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The waitress brought our food and I paused long enough to let her settle the plates "That doesn’t feel right They’re bothabout rituals I just brought it up because we need to cover all angles How does that go? Eliminate the impossible and whatever remains, however improbable, is the truth?"

I saw the tension ease out of hiain After you left, CorineI bought a first edition of The Deep Blue Good-by because I forgot you weren’t co back It’s still on the bedside table at home"

As a mass market paperback, it wouldn’t be valuable He’d probably found it in a second-hand shop so that he remembered my passion for Travis McGee, a hero who ranted about the destruction of the Everglades before people practiced environmentalism I loved John D MacDonald All those times I raht Chance tunedabout that--

Through the front s, I watched the Ca lot

Odds and Ends

"You know"--Saldana eyed the wreckage in the parking lot of Cotulla Style Pit Bar-B-Q--"if you wanted my attention, you could’ve just called"

"Funny"

He sighed "When the call ca to do with it"

I felt like that was a trifle unjust I hadn’t blown out the s at the warehouse or killed poor Maris Chance is the one who attracts trouble like a lightning rod My life in Mexico City had been pretty quiet So by my calculations, I needed to stay away fro after a bone, and I’h exciteed a smile for my mentor Still didn’t knohat I was supposed to do with hied "Just the usual gang stuff, so I thought I could spare a few minutes to take a look here"

There wasn’t too much to see The formerly piss yellow Camry smoldered in half a dozen pieces, and the cars parked on either side weren’t in great shape either If we hadn’t stopped for lunch, we’d be dead Soht call it coincidence, but we could thank Chance’s luck for that We definitely had soh I suspected they’d planted the bomb ent into the police station, and that took some stainless steel balls

Was it possible that our eneuy on the police force? So sure nobody ever found out what had become of Min? Well, shit Jesse had known our everyhim

We shouldn’t stay with Chuch and Eva anyood wards, but you couldn’t charas leaks, or Molotov cocktails It was so wrong that our enemies could aim such a wide variety of threats at us, and we didn’t even knoe were fighting Or why, for that h I’ve been burned out of s in my life, I’d never found a demon-chewed corpse before yesterday, nor had a vehicle blow up beforearound; they’d kill us if they could

For the first tio Maybe uncertainty was better than dying After all, I’d lived for twenty years without knohat happened to h Twila tried to sell ht now I had too hed on me nonetheless

Chance finished his intervieith Saldana’s partner We finallyabout hied, and paunchy with a sunburned, sullen face I still bet he played bad cop

Shortly he proved it "So you don’t have any idea why somebody would launch your ride?"

I didn’t knohat Chance had told Officer Moon, but I cla rifter, or worse Never mind the fact that Chance and I helped people; we didn’t talk the elderly out of their pensions If Saldana wasn’t standing here, this would turn ugly Hell, it ht anyway I didn’t know if I could trust hi ever since I took him into my confidence

I lifted one shoulder in a halfhearted shrug and wished I had a long, tall glass of leed to so that would get people so riled up around here" Moon pretended to consider "Maybe if a deal went bad or so dealers drive a Camry?"

"I don’t know any," I said sweetly "So I’m afraid I can’t answer that"

Jesse elbowed his partner "Cut the lady so victi classed as a victied a look, and then Moon stalked off to harangue one of the uniforined their office would be tense for a day or two Or maybe Nathan Moon just acted like this all the time

We stood by in the heat while the bouy ca "Here’s the tiital watch We’ll know nition I reckon they made it out of stuff you can buy at Hoot involved in a discussion that went straight over my head I swiped my palm across my forehead, ready to collapse somewhere shady and cool, but we didn’t have a ride The rental car agencies would flip over their signs to closed after the busted engine block on the Suburban and now the exploding Ca else from us, Chance shepherded me back inside

As I nursed a Diet Coke in the blessed restaurant air conditioning, he called Chuch "Hey, is Eva home? Good I need a favor, and after this we’ll call it even I’ "Settle down I’ht with your wife Do I look like Robert Redford?"

I let , "Nope"

Chance scowled andmotions at me If he’d asked I would’ve told him he was more Ben Jelen than Robert Redford--better in my book Even if the actor wasn’t al jerk nahts in Jesse Saldana’s hair, though I also liked his sense of humor, his smile, and the way his ass filled out a pair of Levi’s