except I knew he'd curse back loud enough to wake Maia. I stumbled here and there, righting the coffee table, picking up clothes, putting the fallen paperbacks back on the kitchen counter. I struggled into some underwear and stood in front of the bathroom mirror for a while, picking wood paneling out of my arm, then reapplying Mercurochrome to my busted cheek.
"What a looker," I told myself. Robert Johnson stared at me from the lid of the toilet and yawned. I slipped into shorts and a sweatshirt, then did a solid two hours of tai chi on the back porch, starting with the low stance to shock my muscles into working. After a while the thighs and calves unknotted and I got too sweaty even for the mosquitoes.
I was just starting to feel better when the neighborhood woke up for Sunday. The two pairs of eyes reappeared in the upstairs window across the alley and stared at me through the miniblind slats. The lady next door came out to read her paper on the patio again. This time I hardly warranted a second look. She kept her coffee cup firmly in hand and tightened her terry-cloth robe. Then she smiled wickedly as she let a small herd of Chihuahuas out the back door. For the last half of my set, they threatened me from their side of the fence, yapping insanely and popping up into the air like a tireless row of Mexican jumping beans. Meanwhile their mother read aloud to them from Roddy Stinson, repeating the funny bits.
I tried to be grateful for the challenge to my concentration. Think emptiness, Navarre. Blue water trickling down through your body. Cultivate the chi. This morning, all I cultivated was a headache and the need to pee like a racehorse. I said my silent apologies to Sifu Chen and went inside.
Maia was making the last of the Peet's coffee. Her hair was blown into a mass on one side of her head, as if she'd been walking on the beach. She was wearing my last clean T-shirt. She looked up, smiled, and for a second burned the images of dead bodies out of my mind. But only for a second.
"You look like hell, Navarre. And you just about wore this poor girl out last night."
"I'm always great in the sack after getting the shit kicked out of me."
"I'll remember that." She pulled me closer by the elastic of my shorts, then kissed my face. I winced.
" Speaking of last night--" I said.
She smiled, a little sad. "Leave it alone for a while, Tex. Okay?"
I sat down with coffee at the counter, pushed Robert Johnson's butt out of my face, and stared at the .45 Maia had taken from Red, the stacks of fifties I'd taken from Beau Karnau, the crumpled photo of Randall Halcomb we'd found on Terry Garza's corpse.
I didn't like the connections I was coming up with. Ten years ago my father somehow finds out about the scheme to fix the contract on Travis Center. Before he can make it public, the people behind the plan use Randall Halcomb to silence the Sheriff. Then, before the FBI can track down Halcomb, his employers silence him too. Maia and I looked at each other.
"First rule of assassination," I told Maia, "kill the killer."
Maia frowned. "And Beau Karnau just happens to be there with a camera - in a field in the country in the middle of the night. That's a hell of a coincidence."
I agreed. It didn't make sense. Neither did the fact that blackmail payments for a ten-year-old murder had only been happening for the last year.
I rubbed my eyes. "We need to know about Guy White. Whether the mob's really in this, or whether it's just convenient for somebody to make it look that way. We need to know what the police have on Garza's murder, and Moraga."
"And Lillian, " said Maia quietly.
I stared out at the crape myrtles. Maia came closer. She put her hands lightly on my shoulders.
"First, you need to eat something," she said. "Then we'll see about the police."
I rubbed my eyes again, pondering how to make breakfast from one beer and some baking soda. Thinking about my empty refrigerator led me to thinking about Larry Drapiewski's card sitting in my medicine cabinet.
I looked at the time - 9:00. Almost a civilized hour. If I made it sound urgent enough, he could be here in under thirty minutes, but only if I was prepared