"Oh, be off before someone drops a house on you, too!" Tess muttered, pushing past the pickets to a small guardhouse that bisected the wide drive into Sterne Foods. An automatic fence separated her from the guard, and she hooked her fingers into the mesh, rattling it to get his attention.

"I'd like to see Gus Sterne," she said.

"You got an appointment?" asked the guard, barely glancing up from the sports page.

"No, it's a personal matter."

The guard shook his head. "Uh-huh. That won't work."

"Pardon me?"

"Oh, this crazy sports columnist, Robert Buchanan, he thinks the Texas Longhorns need more offense. He is so retarded. Where do they get these guys? I could write a better column."

"About Gus Sterne-"

"Sorry. No one gets in unless they're on the list. You want to see him, you have to call, get an appointment first, and show two forms of ID when you show up here. Fact is, he's pretty busy right now, what with the festival and all the traveling he's been doing. You won't be able to get an appointment for a week, maybe two."

Even as the guard spoke, a silver Lincoln Continental convertible was gliding down the hill. The gate began to slide open automatically and Tess jumped back, surprised by the sudden movement. The Lincoln was possibly the largest car she had ever seen. Brand-new, it would have been gross, the kind of stereotypical excess expected of Texans. But this car looked to be at least forty years old, which lent a certain dignity to its oversized proportions.

The same could be said of the broad-shouldered man behind the wheel, a man not much older than the car he drove. His shoulders were broad, his hair blond running to silver. As a young man, he had probably been handsome in a coarse, almost too-obvious way. Age had improved him.

One could only hope it would do the same for the young man in the passenger seat. His lines were as blurry as a second-generation photocopy. He hadn't gotten his face yet, as Kitty might say. His profile was mushy, his shoulders narrow and round, and his posture was noodle-limp.

The gate was open all the way now, and the guard lifted his hand in a gesture that was halfway between a wave and a salute. The picketers seemed confused by the sight of the car-instinctively jumping out of the way, then drawing close again as it waited to make a left turn into the heavy traffic. The driver paid no attention to them at all, but the younger man scrunched down in the passenger seat until he almost disappeared. The Lincoln caught a break in the traffic and slid smoothly into it.

"Well, you got your wish," the guard said.

"What?"

"You saw Gus Sterne. You just didn't get to speak to him. And li'l Gus. Excuse me-Clay." The guard grinned. "He's a watery-looking kid, isn't he? It's like he came out of the oven before he was baked through. Clay's a good name for him. Play-Doh would be better."

"He's young."

"He's my age," the guard said, with a truly proprietary outrage, as if he owned the year in which he was born. "Twenty-two, just graduated from UT. I hear he wants to go back and study something like history, but Daddy says the only way he'll pay for any more school is if he goes for an MBA, or a law degree. It's pretty funny if you think about it. Gus Sterne has a foundation that sends all these poor kids to college, but he won't let his own son go back. Poor baby. He wants to go be a history teacher, and his daddy's making him run a multimillion-dollar business."

"Everywhere I go, I hear Gus Sterne's a pretty nice guy. Practically a saint."

"He's fine as bosses go. But you get used to making rules for other people, you start thinking you're better than them, that you know best all the time. I could have had me one of those Sterne Scholar gigs, then I read the fine print. You wouldn't believe all the requirements attached. Not only a B average, but you had to do volunteer work, too. Man, I'd rather work for the guy than take his charity. Fewer strings attached."

Tess pulled out the photograph of Little Girl in Big Trouble, the one from the newspaper. "I'm looking for a girl, Gus Sterne's cousin. Emmie Sterne. This is her. Blond, kind of small and frail looking."

The guard shrugged. "I don't remember her coming to the gate. But she looks like she'd have fit right in with that gang at the foot of the driveway, and I don't pay them too much attention, long as they keep moving and don't block the path of any cars."

"Are they the reason security is so tight?"

"Big part of it. I think they're all talk, but you never know. Meanwhile, no one gets in, unless Sterne's secretary phones and tells me they're okay."

"What about the cops?"

"Even they don't get in, unless I'm told it's okay."

"No, I mean, have they been here recently?"

"Some captain came by a month ago, but I think it was to go over the parade route. Like there's anything to go over. We only have about twenty parades a year in this town, and they all go the same way. Down Broadway, past the Alamo. Hey, I get to work security for the All Soul parade. I'm gonna drive the car."

"What car?"

"That sweet silver Lincoln you just saw. Pretty cool, huh? Too bad I can't really open it up, but you gotta drive slow, so the boss and his son can do the big wave from the backseat." He did a passably good imitation of a prom queen's wave. "I'm going to wear mirrored sunglasses, and a little wire in my ear. I'm gonna be Secret Service, practically."

Tess nodded absently. It had been silly to come here. If Emmie had decided to pull the prodigal daughter routine, Sterne Foods wouldn't be the site of their tearful reunion, despite the surplus of fatted calves on the premises. To go home again, you have to go home. Hermosa Street, she had said. A handsome place, the shrine of Saint Gus, who had come to believe that he always knew best.

Which, in Tess's experience, made him a very dangerous man indeed.

Chapter 18

Esskay was behind the bullet-proof glass in La Casita's office, enjoying leftovers-it looked like she had the grease-soaked red and white remains of a KFC bucket in her mouth-while Mrs. Nguyen watched one of her Spanish-language soap operas.

"She cried," Mrs. Nguyen said sheepishly. Tess assumed she was referring to some character on her soap opera, El Corazon de la Noche. But Mrs. Nguyen was nodding her head toward Esskay.

"Women complained, so I had to do something. Very strange, this dog. Doesn't make a bow-wow sound. Sounds more like someone in pain." She did such a good imitation of Esskay's plaintive howl that the dog looked up, puzzled and intrigued. "Everyone complained, up and down the block. Man at the antiques store, and people at used bookstore, too."

"Good job, Esskay," Tess said. "In a motel full of hookers, you're the one who gets busted for being too noisy."

"Not hooker motel," Mrs. Nguyen corrected swiftly. "Businesswomen. Like you."

Tess started to object, but Mrs. Nguyen had a point. After all, she was working out of a room at La Casita, charging hourly rates. And providing her clients with far less satisfaction.

"If you like her company, feel free to let her out of the room anytime," she told Mrs. Nguyen. "In fact, you can baby-sit her this evening. I've got to drive over to this house in Olmos Park, on Hermosa. You know the neighborhood?"

Mrs. Nguyen nodded her head in vigorous approval. "Rich."

"Gated?" That would be a bitch and a half.

"No, no gates. But rich. Very rich."

"Are the streets busy? Is there a lot of traffic?"

Mrs. Nguyen thought about this. "The street that goes straight through is very busy, but lots of the streets go round and round, go nowhere. Hermosa is one of those, not so busy."