The Jealous Kind by James Lee Burke Page A

Saber said early Saturday morning at the filling station in West University where I worked part-time.
    â€œI don’t think he’s figured it out yet.”
    Saber had come to the station with a thermos of coffee at seven A.M. , full of forgiveness for my going in the house with Valerie and leaving him alone. I promised myself I would never hurt him again.
    â€œWhat’s Krauser up to?” he asked.
    â€œYou got me. He’s scared about something.”
    â€œYou’re right,” he said, watching a long-legged girl in shorts pedal past the station. “He probably knows I got the goods on him.”
    â€œWhat goods?”
    â€œMy sources saw him hanging around the Pink Elephant. He may be a closet stool-packer.”
    â€œCome on, Saber.”
    â€œI’m not knocking those guys. They don’t bother anybody. I’mknocking this ass-wipe who’s declared war on us. What did I ever do to Krauser besides drop my johnson through a hole in the ceiling of his classroom? Did you ever notice how he always looks constipated? I bet he has some kind of blockage that’s backed up into his brain. I got to ask you something.”
    â€œAbout what?”
    â€œValerie Epstein.” His eyes went away from mine, then came back. “Did you?”
    â€œDid I what?”
    â€œYou know.”
    â€œEnd of conversation.”
    â€œAm I your best friend or not? Who keeps you out of trouble? Huh? Answer that.”
    â€œI appreciate your efforts.”
    â€œYou don’t need that kind of grief. When you get the urge, just flog your rod.”
    â€œShut up, Saber.”
    Sometimes Saber had inclinations and said things I didn’t like to dwell on. Saber never had girlfriends or asked a girl to a dance. He didn’t even go on Coke dates. He talked about movie actresses but always eased away from the group when we visited a slumber party or hung out with a mixed crowd in the back row at the drive-in theater, drinking beer and necking and sometimes having to lift a car bumper to get rid of a discomfiting condition.
    â€œLoren Nichols didn’t give us up,” he said.
    â€œMaybe he has character,” I said.
    â€œSave it for Mass. This isn’t nearly over.”
    A Cadillac pulled up to one of the pumps; the driver honked. I ignored him and said to Saber, “Will you take the collard greens out of your mouth?”
    â€œThis is about Grady Harrelson. It’s always about a guy like Harrelson, not a greaseball from North Houston.”
    â€œYou don’t like rich people, Saber.”
    â€œWhy should I?” he said.
    I thought about it. I couldn’t come up with an answer.
    D ETECTIVE JENKS PULLED intothe station in an unmarked car at six that evening, just as we were closing up. The only other employees, two black men, were rolling dice in back on a flattened cardboard box for fun. In those days white kids were hired in filling stations because black men were not allowed to handle money or deal with the customers. Other than making change, our skills were virtually nil. The owner of the station had already gone home. I looked at the two black men and wondered at the composure that seemed to characterize their lives in spite of the hard times they’d had. The younger man had been with the Big Red One in Korea and come home with a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart. The older man had a scar like a braided rope on the back of his neck, where he had been stabbed by a cuckolded husband in Mississippi. Both men, like most men of color in that era, knew a cop when they saw one. They put away their dice and began washing up under a faucet, their backs turned to me and Jenks. I was on my own.
    â€œGet in,” Jenks said.
    I tossed my sponge into a bucket and slung a chamois over my shoulder. I even tried to smile. “What for?”
    â€œDon’t make me say it twice.”
    I got into the front seat. The inside of his car was hot and smelled of