Where There's Smoke

Surprised, Lara looked at him. He shrugged indifferently. “Either way it went, I figured they didn’t need any unpleasant reminders. Ready to go?”

“Go?” Only then did she realize she was without transportation. “Oh, would it be an imposition—”

He indicated the yellow Lincoln parked on the far side of the hangar.

Lara asked Balky to thank the golfer who had lent them the helicopter. “Tell him to send me a bill for any expense that was incurred.”

“Sure thing.” He saluted her and bade goodbye to Key.

“I’ll expect a bill from you, too, Mr. Tackett,” she said as they approached the Lincoln. “How much do you charge?”

He pulled open the wide passenger door and held it for her. “Depends on what service I’ve rendered.”

Unsmiling, she slid into the car and sat staring straight ahead through the windshield.

Once they were on the highway headed toward town, Key remarked, “You know, your sense of humor ain’t for shit. Don’t you ever laugh?”

“When I hear something funny.”

“Oh, I get it. I don’t amuse you.”

“Sexual innuendoes have lost their charm for me. I’ve been the subject of too many to find any humor in them.”

He stretched his long body, adjusting his bottom more comfortably in the seat. The leather squeaked agreeably. “I guess that’s the price one pays when she’s caught up in a sex scandal.”

“That’s only one price she pays.”

He gave her a frankly appraising stare, then returned his attention to the road. They drove in silence, the car gliding along the two-lane stretch of highway through the deepening dusk.

“Are you hungry?”

She hadn’t thought about it, but now that he’d asked, she realized she was famished. All she’d had that morning before going out to weed her flower bed was some yogurt and two cups of black coffee.

“Yes,” she admitted.

“Do you like ribs?”

“Why?”

“I know where you can find the best in the world. Thought we’d stop for some.”

She glanced down at the clothes he’d brought to the hospital. “Much as I appreciate the change of clothing, I’m not really dressed for going out.”

He barked a laugh. “You’re almost overdressed for Barbecue Bobby’s.”

“He’s aptly named.”

“He didn’t get his name from barbecuing, but for being barbecued.” She looked at him quizzically. “See, one night Bobby Sims got on the wrong side of a bull rider named Little Pete Pauley. They were at a postrodeo dance and got in a fight over a woman. Bobby came out on top and humiliated Little Pete—who always was real touchy about being only five feet four standing in his boots.

“Later that night, Little Pete got revenge by setting fire to Bobby’s house. Bobby made it out okay, except that most of his hair got singed off. Went around for six months as hairless as a lizard and smelling faintly of wood smoke. Everybody started calling him Barbecue. From there on, his life’s work just naturally evolved.”

Lara suspected he was spinning a yarn, but before she could express her doubts, he pulled into the parking lot of a tavern. “Hmm. Crowded tonight.”

“This is a beer joint,” she protested. A single strand of yellow lights, many of them burned out, had been strung along the roofline. They were the building’s only decoration. “I’m not going in there.”

“How come?” He turned to her. “Are you too prissy for us?”

He had backed her into a corner. If she refused to go in with him, he would once again accuse her of being a hypocrite, a holier-than-thou snob who couldn’t rightfully throw stones when she herself had been caught transgressing.