BBH01 - Cimarron Rose by James Lee Burke Page A

could see the connections coming together in
Jack's eyes, his good looks clouding.
    'No, this goes beyond that, doesn't it?' He pointed
one finger, bouncing it in the air. 'You're making Darl a suspect to
get Lucas off the hook.'
    'Nope.'
    'Well, I personally think you should be ashamed of
yourself, Billy Bob,' Emma said.
    'I'm sorry,' I said, rising from my chair. The room
felt warm, the air astringent with the smell of chemical pellets in the
hanging baskets.
    Jack rose from his chair behind his desk. The balls
of his fingers rested on the glass top. His lavender shirt with a white
collar and rolled French cuffs and loose tie looked like a cosmetic
joke on his powerful body.
    'Do you want me to write a check right now, or does
the bill come later for photographing my son so you can implicate him
in a murder?' he asked.
    'I didn't invent your son's history or his
problems…' I shook my head. 'I apologize for my remark. I'd
better go now,' I said.
    'Jack, don't let this happen. We need to sit down
and talk this out,' Emma said.
    'I might have some difficulty doing that. Get out of
my office, Billy Bob,' he said.
    Outside, I could feel the blood stinging in my neck,
my hands useless and thick at my sides.

----
chapter
ten
    The next morning, when Lucas Smothers
came to work
with his father, he told me of the late-night visit he had received
from people with whom he had gone to high school.
    The cars cut their lights before they got to Lucas's
house, but through his open window he could hear music on a radio and
the voices of girls. The cars, five of them, were stopped in the center
of the road, their engines throbbing softly against the pavement, their
hand-rubbed body surfaces glowing dully under the moon like freshly
ported plastic.
    Then the lead car turned into Lucas's drive,
followed by the others, and fishtailed across the damp lawn, scouring
grass and sod into the air, crunching the sprinkler, ripping troughs
out of the flower beds.
    One girl jumped from a car, a metallic object in her
hand, and bent down below the level of the bedroom window. He heard a
hissing sound, then saw her raise up and look at him. No, that wasn't
accurate. She never saw him, as though his possible presence was as
insignificant as the worth of his home. Her face was beautiful and
empty, her mouth like a pursed button.
    'What are y'all doing?' he said, his voice phlegmy
in his throat.
    If she heard him, she didn't show it. Her skin
seemed to flush with pleasure just before she turned and pranced like a
deer into the waiting arms of her friends, who giggled and pulled her
back inside the car.
    By the time Lucas and his father got outside, the
caravan was far down the road, the headlights dipping over a hill.
    Lucas could see the girl's footprints by the water
faucet under his window. The ground was soft and muddy here, and the
footprints were small and sharp edged and narrow at the toe, and it was
obvious the girl had tried to stand on a piece of cardboard to keep the
mud off her shoes. Written in red, tilted, spray-painted letters below
Lucas's screen was the solitary word loser .
     
    That same day I drove out to the Green
Parrot Motel,
a pink cinder-block monstrosity painted with tropical birds and palm
trees and advertising water beds and triple-X movies. The desk clerk
told me Garland T. Moon was next door at the welding shop.
    The tin shed had only one window, which was painted
over and nailed shut, and the walls pinged with the sun's heat. Garland
T. Moon was stripped to the waist, black goggles on his eyes,
arc-welding the iron bucket off a ditching machine. The sparks dripped
to his feet like liquid fire. He pushed his goggles up on his forehead
with a dirty thumb and wiped his eyes on his forearm. His smile made me
think of a clay sculpture that had been pushed violently out of shape.
    'Were you out at my house two nights ago?' I asked.
    'I got me a parttime job. I don't run around at
night.'
    'I think either you or Jimmy Cole hurt my