The Jealous Kind (Holland Family Saga #2) - James Lee Burke Page 0,32

I called her house three times within ten minutes.

Think, I told myself. I hadn’t done anything wrong. Or at least I hadn’t intended to do anything wrong. I had a right to confront the people who were working out their problems on my back and Saber’s. Suddenly the man who had always seemed a scourge in my life seemed a minor player, someone whose job security demanded he conform to masculine and brutish parameters, a man who was more dolt than villain and not a threat. I’m talking about Mr. Krauser.

He lived by himself in a squat gravel-roofed house that resembled a machine-gun bunker, built of glazed brick that looked like plastic. There were no shrubs or flower beds in the yard; the St. Augustine grass was chemical green and as stiff and unnatural in appearance as the spikes in a rubber mat. The backyard contained an archery target stuffed with straw, a swimming pool made of plastic tarps, and a doghouse where a Doberman stayed unless it was killing the neighbors’ cats or the wild rabbits that lived in the neighborhood. The grass was pocked with yellow depressions from the mounds of dog shit that Krauser shoveled into a garbage can humming with flies.

He answered the door in a sweat-soaked Texas A&M jersey cut off at the armpits and a pair of gym trunks rolled to the crotch. He seemed surprised to see me, even pleased. “Broussard, what’s up, big man?”

“Need to talk to you, Mr. Krauser.”

“About what?”

“A delicate subject.”

“Come in. Get yourself in girl trouble?”

“No, sir.”

He closed the door behind me and turned the dead bolt, then cracked the curtain and looked through the window. The air conditioners were turned up full blast, the air frigid. “Where’s Saber?”

“He’s part of the reason I’m here.”

“If this is about the counselor job, it’s too late. Come in back. I’m lifting. Get yourself a soda out of the icebox.”

I followed him into a windowless room. The floor was concrete. There was a sweat-printed, leather-padded black bench in it, and a rack of barbells along the wall, and at least two hundred pounds of steel plates on the weight bar racked above the bench. On the wall were certificates of merit from booster organizations, a framed collection of military medals and ribbons and chevrons and a unit patch, a pair of women’s black panties pressed on pink felt under glass with a card that said “Liberating France one piece at a time,” a plaque with crossed cavalry swords on it, photos of Krauser bowling and performing on a trapeze and hitting softballs to young boys and playing with the Doberman, a letter of commendation from a group in Dallas called Patriots Unlimited, and a Confederate battle flag. In the corner was an old wooden desk with a lamp on it made from a German helmet and an artillery shell. There was an SS insignia on the helmet and a silver-smooth bullet hole an inch from that. A chrome-bladed dagger, the white handle inlaid with gold lightning bolts, lay on the desk blotter.

Krauser began curling a ninety-pound bar, his biceps swelling into white cantaloupes corded with veins. “Spit it out.”

“Saber and I have bad people on our backs, Mr. Krauser. The problem is, we don’t know why.”

“This is about those punks from the Heights?”

“I think it has to do with people in the underworld.”

“Oh, bullshit.”

“I don’t think it is.”

He continued to pump the bar, eight and nine and ten times, the steel plates rattling, sweat popping on his face, his odor blooming.

“Sir, I’m asking for your help,” I said.

“You think too much.”

“This isn’t just a beef with some rough guys from the Heights. I think we’re dealing with evil people, people with no mercy. There’s some things about you that don’t make sense, Mr. Krauser.”

He dropped the bar on a rubber pad, breathing deeply, his nostrils dilating. “What was that again?”

“Saber says you were following him.”

“What, I follow Mongolian idiots around town in my off hours?”

“Why would you come to my house and offer Saber and me jobs? You don’t like either one of us.”

“I tried to do a good deed, that’s why. I didn’t exactly get a warm welcome from your parents.” He picked up a thirty-pound dumbbell in each hand and began pumping, his eyes sinking in his face.

“Saber saw you at the Pink Elephant with Jimmy McDougal.”

Krauser inverted the dumbbells, lifting them straight out from his chest, counting to ten under his breath, a drop of moisture hanging off his