Hank whistled to Dingo and made a motion with his arm. Dingo hopped up into the back, turned and regarded me and barked once.

“See,” Hank said. “Dingo agrees with me. We’re going.”

Up front Julie turned back my way and smiled.

I gave her my best withering frown. She laughed.

I was at first certain that Jessica was Julie’s daughter, only to find out differently. Julie had had a close friend named Lindsey, a high-dollar prostitute in Vegas. Lindsey had been murdered by one of her clients, a Silicon Valley millionaire turned playboy named Horace Farkner who spent nearly every weekend in Vegas when he should have been home with his wife and kids. Farkner had fallen into a fatal attraction for Julie’s friend back in the late 1990s and Julie was there for Jessica from the moment they both heard about Lindsey’s death. Apparently, when Lindsey demurred one time too many in the face of Farkner’s continuous pleas to run away with him, the man decided that if he couldn’t possess her then no one could. During a heated argument in which furniture was smashed and mirrors broken the man attempted to separate her head from her body with a six inch piece of shattered glass.

The five year-old half-Anglo, half-Samoan girl, had stayed with Julie from that night forward.

As we tore along the Interstate toward Dallas and Fort Worth, I did a little mental math. Jessica would be eleven years old now, or thereabouts. It was good information to plan with. Kids that age can think, and sometimes they can act.

On the outskirts of Fort Worth, I remembered something. I sent Julie and Hank into a Cracker Barrel restaurant just off the Interstate, found a pay phone for myself and started dialing.

I got Kathy on the first ring. When you live in a town as long as I had lived in Austin you get to know a lot of people. There might be a million people living in the city, but I’d found you couldn’t go anywhere without running into someone you knew. My friend Kathy was one of those people. I tended to bump into her around town and at the oddest of places, which in itself was passing strange, given Kathy’s profession. She was a librarian at the University of Texas Center for American History.

“Hello, Library.”

“Kathy, it’s Bill Travis.”

“Hi Bill Travis, what can I do for you today, since you’re not actively stalking me.”

“Hey,” I said. “Last time I looked up from my favorite bar stool you were coming in the door, so I wonder who has been stalking whom.”

“ Touche.What’cha need, Bill?”

“A little research. Signal Hill. It was an oil boomtown up near Borger. The Texas Rangers shut the town down around 1927. There was a fellow named Carpin running half the town up there.”

“Carpin. Got it.”

“Good. I’d like to know when he died. Also, I’d like to know what happened after the town was shut down. Where all the money went. That sort of thing. I seem to remember something about a U.S. Marshal who went in there and never made it back out. Anything you can dig up would be helpful.”

“Okay, Bill. You gonna do me a favor some time?”

“What did you have in mind?”

“Dinner.”

“Um. Okay. I’ll buy you dinner, Kathy. Should I wait a few days for the information?”

I could hear her flipping pages of some kind. Maybe she was reading about Indian incursions against the settlers or something.

“Nah,” she said. “Call me tomorrow morning.”

“Thanks, Kathy. You’re a peach.”

“I don’t like peaches. Can I be something else?”

“Okay, when I see you next you can pick your fruit.”

“Bye, Bill Travis.”

“Bye, Kathy.”

We hung up. I heard a bark and looked back toward the suburban. Dingo had her head out the driver’s window and her front paws on the steering wheel.

“Dingo,” I said. “You’re a clown.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Julie got up during dinner for a bathroom break. It was probably the only chance I’d get for a while to talk with Hank alone.

“Hank, either I’m the most gullible fellow you ever saw, or I’m missing something vitally important.”

“It’s both,” he said. “But what’s on your mind?”

“I feel like every move I make is the wrong one. Also I’ve got this itchy feeling on the back of my neck.”

“I know what you mean. My short hairs have been on end ever since those pot shots through my living room window.”

“So you understand me. I’m not going nuts.”

“I understand you, more than you know. And yeah, you’re pretty much a basket case, all right. She’s got a pretty short leash on you, Bill. Now don’t puff up like a toad. Any man-well, a lot of fellows would gladly trade places with you.”

“Yeah,” I said. “That’s for sure.”

Outside the sky had turned a soft shade of purple with clouds thinning down to thin puffs. The sun was going down somewhere out of sight.

“You know, Hank, this might sound… different, but this is sort of what I dreamed my life would be like when I was a kid.”

“What? People shooting at you and houses blowing up in your face-correction, my face-and heading off into the dangerous unknown?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Yeah,” Hank said, and sipped his coffee.

“So what’s the important thing I’m missing?” I asked.

“You don’t want to know, since you’re feeling so fine at the moment.”

I thought about it.

“Try me,” I said.

“Okay, hotshot,” Hank said, and looked off into space. “It’s what I was missing right up until we left your house today.”

“And that is?”

“Who are the cops that are following us?”

“What? Not again.”

“Hold on, there, Texas. As far as I can tell, they’re not Austin locals. I got one good look when we split up to make your last call. They’re feds. I’m almost sure of it.”

I had that sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.

“You don’t look so good,” Hank said.

“Thanks,” I said. “I don’t feel exactly wonderful.”

“Not what you wanted your life to be like?” he asked.

“Thank you, Mr. Sarcasm.”

“I’ve got an idea,” he said. “Let’s just move on, Bill. Let’s keep an eye on them and act like they’re not even there, for now. They may be following me, you know? That missing IRS agent?”

“I thought we weren’t talking about that,” I said.

“We’re not. Just bringing up possibilities.”

I noticed Hank’s eyes flick over my shoulder and then back to me.

“Julie?” I said.

He nodded.

“Okay,” I said. “Mum’s the word.”

“Fine.”

A moment later I felt a delicate hand on my shoulder. I looked up at her and gave her my best smile as she sat down beside me.

On the way out of the restaurant, Hank tapped me on the shoulder and nodded. I glanced quickly where his eyes indicated, trying to be nonchalant, and saw them.

Two guys. One white, one black. They both had business suits on. One of the two-the white guy-was beefy, about two hundred and fifty pounds.

Feds.

I knew then what Hank meant. They exuded it like an aura.

We moved through Fort Worth and out the other side and up onto the wind-swept North Texas plains as night fell.

It was a dark night with a spread of stars over us and clear road ahead. Julie nuzzled into my shoulder, finding the most comfortable position for herself, and the most painful one for me. Such is life. I endured it for about twenty miles before shifting her slightly.

After an hour or so she awoke.

We passed through myriad small towns in the night and little communities with no name.

I heard snoring from the back seat and craned my neck. I’d thought it was Hank, but it was Dingo. Hank and I traded knowing nods.

My eyes were beginning to glaze by the time we made it to Dumas, Texas. We found a motel on the main drag, an Indian-run outfit that carried a light scent of curry, even outside.