The Devil Went Down to Austin Read online

Page 28

  Clyde sipped his beer, got some white foam on his moustache. "Rubys a good woman. Dont judge her. "

  "She sold out her company, went behind Garretts and Jimmys backs—"

  "If I thought Ruby had done something to hurt Garrett, Id talk to her. "

  "You must have a pretty narrow definition of hurt. "

  Clyde studied me, the tape on his broken nose making him look slightly crosseyed.

  "Your brothers a standup guy. The Buffett summer tour this year—he got tickets, swung some for me and some friends, too. You think I like this shit with the police? I want him free to go. "

  He said free the way a con says free—like it was a kind of weather.

  Miata the ferocious dog was closing her eyes. She was just about to go to sleep when the weight of her snout closed her jaw around the pink bunny and made it squeak. She lifted her head, looking around sleepily for the intruder.

  "Theres a thing about Matthew Pena," I told Clyde. "People think they can work with him. They find out theyre wrong. "

  Simms scratched the Dobermans muzzle with his toes. "Ruby knows enough to call her own shots. "

  "You care for her. "

  His eyes got dangerously hot. "Shes a good boss. "

  "Thats not what I meant. "

  He finished his beer, crumpled the can, tossed it somewhere behind the pink sofa. "I got discharged from the Marines in 82, Navarre. I spent a few years hanging with bikers, striking with the Diablos. Then I started bumming with dock rats at the lake. I met all kinds of people. You know what I figured out? Only friends worth having are the ones who can hurt you, man, hurt you worse than any random shithead in a bar fight. I hang with Ruby because she stands by me? she tries to be good to me. Is she dangerous? Fuck, yes. Is she a little screwed up, all that shitty family history? Sure.

  But you want to boil it down to—hey, Clydes got the hots for her, well you go ahead, man. Thats how you think, youd never understand anyway. "

  The Doberman was looking at me mournfully, chewing her pink bunny.

  "I apologize," I told Clyde.

  He grunted.

  "You mentioned Rubys family," I said. "You knew them?"

  "Only stories. The grandfather was the one that sold out, left them with this little piece of land. He sat on the money hed made from the sale, pretty much pissed it away on drink and gambling. What Rubys dad inherited wasnt a third of the value. He tried a lot of things, ended up starting the marina, never made much of a go of it. Toward the end of his life, Ruby was running the place, trying to make it pay off for the sake of her old man. Ruby did it, too. Wasnt her dream to get rich, or to keep the land. But by the time her dad was gone, she couldnt get away from the place. Building that house up there on the hill—you dont understand what a big

  deal that is for her, Navarre. Its Ruby admitting shes here for keeps? she aint going to get away. "

  The sound of a motorboat went by out on the lake. The smell of burnt pork and beans was slowly giving way to cedar from the open windows.

  "Where is she now?" I asked. "Do you know?"

  Clyde gave me a look I couldnt quite read. "Yeah, I know. She dont always let me tag along. "

  "Like when she goes to meet with Matthew Pena?"

  Clyde shook his head. "I aint your enemy, Navarre. I aint Garretts enemy. But you ask me, youre barking up the wrong pole. I seen Garrett around Ruby, how they dance around each other. I seen how Garrett looked when she told him she was marrying Jimmy Doebler. You want to help your brother—maybe you should start by thinking: Hell, yeah, he killed the guy. Go from there. You understand me?"

  "This advice from you, who wanted to kill Matthew Pena months ago?"

  But when I met Clydes eyes, I understood what he was saying. Clyde could believe Pena deserved to die. He could also believe Garrett had murdered Jimmy Doebler. He could also believe that Garrett was a decent man who deserved to be free. These ideas were not mutually exclusive. For Clyde, murder was no more astonishing than chicken pox, certainly no reason to judge a man.

  I stood. "Ill keep your advice in mind, Clyde. "

  "And I wont kill you," he decided. "But stay off Rubys boat, hear?"

  I left Clyde on his chewing gum couch, Miata the ferocious dog sleeping at his feet.

  Outside, the lake spread out glittering and blue, but for once I couldnt help seeing it the way Ruby mustve seen it all her life—as a cool heavy funeral cloth over a million acres of land.

  Date: Mon 12 Jun 2000 20:03:12 0400

  ReplyTo: The Original Jimmy Buffet* List Sender: The Original Jimmy Buffett List From: Automatic digest processor Subject: Clara/First Show of the Season

  She was sitting by the water, on the tailgate of the truck, not twenty feet from me.

  Her hair had gone almost steel gray. Her face was swollen, no longer delicate. Fifty years of crying will do that to you. She wore a white blouse and white shorts, so she fairly well glowed in the night.

  She would write a word or two, then look up and talk for a while, but she would look through me—dazed. I couldnt be sure if I was still there to her? I could only hope. I hoped she heard me tell her that this was a reunion.

  The fact that she had the gun made it all the more exciting. I wasnt quite sure what would happen, how long I had. My recipe was still pretty new.

  She was apologizing. She was crying.

  It wasnt everything I wanted, but it was close. I felt that painful sting in my mouth, the tension of waiting, like Id bitten into a lime and couldnt yet swallow. I wanted to step out of the darkness. I wanted to close the distance between us, embrace her, kiss her forehead.

  But then, the intrusion.

  Id timed things as best I could, tried to err on the side of caution, but here came company, much too early—boots cracking twigs.

  "Maam?" he called. "You all right?"

  She turned toward the voice.

  She couldve ended things for me right there. But in her mind, the deed was already done. Shed signed her name.

  She raised the gun, and the intruders voice got frantic. He ordered her to drop the weapon.

  And then she turned the barrel, raised it to her mouth for a kiss.

  A thousand tons of pressure, an entire miserable lifetime, escaped in one tremendous burst.

  The intruders face saved him then, it really did. I wanted to show myself. I wanted to destroy him. But his expression told me that Providence had spoken.

  He was meant to see what he saw. I couldnt have hurt him any worse than that.

  P. S. Sorry for the offtopic post.

  Its going to be a great tour this summer.

  First show tomorrow night, and I am pumped.

  CHAPTER 24

  Despite how close Jimmys dome looked from the water, it took me half an hour to get back on the winding lakeshore roads.

  I found no new presents on the front porch, no signs that anyone had tried to get past my newly installed lock. The minicam timer Id placed on the door—set for motiondetection, three freezeframe shots per hit—had not been triggered.

  Then I looked down toward the water.

  Docked at Jimmys pier was a white and red Supra Conbrio—a twoseater racing boat, sleek and fast, a midlife crisis killer.

  Ruby McBride was sitting on the pier, her back to the shore.

  I thought for a few heartbeats, then went inside the dome and pulled two beers from the fridge. Robert Johnson circled my feet, sniffing, murring. He seemed to approve of my visit to Miata the Doberman. I took my two beers outside and made my way down to the water.

  Ruby didnt turn when I walked up. She was sitting crosslegged, and in her lap was one of Jimmys unfired pots—a large eggshaped vase Ruby mustve pulled from the storage shelf by the new kiln.

  "We need to coordinate our plans better," I told her.

  She glanced up, squinting into the sunlight. "Hows that?"

  "I just came from your place. "

  "I suppose I shouldve
expected that. "

  Her tennis shoes were wet, her cotton pants rolled up midcalf. She wore a onepiece bathing suit for a top, her bare back a tan expanse of freckles.

  "Well," she said. "Despite our best efforts, we seem to have found one another. You wanted to tell me something?"

  "At the risk of being oldfashioned, ladies first. "

  I offered her one of the beers.

  "I shouldnt have alcohol," she mused. "Not good with my medication. "

  But she took the longneck.

  "I phoned Garrett an hour ago," she said. "I tried to apologize for the sellout, the way things ended. Like most of my conversations with Garrett, it didnt work out the way I planned. Left me feeling like crap. "

  "Why apologize?"

  She shot me an angry look. "You think I dont know how he felt about the company?"

  "Five days ago, I didnt know you existed. Today I found out you and Garrett go back twenty years. I dont know what to think. "

  The wind picked up, carrying the smells of rotting wooden planks, crayfish, and cedar.

  Ruby balanced her beer bottle on the wet toe of her shoe, turned it around in a pirouette. "I was a sophomore in college, Tres. Your brother was one of those people you meet and you think, Hes going to be important. Hes going to rise above. Believe me, when you come from a family like mine, you appreciate potential. You dont see much of it. Garrett and I dated for six months. We talked about marriage the way stupid college kids talk—like you can pick out the rest of your life delistyle from the undergrad catalogue. Then Garrett had his accident. "

  She was silent, watching the water.

  "I know it shouldnt have mattered. I know he was still Garrett. But physically, I couldnt deal with it. The next time I saw him was five years later, a chance meeting. And Garrett was the decent one. He said he forgave me. I guess I believed what I needed to believe. "

  "You really thought you didnt hurt him?"

  A turkey buzzard hovered above us, probably betting that two humans dumb enough to stand outside in this heat wouldnt last for long.

  "When Jimmy and I got engaged," Ruby said, "Garrett pulled me aside, told me I was making a mistake. That was the first time I realized how hurt he was. When things started going bad between

  Jimmy and me, Garrett just got more dismal. It became impossible for the three of us to work together. Tres, I thought I was doing something good, getting Garrett involved in the startup. I thought I was making amends. "

  This struck me as either the most brazen lie or the most pathetically sad truth Id ever heard.

  "You signed away the company," I told her. "If you were trying to make amends, you failed spectacularly. "

  She glared at me. "Yesterday we were in agreement. Now Im a traitor? "

  "Yesterday I didnt know youd been cruising the Farallons with Matthew Pena. I didnt know about the back door in the software. "

  My words hit her like an Arctic front. She laced her fingers around her beer bottle, looked out at the lake long enough to count every buoy in the boating lane.

  "You dont understand. "