Millie Trammel was five-one, weighed maybe ninety pounds, and wore her hair in a salt-and-pepper pageboy.
“Winter, I was just telling Sean you'll have to bring Rush and come out and have dinner with us when we get back. Next Saturday.”
“So tell us about the trip,” Winter asked Millie.
“It sounds exciting,” Sean offered. “New Orleans is wonderful this time of year.”
“We're leaving from Greensboro, which saved us a fortune, and getting in around three this afternoon. A friend of Hank's, Nicky Green-”
“You've heard me talk about Nicky,” Hank interrupted. “Nicky's the one put the skunk in-”
“Please,” his wife interrupted, “not that story again. He's only going to be there for one night.”
“Millie only acts like she doesn't like Nicky. He's a laugh a minute.”
“I can like Nicky for one night every few years. Actually he means well. He's just a little odd.”
“Eccentric,” Hank said. “He's a private eye. Works mostly for oil companies, that sort of thing. They kinda like his eccentricities, and he does good work. Travels all over the world.”
“I recall you talking about him,” Winter said.
“And you need to meet him one of these days real soon. His father was my commanding officer in Nam-boy grew up on Army bases. Nicky's forty, I think. Was a Western nut from childhood. Always wanted to live in the Wild West, and he used to get me to tell him all about what it was like growing up on the ranch. He did a four-year stint with the Army, but he didn't fit. Now he lives outside Houston, in Big Spring.”
“He's an urban cowboy who's never ridden a horse in his life,” Millie declared. “He has the accent and he dresses like he just stepped off the stage at the Grand Ole Opry.”
“He drives a '65 Caddy convertible and he rides a Harley some. He's allergic to horses,” Hank said defensively.
“He's bald, right?” Winter asked.
“From childhood,” Millie said. “There's a name for it.”
“Profeema, or propizza, or something,” Hank offered.
“Alopecia,” Sean said.
“No brows, not even any eyelashes,” Millie continued. “It takes some getting used to. He looks surprised all the time. Always has a toothpick in his mouth, like he's just had a steak dinner. Awful.”
“Well, it keeps him from smoking,” Hank said. “How many people would put a skunk in the window of a motel room to flush out a cheating wife and her paramour?” He laughed as he thought about it. “Pair of 'em come out the door naked as baby mice and stinking to high heaven of skunk pee. Has it on video. I've seen it.”
“So after a fun-filled night spent with Nicky reliving his experiences once again, we'll be spending the rest of the time with Kimberly and Faith Ann.”
“Rush is very fond of Faith Ann,” Sean said.
“If he told us to ask you to tell her hello for him once, he said it a hundred times,” Winter told the Trammels.
“And Faith Ann's real fond of him,” Millie said, chuckling. “That girl doesn't make friends easily. She's so independent and smart, it puts off most children her age. Kimberly was the same way. Knows what she wants. She wanted a child, but she didn't want a husband to complicate her life. She wanted to be able to pick up and go wherever her work led her.”
“The Kimberly Porter Electric Chair Crusade and Traveling Sideshow,” Hank said, drawing a frown from his wife.
“They've lived in interesting cities, like Houston, Dallas, Nashville, and New Orleans. It hasn't hurt Faith Ann one little bit,” Millie said.
“Faith Ann has a built-in bullshit meter that would turn a seasoned Texas Ranger green with envy,” Hank added.
“Hank Trammel!” Millie chided.
“Rush can't wait for her to come back up this summer. They instant message daily, e-mail constantly. He's been planning things for them to do,” Sean said.
“We won't be here this summer,” Winter reminded his wife.
“Rush and I have discussed that. Hank and Millie can bring her to Washington and stay with us. I'm sure she'd like to see the Smithsonian, the Air and Space Museum, the White House. It'll be fun.”
“We would love to do that,” Millie said. “That child's too energetic for me alone.”
“Let's plan on it, then,” Sean said. “How's Kimberly's practice doing?”
“She's struggling a bit, I think,” Millie said.
“Kimberly Quixote,” Hank said. “Always looking for a windmill to tilt at. And dragging Faith Ann along to hold the spear.”
“Lance,” Millie corrected. “I'm not always sure how I feel about things like capital punishment. But Kimberly has always known exactly how she feels about everything. She's an immovable object when it comes to her convictions. She isn't always hitting you over the head with her opinions, like some people.”
“Her legal cases barely cover her living expenses. Soon as she starts getting herself a reputation-and she does win more than she loses-she moves somewhere else and starts over on sexual harassment or age discrimination or some danged liberal cause.”
“I think it's good for Faith Ann to understand that believing strongly in something like justice is far more rewarding than making money practicing more profitable kinds of law,” Millie countered. “And Faith Ann has never wanted for anything.”
Hank told Winter, “All the Porter women since Texas belonged to Mexico have been cute as puppies, smart as whips, and as thickheaded and set in purpose as a mule lashed to a grist wheel.”
Winter noticed Sean was being quiet, smiling but seemingly caught up in her own thoughts.
The waitress came to the table to take their orders. Hank contemplated the girl and leaned back slightly. “I knew this waitress once who reminds me of you. She wore a perfect three-carat diamond stud in her nose that an oilman gave her for a tip. Oh, it would catch the sun and would light up like a prairie fire. And this was before having things stuck through the side of your nose was at all common.”
“That so?” the girl said flatly.
“Hank?” Millie's voice carried a note of warning.
“Well, one day at a chili cook-off at the state fair she went to sneeze, pinched her nostrils shut, and that diamond stud shot across the field like a bullet. Bunch of us got down on our hands and knees spent all afternoon searching through the grass for that rock.”
“Hank, that's a terrible story,” Millie groaned, shaking her head.
“But it has a happy ending.”
“You found the diamond?” the waitress wondered.
“Heck no. She got the insurance she kept up on it and bought herself a pickup truck and a padded steel barrel and became a rodeo clown. But best of all, that hole in the side of her nose grew back in so you'd never guess it was ever there,” Hank said, winking at her.
“I think we best order now,” Millie said.
“Yep, the noon rush will be starting up any minute,” Hank said.
“I meant while we still have appetites,” Millie said, frowning.
4
Paulus Styer sat alone at a table twenty feet from where the two men and their wives were eating lunch. His gray ponytail hung over the collar of his button-down shirt. He tapped his fingers softly on the table and stared down at a folded newspaper beside his bowl of chili. Although he appeared to be reading and listening to music through earphones leading to a Walkman resting on the table before him, the small tape machine was actually an extremely sensitive, narrow-field listening device picking up everything the two couples said. After they finished eating, he followed them out, passing by them as they were saying their good-byes on the sidewalk.
Styer was a lifelong competitor whose professional life consisted of one chess match after another, and like any grand master worth his salt he was always plotting his assault on the next king he was sent after. He had been at this match, doing his own last-minute daily field study, for a solid week. That week had come only after studying his opponent's dossier, which had been gathered from every source imaginable by the best researchers and analysts in the world. He had spent two weeks prior to arriving in the United States studying those files, committing them to memory. The research phase was necessary to complete an assignment and assure his success. His style of working an assignment was time-consuming, but his success ratio ensured that he had free rein to be as self-indulgent as he liked. What was Trammel's word for this Nicky Green fellow? Eccentric. Oh yes, Paulus Styer was eccentric. Why work if it wasn't fun? What was the point of walking up to someone and putting a pill in the back of their head-running an awl through their medulla? An ex-marine could do that sort of thing for ten thousand dollars a hit. When you were paying for perfection, you wanted a guaranteed elimination, and cost was a secondary consideration. Paulus Styer, lovingly referred to as Cold Wind, was your man.