looking straight up at the camera, a cheesy grin on his face and his already balding head shining in the sun, was Emil Howell, Norman’s father. I flipped the photo over. On the back was written “The Posse” in black ink.
“Hmm,” Julie said. “Wonder what that means.”
“I think it means they’re not very nice at all,” I said.
*****
I’ve been known to make a good many mistakes. Show me one person who doesn’t. My first mistake was taking the time to sleep on it.
I woke up to a ringing phone. I hate it when that happens.
“Hullo,” I managed to croak out.
“Mr. Travis? Bill Travis?”
“Yeah,” I told him, whoever the hell it was. I looked over at Julie, who was out like a light. I wished I could sleep like she did. Earthquake, flood, tornado. Nothing could reach her.
“Bill. You need to drop it.”
Drop what? I thought. “Who says?” I asked instead. I wasn’t awake yet enough to know what the caller was talking about. The one thing I did recognize was that he had an accent, like he might have come from my home town back in East Texas.
“Just leave the Governor alone, stop pokin’ around, and everybody can rest easy.”
A chill went through me. I was suddenly completely awake.
“Who is this?”
“Look, Travis. This ain’t the movies. You just get the one warning. People that stick their nose in where it don’t belong are called ‘meddlers.’ It can be a capital offense.”
“Hey, wait just a damned — ”
Click!
Julie’s leg moved under the covers. Still asleep.
If you’ve ever drunk a really cold glass of water too fast on a really hot day, you would know how I felt.
Sawyer knew.
*****
I didn’t trust my phone. I was sure it was bugged. Probably my office phone was bugged too. Cell phone? Forget it.
“Baby,” I told Julie, once she was up on her feet, stretching and yawning. “I need you to go with me down to the office.”
“Oh, yeah?” she said while slipping into her jeans. “Why?”
“Just get dressed, Darlin’. I’m thinking you and your uncle Nat ought to spend a few days out at his ranch.”
“What is it?”
“Nothing,” I said. “Just work.”
I suddenly had her complete attention.
“Don’t bullshit me, Bill. Something’s going on.”
I didn’t know what to say. The one thing I didn’t want to tell her was the truth.
Julie beat me to the punch.
“Those guys in that picture — ‘The Posse.’ One of them’s the Governor.”
“I didn’t think you knew him when you saw him.”
“I’m not an idiot,” she said, and frowned. Even her frowns were cute.
“Okay. I know. You’re not an idiot.”
“So who’s gonna help you? Not Hank Sterling.” Hank was my best friend, but she was right. Hank was at home convalescing from a gunshot wound to the chest. He wouldn’t be going on any adventures. At least not for a good while.
I thought about it for only a second.
“I don’t need any help,” I said.
She turned her head sideways, gave me one of those damned ‘yeah, ri
ght’ looks. Like maybe she thought she knew me or something.
“Well,” she said. “Okay, then. Lemme call Uncle Nat and — ”
“No phones. This is some serious shit, Darlin’. We need to go…now. You ready yet?”
She stood there, and started to put on her bra. Man but I love a woman who puts on her jeans before she puts on her bra.
All the time this was going on I was thinking: How the hell did Sawyer know so fast? So far there were only two people who should know about my ‘meddling,’ other than myself and Julie. Noah McPherson and Milo Unger. I would have to get in touch with both of them. Fast. Before somebody else did, if they hadn’t already.
I buckled my belt, reached down and slipped on my shoes. I’d have to get a new pair soon. When I looked up I saw that Julie was already fully dressed and running a brush through her hair.
“Aren’t you ready yet?” she said, and frowned.
*****
Our first stop on the way to my office was to make sure that Jessica could lengthen her stay at her best friend’s house for at least a few days. I sat in the car watching all directions at once and trying not to look too obtrusive in my watching while Julie ran up, knocked on the front door of the house and exchanged a few words with Linda Thompson, Bailey’s mother. Jessica and Bailey had been best friends ever since her first day at Eanes Middle School. I wasn’t so sure about Bailey. For all her pretty and stylish exterior I pegged her as trouble. Jessica had been caught with cigarettes once, and I had little doubt as to where they’d come from.
Julie was back in the car inside of two minutes and we were rolling once again.
“It’s all settled,” she said. “Jessica’s gonna love a vacation from us.”
“I’ve no doubt,” I said. “Julie. Why don’t you marry me?”
She tossed her hair. “We’ll talk about it. Maybe when all the dust settles. And maybe when you settle down.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.
She just looked at me.
*****
On the way downtown, the morning clear and bright, I watched for a tail in my mirrors. Julie was beside me in my old Mercedes. She wore my new Notre Dame T-shirt. Interesting how she didn’t even ask me, just assumed it was for her so she’d put it on, knowing that I wouldn’t say a word about it. I doubted that she had ever watched a Notre Dame game in her entire life. I looked at her. The T-shirt appeared to be a little tight across her breasts. Maybe she’d washed it first and shrunk it a little, which under the circumstances was all right by me.
No one followed behind, no one was far ahead.
I stopped off at a service station, pumped gas, then ducked inside the station. I asked to use the phone inside for a local call and slid the geeky-looking kid behind the counter a five dollar bill. He tucked it into his jeans without batting an eye. There were no other customers and I didn’t want to use one of the phones up against the building outside. I might be spotted. I assumed that if I was being followed or watched, then my using a payphone could be construed as a little suspicious. As I dialed I kept an eye on Julie out in the car not ten yards away, as well as the rest of the parking lot and the road.
The number I had for Milo Unger didn’t ring. Instead I got those three annoying ascending tones and a recorded message telling me the number I’d called was either disconnected or no longer in service. Great. I was getting a case of the chills again.
I looked up at the kid, who was looking at me as if I’d maybe lost a head-screw or something.
“I’m gonna try one more number, okay?”
He shrugged.
I dialed Noah’s office number from memory, his direct line.
A receptionist came on.
“Hello. May I speak to Noah McPherson?”
“Sir, may I ask who’s calling?”
“This is Lance Armstrong.”
“Just a moment, Mr. Armstrong,” she said. There was a burst of country music. Hank Williams Jr. sang to me about how people always seemed to asked him why he drank, rolled smoke, and tried to live out the songs that he wrote. Before Junior was done the receptionist was back on the phone.
“Sir, I checked. No Noah McPherson works here.”
Silence.
My first notion was to argue with her, to tell her that Noah was the one person that had been working there longer than anybody else, that if he wasn’t working there, the ground would probably open up and swallow the place, and that I knew she’d been told to say he wasn’t there but please cut the crap and patch me on through. But I didn’t say any of it.
From between two upright cigarette displays I could see Julie running her fingers through her long, auburn hair as she waited for me outside in the car. Then it hit me. I’d have to watch what I said until I could get her to safety.
“Sorry,” I said. “Never mind.”
I hung up.
I walked out, climbed into the car, started it up and reached over and ran one hand along Julie’s cheek. I smiled at her and evoked just the hint of a smile back. I noticed that while I was doing that, the chill had settled down into my gut for a lengthy stay.
*****
I parked down the block from my office and fed a couple of quarters into a parking meter. The meter maids were trained to take no prisoners. Julie applied a little bit of lipstick while I looked both directions, carefully. A lot of parked cars, but so far no one sitting inside any of them that I could see. I was pretty certain, though, that somebody would be casing the place, and there was a better than even chance that he’d have a deep East Texas accent, like the one I’d been trying to shuck for the past fifteen or twenty years.
I joined Julie on the sidewalk, slipped an arm around her, and we walked in the opposite direction of the office, poking along and trying not to attract any attention.
We turned left, keeping to the ancient cracked and weather-worn sidewalk, then, beneath the spreading shade of a large cottonwood tree, turned off down the alley parallel to the street at rate of speed roughly approximating a saunter.
I recognized most of the vehicles parked behind their respective offices. From behind, the old houses looked to be just what they were — well-manicured homes from the 1920s and 30s. Well-to-do Austin families from a bygone age had once lived here, raised their kids, and carried on with life. Time had moved on past them. They were all professional offices now.
We halted directly behind the insurance office next door to my office. I walked up and knocked on the back door. No answer. I knocked louder.
After a moment a face appeared. It was Perry Reilly. Perry was an aging yuppie turned independent insurance agent who had a penchant for becoming physically involved with his secretaries. I’d talked to him about it on a memorable day a couple of years back over a heated game of one-on-one basketball at Zilker Park. Some people you can try to help, but they just won’t have it. About six months after our little talk the particular girl I had warned him against had taken him to court. Perry had since been thoroughly and successfully divorced by his wife. I’d had the thought recently that he must live at his office since Jennifer got the house. He ran his business himself and employed a part-time male receptionist and runner. Sometimes it takes a knock on the head to learn anything.
“Hey, Bill. What’cha doin’?”
“Hi, Perry. This is Julie.”
“Nice to meetcha,” he said. I guessed maybe he couldn’t help it, but for just an instant his eyes roved over places on Julie’s body where they had no business.
“Perry, I need to use your phone.”
“Okay. What’s the matter with yours? Forget to pay the bill?” He snickered.
“Something like that.”
“Well come on in.”
Inside it was gloomy. Perry had the shades down and few lights on. That was okay by me.
“Perry,” I said. “Do you think I could use your office for a second? Talk in private?” I looked at him. He looked like he wanted to tag along and meant to. I raised an e
yebrow. “You know, one of those gotta-do-it-now things.”
“Oh. Oh. Not a problem,” he said.
I kept between him and Julie and roving eyes.
At his office door I halted, pulled Julie past me inside his office, smiled to him and said: “Thanks, Old Buddy. I won’t be five minutes.” I closed the door behind us.
I got on the phone and dialed.
“Bierstone and Travis,” Penny’s voice said.
“Penny, this is Bill.”
“Good morning, Mr. Travis. Will you be coming in today?”
“Not exactly. I’ve got some very careful instructions for you.”
“Okay,” she said, a little uncertainty in her voice.
“Good. Go into my office. On the floor under my desk there is a small safe. It’s bolted to the floor.”
“I’ve seen it.”
I gave her the combination. “Open it and grab two stacks of bills. That’s ten thousand dollars. Is Nat Bierstone in?”
“Yessir.”
“Penny, how would you feel about going on a little vacation out to Nat’s ranch? Say for four or five days?”
“When?”
“Now, Penny. Right now.”
“Uh. Is it necessary?”
“It’s life and death and safety and all that stuff.”
“I’ll do it,” she said.
“Good. Tell Nat that I need both of you to get as much stuff together from the office as you’re likely to need, get in Nat’s car and pull around to the back of Perry Reilly’s insurance office next door. Stop for just a moment so that Julie can jump in with you and so that you can hand me one stack of bills. The other is for you guys.”
“Okay. Sir? Is everything going to be all right? Is somebody mad at you?”
I hesitated, looked at Julie.
“Yeah, Penny. Somebody’s upset.”
“Should I ask who?”
I thought about it for a moment. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. Julie will fill you guys in on it during the trip. Later, I’ll call.”