The Jealous Kind (Holland Family Saga 2)

“Same answer.”

“I want to grind you into salt.”

“I saw the flowers you sent Detective Jenks. I thought that was real nice.”

“Tell your friend to leave the car any place of his choosing. Then he can call you and tell us where it is. It’s that simple.”

“Who’s this ‘us’? I’m not part of any us, Miss Cisco.”

“I thought you were a smart kid.”

“No, I’m dumb. I’ve proved that by having this conversation,” I said.

“You know what Ben Siegel used to say? ‘Don’t get involved with squares.’ I should have listened. Goodbye, Aaron. I tried.”

“What’s with the car? What’s the big deal about the car?”

She broke the connection. I replaced the receiver and opened the door of the booth. Out on the street, a lime-green ’49 Hudson with a whip antenna and lowering blocks passed the front door; then a pickup truck painted a shade of yellow that was ugly in the way the color of urine is ugly; then a souped-up drag racer with an exposed Merc engine decked out with duel carbs and chrome air filters and chrome nuts on the cylinder heads; then a shirtless guy in greasy jeans and cowboy boots mounted on a Harley.

I sat down next to Valerie and drank from my milkshake. Through the doorway, I could see heat waves on the sidewalk and hear the roller-skate wheels of a crippled man pushing himself on a board along the concrete. The pickup truck passed again. So did the guy on the Harley and the two guys in the drag racer. The lime-green Hudson had pulled up to a hamburger joint, one that had a canvas canopy over the parking area, where carhops in red uniforms carried the orders out on metal trays. “You know any of those guys out there?”

“Which guys?” Valerie asked.

“The guys who have been circling the block.”

“I don’t see anyone.”

I went to the doorway. Across the street, the guys from the Hudson were smoking cigarettes under a tree. They wore drapes and needle-nose stomps and shirts that hung outside their belts. They had left their car under the canopy and obviously had not ordered anything to eat. I stepped outside and looked directly at them. If they noticed me, they showed no reaction. The drag racer was at the light. The guy in the passenger seat resembled one of Grady’s buds, a crew-cut football player with upper arms like smoked hams. In the trainer’s room at my high school gym, I’d once seen him shove a skinny kid’s face into his crotch and say, “What’s happenin’, fart?”

I headed for the drag racer. The light changed and he drove away. Neither the driver nor his passenger looked back. I went back inside the drugstore. “My imagination is probably on overdrive.”

“What did that woman say?” Valerie asked.

“Miss Cisco?” I tried to keep my face blank.

“That’s who you came here to call.”

“Grady Harrelson bought another convertible to replace the one somebody stole,” I said. “It got stolen, too.”

“Nobody has luck that bad.”

“Grady does.”

“This sounds like Saber Bledsoe’s work.”

“You know how Sabe is. Trying to control him is like trying to reverse the course of Halley’s Comet.”

“He starts trouble and pulls you into it,” she said. “I’m tired of it, Aaron.”

I couldn’t blame her. The yellow pickup went by again. “Stay here. Don’t talk to anybody who comes in. I’ll be right back.”

I went to the rear door and looked in the alley. One of the guys in drapes was smoking a cigarette by the sidewalk. At the other end, the bare-chested guy on the Harley was messing with his chain as though he had a mechanical problem. The vertebrae in his back arched against his skin, and he wore a knife in a scabbard attached to his belt. I stepped into the alleyway. It was paved with old bricks and lined with garbage cans. Even though the temperature was above ninety, the wind felt cold on my face.

I touched the bandage on my cheek. I can’t tell you why. Perhaps for the same reason university duelists in Germany preserve their facial scars. “I’m here, if you guys want to talk.”

Neither guy seemed to hear me. Then the guy working on the Harley stood up and turned in a circle until he was looking straight at me. His jeans hung below his navel, his pubic hair showing, his skin pale and shiny with grease and sweat. He took his comb out of his back pocket and combed his ducks into place with both hands, his head tilted, his armpits festooned with hair.

“You guys working for Grady?” I said.