Heartwood (Billy Bob Holland 2)

“How you doin’, Billy Bob?” Jeff said expansively as he passed my booth on the way to the men’s room, not waiting for an answer before he pushed the door open and went inside.

Outside, the Mexican couple in his car were ordering from the waitress. The boy’s hair was as black as paint, cut short, oiled and combed back on his head. The girl’s skin was biscuit-colored, her hair a dark reddish color, as though it had been washed in iodine. She was smoking a cigarette, tipping the ashes over the side of the door, her eyes lingering suspiciously on the people in other cars. She and the boy next to her sat apart from each other, not talking.

Jeff came back out of the men’s room and sat down in my booth.

“You curious about the cuties in my car?” he said.

“They look like gangbangers,” I said.

“The guy is. That’s Ronnie Cruise. Sometimes they call him Ronnie Cross. Leader of the Purple Hearts. His squeeze is Esmeralda Ramirez.”

“What are you doing with them?”

“My dad’s funding a youth program in San Antone and Houston,” he said, and smiled at me with his eyes, as though we were both privy to a private joke.

“You know where I could find an accountant named Greenbaum? He’s a friend of your folks,” I said.

“Max? Sure. I put him on a plane to Houston this morning. What’s up?”

“Nothing important.”

“It’s funny how they run of a type.”

“Pardon?”

“The Tribe. It’s like somebody writes a script for them. Guys like Max must read the material and walk right into the role.”

I set down my fork and looked at him. His grin never wavered. His confidence in the health and good looks that seemed to have been given him along with his family’s wealth was such that my stare at his bigotry and callousness had no more meaning to him than the fact a waitress was standing by his elbow, ready to take his order, reluctant to interrupt him in midsentence.

“We’re all right here,” I said to her.

“You want to meet Ronnie Cross? Two guys tried to pop him on a rooftop. Both of them took the fast way down. Six floors into the concrete.”

“I’ll pass. He’s wearing a rosary around his neck. Tell him for me that’s an act of disrespect,” I said.

“Tell him yourself. It’s my father who wants to send these guys to Taco U. I just drive them around once in a while, like Operation Outreach or something.” He winked at me, just as his father had. “Gotta boogie. See you around.”

Later, they drove out of the lot past my window. The boy named Ronnie Cruise passed a quart bottle of Lone Star to Jeff. The girl named Esmeralda, who sat by the passenger window, looked straight ahead, an angry light in her face.

I got up early Monday morning and brushed out Beau, my Morgan, in the lot, put some oats and molasses balls in his trough, watered the flowers in the yard, then went upstairs and showered. Through the window I could see the long, gentle roll of the green land, seagulls that had been blown inland, plots of new corn in a hillside, oak trees planted along a winding two-lane highway that had once been part of the Chisholm Trail.

The phone rang. I wrapped a towel around myself and picked up the receiver in the bedroom.

“I guess this is foolish to ask, but can we take you to lunch after Wilbur’s arraignment?” Peggy Jean said.

“Y’all are going to be there?” I said.

“Earl’s upset. But that doesn’t mean our friendship has to be impaired.”

“Another time, Peggy Jean.”

“I thought I’d ask.”

“Sure,” I said.

After I replaced the receiver in the cradle I felt a strange sense of loss that didn’t seem warranted by the conversation.

In the closet mirror I saw the welted bullet scars on my left foot and right arm and another one high up on my chest. Loss was when they put you in a box, I told myself.