a drink. I looked up at him from the floor, waiting. "I still sell guns."
I felt as if the ceiling had fallen on my head.
"Do you want to know any more about it than that?"
"No," I said. "Not now."
"I don't think Bill Anderson is who he says he is," Martin said.
I cut my gaze over to him without turning my head.
"I think he's government."
I looked back at my glass. "I thought you were government."
His mouth went down at one corner.
"I thought I was, too. I suspect something's changed that I don't know about.
That's why I need to go to Guatemala. Something's come unglued." I struggled with so many questions I couldn't decide what to ask first. Did I really want to know the answers to any of them? "Are you really a man with a regular job with a real company?" I asked, hating the way my voice faltered.
He looked sad. "I'm everything I ever told you I was. Just - other things, too."
"Then why couldn't you be satisfied?" I said bitterly and futilely. I sat up, tears coursing down my cheeks without my knowing they had started, not sobbing, just - watering my dress. I took a drink from my glass; yes, it was 7-and-7.
When I could bear to, I looked at him.
"Will you stay?" he asked.
We looked at each other for a long moment.
"Yes," I said. "For a while."
I never finished that drink, yet the next morning I felt I had a hangover. I had to take my mind off my life. I dressed briskly, putting on powdered blush more heavily than usual because I looked like hell warmed over, and went to Parnell Engle's cement business.
It was a small operation north of Lawrenceton. There were heaps of different kinds of gravel and sand dotting the fenced-in area, and a couple of large cement trucks were rumbling around doing whatever they had to do. The office was barren and utilitarian to a degree I hadn't seen in years. There was a cracked leather couch, a few black file cabinets, and a desk in the outer office. That desk was commanded by a squat woman in stretch pants and an incongruous gauzy blouse that was intended to camouflage the rolls of fat. She had good-humored eyes peering out of a round face, and she was dealing with someone over the phone in a very firm way.
"If we told you it would be there by noon, it will be there by noon. Mr. Engle don't promise nothing he can't do. Now the rain, we cain't control the rain... . No, they cain't come sooner, all our trucks are tied up till then. ... I know the weather said rain, but like I told you.... All right then, we'll see you at noon." And she hung up with a certain force. There was an old Underwood typewriter on the desk, and not a computer in sight. "Is Mr. Engle in?" I asked.
"Parnell!" she yelled toward the door behind her. "Someone here to see you." Parnell appeared in the door in a moment dressed in blue jeans, work boots, and a khaki shirt, his hand full of papers.
"Oh," he said unenthusiastically. "Roe Teagarden. You enjoying all that money my cousin left you?"
"Yes," I said baldly.
After a moment of Dodge-City staring at each other, Parnell cracked a smile. "Well, at least the Lord has shined on you," he said. "I hear you got married last month. God meant for woman to be a companion to man." "Amen," I said sadly.
"You need to talk to me?"
"Yes, if you have a minute."
"That's about all I do have, but come on in." He made a nearly gracious sweep with his handful of papers, and I went across the creaking wooden floor to Parnell's sanctum. I felt a surge of fondness for Parnell; his office was exactly what I expected. It was as dilapidated as the outer room, and there was a large reproduction of the Last Supper on the wall, and plaques with Bible verses were stuck here and there, along with a huge map of the country and a calendar that featured scenery rather than women. "You know I bought the Julius house," I said directly. Parnell neither expected nor appreciated small talk. "I want to know about the day you poured the patio there."
"I went over and over it at the time," he remarked. "And I don't know why you want to know, but I suppose it's none of my business. It's been a