Feast Day of Fools (Hackberry Holland 3)

“There’s a far graver sin.”

“What would that be?”

“You already know the answer to that one, Hack.”

“A worse sin would be disloyalty to someone who has reached out and anointed me with a single touch of his finger on my brow?” Hackberry had said.

“That’s beautifully put. Your wife said you bedded a Mexican whore in Uvalde last night.”

“That’s not true. It was in San Antonio.”

“Oh, that’s good. I have to remember that one. But no more local excursions. There will be time enough for that when you get to Washington. Believe it or not, it will be there in such abundance that you’ll eventually grow bored with it, if you haven’t already. Usually, when a man of your background screws down, he’s not seriously committed to infidelity. It’s usually an act of anger rather than lust. A bit of trouble at home, that sort of thing. It beats getting drunk. Is that the case with the girl in San Antonio?”

Hackberry had not answered.

“Fair enough. There’s no shame in having a vice. It’s what makes us human,” the senator had said. Then he had patted Hackberry gingerly on the back of the head, after first leaning over the rail and spitting, even though people were eating at poolside tables directly below.

Those moments on the balcony and the touch of the senator’s hand on his head had remained with Hackberry like a perverted form of stigmata for over four decades.

An hour after tearing up the message left by Temple Dowling, Hackberry glanced through the front window and saw a man park a BMW at the gate and walk up the flagstones to the gallery. The visitor had thick silver-and-black hair and lips that were too large for his mouth. He was carrying an ice bucket with a dark green bottle inserted in it. Hackberry opened the door before his uninvited guest could ring the bell.

“Hello, Sheriff. Did you find my note?”

“Yes, sir, you’re Mr. Dowling. Leave the bucket and the bottle on the gallery and come in.”

“Excuse me?”

“Guests in my home drink what I have or they don’t drink at all.”

“I was supposed to meet a lady friend, but she stood me up. I hate to see a good bottle of wine go to waste. My father said you used to have quite a taste for it.”

“You want to come in, sir?”

“Thank you. And I’ll leave my bucket behind.” Dowling stepped inside and sat down in a deep maroon leather chair and gazed through the picture window, patting the tops of his thighs, a thick gold University of Texas class ring on his left hand. He wore a gray suit and a tie that was as bright as a halved pomegranate. But it was the composition of his face that caught the eye—the large lips, the pink cheeks and complexion that looked as though they had been dipped out of a cosmetics jar, the heavy eyelids that seemed translucent and were flecked with tiny vessels. “What a lovely view. The hills in front of your house remind me of—”

“Of what?”

“A Tahitian painting. What was his name? Gauguin? He was big on topless native women.”

“I haven’t studied on it.”

Temple Dowling smiled, his fingers knitting together.

“Do I amuse you, sir?” Hackberry said.

“I was thinking of something my father said. He admired your élan. I told him I’d heard you’d had a lot of girlfriends. My father replied, ‘Mr. Holland is a great lover of humanity, son. But let’s remember that half the human race is female.’”

“I think maybe the senator misrepresented the nature of our relationship. We were not friends. We used each other. That’s a reflection on me, not him.”

“Call me Temple.”

“I was a drunkard and a whoremonger, not a man who simply had girlfriends. I used the bodies of poor peasant girls across the river without thinking about the misery that constituted their lives. When I met Senator Dowling, I was arrogant and willful and thought I could play chess with the devil. Then the day came when I realized I had gravely underestimated Senator Dowling’s potential. After I mentioned my father’s political principles and his friendship with Franklin Roosevelt, the senator explained why my father had shot and killed himself. My father had taken a bribe. The people who bribed and later tried to blackmail him were friends of Senator Dowling. The senator took great pleasure in telling me that story.”

“I’m not my father, Sheriff.”

“No, sir, you’re not. But you’re not here out of goodwill, either.”

“How much money do you think it would take to shut down the city of New York?”