Genta and her two friends, all hairdressers and estheticians from Houston’s Albanian community, were a force to be reckoned with. The beautiful mother of his children was taking her role seriously as housemother and stylist to the Albanians. She knew that as soon as the girls began working for Krause’s businesses, Zogu would be paid many times his initial outlay for bringing them from Albania. Then Genta could cut back her hairdressing schedule and stay home, perhaps fulltime, until their children went to school.
He was pleased with the reports he was getting from her each night. For the past five days, Genta and her friends had gone each morning to the motel and spent whole days with the girls in what sounded like a quicker version of the makeover shows they’d watched together on TV. What were those shows called? The Fattest Loser? Big American Booty Camp?
The Albanian girls weren’t all fat, however. Most were slim, bordering on skinny, as if they hadn’t routinely gotten enough to eat in Tirana. A couple of them were a bit pudgy, but nothing like the extremely large American girls he’d sometimes see strolling with their chubby kids in the mall. The problem was more that the Albanian girls didn’t know how to fix their hair, make up their faces or dress in clothes that were cheap, but stylish and flattering.
Genta, who’d grown up in Houston, had mastered all of those womanly arts, he thought proudly. Still, what could she accomplish in a week or so before Krause and his girlfriend demanded to inspect the girls?
He walked in laden with packages to one of the three rooms he’d visited a few days ago. Right away, he could see amazing changes. The room was neat and smelled clean, instead of encrusted with stale smoke from cigarettes. Genta hated smoking and had banned it from the rooms. There were no clothes piled carelessly in the corner like last time. He could see duffle bags stacked neatly in the closet and the beds were made.
Genta was trimming the hair of a girl sitting in a chair in front of the double mirror and sink outside the toilet room. It was Leka, with softer blonde hair and well-defined eyebrows. His wife had banished the brassy frizz and the awful unibrow. Leka looked almost pretty.
She squealed with delight when she saw Zogu, as did three other girls watching TV from the beds. Genta looked happy to see him, but reproved the girls for their rowdy greeting.
“Ladies, don’t scream. Say hello in a polite, nice voice,” she said in a mixture of English and Albanian she’d learned at home. They looked at the disgusted expression on her face and instantly complied.
“Hello, Zogu,” they chorused in English, in well-modulated voices.
Zogu beamed fondly at Genta. He put the groceries on the counter of the kitchenette. Two of the girls jumped up to inspect the contents. They looked disappointed when they pulled out cottage cheese and carrot sticks.
“No cereal or ice cream?” Ardita, one of the girls he’d met last week, said with a pouty face.
“Ladies, don’t forget that we’re trying to lose a few pounds. Do you want to look like Russian pigs?” Genta said. “When we go out shopping tomorrow, we’ll stop for frozen yogurt as our treat.”
Ardita looked happier immediately. Genta had reported that the girls loved shopping, particularly at Target, Marshall’s and other discount stores. The little shopping trips, supervised and scheduled late in the afternoons, relieved the boredom of being shut in most of the time.
“Can I go swimming in the blue pool?” Ardita asked.
“Sure, if you take a few of the girls,” Genta said. “Take Afrodita and Elvana with you. Those sleepyheads should be up now.”
Genta had organized an exercise class by the pool each morning, leading the girls in stretches and dance moves that would be useful in their career as topless dancers. Truly, Zogu thought with renewed admiration, there was nothing his Genta couldn’t do. She had the authority of a drill sergeant without so much as raising her sweet voice.
Ardita, who’d been lounging on the bed, got up and stripped down to her panties and bra. She started unhooking her bra right in front of Zogu, whose eyes unfortunately were riveted to the impromptu striptease. His wife gave him a dirty look.
“Ardita, take your bikini and change in the toilet room,” Genta said in a furious voice. “Show some modesty in front of my husband, please!”
Zogu could imagine that most of the girls had been squeezed into tight living quarters with whole families in Tirana, and had never experienced the luxury of modesty.
Ardita came out of the bathroom wearing a faded, threadbare bikini and Zogu looked down this time, still embarrassed. She’d rolled up several white towels from the bathroom and carried them under her arm.
“Don’t take so many towels,” Leka said in her best bossy voice. “Selfish sow! We all need them.”
“Sunscreen, please!” Genta said. “Houston is a very hot place and you will burn quickly at midday. Put it all over your body, especially your face. Stop by for the girls in Room 104. They need to get out, too.”
Ardita relinquished some towels, throwing them at Leka, and slammed the door.
Leka, who’d dodged the towels, stood up proudly, her makeover complete. She twirled around so that the other girls could get the full impact of her hair and makeup. They whistled and clapped. She looked good and she knew it.
“Beautiful, Leka,” Genta said. “Shoulders up and walk like you know you’re the most gorgeous girl in the room. Edona, your turn now.”
Zogu watched as Edona plopped into the chair in front of the mirror. Genta examined her hair with a professional’s appraisal, shaking her head over the bad dye job that had left her curls shades of red, orange and yellow, not unlike a circus clown.
Genta held up two pictures from a hair-styling magazine. In one, the model’s hair was an ash blonde shag. The other page showed a woman with a golden flip.
“Which one, girls?” she asked. All four, including Edona, pointed to the picture of the ash blonde.
Someone banged on the door, spoiling the rare moment of unanimity.
Zogu opened it and saw Ardita again in her sad bikini. She looked alarmed. He beckoned her in.
“Room 104 is empty,” she shouted. “The backpacks have disappeared. Afrodita and Elvana are gone.”
CHAPTER 26
Midmorning at the Houston Times office, Annie knocked on the door of Greg Barnett’s glass office. He waved her in. She and Travis were headed to the Hill Country for a few days and she needed to brief her boss. She’d told him earlier about what they’d found in Nate’s files.
“What’re you hearing from the police today about Nate?” he said with an anguished look.
“Nothing new.”
Annie knew he’d been almost as torn up by Nate’s death as the reporters. Greg, formerly the investigative editor at the Times, had been promoted to managing editor three years ago and immediately named Annie to the job he’d vacated. In his mid-forties, Greg was a Boston-bred Harvard graduate who’d fallen in love with journalism working for the Crimson, the student newspaper. He’d shelved his plan – mostly the plan of his wealthy parents – to go to law school and eventually practice with his father’s white-shoe firm. Instead, he’d bounced around at papers in the Northeast before ending up at the Times. Annie thought he’d brought fresh ideas and an outsider’s perspective that had been lacking in the newsroom of Baylor and University of Texas graduates. Also, she loved his big heart and enthusiasm for complicated stories. He was divorced and available, as far as she knew, but she wasn’t remotely interested in him. Why was she always attracted to the bad boys?
She snapped out of her reverie and tried to focus on the trip.
“Brandon can’t go on the road right now, so he’ll be handling Nate’s death investigation and keep an eye on Kyle Krause,” she s
aid. “Travis and I will do as much reporting as we can on the German-Texas movement, first in Austin with Sam Wurzbach, and possibly in Fredericksburg before we come back.”
“How do you feel about reporting again, Annie?”
“I can’t wait,” she smiled. “I guess I didn’t realize just how much I was missing it. But I hate the circumstances.”
“Yeah. With Maggie and Nate gone, it’s just you with Brandon and Travis. But that’s still a hell of a lot of reporting talent.”
“Thanks. Do you think we can replace either of those reporting vacancies?”
“Sadly, no. The big bosses like the way the online revenue is trending, but it’s still such a small percentage of our profits. Print advertising isn’t holding its own, with national ad revenue going down each month.”
“Pretty depressing.”
“Yup. Rumor has it that the bosses are coming in soon to look at more cuts.”
Annie’s stomach lurched and she tried to swallow her fear. She didn’t have much of a financial cushion and she would hate to have to leave Houston.
“Do you know where the cuts might land?”
“Wouldn’t want to guess. I expect they’ll still need a managing editor, as well as a gifted reporter like you. But your rise as an editor may be stalled for quite a while.”
“I really don’t care,” Annie said. “Do you think I’ll have to take a pay cut?”
“Well, I didn’t want you to worry about that. But very likely, your salary will be cut by ten or fifteen percent if they decide to abolish the investigative editor job.”
Annie winced, thinking of her bills, though she was trying to be thrifty.
“It’s okay, Greg. I can manage.”
“Thanks, I hate that, but I appreciate your flexibility. Tell me more about the trip. Will you see Jake?”
He looked at her and she could see compassion in his face. He knew that Annie had been devastated by her breakup with Jake.
“Yeah, he’s one of the point men on this story. No way to avoid talking to him and I’m at peace with that. Time to face up to things and stop trying to drown my sorrows.”
She could see Greg’s approval. He’d been there for her in tough times and she knew he worried about her struggles with alcohol and depression.
“You’re a big girl, Annie. But don’t put yourself through unnecessary grief. If it seems too painful, let Travis talk to him.”
“I’ll be all right. Nate’s death has made me think about what’s important. Holding on to past grievances isn’t doing me or anyone else a bit of good.”
“What can I do for you while you’re gone?” She basked in his support, in the open, easy way he smiled at her. She felt lighter, ready to find Travis and hit the road.
“Just be at the other end of the phone line when I call in. I trust your judgment with all my heart.”
CHAPTER 27
Annie relaxed in the passenger seat as Travis drove out of Houston on Interstate 10. He whirled past Memorial, Spring Branch and other suburbs of West Houston and sped farther out toward the town of Katy. They passed the strip malls and housing developments that consumed increasingly wider bands of the flatlands stretching west each year. She’d always enjoyed seeing the tall, white rice dryers of Katy silhouetted against the sky, relics of the rice farming industry that had dwindled as Houston spread inexorably outward.
It was a beautiful late August day, with temperatures still in the nineties but the air feeling less sticky than the week before. The bright blue sky and hint of a breeze held the promise of autumn -- eventually. When Annie first moved to Texas, she expected the cooler, football weather by September that she’d enjoyed in her hometown of Blacksburg, Virginia. But to her dismay, September could be the hottest month of the year in Houston. October was often slightly cooler, and November usually turned mild, but Annie still missed the falling temperatures and bright colors of an early southern autumn.
She felt relieved to be on the road after the last traumatic week. She’d always liked going out of town on reporting trips, setting her own hours, pursuing her own agenda and relishing the freedom, even if it came with solitary restaurant meals. Traveling on business was a welcome break where she didn’t have to worry about socializing and could focus on her work. She could indulge her inner introvert. She often did her best thinking on long solo drives to places she’d never seen. But she liked being with Travis this time – and leaving the driving to him.
After navigating the heavy traffic out of Houston, he’d relaxed his crunched-up posture and stretched his short legs. His cherry-red Honda Accord was comfortable and quiet. She’d asked him to drive because she knew that like most of the newsroom’s reporters, he’d want the company’s relatively generous gas reimbursement. It had been several years since the Times staff had gotten decent raises and money was tight for everyone. He’d eagerly accepted her offer.
“Feels so good to be out of the office – even if I’m taking along my boss,” he joked.
“Just think of me as a very old reporting partner,” she smiled. “I’ll be really rusty, so you’ll have to make allowances.”
“I doubt that’s going to be a problem,” he said. “But are you sure you want to interview Jake Satterfield? We could switch, you know?”
Annie was stung. First Greg, now Travis, was trying to spare her tender feelings. Was her entire life an open book – a messy, predictable romance novel?
“Sorry, Annie,” he said. “I didn’t mean to pry, but I know that you and Jake had a falling out when you were covering the secessionists.”
“Actually our falling out came after, when we were a couple,” she said in what she hoped was a light tone. “We’d talked about getting married, but it didn’t work out.”
“Well, he’s an idiot,” he said with an emphasis that surprised Annie. She knew he liked her, but she hadn’t considered that his feelings might be stronger. Was the road trip with him a mistake? She dismissed that thought because his relationship with Lila Jo seemed happy.
“That’s kind of you, Travis, but don’t worry about me,” she said. “Jake’s scheduler said he’d be free all afternoon and I expect it’ll take that long. What about Sam Wurzbach?”
“He’s eager to meet with anyone who wants to talk about the concerns of the German-Texas community, as he put it,” Travis said.
“I’m sure you’re one step ahead of me, but I’d like to know more about how he and Kyle Krause became friends in high school and what drew them together more recently. I believe they were on the wrestling team together, but they seem so fundamentally different.”
“Yeah. Not much on the surface would seem to link the topless king of Houston with the bakery mogul of the Hill Country,” he said.
“Hope Wurzbach’s more talkative than Krause,” Annie said. “I guess if he’s a politician, he has to be.”
As Travis drove farther west, she felt her tension sloughing off. The flat land began to slope gently, and pretty farms and pastures replaced the picked-clean blandness of new subdivisions. Rural Texas was so appealing. It was a shame that burgeoning cities were subsuming more of it each year. Was that really progress?
Travis, as usual, wanted to talk about the fate of the newspaper industry.
“Think the Times will still exist a decade from now?”
“I think the Times website has a decent chance of lasting,” she said. “Not so sure about the daily paper.”
“Never thought I’d hear you say that,” Travis said. “Thought you’d be the last true believer in the future of the print product, as they call the newspaper these days.”
She shook her head with a frown. “Five years ago, I wou
ld have been,” she said. “I don’t know any more. But you can always work for the website.”
They rode a little longer in companionable silence before Travis said, “I never really asked, but what do you think about the concept of secession?”
“It’s hard to separate my beliefs from bad reporting experiences, but I’m basically against it,” Annie said, a little surprised by the conversational turn. “If things don’t go their way, too many people in this country want to take their marbles and go home. Seems like we’re becoming a nation of spoiled children.”
She paused a moment. “You’re a native Texan. What do you think?”
“I think the Nation of Texas folks that you wrote about seem selfish. They want to keep all the good stuff in Texas, like oil, just for themselves,” he said. “It seems kind of unpatriotic.”
“There are more secessionists in Texas than any other state in the country,” she said. “But Texas isn’t alone. Separatist movements are flourishing in other states, like Alaska.”
“Yeah, Alaska’s always struck me as a little wacky,” he said.
“Texas is way up there on the wacky scale,” she smiled. “But the drive for secession stems partly from its history. Texas was a republic for ten years between winning its independence from Mexico and entering the United States.”
“So that’s why the secessionists are always talking about creating a new republic?”
“I think people who are unhappy with the present always look to the past,” Annie said. “But nothing much was accomplished while Texas was a republic. It was too big to govern effectively in the 1840s and almost got into another war with Mexico.”
Winning Texas Page 14