made Garrett uneasy.
"I was wrong to bring you all down here," Alex said.
"You said you needed help. I'm telling you, man. Tres can help."
"It's too late. I've screwed up too much."
Garrett remembered the body in the basement. A shiver ran up his back. Even so many years after he'd lost his legs, there were times he missed being able to run away. Down in the basement had been one of those moments. The way Tres had calmly shone a light over the dead man's face, gone through his pockets and completely ignored the dried blood and the gunshot wound in the chest - how did little Tres, the annoying kid who used to complain to Mom whenever Garrett so much as touched him, grow up being able to examine dead bodies?
"Alex, if there's something you ain't told me - "
"Shit, Garrett. You couldn't even start to guess."
"That stuff about Calavera. If you had anything to do with that - I mean, you would tell me, right?"
Alex's expression was hard to read - fear, maybe even shame. "You remember Mr. Eli's funeral?"
Garrett nodded. It wasn't one of the days he liked to remember. He'd come down to Corpus for the memorial, mostly to console Alex. There hadn't been many people there, which had surprised Garrett. After all the people old Mr. Eli had helped, all the good things people said about him, Garrett figured there would be a mob scene. But it was just Garrett, Alex and a couple of ladies from the local Presbyterian church who seemed to have nothing better to do.
Afterward, Alex and he had gotten blind drunk at the Water Street Oyster Bar.
"You promised you'd be there at my funeral," Alex reminded him.
"I was drunk, man. And you're really starting to freak me out."
Alex put the knife back in his pocket. "I'm going to get a drink."
"Don't think you need one, man."
"This coming from you? Sorry, Garrett. I need a drink."
"Alex," Garrett called after him. "You didn't kill anybody. You couldn't do that, right?"
Alex's eyes were as dead as the fish on the walls. "I'm sorry I got you here, Garrett. It's gonna be just like Mr. Eli's funeral. Nobody's even gonna remember I did anything right."
After he was gone, Garrett picked up a pillow and threw it at the wall. That didn't make him feel better.
He thought about how long Alex and he had been friends. Seemed like forever. They'd gone to concerts together, howled at the moon from the roof of this old hotel. When Garrett had lost his legs, Alex was the first one to come find him in the hospital - one of the few friends that stuck with him and never made him feel like a freak. Garrett didn't like what he was seeing tonight. He wanted Alex back the way he used to be - a pain in the ass sometimes, but fun. Admirable, even. Alex was the guy who always knew the right thing to do. Hearing him talking now about screwing up - no. That was Garrett's job. Alex was supposed to be the smart one.
Suddenly Garrett wondered where Lane had gone.
They'd been apart like five minutes, and already he missed her. Alex, in the old days, would've had something to say about that. He would've warned Garrett against falling too hard. Garrett probably needed somebody to remind him of that. He had trouble thinking straight when it came to Lane.
"Hell with it," he muttered. Maybe he didn't know Alex as well as he thought. And if you couldn't know somebody after thirty damn years, who's to say you couldn't get to know somebody just as well in one day?
He wheeled himself out of the parlor and went to find Lane.
Chapter 19
I finally located Mr. Lindy in a room I never knew existed - a small library on the third floor. Judging from the limestone fireplace, the place was directly above the parlor. The shelves were lined with tattered hardcover bestsellers from twenty or thirty years ago. Ludlum. Trevanian. Guy books.
Lindy sat in a leather recliner facing the door - a good defensive position. He still wore his dark suit, though he'd loosened his tie. His demeanor was so formal that even this small concession to comfort seemed like a shocking breach of decorum. He was flipping through a copy of Field & Stream, but I got the feeling he wasn't paying it much attention. His cologne filled the air with a faint amber scent.
"Mr. Navarre," he said.
"Mr.