The Jealous Kind by James Lee Burke

Bledsoe never lied, at least not about his one-man crusade against hypocrisy and phoniness. Sometimes I longed to know his secrets, but even at my young age, I knew he had paid a high price for them. “I don’t know if this is a good idea.”
    â€œYou got to do recon,” he said. “Write down license numbers. See who’s going in and out of the house. I’ve got connections at the motor vehicle department.”
    â€œGrady Harrelson’s father will have us ground into salt.”
    â€œThat’s my point. We’ll get the coordinates on these guys and call in the artillery.”
    â€œHave you lost your mind?”
    â€œGrady is out to hurt you, Aaron. I’m not going to let that happen.” He put his hand on my forearm and squeezed it, maybe for longer than he should. “You’re the only real family I got.”
    W E WERE NOW on the outer edge of River Oaks, in an area where the yards were banked and measured in acres, the houses three stories high with white-columned porches, the driveways circular andshaded by trees that creaked in the wind. The sky was a soft blue, the lawns deep in shadow, the air scented with flowers and chlorine and meat fires. The interior of every house tinkled with golden light.
    Saber began reciting the encyclopedic levels of information he had on the Harrelson family; I would have dismissed most everything he said if it had come from anyone else. But he had a brain like flypaper and never forgot anything.
    â€œSee, the old man isn’t just a rice farmer and oil driller. He’s mixed up with these Galveston mobsters who’re moving out to Vegas,” he said. “You know their names.”
    â€œWhat do you mean, I know?”
    â€œYour uncle is buddies with some of these guys. It’s no big deal, Aaron.”
    â€œDon’t be talking about my family like that. You get this stuff out of men’s magazines with Japs on the cover, strafing naked women tied to stakes in the Amazon.”
    â€œThe best source of information in the nation,” he said. “Look at what we read in school, Silas Marner and The House of the Seven Gables. I bet that’s what people in hell have to read for all eternity. Hitler and Tojo and guys like that.”
    He coasted to the curb, under the limbs of a spreading oak, the engine coughing like a sick animal. Up ahead we could see the floodlamps shining on the front of Grady’s house and a party taking place by the swimming pool in the side yard. Saber took a pair of binoculars from the glove box. I could feel my heart thudding against my ribs. He read my mind. “They cain’t see us,” he said. “I’m going to read off these license plate numbers. You write them down.”
    â€œThis is nuts.”
    â€œTake off the blinders, Aaron. How do you think these people got their money? Hard work? I bet this place is full of gangsters. How did Grady get discharged from the Marine Corps?”
    â€œGrady Harrelson was in the marines?”
    â€œHe enlisted after he graduated. Except, when he was about to be shipped to Korea, he discovered he had asthma. His old man pulled strings. The guy’s not just a tumblebug, he’s yellow.”
    â€œHe might be a bad guy, but I don’t think he’s yellow.”
    Saber began reading off license numbers, then stopped and took the binoculars from his eyes and wiped the lenses and looked through them again. “I don’t need this.”
    â€œNeed what?”
    He squeezed his scrotum. “My big boy just woke up with a vengeance. Check it out. You ever see a pair of cantaloupes like that? Those bongos were made in heaven.”
    I took the binoculars from him and focused them on the pool. Nine or ten guys Grady’s age were swimming or barbecuing or springing off the board. The obvious center of attention was a black-haired, dark-skinned woman who must have been in her late twenties. She was lying on