Heartwood (Billy Bob Holland 2)

“Get out of here,” I said to Cholo.

“Wha—”

“Go learn some respect for other people. I’m full up on bullshit and rudeness today.”

“I don’t believe you, man.”

“It looks like that’s an ongoing state with you, Cholo. Adios. No ethnic slur intended,” I said.

After Cholo was gone, the door and glass still trembling from being flung back against the wall, L.Q. sat down in the deerhide swayback chair, took out his pack of playing cards, and began a game of solitaire on the bottom of an inverted leather wastebasket.

“You done the right thing. He wasn’t going to give you the rest of it. That kid’s been in and out of Juvie since he was knee-high to a fireplug,” L.Q. said.

“You think he’ll be back?”

“It don’t matter. You got to make them wince inside. You know who said that? Wyatt Earp.”

“I’m going to lunch.”

“Eat a second helping for me,” he said. He remained concentrated on his card game and didn’t look up.

I ran into Temple on the courthouse walk the next morning and told her about Cholo’s visit.

“You threw him out?” she said.

“He was confessing to stuff there’s no record of. He wants me to bring down Earl Deitrich without implicating himself. I think Cholo burned that savings and loan for Earl and killed those firemen down in Houston. Maybe he was responsible for the accountant’s heart attack, too.”

“Earl Deitrich fired a gun into the side of his head?”

“You admire that?”

“I didn’t think he had that kind of guts,” she said.

I shook my head and walked into the courthouse. Two hours later Temple called me at the office.

“I just got a call from Cholo. He says you dissed him. He says he’ll unload his whole story if I’ll meet him at a gym in San Antone. He says he was at the fire in Houston.”

“Make him come to you.”

“I’m meeting him at ten in the morning,” she said.

“Do you ever listen to me about anything?”

“Not really,” she said. “What’s the name of the gym?” I asked.

It was located in a dirty white two-story cinder-block building on the edge of a warehouse district. The rooms were air-conditioned, but the smell of sweat and testosterone and soiled jerseys and socks left to dry on floor fans was overpowering. Temple and I walked through a basketball court filled with slum kids, through a free-weight room, into an annex that contained speed- and heavy bags and a boxing ring. The noise of the speedbags thudding on the rebound boards was deafening.

Cholo was dressed out in black Everlast trunks and a sweatshirt cut off at the armpits, pounding both gloved fists into a heavy bag. The sweat whipped from his hair with each blow.

He saw us and held the bag stationary and looked past Temple at me. He had removed the dressing from his left eye, and the white of the eye was clotted with broken purple veins.

“What’s he doing here?” he said.

“We’re on a tight schedule, Cholo. You want to fling more bean dip around, we’re gone,” I said.

“I don’t like you, man,” he replied.

“Hold the bag for me,” Temple said.