House of the Rising Sun (Hackberry Holland 4)

“Yes, she is.” He stepped inside, his buttoned slicker suddenly too warm, the sleeves and shoulders too tight. He glanced up the stairway. A white man was walking up the stairs with a colored girl; their backs were to him. There was a light on in the kitchen. “Is that where she’s at?”

“Yes, suh.”

“Fetch her.”

A moment later, a black woman emerged from the kitchen. She was big and wore a long-sleeved dark dress printed with flowers and buttoned at the throat, with a tasseled black silk sash and rough boots like a man’s and strings of beads around her neck and glass rings on her fingers. “What do you want?” she said.

“A man named Jimmy Belloc. He’s white.”

“There ain’t nobody here that goes by that name.”

“Do you know where he is?”

“I never heard of him. Who are you?”

“A rancher from outside Kerrville. I’m a friend of Beatrice DeMolay.”

“What’s that got to do with me?”

“Nothing. I want Belloc.”

“You didn’t hear me the first time?”

“He’s a burn case. He was in a fire when he was a child.”

Her eyes stayed on his, not blinking. “Don’t be giving me your truck.”

“Can I have a drink?”

“Drink of what?”

“Whiskey. With a Mexican beer, if you have it.”

“This ain’t no saloon.”

“You didn’t blink.”

“What?”

“A liar blinks at the end of a lie. Or he doesn’t blink at all. A person telling the truth blinks in the middle of what he’s saying. Did you know that?”

“We don’t have no trouble here. This is a good house. I pay the right people so it stay that way. We don’t allow no rounders or hoodlums.”

“I used to be a Texas Ranger. I’m not now. But if I walk these three men on the couch outside, I’ll treat them as though I’m still a Ranger. They’ll never be back. Then I’ll go upstairs and talk to some of your other customers. I don’t care who you pay. They’re not friends of mine.”

In the background a phonograph record was playing, the mountain instruments and adenoidal voices flat and mournful:

Don’t forget me, Little Bessie,

When I’m near or far away,

Just remember, Little Bessie,

None will love you as I do.

“What you want him for?” the woman said.

“To clear up a situation he’s involved with. One you want to stay out of.”