The Jealous Kind (Holland Family Saga #2) - James Lee Burke Page 0,16

to the Bledsoe, the Delphic oracle of Houston, Texas.” He cocked back his head and spat in the air, catching his saliva on the return trip in his mouth.

“You’re unbelievable.”

“I know. I also know Grady Harrelson is a prick from his hairline to the soles of his feet. I think we should make some home calls.”

He pulled himself back under the car and finished hanging one of his dual mufflers on a bracket, oblivious to the rest of the world.

RIVER OAKS WAS foreign territory. It wasn’t simply a section of the city that contained some of the most beautiful homes in America or perhaps the world; it was a state of mind. Unlike the Garden District in New Orleans, the mansions of River Oaks were not connected to the antebellum South and not stained by association with the lash and branding iron and auction block. Inside an urban forest were homes as white and pure as a wedding cake, the St. Augustine lawns a deep blue-green in the shade, the gardens and trellises and gazebos blooming with flowers as big as grapefruit, almost all of it bought and paid for by oil that sprang like chocolate syrup from the ground, oceans of it put there by a loving Creator.

Police cruisers rarely patrolled the streets. They didn’t need to; no professional criminal would invade a sanctuary like River Oaks. The afternoon was cooling, the streets dropping into shadow as we motored toward Grady Harrelson’s house, Saber’s new mufflers rumbling off the asphalt. I asked him how he knew where Grady lived.

“A year ago he shoved my cousin into the Shamrock swimming pool with all her clothes on. On prom night I followed him and his girlfriend to his house. His folks were away, and he thought he’d use the opportunity to get his knob polished at home. I bagged up a dead skunk and shoved it through his mail slot with a broom handle.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“So ask him about it. His girlfriend was screaming, and every light in the house was on when I left.”

I looked at the side of his face. His expression was serene. The Bledsoe never lied, at least not about his one-man crusade against hypocrisy and phoniness. Sometimes I longed to know his secrets, but even at my young age, I knew he had paid a high price for them. “I don’t know if this is a good idea.”

“You got to do recon,” he said. “Write down license numbers. See who’s going in and out of the house. I’ve got connections at the motor vehicle department.”

“Grady Harrelson’s father will have us ground into salt.”

“That’s my point. We’ll get the coordinates on these guys and call in the artillery.”

“Have you lost your mind?”

“Grady is out to hurt you, Aaron. I’m not going to let that happen.” He put his hand on my forearm and squeezed it, maybe for longer than he should. “You’re the only real family I got.”

WE WERE NOW on the outer edge of River Oaks, in an area where the yards were banked and measured in acres, the houses three stories high with white-columned porches, the driveways circular and shaded by trees that creaked in the wind. The sky was a soft blue, the lawns deep in shadow, the air scented with flowers and chlorine and meat fires. The interior of every house tinkled with golden light.

Saber began reciting the encyclopedic levels of information he had on the Harrelson family; I would have dismissed most everything he said if it had come from anyone else. But he had a brain like flypaper and never forgot anything.

“See, the old man isn’t just a rice farmer and oil driller. He’s mixed up with these Galveston mobsters who’re moving out to Vegas,” he said. “You know their names.”

“What do you mean, I know?”

“Your uncle is buddies with some of these guys. It’s no big deal, Aaron.”

“Don’t be talking about my family like that. You get this stuff out of men’s magazines with Japs on the cover, strafing naked women tied to stakes in the Amazon.”

“The best source of information in the nation,” he said. “Look at what we read in school, Silas Marner and The House of the Seven Gables. I bet that’s what people in hell have to read for all eternity. Hitler and Tojo and guys like that.”

He coasted to the curb, under the limbs of a spreading oak, the engine coughing like a sick animal. Up ahead we could see the floodlamps shining on