The Jealous Kind (Holland Family Saga #2) - James Lee Burke Page 0,86

rising sun of Imperial Japan. His electric guitar was on his bed, plugged into the amplifier on the rug. Through the window, I could see the tin roofs of his neighbors in the rain, purple with rust, the palm trees and live oaks and slash pines bending in the wind. It looked more like the Caribbean than a run-down part of town in North Houston.

“How much do you want for the thirty-two you showed me?” I asked.

“Is this about those guys who tried to hurt Valerie?”

I didn’t answer.

“I shouldn’t have started this,” he said. “You going after somebody in particular?”

“I think Vick Atlas was behind it.”

“Don’t bet on that, man.”

“Then who tried to burn her?”

“Believe me, if I find out, there’s going to be some guys hurting real bad.”

“How much do you want for the gun, Loren?”

“Nothing. It’s not for sale. Does Valerie know about this?”

“No, she doesn’t. I don’t want you telling her, either.”

“You’re not giving the orders. Who killed Grady Harrelson’s old man?”

“Why ask me?” I said.

“Because you don’t have a clue what you’re doing. Because you’ll probably end up popping the wrong guy.”

“I need the gun. Will you give it to me or not?”

He held me with his stare.

“I’m leaving,” I said.

“It’s a big line you’re stepping over, Broussard,” he said.

“That’s another thing that bothers me about you, Loren. You call people by their last name.”

“If you smoke somebody, they visit you.”

“Who visits you?” I said.

“Dead people do. It’s not like in the movies.”

“You’ve killed somebody?”

“Shut up.”

“You offered me the gun. Now honor your word or don’t.”

I could see the heat go out of his face.

“Let me get an umbrella,” he said.

“How are your guitar lessons coming along?”

“Don’t change the subject. You don’t want to go to Gatesville, man. I never talk about it because people won’t believe me. It’s worse than Huntsville, especially in the shower or the toolshed, you get the picture?”

“I don’t get you,” I said.

“What?”

“Your drawings and your model planes are works of art. With your talent, you could be anything you want. Ever think about going to Hollywood? I’m not putting you on.”

He gazed out the window at a garbage can rolling down the street in the rain. “Your father is an engineer or something. You live in the good part of town. You’re a musician and you go steady with the most beautiful girl in Houston. But you’re coming to me for a drop so you can wax a lamebrain like Vick Atlas? I grew up in juvie and Gatesville. I’m the guy needs straightening out?”

“What’s a ‘drop’?”

He shook his head. “I’m going to hate myself for this the rest of my life. Follow me.”

WHAT I DID NEXT was not rational. But I didn’t care. I got the address of the Atlas family’s business office in Galveston and told Valerie I’d see her that night.

“You’re going down there by yourself?” she said.

“Why not? The cops haven’t helped us.”

“Then I’m going, too.”

“That’s not a good idea.”

Bad choice of words.

“Aaron, we’re in this together or we’re not. Tell me which it is.”

One hour later we were in Galveston and motoring down Seawall Boulevard, the Gulf slate green, the waves streaming with rivulets of yellow sand when they crested and crashed on the beach. The air smelled like iodine and brass and salt and seaweed. The Atlas realty and vending machine office was located in a nineteenth-century home, painted battleship gray, close by the water. It had a small pike-fenced lawn with flower beds, and a shell parking lot on the side, lightning rods and a weather vane on the roof, rocking chairs on the porch, a gazebo with an American flag protruding at an angle from one of the wooden pillars. A client could not find a more welcoming and reassuring and wholesome environment in which to conduct business.

A bell tinkled above the door when we entered. No one was at the reception desk. Through the doorway of the dining room, I could see four men eating sandwiches, pushing pieces of meat back into their mouths, wiping off their chins with a smear of the wrist or hand.

I was afraid, and I was even more afraid that others would know I was afraid. Through a side window, I could see the Gulf and the waves swelling over the third sandbar, and I thought about the day I swam through the school of jellyfish.

The three men eating with Jaime Atlas were middle-aged and jowled and had heavy shoulders and paunches and wore their tropical