Winning Texas

by Nancy Stancill

“She’s not a bad reporter,” Annie said. “When she’s not worrying about her hair or her manicure, she can turn out a halfway decent story.”

  “Meow, Annie,” Greg smiled. “That’s the cattiest thing I’ve ever heard from you.”

  “Guess I have my reasons,” Annie said.

  “We’ll need to think about this,” he said. “Obviously, we don’t have the money to replace her, but since you’ll be down to three reporters to supervise, we may have to change your job description.”

  “Are you trying to tell me my position’s at risk?” Annie said.

  “You know as well as I do that we’re all at risk. I hope you’ll have a job here as long as you want,” Greg said. “But you’ll need to take on some reporting responsibility, as well as supervising the three reporters.”

  Annie looked at Greg for a moment, thinking. Her lips curved into her first genuine smile of the day.

  “Promise?”

  CHAPTER 14

  Annie poured herself a glass of chardonnay. She needed a drink, and after her day, she deserved one. But just one, she said to herself, putting the cork back into the bottle and easing it to the back of the refrigerator, hiding it behind the milk carton. She no longer kept screw-top wine around because it was too easy to open and polish off the whole bottle.

  She scooped out a can of smelly cat food for Marbles and Benjy, who thumped across the hardwood floors like baby mountain lions. She enjoyed watching them gobble their food while she sipped her wine. Her cats were good therapy after a tense day. Her parents were not, but she decided to call them anyway. Her father answered at their home in Blacksburg, Virginia.

  “Dad, are you there by yourself?”

  “Yeah, your mother’s gone shopping. What’s going on with you?”

  “How’s your column going?” Jeffrey Price, who’d retired five years ago, confined his journalistic efforts to a twice-a-week column for the Blacksburg Sun, the newspaper he once ran for a rapacious chain. Even though the newspaper business had changed drastically since he’d left it, he was the person she turned to for advice. She admired his passion for improving his community.

  “Just wrote a pretty good one for Sunday on pollution in the New River,” he said. “What’s happening in your newsroom?”

  “One of my reporters just quit to go work for a TV station in Austin. Greg wants me to add some reporting to my editing job, since I’m losing someone.”

  “How would that work?” She heard the skepticism in her father’s tone.

  “I’d keep editing my reporters’ stuff, but also team up with them on bigger stories, to deepen the reporting. To tell the truth, I’m excited.”

  “Honey, I know you’ve missed reporting, but can you do justice to essentially two jobs?”

  “Don’t think I’ll have any choice, Dad.”

  “I don’t want you to overwork,” Price said. “You need balance to stay healthy.”

  Annie knew that her father was obliquely expressing worry about her tendency to stress out and drink too much. She’d confided in him about her periodic efforts to cut back on alcohol and he kept that information confidential.

  “Don’t worry about me. I’m doing fine,” she said. “Reporting will get me out of the office, which will be great.”

  She spent another ten minutes talking about her brother and sister and their children and her mother. She hung up the phone, took another gulp of wine and tried to quiet her racing mind. Her doorbell’s retro chime startled her.

  Who’d be ringing her doorbell at 8 p.m.? Her 1920s Heights neighborhood, still a little raw around its edges, was pretty safe, but occasionally things happened. She went to the craftsman-style door and peered through its four decorative panes at the top.

  She was shocked to recognize the handsome, white-blond head of Tom Marr. What would bring this West Texan – cattle rancher, disgraced secessionist candidate for governor and almost-boyfriend – to her front door? She hadn’t seen him for four years.

  She opened the door and he reached out to her, holding her tight against his tall torso. She basked in the thrill of his long arms, solid chest and clean Ivory-soap smell for a delicious half-minute before she broke away.

  “Tom,” she said. “What’re you doing here?”

  He smiled, but his face looked drawn, as if he’d been driving a lot and sleeping little.

  “Annie, can I come in a minute to explain?”

  “Sure.” She peered out in the dark and saw an SUV parked on the street.

  “My driver’s parked out front. He’ll wait while we talk. Is that okay?”

  She stepped aside and he moved into the house with curiosity, surveying her cozy living room with its red and green patterned Indian rug, cherry and maple flea-market finds and tiny fireplace.

  “I’ve never seen your house. Looks like you. Pretty and not so fussy you don’t feel at home. Nice.”

  “Thanks. Want some chardonnay? I just got home a little while ago and afraid I don’t have much to offer in the way of food.” She could use another slug or two of wine herself.

  “No, don’t worry about me. I won’t impose on you long. I’m in Houston to look for Betsy. She’s run away.”

  “Oh my gosh. She’s about fifteen by now, right?”

  “Just turned sixteen, but she thinks she’s twenty-five and unfortunately, looks it,” Marr said. “She’s almost six feet tall, like you, but rounder, with blonde hair and blue eyes.”

  “Hard to believe,” Annie said. “Seems like yesterday she was showing me her American Girl doll collection.”

  “The good old days,” Marr said. She saw tears in his blue eyes.

  “Tell me about it.”

  “She went to see some rock bands in El Paso with a few girlfriends and apparently met a guitar player with a Texas group. Saw him a couple of times on the sly. We think she’s run off with him and could be here in the Houston area.”

  “What can I do?”

  “A friend of mine saw a story on your website about a young woman found in the ship channel…” He stopped, unable to continue. Annie saw his hands quivering. She put a hand on his shoulder.

  “It almost certainly wasn’t Betsy. The police said today that they think the dead girl was from Eastern Europe, probably Albania. How she drowned and ended up in the ship channel, we don’t know yet.”

  Marr’s face lit up several hundred watts. He grinned, grabbed her shoulders and hugged her so hard that she winced in pain. Poor guy. She’d never been a mom, but in the brief time they’d been around each other, she’d felt close to Betsy.

  “Thanks,” he said. “I can breathe again.”

  “It’s okay. Have you hired a detective, talked to the police?”

  “I’ve got friends working on it. To tell the truth, I’m keeping it kind of quiet, hoping I can get her back before the media finds out. Hate to see her harassed again by reporters.”

  “I understand,” she said. “It’s between you and me until you tell me otherwise.”

  He looked at her, touched her cheek softly and walked with her to the edge of the front porch. She liked his gentleness and remembered how gallant he’d been around her. He paused to say goodbye.

  “My driver’s waiting, but can I get back in touch with you about Betsy?”

  Annie hesitated, not sure what to say. She wasn’t sure she trusted him and he could see it.

  “I’m not a secessionist anymore,” he said. “I cut my ties with those folks four years ago. I’m just a plain old cattle rancher now.”

  “I’m glad to hear that, Tom. I’d like to hear from you.”

 
CHAPTER 15

  Betsy Marr heard her cell phone ringing, but she couldn’t place where it was, or where she was, for that matter.

  She opened her eyes, took in the beige motel room and the bearded, sleeping face of her boyfriend, Patrick Costas, lying next to her in bed. Her cell phone rang from her purse that she’d carelessly thrown on the stained carpet.

  She grabbed it just before it stopped ringing. Patrick turned over in bed, murmuring sleepily. She took the phone and padded in bare feet to the bathroom, her naked body shivering in the too-cold air-conditioning. She wrapped a towel around her torso as she tried to focus on the excited tones of Carly Adams, talking in her usual exclamation points.

  “What’s up, Carly? Slow down, girl.”

  “I heard my mom say that your dad went to Houston to search for you,” Betsy heard her friend say. “Just thought you should know.”

  “Does he know Patrick’s name?”

  “I told him I didn’t know his name or which of the bands he played with.”

  “Good girl.”

  “When are you coming back?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t stand being home and arguing with my dad all the time. And I love being with Patrick. You’ll see when you fall in love, Car. It’s awesome.”

  “Wow. He’s gorgeous, for sure. But school starts in a month.”

  “I don’t care. I’m sick of school, sick of Marfa, sick of living on a cow farm in the middle of nowhere.”

  “You can’t stay gone forever.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. Patrick might take me to California. He says he’s going out there soon to make a demo.” She was about to expand on his plans when she heard a voice in the background on the other end of the line.

  “Bets, my mom’s yelling for me to get downstairs for breakfast. Got to get off the phone. Call you back soon.”

  “Later, Car.”

  Betsy looked at herself in the mirror with curiosity. Shouldn’t she look different, now that she’d done it with Patrick? But her thick, tumbled honey-colored hair looked the same and her curvy body wasn’t any different either. She smiled to the mirror, and thought she looked older around the eyes, maybe a little sexier. She’d met Patrick three weeks ago and since then, he’d been all that she could think about. He’d come to Marfa to see her and she’d sneaked him into the guesthouse for a couple of days. No one knew, because she often hung out there watching TV, reading and just chilling when she wanted to get away from her dad’s prying questions. He’d been a royal pain for the last six months, since she’d gone to a dance with a senior and come home a little buzzed. He didn’t realize that just because they lived in Hicksville, kids still smoked a little pot and drank whenever they could get hold of beer or liquor from their parents’ stash. He’d cracked down on her hours, especially on school nights, and lectured her about her grades. Admittedly, her once-perfect grades had slipped, but it was only because she was so very bored at school. Her high school was small and rural and she’d known most of the boys all her life. Dating them was almost like going out with her brother, though she’d never had a sibling.

  “Baby,” she heard from the next room. “Come back to bed.”

  She bounded into the room, jumped into the queen-sized bed and covered Patrick’s bare chest with kisses. He kissed her back, grabbed her breasts and the next half-hour went by in a delicious blur of sex. She’d been traveling with him five days now, in three different motel rooms, and the novelty hadn’t worn off. Yeah, the motels had been a little cheesy, not like the places she’d stayed on a few trips with her dad, but that was exciting too, like she was seeing a new piece of the world. She traced the outline of the ship tattoos on his neck and left arm in blue and green ink.

  She licked the inked likeness of a tall sailing ship on his neck, which tasted salty with sweat after the frenetic activity of the previous half-hour. He was so beautiful, even though she didn’t normally think of a guy as beautiful. She loved his tattoos and the multiple piercings in his ears. His sparkly blue eyes reminded her of Bradley Cooper in one of her favorite old movies, The Hangover. Her dad gave her corny lectures when he spotted someone on the street with lots of tattoos, which happened occasionally, even in rinky-dink Marfa. He’d go absolutely nuts if he ever met Patrick. Not that she’d ever let that happen.

  “Where’d you get that one?” she said.

  “On Mykonos, when I visited the family last year,” he said sleepily.

  Betsy was fascinated by Patrick’s independent life. He thrilled her with tales of his second-generation Greek parents, who’d worked in the Galveston shipping industry for two decades, but returned to Mykonos three years ago to help the large extended Costas family run a hotel. Patrick could have gone too, but preferred his music and the laidback Texas lifestyle to the grungy work he said he’d have to do at the Costas hotel. He’d hooked up with several different bands while he lived on his own, and when he ran out of money, he’d spend a few months working on a rig out in the Gulf. Betsy had almost never been out of West Texas, except to Disney World when she was eight. She’d been so sheltered during childhood after her mother died. Her father rarely left the ranch since he’d parted ways with the secessionists four years ago. She’d hoped he’d marry Annie Price, the reporter who’d visited the ranch twice when he was running for governor. She’d loved Annie, the way she talked to her like Betsy was a real person instead of a kid, and thought the reporter loved her and her father. But Annie ended up writing the stories that destroyed her dad’s career and she never came back to the ranch. And her dad had become an old man who hardly went out and even stricter – it was suffocating and hateful.

  She drifted off to sleep, waking up only when Patrick shook her gently.

  “Baby, the band has a gig tonight that might become a big deal. We could get asked to play regularly, for decent pay. Want to come?”

  “Sure,” she said. “Is it a bar?”

  “Kind of,” he said. “It’s actually a strip place in Pasadena called the Texas Girls Club. Ever been to a topless bar?”

  “Are you kidding?” She said with excitement. “West Texas doesn’t have that kind of place, at least not in the boonies.”

  Her mind was whirling. She knew he thought she was 18. If he found out she was only 16, she didn’t know what he’d do. She was afraid he’d dump her and then she’d have no choice but to go back to Marfa with her tail between her legs. She had a good fake ID that gave her age as 21. It had worked for her before – she hoped it would tonight.

  CHAPTER 16

  Behar Zogu drove to the budget motel near his home on the Eastside, his mood swinging between anticipation and dread. The Albanian girls were interesting but unruly, and he wasn’t sure he’d be able to keep them in line for the next week or two. They reminded him of a basket overflowing with puppies – lively and fun to watch, but likely to pee on the carpet the minute you turned your back. The girls were loud, profane, asked a lot of questions he couldn’t answer and were already straining at the bit to break out and explore the big city. He was regretting his offer to smuggle them to America with the help of his relatives in Albania.

  He’d filled the back of his battered pickup with groceries, mostly cheap American foods that would be easy for the girls to microwave in their motel rooms – where he hoped they’d stay. He’d picked up lots of frozen pizzas, ice cream, breakfast bars, Cheetos and other junk he knew they’d love. He included some PBR beer, but no vodka. Those women were rambunctious enough without hard liquor.

  The meeting with Krause and his girlfriend hadn’t gone well. He knew it was a mistake for Juliana to see the girls yesterday when he’d just deposited them at the motel, but she’d barged in without warning. She’d looked at them with scorn and they sensed her hostility. Lu
ckily, he’d gotten rid of her quickly, saying the girls needed to rest from their stressful journey as stowaways. Zogu wasn’t alone in his dislike of Juliana – most of the strip clubs’ employees couldn’t stand her either, and he sensed that even Krause sometimes got fed up with her bossy personality. But Zogu felt relatively secure with his place in the business. In the five years he’d worked for Krause, he’d taken on increasingly unsavory and clandestine tasks. He felt confident that his services were valued.

  He thought about the life he’d made since landing in Houston seven years ago with little English and no money. He’d quickly disappeared into the Eastside’s gritty working-class neighborhoods and cast about for his best opportunity. A small but tight Albanian community had welcomed him and he’d fallen in love with Genta, his Texas-born sweetheart from a big Albanian family soon after he arrived. They’d married and in short order, produced his beloved son and daughter. He’d begun looking harder for a job where he could make more money than the day-laborer shifts he’d worked in the past. Luckily, Genta’s ambitions matched or surpassed his and she was thrilled when he got work at the Texas Girls clubs. They both could tell that Krause’s business was thriving – and expanding. He worked late nights and early mornings and showed himself willing to handle any kind of task. Soon the owner was tapping him as a courier and fixer, delivering sensitive packages to different club locations – usually drugs, he suspected – and looking after girls who’d gotten knocked up or knocked around at the clubs.

  He felt fortunate, knowing he had a legion of relatives in Albania who’d jump at the chance to escape their beautiful but poor country for the promised land of Texas. He’d occasionally used his family’s connections in the shipping industry to hide people aboard ships bound for the Houston port, where they could slip into the country without papers. Those experiences had emboldened him to propose to Krause a shipment of girls who’d become cheap, pliant workers in the topless clubs. His boss, knowing that Eastern Europeans often stood out for their tall, blond beauty, was intrigued. He’d paid the necessary money to hide ten girls aboard a cargo ship, and Zogu’s brother Bujar made the arrangements in Tirana. As the middleman, Zogu stood to make enough money for Genta to stay home while their children were small.