Winning Texas

by Nancy Stancill

  He returned to the kitchen, brought out the bottle of scotch and poured more into the heavy tumblers.

  “I don’t usually like scotch, but this stuff just slides down your throat,” she said.

  “Thanks. I bought it on the Isle of Skye, off the Scotland coast,” he said. “I went there by myself a few months ago and spent a week walking, reading and thinking about life.”

  “Why’d you choose the Isle of Skye?”

  “My mom’s family emigrated from there way back when,” he said. “I always wanted to see it.”

  She was intrigued with their conversation. He’d surprised her all evening, showing a reflective side she’d never seen. Now he caught her off guard again, leaning over her chair and kissing her lightly on the lips. She kissed him back and after a while, he led her inside to his bed.

  A few hours later, she woke and wondered briefly where she was. She heard Matt’s even breathing and tried, but failed, to go back to sleep. She’d always found it difficult to actually sleep with someone she’d had sex with for the first time. It always felt suffocating. She’d rather digest the experience alone, without the laden expectations sex inevitably carried on the morning after. As he slept soundly, she got up quietly, put on her clothes and wrote a note to leave on his bedside table.

  It was close to 2 a.m. as she drove her Camry along the flat, lighted and mostly empty streets from Montrose to the Heights. She was glad she didn’t have to worry about getting on a freeway, that she could just glide along, lost in thought. Suddenly, she sensed a dark SUV following a little too closely for her comfort. She looked back a few times, but couldn’t see inside the tinted windows. She pulled off in the parking lot of an all-night service station and the big vehicle kept barreling along the street. Shaken, she waited a few moments before getting back on the road and driving the mile or so home. Thankfully, she didn’t see the SUV again. She parked in the driveway, let herself into her bungalow, threw off her clothes and fell asleep.

  She slept later the next morning and dawdled over breakfast, thinking about her evening with Matt. It was almost 9 a.m. when she walked out her back door, opened the patio gate and saw her Camry parked in the narrow driveway. She uttered a low moan. Someone had slashed all four of her tires and dumped the contents of her trash containers all over her car. She’d been followed, as she’d suspected, but she thought she’d shaken off the tail. Who had it been and why did someone want to hurt her?

  CHAPTER 9

  Juliana Souza kissed Kyle Krause goodbye at the door of the three-story condominium they shared in southwest Houston. Located in a fashionable area on the Westside, the street consisted of rows of similar-looking condos with balconies, two-car garages and minuscule patios in the back. She didn’t much like his place, but it was convenient for Kyle and he wouldn’t hear of moving. She favored the multi-million-dollar Memorial area a few miles away with its mid-century spacious homes on large, pine-shrouded lots. Memorial offered a shaded retreat that felt respectable and established. But he liked his kitted-out third floor gym, the incurious neighbors and the anonymity that went with condo land, as she thought of it. However, since she was clearing excellent profits at the clandestine venture in the Hill Country, he’d given in to her desire to buy a beach house on Galveston Island, about forty-five miles southeast of Houston. She wanted a hideaway where they could relax and enjoy a romantic weekend once in a while.

  Their kiss was perfunctory, as was his goodbye on this sun-soaked Saturday. He was headed out for a business trip and had no interest in checking out real estate on the island with her. She dreaded his road trips, always suspecting they came with nights fueled by plentiful drugs and pliant women.

  “Jules, you can buy anything you want, as long as you stick to the budget we’ve agreed to and pay cash,” he’d said. “You don’t need me along. Lila Jo Lemmons is a pro and she’ll know how to handle everything.”

  Juliana hadn’t met Lila Jo, but knew that the real estate broker had sold Kyle his condo a few years ago. He’d liked her for finding what he wanted quickly and quietly, and carrying out his instructions without asking unnecessary questions.

  “Okay, but you’d better be prepared to like it.” She heard the unattractive edge in her voice and hastened to sound more agreeable. “Be careful driving to San Antonio and don’t run over any of those hideous creatures.”

  She succeeded in getting a laugh out of him. She’d been horrified the first time she’d seen a dead armadillo, feet up and scaly shell glistening in the sun. He referred to them, as other natives often did, as Texas speed bumps. They weren’t quite fast enough, or smart enough, to avoid mortal injury while crossing the state’s highways. But she was superstitious about killing them and wondered why they were so creepily drawn to their certain death on the roads.

  She stood there a moment flooded with mixed feelings, annoyed that he’d left, but anticipating a satisfying day without having to please him. Juliana loved looking at real estate and she’d sold high-end beach houses in Brazil for a time before she joined Kyle in Texas. She still checked out the online Brazilian listings for fun. But she hadn’t wanted to study to get a real estate license in Houston and be forced to deal with Texans who had the money, but not the rarified taste of her customers in Brazil. She also liked flying under the radar and didn’t want to call attention to her immigration status, which was unsettled at the moment. She was angry with Kyle about that, too.

  She saw a battered red Mercedes hurtling down the street and figured that it must either be Lila Jo or a crazy teenager seeing how much speed he could get away with in his dad’s old car.

  The car stopped on the street in front of their condo and a middle-aged woman jumped out and waved vigorously. Lila Jo had the look of a housewife who’d ceased caring about her appearance and did just enough to pass muster in public. She had messy hair, overdone makeup and wore faded black jeans and a white T-shirt, which she attempted to gussy up with a flowing tropical print jacket. Her sandals were glorified flip-flops. Juliana, who prided herself on her put-together designer ensembles, had chosen white ankle pants with a lacy camisole and an electric blue blazer.

  “Juliana, right?” Lila Jo said brightly. “Honey, we’re going to have a good time today. Hop in and let’s get going.”

  Lila Jo kept up a constant happy patter as she expertly navigated out of Houston to the Gulf Freeway heading southeast. Juliana thought the scenery outside the window spotlighted the ugly side of Houston, flat and featureless, except for junky, dated commercial areas. They passed the tired-looking Baybrook Mall and signs to Clear Lake, where extensive NASA operations and facilities had put Houston on the map decades ago. Clear Lake City was nice enough, she thought, but most of the other suburbs on the Eastside consisted of blue-collar housing close to refineries, beat-up stores and bars. The only time the area exhibited its own spooky charm was at night, when the big refineries were lit up as festively as Christmas trees.

  Finally, they reached the bridge that heralded their entrance onto Galveston Island and Juliana’s spirits rose at the sight of the open water. She’d only been to Galveston a couple of times and wasn’t overwhelmed by its beauty, but she longed for access to a beach again. Since she’d grown up on Brazil’s Copacabana Beach, she’d missed the Atlantic Ocean with a longing she couldn’t quite explain to Kyle. Galveston’s Gulf of Mexico beach wasn’t nearly as attractive as coastal beaches on the ocean, but she was willing to give it a chance.

  They drove down Broadway, the six-lane road that bisected the island, past Victorian houses and the old Bishop’s Palace residence, now a museum. Juliana remembered what first attracted her to Galveston, the wide, colorful median planted in long rows of deep pink Oleander bushes. They looked so perky and festive, making up for the occasional slatternly convenience store or gas station perched between the
majestic old houses. Lila Jo told her the island’s population of about 50,000 included poverty-level old-timers and working-class families interspersed with affluent Houston residents seeking a weekend escape or retirement lifestyle. It definitely could use more gentrifying.

  Lila Jo drove down the old commercial area called The Strand, which Juliana remembered that she’d strolled along during the past Christmas season, when she and Kyle had gone to a faux-Victorian festival called Dickens on the Strand. The older buildings housed a decent number of upscale shops and businesses. But she was eager to get on with the house hunting.

  “Why don’t we get a bite to eat at Gaido’s and look at the listings I printed out?” Lila Jo said. She turned right to the Seawall area and soon they were sitting in the venerable restaurant looking across the plate-glass window at a view of the Gulf.

  They ordered shrimp salads and Lila Jo continued to talk nonstop, this time about Galveston and its luckless history. Pirate Jean Lafitte haunted the island in 1817 and just after the Civil War, about 1,800 died in an outbreak of Yellow Fever. But that was just a prelude to the terrifying number of casualties the island suffered in the great hurricane of 1900.

  “The Galveston hurricane killed between 6,000 and 8,000 people – still the biggest natural disaster in the United States,” she said with a certain relish Juliana noticed when Texans gloried in the awfulness of Texas. “Historians say that the drowned bodies just kept surfacing and floating back after the city flooded. Absolutely ghastly.”

  Juliana felt nauseous and put down her forkful of shrimp salad. “Lila Jo, can we talk about the listings?” she said.

  “Oh honey, I’m sorry,” Lila Jo said. “I was just getting to the happy ending. The Seawall was built after the great hurricane. It’s seventeen feet high and runs for ten miles. Now the island mostly doesn’t flood.”

  Juliana didn’t want to consider the implications of the “mostly” caveat when she was determined to buy a beach house, so she changed the subject. “Did you meet Kyle when you became his real estate agent?”

  “No, we met long before that, when he played poker,” Lila Jo said. “He doesn’t play any more, but he recognized the potential early on. We’re sort of partners now. He gives me seed money and I set up games around town. I guess you’re the reason he stopped playing.”

  “We’re very busy with our businesses,” Juliana said. “He works a lot at night, visiting our clubs.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Lila Jo said. “I told him he should buy a condo before prices went up the last time. He listened to me and I found him that awesome place you’re in now.”

  “It’s very nice,” Juliana said. “But I love the water, so I’d like to be here on the weekends.”

  “Does Kyle want to spend his weekends here?”

  “Not as much as I do,” Juliana said. To her horror, tears began to leak from her eyes and suddenly she was sobbing. She muffled her sobs into a tissue and wiped her eyes, but not before Lila Jo bobbed up, ran around the table and enveloped her in a hug so tight it took her breath away. She hated the attention Lila Jo’s impulsive gesture was getting from the curious diners, but despite herself, she was grateful for the woman’s sympathy.

  “What’s the matter, sweetie? A pretty lady like you shouldn’t have any reason to boohoo,” Lila Jo said, returning to her seat.

  “I came from Brazil five years ago to marry Kyle, but he keeps putting it off,” Juliana said in a tremulous voice. “Now my parents and sisters and cousins are all laughing at me. They say I should come back to Brazil and find a good man. And he has other women sometimes. I can feel it.”

  “Well, he does seem to have an eye for the ladies,” Lila Jo said. “But I don’t have to tell you that all men stink like polecats. I left my husband when I found him screwing the twenty-year-old tart doing the filing at his office. We’re not divorced yet, but I’m holding that over his head until our settlement, believe me.”

  Juliana nodded, still embarrassed that she’d shown her emotions in public.

  “The thing, Julie Girl, is to bide your time till you can get even,” Lila Jo said, pointing her magenta-colored fingernail theatrically. “Now let’s look at these listings. I’d suggest something at the higher end. Make that boy pay.”

  Juliana and Lila Jo looked at five listings on the island’s fancier West End that were adequate, if not spectacular. Then, prompted by Lila Jo’s additional iPhone search, they looked at four others that were more elaborate. Juliana agreed with the real estate broker that a four-bedroom, four-bath house facing the Gulf with a pool and spacious grilling deck was the best. By the time they left the island, close to dusk, Lila Jo had put a contract on the half-million-dollar beach house. It was about 20 percent more than the upper end of the budget Kyle had suggested, but Juliana, egged on by Lila Jo, decided that she deserved it.

  CHAPTER 10

  Kyle Krause careened down Interstate 35 toward Laredo, giddy at the thought of being on his own for a precious few days. Juliana had been impossibly crabby for weeks and it would do her good to look at weekend houses in Galveston with the perpetually upbeat Lila Jo Lemmons. Maybe she’d catch some of Lila Jo’s happy spirit. It wouldn’t do their finances any good if the real estate agent found something Juliana wanted to buy, but that was another story.

  Krause was using a low-key gray SUV for this trip because he was picking up three Salvadoran immigrant women and ferrying them to the ranch in the Hill Country. It was an onerous chore, but his good deed for Juliana might cancel out the bad behavior he was planning at the end of the trip. He missed driving his Porsche, not the least for the envious glances it drew from male motorists and admiring looks from female drivers and passengers.

  He’d left early enough so that with luck, he’d make it to the ranch of his friend Spud Jarvis by late afternoon. The three Salvadorans were temporarily housed there, so he’d spend the night with Spud and his wife Daria before leaving for the Hill Country with the women. After dropping them off at Krause Ranch, he’d swing over to San Antonio where he was looking forward to a layover at his business, the Texas Gas Emporium. Bonita Vasquez, a manager at the gigantic travel mart, was also his lover. But he wouldn’t see her until tomorrow night, so his mind flicked past her and on to nagging worries.

  He mostly kept out of Juliana’s secret business, though he’d given her the go-ahead to base her operations at the ranch they’d bought three years ago. She was devoted to the clandestine enterprise but he wasn’t enthusiastic about it. He’d rather focus his energies on expanding his topless empire and avoiding unnecessary risks. Juliana had argued that her family had made big money from a similar business in Brazil, so as usual, she got her way.

  Like many self-made Texans, he’d wanted a ranch to prove to himself and the business world that he’d arrived. But once he’d acquired the Hill Country property, he wasn’t sure what to do with it. So using it for her business made sense, at least for a while. The massive ranch, fenced in and located in a fairly remote area, would increase in value and could be used for a number of purposes. If he and Juliana didn’t fancy it as a weekend getaway, they could turn it into a dude ranch, or raise emus, ostriches or even something as prosaic as cattle.

  His thoughts drifted to other Hill Country interests. He’d recently invested in the fledgling campaign to create a German Texas after his childhood friend, Sam Wurzbach, had sold him on the plan. Sam had kept up with him after he left the Hill Country for Houston’s more lucrative business climate. Krause appreciated that Sam retained old friends, even one who’d excelled in the strip club business. Krause guessed that Sam knew he’d be interested in his concept of German Texas because he knew the truth about Krause’s origins.

  Krause’s grandfather, a low-level leader in Hitler’s Nazi regime, had been smart enough to flee t
o Brazil at the frenzied end of World War II. Juliana’s wealthy grandparents, along with several other right-wing Brazilian families, had helped Rudolf Krause conceal his identity. Rudolf’s son, Frederic, was ashamed of the family roots, wanting a fresh start in the United States. Frederic started a produce farm in the Hill Country, but soon ran it into the ground. He killed himself, leaving his wife and two young sons nearly destitute. Kyle Krause’s success had helped to preserve the small farm for his mother and brother.

  Krause liked Sam’s German-Texas quest partly because he wanted to reclaim the German heritage his father had tried to escape. He had no love for Nazis or any use for the Old Country, but he’d always felt at home with the German-Texas flavor of the Hill Country. And he’d quite liked his pirate of a grandfather, who’d died a decade ago. Krause couldn’t find it in his heart to condemn the old man for something he’d gotten caught up with in his youth. Besides, the concept of German Texas made a lot of entrepreneurial sense. Krause could see himself expanding his strip club empire there, especially if he helped set up more lenient rules.

  He shifted mental gears, relaxing in the freedom of the road, even this pallid stretch of interstate with its predictable scenery. On a clear, bright day, the heat shimmered in ribbons on the asphalt as he flew past low-lying brush. He turned up the air-conditioning, though he’d dressed for the weather in cargo shorts, a threadbare T-shirt and a Texas Girls cap pushing back the hair he hadn’t bothered to style. He played his favorite country music CDs, Brad Paisley and other crooning pseudo-cowboys as loud as he wanted, since Juliana wasn’t around to criticize his taste. She never could get into country music, preferring Brazilian and American pop, which he hated.