Dinero Del Mar (The Drifter Detective Book 5)

by Garnett Elliott

  Jack rubbed his knuckles. "Wasn't much of a fight."

  "I'm not a 'nancy,' by the way. You're making a number of assumptions based on my appearance."

  "I suppose I am. But hell, this is Texas. You've got to try and fit in."

  "Believe me, if I was wearing a cowboy hat and jeans I'd stick out even more." He made a sort of bow, in lieu of a handshake. "I'm Phil. Phil Cisneros."

  "Jack Laramie."

  The trucker-type leaned over Jack's shoulder. "Careful now. He might try to hump your leg."

  "Leave him alone. He's harmless."

  Phil ignored their exchange. "Are you a local, Mr. Laramie? I haven't seen you around before."

  "Nah. I drift from town to town, chasing cases."

  "'Cases'?"

  "I'm a private detective." Jack looked down at his boots. Or I was, anyways.

  "How'd you end up in here?"

  "Vagrancy charge. Didn't have enough money in my pocket. You?"

  "Drunk and disorderly, I think," Phil said. He checked his watch, a gold LeCoultre. "Not that it's going to matter very much."

  Twenty minutes later Jack found out what he meant. A distinguished looking man wearing a dark double-breasted showed up. He carried a valise tucked under one arm, and the cop on duty eyed him like he had horns and a tail.

  "Mr. Cisneros, your lawyer's here."

  The cell's occupants, Jack included, watched with a mixture of envy and disdain as the rich man was sprung. Once out of the tank, Phil leaned close and whispered something to his shyster. Double-breasted cleared his throat. "A moment, officer," he said, in a rich Oklahoma drawl. "I understand a business associate of my client has been wrongfully detained on a vagrancy charge."

  The cop looked weary all of a sudden. "Which one?"

  "A Mr. Jack Laramie. He is gainfully employed by my client, and therefore not a vagrant."

  "Hold on a minute, hoss. Let me run that by the lieutenant."

  When the cop returned, his shoulders sagged. "Mr. Laramie, you're free to go."

  Mutters. The sailor made a finger-across-the-throat gesture as Jack shoved his way out of the cell.

  "You just try it, baldy," Jack said. "But do me a favor and don't eat right before, okay?"

  * * *

  Outside the police station, Phil Cisneros removed a sheaf of twenties from his money clip and handed it to Jack. "Your retainer." He didn't make any specifications about the job, and Jack, not in a mood to turn down work, didn't ask. Instead, Phil recommended a local hotel. "I'll pick you up sometime in the morning, before noon." He went swaying off, occasionally leaning on his attorney, who helped him into a black Lincoln. Jack got the feeling they had reenacted this scene many times before.

  He went back inside and spoke with the night clerk as to the disposition of his DeSoto and trailer. Parked in a nearby lot, it turned out. Already downtown, Jack drove for five blocks until he found the hotel Phil had recommended, a stately old place with marble and ferns in the lobby. He got a room on the third floor. After a long shower, he climbed into bed. At around 2 a.m., he woke to jazz music coming from a party somewhere below his room, but the horns lulled him back to sleep. A familiar nightmare about Stalag Luft Three woke him again just before dawn. They'd been coming less and less with time. Acutely awake, he smoked Luckies and stared at the ceiling until grayness came flooding in behind the curtains.

  At seven he called down to room service, ordering a huge breakfast as was his wont when flush. A tray of eggs swimming in béarnaise, homemade sausage, fried potatoes with onions, and buttered grits put a dent in his appetite. The bellboy, prompted by a generous tip, laced his second pot of coffee with Irish whiskey. Jack sipped and wondered idly how his cellmates were doing.

  He rose, showered again, shaved, and put on the charcoal blazer he reserved for important clients. The lobby had several fresh copies of The Corpus Christi Caller. He sat down in a fine oak chair from the turn of the century and read, his cigarettes making a blue-white wreath among the sunbeams slanting through the window.

  At around eleven, a frayed looking Phil Cisneros came into the lobby dressed in the same rumpled linen from the night before. He settled Jack's bill with the front desk. Jack slipped the clerk an extra five bucks to overlook the trailer parked in their prestigious lot, and followed Phil outside.

  "Have you ever been to Padre Island?" Phil asked, waving Jack toward a silver Jaguar coupe.

  "I've been to Port Isabel, down south. Far as I got. It's a tourist trap, isn't it?"

  "For the most part."

  Phil started the engine after they climbed in, coaxing a cultivated roar. He took out a hip-flask and drank deep, then offered it to Jack, who, on principle, never refused free alcohol. But instead of the hard stuff, he got a jolt of sweet fortified wine. Wiping his lips, he handed the flask back without comment.

  They drove south, and got on the expressway. The weather was pulling its usual Texas quick-change: an overcast front came marching in from the Gulf. Jack caught a whiff of ozone mixed with saltwater. "I suppose this is as good a time as any to tell you. My detective license was suspended a week ago. I ran into this mess down in Harlingen …"

  "That won't be an issue. The job I have in mind is unorthodox."

  Jack felt the rich béarnaise sauce threaten to curdle. "Don't tell me it's something illegal."

  "You don't strike me as someone who balks at legalities."

  "I mind the law when it suits me."

  Phil's lips turned a faint smile. "It's nothing too terrible."

  The still waters of the bay appeared on their left, then their right, dark and gleaming like a dirty nickel beneath the clouds. Ahead, the cement causeway connecting Corpus with Padre Island rose in a gentle arc.

  "What did that bum back in the cell mean, about your mother liking modern art?"

  "It's perhaps easier if I showed you rather than try to explain everything. Suffice to say, my mother is a wealthy oil widow, and her money's part of the problem."

  They topped the causeway. From their vantage Padre Island looked like a giant mud-flat, lined with green. The larger waters of the Gulf remained obscured. To either side, skeletal old docks and rotting pilings jutted from the bay. A tourist barge hauled a cargo of fishermen in rain slicks. When the coupe reached the causeway's end minutes later, a rusting sign informed them they were on the Island proper. Jack still couldn't see the open waters. They passed a line of palm trees, a bar, and a modern motel with a swimming pool.

  "Where's the goddamn beach?" Jack said. "On every map I've ever seen, Padre's just a skinny spit of sand."

  "It's wider than it appears on this end. But here's the access road, coming up."

  Phil took a right. Tall grass gave way to dunes, spilling little rivulets of sand across the pavement. The salt-smell grew thick, and the coupe broke into a flat stretch with nothing but Gulf rolling away to their left. The sky was a gray smear, suspended above waves of tarnished silver. Now that they were parallel to the waterfront, a cross-wind blew through the open cab, mussing Phil's hair and threatening to blow off Jack's Stetson. He grabbed the brim and held on.

  "Not much further," Phil said. His mouth had gone taut, like he was contemplating old memories. Unpleasant ones.

  Jack peered through the windshield. A combination of sea spray and low-lying clouds had formed a mist, obscuring the view of the dunes ahead. But he made out tall pilings that must be part of a dock. Another minute, and a four-storied tower resolved from the murk. He thought it might be a lighthouse, though there was no revolving light atop, and the upper story had toothy projections like a castle. The tower was set back a respectable distance from the water.

  "Built by the Spanish," Phil said. "For protection against Karankawa Indians—cannibals, or so I've been told."

  The mists retreated, thinned, and now an elaborate manor revealed itself, constructed around and attached to the much older stone tower. Jack recalled seeing similar mansions in Galveston. A combination of Spanish and antebellum inf
luences, it had two turrets, an arched colonnade, several chimney pots, and expansive plate glass windows. Red tile blanketed the roof. The manor's appearance among otherwise desolate space had a jarring effect. Jack kept his eyes steadied, as if the whole structure might disappear when he blinked. It didn't.

  "How many hurricanes has that thing been through?" he said.

  "Countless. It can be shuttered up like a fortress, if necessary."

  Phil guided the coupe onto a driveway of crushed shells, toward a detached garage that had probably been a carriage house in its previous incarnation. A colorful assortment of vehicles jammed the interior. Phil slipped in between a jeep with balloon-like tires and a Studebaker from the '30s, afflicted with leprous rust. Just as he killed the engine, a squall came blowing in and made the roof creak.

  Jack shimmied out. He'd been dying for a smoke the whole drive, but figured either wind or rain would cause complications. Phil declined a proffered Lucky, so Jack puffed alone.

  "You've been tightlipped so far," Jack said, "but I'm not going in there until you tell me what I'm being hired for. I got burned on my last case."

  "Alright. I thought maybe I'd get your impressions first, but …"

  "Go on."

  "My mother's wealth attracts leeches. She's both gullible and paranoid, if such a thing is possible. There's a particular leech—a Mr. Lucas—who's attached himself. He was originally hired to lay tile in an expansion of the house, but my mother has since put him to other uses."

  "A lover?"

  Phil flushed. "Ma Cisneros is … an earthy woman."

  "Many rich widows are. What's the harm in putting the help to stud?"

  "I think Lucas is stealing from her, for one thing, though I've been unable to prove it myself. For another, she just had her will rewritten with him as a beneficiary."

  "Less for you, huh?"

  "And my sister. I don't want to seem greedy, Mr. Laramie, but my mother has not been in her right mind, lately. Very flighty. Given to bizarre impressions. With Lucas gone, she might have the chance to see things more clearly."

  "And you want me to make him leave?"

  "Convince him. Throw him out, physically. Threaten and cajole. I don't care how you do it, as long as he vacates."

  Jack hooked a thumb toward the manor. "I take it this is your mother's property. She'd probably object to you hiring a private detective, if she had the least notion why."

  "That's the 'unorthodox' part. I'm not going to tell her you're a detective."

  "Ah."

  "I'm going to tell her you're the new tile man."

  "Except I've never laid tile in my life."

  "It doesn't matter." Phil put a hand on Jack's shoulder and nudged him toward the colonnade. "All that matters is whether she likes you."

  * * *

  The manor's front door had been left open, and Jack and Phil followed the skunky smell of reefer into a grand living room, where a party was underway. Correction: the aftermath of a party. Several young men and women lay sprawled on settees arranged around a low table. Atop the table stood a rectangle of modeling clay, half-squeezed and formed into a manlike shape, and then, apparently, abandoned. Bottles of top shelf gin, cigarette trays brimming with ash, lipstick smudged tumblers, and a three-foot glass hookah gave evidence of what the sculpture may have been abandoned for. Most of the revelers were asleep, but a couple still stared out with red-rimmed, insensate eyes.

  "Well," Phil said, "they kept their clothes on this time, at least."

  A woman in a black blouse and black jodhpur pants with pink slippers sashayed into the room. She smiled at Phil and Jack, showing discolored teeth. "Phil, have you seen Texas Charlie come through here?"

  "I can't say that I have."

  "He was just—wait, there he is."

  A pointy snout poked from behind a settee. The beaded eyes of an armadillo followed, and when it saw the jodhpur woman, it turned and scurried from the room, trailing a leash. She bolted after.

  "Is this the 'bohemian lifestyle' I keep reading about?" Jack said.

  "These are my mother's guests. They're all artists, she assures me." Phil glanced at his LeCoultre. "If we hurry, we might get an audience with her before sundown."

  He led Jack up a marble staircase with a brass balustrade. Rain spattered against a diamond-paned window on the second floor. Another flight, and they reached a polished oak landing that had been turned into a waiting room. Two people sat on narrow chairs carved in the Spanish style. Jack pegged the first as a lawyerly type, not as well dressed as the Oklahoman from the night before, but clutching a similar valise across his knees. The second was a dusky-skinned Carib woman, older, wearing an embroidered dress and gold hoop earrings that nearly touched her shoulders. She ignored Phil and stared straight at Jack. Her eyes were dark amber flecked with gold, and Jack found he could only meet them for a moment before looking away.

  "I was here first," said the attorney, half-rising from the chair. "Let's not have any nepotism. I have a busy schedule today."

  "Family trumps business," Phil said.

  "Your mother's revising her will. She's requested—"

  "I'm sure she has." Phil walked by the pair and shouldered a large paneled door. It opened onto a vestibule, dominated by a gilt-framed portrait. Curtains of black gauze obscured the figure in the painting. Beyond, light flooded a master bedroom the size of a tennis court, with a four post bed pushed in one corner.

  "Emmett?" called a woman's voice. "I told you I wouldn't be ready until my consultation's finished."

  "It's me, Ma," Phil said.

  "Oh? Bit of trouble last night, I hear. Do you need an advance on your allowance?"

  Phil grimaced. "No, Ma. I brought someone here to meet you. Replacement for Mr. Lucas's old job."

  "Well, show him in. I'm quite decent, I assure you."

  Phil took Jack by the elbow and guided him into the room. The light was spilling from a turret of windows overlooking the Gulf. On a sunny day, it must have been breathtaking. Now, with a leaden glow pouring in, the waves heaving in the distance, it just felt bleak. A woman in a red kimono stood with her back to them, facing the windows. She wore a straw hat, and silver-tinged black hair flowed from beneath it past her waist. She, and the pale-skinned man standing nearby, were both hunched over a wooden frame.

  "Ma?"

  The woman turned in profile. She was Anglo, Jack saw, which accounted for half of Phil's features. A very well-preserved early seventies. Her eyebrow went up, and she turned all the way around. Her gaze did a one-two from Jack's face to his crotch, lingered a bit on his hands, and traveled up to his shoulders.

  "Ma, this is Jack Laramie."

  She nodded, once, and turned back to the frame. Jack could see now it was an easel with a blank canvas attached.

  "She likes you," Phil whispered, giving Jack's elbow a jog.

  "You could tell from all that, huh?"

  The pale man was talking. He had a high forehead and a German accent, which to Jack's experienced ears sounded affected. Every now and then he would gesture at the canvas, then gesture out at the view beyond the window. His voice shook with un-Teutonic passion.

  "Is that Lucas?" Jack whispered.

  "That's Mr. Dessau. He's a non-representational artist, originally trained in the German impressionistic school."

  "I bet you a dollar his real name is 'Jones' or 'Smith,' late of Iowa."

  Phil shrugged. "It's entirely possible."

  Ma Cisneros must've heard them, because her head tilted back around. "Something else you want, Phil?"

  "I was just wondering when the Great Work was going to happen."

  "I'm still blocked." She glanced at Dessau as if for reassurance. "But it's coming—I can feel it. My creative mind is like a dam, and any moment the deluge is going to break through."

  "She's very close," Dessau said, nodding.

  Ma snatched up a charcoal pencil and peered at the canvas. After a minute, she put it down with a sigh. "I'm thinking
we'll show the piece at The Modern in Fort Worth. It's the only one with appropriate lighting. Also, I've picked out the perfect frame."

  "The Modern." Dessau nodded some more. "Yes."

  Phil rolled his eyes as he walked away. Back in the vestibule, Jack snuck a peek at the oil portrait beneath the gauze; a Spanish gentleman, mustachioed and handsome, looking ready to thrust a saber through anyone who gave him guff. The late Mr. Cisneros, presumably.

  "All done, Emmett," Phil told the lawyer in the waiting room. "See? I didn't take long."

  Emmett rose from his chair. "Is your mother ready to see me now?"

  "She's still painting, in the figurative sense. I'd say you have another hour to go. Two at the most."

  Emmett groaned. Jack made a point of not looking at the Carib woman as he passed by her chair. One landing down, out of earshot, Phil took him aside. "Well? What do you think?"

  "I think you've got a real kook-house, here."

  "But you'll take the case?"

  Jack had never been crazy about working for the high-dollar crowd. They were quick to sue, and often tighter with their money than the humblest sharecropper. But without a license, he didn't see many options. Aside from picking cotton or rough-necking on a well, that is.

  "I'll take the case."

  * * *

  Phil had a servant drive Jack to the mainland, where he picked up the DeSoto and trailer, bought a pair of denim coveralls, and drove back to the Cisneros estate. Phil showed him his quarters: a narrow room on the ground floor, just wide enough for a single bed.

  "Mr. Lucas already purchased a number of tools," he told Jack.

  "Where's these tiles I'm supposed to lay?"

  "I'll show you."

  Phil led him to a patio that had recently been enclosed with fresh timber and brick. Stacks of red Salteco tile, still on the pallet, bags of unmixed mortar, sand, and a gasoline-powered saw lay strewn about. From the looks of it, Lucas had finished a quarter of the floor before being called away on other duties.

  "I suppose I can go through the motions," Jack said, leaning over the saw to inspect the blade. "When do I get a chance to put eyes on Mr. Lucas?"