The Ying on Triad (3 page)

Nodding to Marty and Danny, I said, "Let's get on
with it"

Marty grinned up at me. "And make me proud"

I clenched my teeth. That was his departing remark to
everyone. Make me proud. Like a father. I often wondered
if he said it to his son when the boy took the throne in the
bathroom. Make me proud, son.

Venturing into Austin traffic five years ago was a challenge; today, it was a decided risk. Horrendous, hideous,
and horrific most aptly describe the daily dash from home
to work and back again. At any given time, thousands of
automobiles jam the freeways bumper-to-bumper two
miles in every direction from downtown.

The daredevil attempt to take an on-ramp into the middle of the melee of motorcycles, cars, pickups, and trucks
is not for the faint-hearted. Such an attempt demands that
a driver possess supreme confidence, consummate skill,
and a death wish.

Every time I manage to shoehorn my Silverado pickup
into traffic, I'm truly amazed. The drawback is that once
in the middle, you're going where the others go.
Changing lanes is not unlike Russian roulette with five
cartridges in the cylinder.

When I hit 1-35 North that afternoon, my brain was
replaying the conversation with Danny. So involved was I
that out of habit I took the off-ramp to my old apartment
on Travis, except I no longer lived on Travis.

Muttering a curse, I sped along the access road until I reached the next on-ramp, where I once again tempted
fate. Two miles north, I managed the appropriate cutoff to
Gin Peyton Road and my new apartment. The move had
been prompted by the need to garage my newest toy, a
1925 Model T Runabout that I'd picked up over in
Mississippi while helping Jack Edney find the person who
had killed his father.

Unfortunately, the perp turned out to be Jack's sister,
who managed to escape the proverbial long arm of the
law; but Joe Basco, a mob boss in New Orleans, had a
longer arm that had stretched from the French Quarter to
a deserted road in the middle of the swamp twenty miles
south of Vicksburg.

Jack's old man had restored Model T's and T-birds. I
fell in love with the Runabout and bought it for fifteen
thousand. In the process of the investigation in Vicksburg,
my 2002 Silverado pickup was literally ripped apart, and
Jack, who came into almost six million dollars-most of
it because of me-replaced it with a new one.

So, I had hooked a lowboy trailer to the new Silverado,
driven the Runabout up onto it, and headed home.

Janice Coffman-Morrison, my significant other, fell in
love with the little antique just as I knew she woulddespite the fact she routinely sold her own vehicles when
they were six months old or needed washing, whichever
came first. In the last few months, we had put a few hundred miles on it just tooling around town at a breakneck
thirty miles per hour.

The red light on the answering machine was blinking
when I entered the apartment. I punched the button and
headed to the bedroom to change. There were two messages, the first was Janice reminding me of our dinner date
that night at the Hilton Towers, a spectacular restaurant overlooking the broad Colorado River, and the second,
a voice like gravel, warning me, "Leave Packard where
he is"

I glanced at the caller ID. The source was unavailable.
I punched in *69, then dialed the number and was rewarded with a recording saying the number was out of service.
Probably a pay phone, I guessed. I studied the receiver in
my hand for several seconds before replacing it. Whoever
was responsible for the call was clever. There was no way
to trace a pay phone to an individual.

While I was dressing the phone rang. It was Janice.
"Did you get my message?"

"I'm almost ready."

"Oh, and," she exclaimed, "I forgot to mention something. Don't plan anything for Sunday. Aunt Beatrice is
giving a small party out at the distillery. If the weather is
pretty, we can drive out in the little car."

Little car. That was the tender sobriquet she had given
the Model T Runabout. "Fine with me if I have the time"

"Tony!"

"I'm serious, Janice. I'm working on a new case, and
I'm pressed for time"

"Well," she sniffed, "certainly not so pressed you can't
take off an hour or so for me"

An hour or so? More like three or four hours. "We'll see"

As usual, I drove over to her apartment where I left my
Silverado so we could go in her two-month-old silver
Miata. She didn't truly dislike my pickup, but she did
have an aversion to being seen in it by any of her friends
from the Daylily Club or any of the several other social
organizations to which she belonged.

"You look wonderful," I said, climbing from the truck
and sliding behind the wheel of the silver Miata. "Have
you been waiting long?"

She smiled briefly from the passenger seat. "I had just
closed the door."

I leaned over and touched my lips to hers. "Ready?"

She nodded.

Before I shifted gears, I caught a puzzling glimpse of
her. She seemed distracted. "Are you all right?"

I know that's not the question a smart man should ask
a woman who seems to have something on her mind, but
I didn't know what else to say.

Her answer told me something was bothering her.
"Fine. I'm just fine"

I played the dummy. "Good. Let's go" I gunned the
engine, and the little Miata leaped forward.

Janice and I had met a few years earlier when I was
helping her out of an insurance jam. Neither she nor I were
interested in getting serious, but we had fun together even
though I quickly realized I was simply a dependable
escort, an infrequent lover, an occasional confidant.

In other words, I was a tool to satisfy her needs. And
she was the same for me. We had reconciled our positions
in the relationship and we were both fairly content.

Inexplicably, despite our skewed relationship, we were
very good friends who enjoyed each other's company.
From time to time, Janice did speak of our relationship.
After a few of those little discussions, which I really
didn't understand, I learned when to agree and when not
to agree.

That night, Janice was a knockout with diamonds
draped around her slender neck and dangling from her
ears. There's an ethereal quality about the very rich that
the rest of us never quite manage to successfully emulate.

As always, we enjoyed each other during an evening
of elegant dining and dancing despite her occasional inattentiveness. I kept up an innocuous chitchat throughout the evening, but for some reason, she seemed to
maintain an inexplicable distance. Which prompted me
to begin wondering what I had done wrong.

Just before midnight, she cleared her throat. "Tony, we
need to talk"

Talk! I cringed. Beware when a woman says you need
to talk. Warily, I replied with a response I knew couldn't
get me in trouble, "Oh?" My brain raced, wondering what
was coming next.

With a tender and gentle smile, she laid her hand on
mine. "I can't tell you how wonderful the last few months
have been, since you came back from Vicksburg"

I relaxed-not much, but some. "Good," I choked out,
still wary, still wondering.

"I feel we're closer now than we've ever been, don't
you?" she squeezed my hand.

Relaxing a little more, I squeezed hers back. "I was
beginning to wonder. You've seemed, well, distracted tonight"

A becoming blush tinged her cheeks, and she ducked
her head. "That's because ... well, I wanted to talk to you
about something, and I didn't know how you would
react"

I squeezed her hand again and replied with the safest
response I could muster. "You know you can talk to me
about anything, Janice. Anything at all"

She looked up hopefully, "Anything?"

With smug grin, I nodded to her, "Anything"

Her eyes lit with glee. "I've been thinking about it, but
this afternoon when you mentioned you might have to
work Sunday, I made up my mind. I want to work with
you, Tony. I want to help you investigate whatever it is
you investigate. We'll make a wonderful team"

I laughed. Suddenly the laughter stuck in my throat when I realized exactly what she had said. Maybe I had
misunderstood. Nervously, I asked. "You-you ... ah ...
what?"

Janice nodded emphatically. "I want to be your partner.
I want to help you solve crimes like Nick and Nora
Charles"

"Nick and Nora who? What on earth are you talking
about?"

"You know," she said, her words gushing with excitement, "those two actors in the old movies back when talking films were just beginning. Way back in the olden days.
I don't remember their real names, but they were on TV
last week. Together they solved a big crime. That's what
gave me the idea"

Now, I have always considered myself fairly glib. I
taught English to high school kids who didn't want to
learn, in schools that didn't want me to teach. And later, I
did well selling insurance, but I was now at a loss for
words. Janice was obviously enthralled with the idea, as
she was with her many impulses. Most of them died a
slow, agonizing death, and within a few weeks she usually
found another interest.

Being heiress to the largest distillery in the state of
Texas provides the luxury of indulging such caprices.

I enjoyed our time together. I didn't want an argument
and the last thing I wanted her to do was start pouting. She
was the ultimate pouter, probably having majored in pouting at the exclusive finishing school she had attended in
Atlanta. The intensity of her pouting could make a firm
decision suddenly limp.

Figuring this idea was simply a passing fancy, I tried to
sidestep her suggestion. "It isn't what you think, Janice.
There's nothing glamorous about the job"

Her brows knitted in an attractive frown. "Oh, I know that. I know it's hard, but we can do it." She paused, then
added, "Don't you think so?"

I whistled to myself. What a loaded question. I was
sunk either way I answered, so I opted for the coward's
way, "I sure do"

She jumped from her chair, clapping her hands in glee,
and then she threw her arms around my neck, "Oh, Tony,
thank you, thank you, thank you!"

Embarrassed by the puzzled frowns that quickly turned
into beaming smiles from the tables around us, I hugged
her to me. "All right, if you're going to work with me, I'd
better get you home. I leave for death row in Huntsville at
6:00 in the morning."

She looked up in surprise and parted her lips to protest.

I quickly explained. "The job doesn't work on your
hours. You have to go whenever and wherever the job calls,
in all kinds of weather." It might have been a little melodramatic, but I was hoping she would change her mind.

She didn't. Instead, she pulled away and grabbed her
wrap and purse. "Then take me home"

At 5:30 next morning, Huey delivered the transcript of
the trial. I eyed it anxiously, eager to peruse the sheath of
documents. I tossed it on the computer table so I would
not forget to take it with me, after which I gave Oscar, my
albino tiger barb, his morning feast. "Take it easy, little
fella," I muttered, watching him as he swam in circles to
suck the food from the surface of the aquarium.

To my surprise, Janice was waiting on the sidewalk
when I pulled up in front of her apartment at 6 A.M. She
wore a brown suit and a matching brown Dolce and
Gabbana belted cardigan vest over a white silk blouse.
The perfect outfit for detecting, I thought wryly.

At 9:00 A.M., we pulled up in front of the Polunsky
Unit east of Livingston, Texas, forty miles or so southeast
of Huntsville. I climbed out and glanced across the seat at
Janice, "Well, are you ready?"

With grim apprehension, she eyed the bleak buildings
surrounded by twelve-foot chain link fences topped with
curls of concertina razor wire. She looked at me and shivered. "You go in. I'll wait out here."

I suppressed a grin. "I thought you wanted to be part of
it-to work with me."

She drew a deep breath but her face had paled. "I do,
but, but-this .." she gestured to the cold, severe buildings housing the death row inmates. "I'll wait for you out
here"