The Jealous Kind by James Lee Burke Page A

a recliner, her white swimsuit like wet Kleenex.
    â€œWho is she?” I said.
    â€œMexico’s answer to Esther Williams.” He pulled the binoculars from my hands and looked through again. “Didn’t I tell you the Harrelsons had ties to Galveston?”
    â€œShe’s a pro?”
    â€œNo, she’s the kindergarten teacher at St. Anne’s Elementary. Say a prayer of thanks you have me to escort you through these situations. Oh, man, I’m about to shoot my wad. Look at that broad. It’s criminal that a woman can be that beautiful.”
    â€œYou know those guys?” I asked.
    â€œIt’s his regular crowd. Guys who went to military school because their parents don’t want them. Know what makes them different from us?”
    â€œThey’re rich?”
    â€œThey don’t have feelings. After we do our recon, I’ll drive you over to Valerie’s. That’s what’s really on your mind, isn’t it?”
    â€œI want to tell her we didn’t have anything to do with burning Loren Nichols’s car.”
    â€œRight, otherwise she’d be heartbroken.”
    â€œLay off it, Saber.”
    But his attention had shifted to a kid who’d climbed up to the high board and was looking straight at us.
    â€œStart the car,” I said.
    Saber shook a cigarette out of his pack. “Bad form. There’s a tire iron under your seat. I’d love to bash one of these guys. Maybe sling brains all over the bushes.”
    â€œAre you serious? What’s the matter with you? Start the car.”
    â€œToo late. Don’t rattle. You got to brass it out. Look upon this as an opportunity.”
    A sea-green Cadillac with fins bounced out of the entrance to the driveway, and a Buick with a grille like a chromium mouth came up behind us, sealing off the street. We were shark meat. Grady’s friends piled out of the cars. Grady, with the woman behind him, walked through the camellia bushes in his yard and opened the door to a piked fence and stepped out on the swale in his swim trunks and a pair of sandals. He tied a towel around his hair, like a turban, exposing his armpits. He was probably the most handsome young guy I’d ever seen. I could not understand how a kid who had so much could be the bastard he was. He leaned down to see who was in the car. “Bledsoe?”
    â€œThe chosen one himself,” Saber said. “How’s it hangin’, Harrelson? Love your pad. I hear you bonked the maid in your atom bomb shelter.”
    â€œI dig your pipes.”
    â€œI always knew you had taste.”
    â€œBut why is your shit machine parked in front of my house?”
    â€œWe got a situation we thought you could help us with,” Saber replied. “Aaron didn’t mean to cause you any trouble at the drive-in restaurant, but you blamed your breakup with your girlfriend on him because he happened to say hello at the wrong time. That’s definitely uncool. In the meantime, somebody has been trying to kick a telephone pole up our asses.”
    â€œA telephone pole? Man, that’s a sad story.”
    â€œFraming us for a car arson, stoking up some hoods in the Heights, that sort of thing.”
    Grady propped his hands on the Chevy’s roof and seemed to reflect on Saber’s words. The woman had hung a blue silk robe on her shouldersand was watching from the other side of the piked fence. Her sloe eyes and her black hair curling damply around her neck made me think of a villainous movie actress.
    â€œDo you see anyone else on this street, Bledsoe?” Grady asked.
    â€œNot a soul.”
    â€œDoes that indicate the nature of your situation?”
    â€œYou mean y’all could rip us apart and stuff us down the storm drain and nobody would care?”
    â€œI can tell nobody is putting anything over on you. But we don’t want to see you hurt. You’re a nice little guy. So I’ll ask you again: What