The Last King of Texas - By Rick Riordan Page 0,26

a day's work."

George looked over, his eyebrows raised.

"Nah," we said together.

We turned onto Mulberry and rode west, heading toward the address George had given me for Jenny's condo.

George's cigar smoke collected in front of his face each time I changed gears, then evaporated as I accelerated again. His eyes squinted almost shut.

After a while I noticed that he seemed to be muttering to himself - counting, or praying maybe.

"You all right?"

He removed the cigar, licked his lips, then laughed. "Yeah, fine."

"The case?"

"No. Just thinking - you know this is my hundredth date? You think I should get a door prize or something?"

"You keep track of every date?"

"Oh, yeah."

"One hundred exactly. You mean since - "

"Since Melissa. Yeah."

I opened my mouth. Closed it again. Nope. Don't ask, Navarre. Remember, this man liked his closet closed.

Berton said, "You really want to know?"

Another block, then morbid curiosity got the best of me. "I heard - it was some kind of accident, right?"

George touched the tip of his cigar to his mouth. His tilted hat brim swamped his face with shadow. "We were camping up by Garner State Park, way up in the hills by the Frio River. At dawn 'Liss was still asleep in the tent, so I figured I'd go down to the Frio to do a little fly-fishing. This was our first vacation since I'd gotten out of the service, you know? A little time to get away, we figured. I came back to the tent about noon and found her."

"Found her."

"Raped," he said. "Then murdered - chopped up with my camping ax."

My hand tightened on the wheel. "George - "

"'S'okay," he said. "Really. Seven years later, you know, and it's okay. But..."

"They ever catch who did it?"

He shook his head. "They suspected me for a while - I couldn't blame them. But it still keeps me awake at night - the fact that this monster got away. That and the guilt. I'm not careful - it's like one of those balloons of coke the drug mules swallow to get across the border, you know? I'm always wondering if it's going to pass through my system eventually or maybe upture, explode my heart."

I looked over at him, met his eyes briefly in the streetlight, looked back at the road. What do you say to a story like that - sorry?

George sat up and tried to lighten his tone. "So anyway... now you know, huh? A hundred dates later. Maybe this'll be the special one."

He smiled frailly at me, looking suddenly, as we passed under another streetlight, like a very old man, someone who'd come from 1962 the hard way. Jenny's condo building was a new high-rise behind Trinity University, designed for young professionals or students with rich daddies. It was the kind of place where the condos cost as much as the older two-story homes around them but with half the maintenance and none of the charm.

We buzzed Jenny's number in the lobby. Ninety seconds later she came down the elevator alone.

"I'll be," she exclaimed. "Two handsome men! Hey there, stranger!"

She squeezed my arm, noticed and decided not to comment on the new facial scar, then decided to get a little bolder and fold herself around my elbow.

Jenny was a nice-looking woman - maybe twenty-seven, her skin so smooth and shining with health it looked like air-mattress plastic. Her hair was floofy blond, teased to the consistency of cumulus cloud, and her dress just as light - willowy white layers of cotton. The only things of any hardness about her were her black boots and her large earrings shaped like fish skeletons.

George fiddled with his flowers. "Where's your comadre?"

"Oh." Jenny sighed, brushed her hand against my chest. "Ana's on her way down. Her pager went off right when you buzzed and she had to call the office. She's always - well, here we go."

The elevator doors opened again. The woman who stepped through was about five-nine, a dark-skinned Latina. Her red sleeveless dress was mid-thigh length and showed off well-muscled legs and arms. Her black hair was wedge-cut at the jawline and done in bangs on top - a style that might have made another woman's face look babyish, but not hers. Hers was serene, softened with amber and blue highlights but not enough to dilute the stern set of her eyes and her mouth. She