Page 143 of Lone Star

Her heart lurched. “Who?” But she knew, without even scanning the floor again, exactly who he meant.

He cast a wild glance around the room, like he was searching for a way that it was false, hoping that he hadn’t seen what really happened. She watched him take one of those slow blinks, too, eyes glazed and terrible when they opened. “Chelle and Axe. They took them.”

Forty-Two

Gringo frowned at his phone as he pulled it away from his ear. He’d called Cowboy twice now, and both times had gotten voicemail. He checked the call log, and his text streams, and tried a third time. Voicemail again.

He tucked his phone away, still frowning.

He didn’t mind being on guard duty – it was considerably less work than whatever was happening right now at the clubhouse. Considerably less interesting, too. His grandfather had always told him not to “borrow trouble,” whenever he claimed to be bored as a kid. “Say you’re bored, and somebody’ll find you something to do,” he’d cautioned, and then stuck a rake or a broom or a dust cloth in his hand and sicced him on chores. “The second God finds out you’re bored, he’ll have a laugh at your expense,” Grandpa would say.

Gringo wasn’t sure that was how God worked – he hadn’t been on speaking terms with the Big Man in years – but he did believe in bad luck. In jinxes. So he tried not to feel too disappointed that he was stuck here babysitting the infirm.

He was lounging across three chairs in a small family waiting room. Jinx and Melanie Menendez were on the same floor, on opposite ends of this hall. He’d been watching daytime TV and eating too much junk out of the vending machines, bored out of his skull, and probably “borrowing trouble” just for thinking that.

The courtroom drama – someone had stolen his neighbor’s chickens and refused to give them back – went to commercial break and he pushed to his feet, stretching with a wince, his spine popping in several places. Might as well go down and see what Jinx was up to.

Jinx was watching the same show, sitting propped up in bed, incongruous with his beard, and his tats, his growing-out undercut and his hospital gown with the little blue diamonds printed on it. He motioned toward the TV with the remote when Gringo entered. “Who steals chickens?”

“That’s nothing.” Gringo dragged the visitor chair closer to the bed and dropped into it. That was the thing about sitting: the more you did of it, the more it seemed to be the only thing you could do. “Last episode, some guy was sleeping with his mother-in-law, and she drugged him and stole his fucking sperm.”

“I saw that,” Jinx said, mouth twitching, looking caught between disbelief, disgust, and humor.

Gringo noticed a groove between his brows, a tightness around his eyes. “You doing alright? They giving you enough morphine?”

“I’m not taking the morphine. They’re giving me Tylenol.”

“Aw, dude, don’t ever turn down morphine.”

Jinx shook his head. “Nah. I don’t wanna be unconscious. Gotta stay sharp.”

“Sharp for what?” Gringo leaned forward and reached out with a forefinger to poke his hip – and got batted away before he could make contact. “We’re gonna have to get you one of those walkers with the wheels on it, like my grandmother uses.”

“Fuck you.”

“You been on your feet yet?” he asked, more serious this time. If he felt bored and stir-crazy from an afternoon in a waiting room, what must it be like for someone like Jinx?

“Yeah, to go to the bathroom.” Jinx glanced down at his blanket-covered knees, expression stony. “I wouldn’t let them leave the catheter in.”

“Shit, yeah. How’d it go?Doyou need a walker?”

“No,” he said, a lie, because there was one over against the far wall.

Gringo tilted his head, seeking his friend’s gaze, and Jinx finally rolled his eyes.

“The fracture was on the left side. They said I can’t put any weight on that leg for six weeks.”

“Shit. That sucks, dude.”

“Yeah. What’s going on at home?”

Gringo shrugged. “Candy was gonna go talk to the feds this morning. The Chupacabra guy – Luis – called. He and Candy are supposed to meet up in the morning.”

“Yeah?”

“He wants to get everything all lined up today so he’s ready.”

Jinx nodded, his gaze drawing inward, expression troubled – regretful. “I should be there.”

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