The Austin Job (6 page)

The contrast between the two rooms struck him like a hoof to the face. The office itself had low ceilings and bare walls. Brightly lit yet sparsely furnished, it was just an office. Ms. Lloyd closed the doors behind him. She'd nearly reached the desk at the far end before Starr focused on the high back chair facing away.
Wait, what did she say?

A simple nameplate on the desk read, “G.W. Lloyd.”

As Gwendolyn Winifryd Lloyd reached out her hand to spin the chair, Starr couldn’t believe he hadn’t seen it coming. For the second time that day, he’d been shucked. It was starting to raise his hackles. In slow motion he watched the empty chair swivel until Ms. Lloyd had gracefully swept her skirt behind her knees and taken a seat. “Senator Starr.” She nodded for him to take the seat across the desk. Wheeling herself into position, she rested both elbows on the glossy, wooden surface. Starr sat.

“My father died over twenty years ago, and now you are among an extremely small minority privy to this fact. I am and have been the only G.W. Lloyd Texas has ever known.” Starr started to speak but decided against it. “No, I’m not worried about you revealing my secret. Having you discredited and humiliated, Senator, while unfortunate, would be only mildly inconvenient.”

Starr shifted his shirt with his shoulders before finally nodding and clearing his throat. “The waiting room, the coffee, Sheriff Lickter—a balancing act between intimidation and relaxation. And you get to conduct your meeting before the subject even knows its happening.” He took a deep breath, battling his anger and his awe.

He quickly played the day’s events over again, this time through his new perspective—Oleg, Lickter. Daisy. But how could he stop with the one day? The last several months suddenly felt like quicksand, and he had no idea how deeply he had sunk. Lastly, was this lady sitting across from him offering him a rope or a boot to the face?

G.W. Lloyd interrupted his thoughts. “You’re wondering if I’m one of the good guys. Good and bad aren’t that straight forward in my world, Senator Starr. But what’s important is I think you’re one of the good guys, and I’m asking for your help.”

“Pardon me for being frank, ma’am.” Ms. Lloyd nodded. “You’ve conducted your interview. While I’m glad you’ve decided me among the good, a compliment I hope to prove true throughout my life, I beg to differ on your opinion of what’s important.” She smiled as he continued. “At the moment I’m feeling a bit fleeced. You say Texas is in trouble. You offer me fancy coffee, and with more than a subtle nudge you suggest our great state needs a great leader in her time of great need.”

He paused to stare at the middle-aged woman, bubbling with class and a graceful beauty. She raised her brows and stared back as he continued. “Yes, I agree I could be that leader. And while one should never look a gift horse in the mouth, a smart rider never gets into the chute without knowing everything about the horse he’s about to ride.” He leaned over the desk. “No offense intended.”

“None taken.” Ms. Lloyd smirked. “I’ve been called worse things than a horse, I assure you.”

He almost laughed. “And this trouble we’re in?”

“Why the strikes, of course.” She sat back.

“Of course.” He drummed his fingers on the desk, caught himself, and shook his head. “The thing about that. We both know the farmers are a losing draw. Naw, I might still be a greenhorn, but I know the farmers don’t pull enough weight for this to be about them.”

Her face remained unchanged. “Senator, what are you insinuating?”

“Just asking a question.” His scar twitched. “I care about the farmers. What exactly is it you care about? And please, ma’am, don’t say Texas.”

“Very astute, senator. Now allow me to be frank.” He nodded. “I care about myself, thus I care about Texas. Our fates are intertwined. The bank two floors below you is the largest in the state, and I own it. Many of my clients are farmers, so I care about them as well. The events of this day have clarified their need for a leader. I have too much vested interest to be passive in that leader’s selection. So once again,” her expression grew dark, “and for the last time, Senator Starr, I’m asking for your help.”

He rubbed the scar on his cheek while groping for the truth she’d left unspoken. Nothing seemed unusual about a wealthy powerbroker seeking to affect politics. Still, something about the way she parsed it reminded him of Oleg’s words. He didn’t like feeling used, and this felt like that. Then it struck him. Maybe she wasn’t backing him as much as opposing Rodchenko.

“I have a simple plan, Ms. Lloyd. One I suspect you’ll like mountains more than Professor Medved’s. Or is it Rodchenko?” He smiled thinly. “Correct me if I’m wrong in my assumption that Oleg serves as the catalyst behind our conversation today.”

“I heard you had a rendezvous with the Mad Russian this morning.”

Starr interrupted. “I believe he’s Ukrainian, ma’am.”

Ms. Lloyd smiled broadly, an expression revealing the chasm between her casual smirks and the genuine article. “To borrow a horse-related analogy, I always bet on the winning pony. Rodchenko is a flash in the pan. A brilliant flash, but not the future of Texas. Certainly his anarchical views could prove disastrous for the financial district as well as the Capitol. His people’s rebellion needs to end.”

“And me?”

“The people who like the professor, will like you more. I promise it.” Again she blossomed with a genuine warmth Starr found difficult to resist.

But he’d made up his mind before the meeting had begun. “Back my plan, and I’ll win the race.”

“Good. I’m glad we agree.” Ms. Lloyd stood, ending the first closed-door meeting of Starr’s suddenly limitless career. As she ushered him back into the lavish receiving area she continued, “now, there are a few more things you need to know about our friend, Professor Rodchenko, that will be best explained by my chief of security, Sheriff Lickter. If you’ll excuse me.” She stepped back into her office and closed the doors.

Lickter waved him toward the couches without getting up. “How does it feel, Senator?”

Starr made for the service bar first. “I’m going to need more sugar in that coffee.”

SIX

Put Your Dying Shoes On

“I don’t like it.” Lickter dropped into the wingback chair and ran his fingers under the brim of his hat. “Hell yeah, there are risks.” Tossing his Stetson onto the bed, he cupped the phone’s receiver around his mouth. “Not the least of which is to my daughter. And why shouldn’t I make this about Daisy? I didn’t object to pairing her with Starr, but Oleg’s unstable.” He swore under his breath. “He’s a God damned madman. What am I saying? I’m saying we pull the plug.”

He listened for several seconds while rubbing his temples. “You pay me to advise in matters of security. Well I’m advising. There are too many variables unaccounted for. My mole can’t find egg in an omelet and Rodchenko isn’t some hooch hound with a chemistry degree in bathtub booze.” He plucked the splintered toothpick from his teeth. “Be more specific? You want me to be more—” he flicked the chewed up piece of wood out the opened balcony door. “Tomorrow’s auction in and of itself is a disaster waiting to happen. How do we know he won’t pull the job then and there?” He stood. “Because we’d be expecting it? You’re damn right I’m expecting it.” He sat.

“Alright, I’m sorry.” He nodded his head. “It’s just that—yes she’s my—” A heavy rapping on the door interrupted him. “Sorry, gotta go. Fine. Yes, you’ve got my word.” He hung up. “Coming, baby girl.” But the door opened before he could get there.

On the other side stood a man holding a gun, blood oozing from the right side of his face, his clothing and skin charred. “What in Sam Hill?” Lickter lunged forward, knocking the gun to the ground and clutching his mole by the shoulders before he could collapse on the Persian rug. Tugging him inside, he shut the door.

“I,” the mole gasped for breath, but cooked flesh around his mouth, chin and neck had stretched to constrict his airway.

“Daddy?” Daisy’s voice drifted from the hallway.

“I ain’t decent. I’ll be right out.”

“What’s new?” She huffed.

Lickter snatched his towel from the back of the door and threw it down, lowering the man onto it. “Say it, boy. What happened?” In response, a gurgling exhale of foul gases escaped through a hole in his throat. Lickter shook his head and winced as he grabbed the man’s head and snapped it to the side. “No man deserves this.”

He pulled the towel tight and hefted the corpse onto the balcony. Low in the sky, the sun reflected off the underbellies of the remaining clouds and bathed the city in a fiery hue. He shifted a large potted plant to obstruct the body from the upper floor windows of the Grandview building. Experience told him more bodies would pile up before this Austin job was through, and he briefly pined for the simple border violence of his beloved Del Rio. But the life of intrigue proved a lurid mistress always drawing him back. He’d seen the slaughter house, and when he ordered a New York strip he knew exactly where it came from.

Just before he closed the balcony doors, he doubled back to check the mole’s pockets. The right side of his clothing had been burned or melted into his skin, but the left side remained intact. Lickter found a piece of paper, folded several times. He hoped to God it would be worth a man’s life, even an arrogant little snot’s. Shoving it into his own pants’ pocket, he hurried inside.

His reflection in the mirror revealed a bloody mess. He tore his shirt off, scattering buttons in the process. Kicking it under the bed, he muttered to himself, “Damn nice shirt, too.”

Daisy pounded on the wall between their rooms. “We’re going to be late. Starr’s probably waiting. Speaking of Starr, I’ve got a bone—”

“Hold your damn horses!” Lickter wiped his face with a cloth from the basin and tidied himself in the mirror.
Why the hell am I still doing this?
But he knew the answer; he just hoped it wouldn’t cost him his daughter. She still believed in right and wrong and day and night and good and bad. She still hoped for love in life, and her hope was all he had left.

Her room door slammed shut, followed by the click of angry heels in the hall. As she flung the door open, he spotted his mole’s weapon still on the floor and kicked it out of the way. One eyebrow raised, his little girl silently gave him the ugly. “The expression doesn’t match the outfit,” he said, trying to soften the situation.

Daisy craned her neck to see past him into the disheveled room. “What are you up to, Sheriff?” He opened his mouth to respond. “I don’t want to hear it. Whatever it is, I don’t like it.” She pushed him back into the room and shut the door behind them. “You know what I do like? I like James Starr, and I told him as much today. What I don’t like is that you like him.”

“Honey—”

“Honey nothing. You and whoever it is that you work for,” she rolled her eyes while poking her finger into his chest, “like Senator Starr for something involving selfish gain, I’m sure. And you want me to like him too.” She pushed him again. Putting his hands up, he plopped onto the foot of the bed. She looked slowly around the room, making him nervous he’d missed something—a spot of blood.

“It stinks in here.” Daisy wrinkled her nose before gripping the Sheriff with her stare. “I’m playing along for now, but I’m warning you. I really like him, and I won’t let you or the voice on the other side of the telephone,” she paused enough to cause him worry again, “turn him into some sort of twisted political monster. Clear?”

Out of all the puckey he'd given, taken and stepped in throughout his life, somehow God had seen it fit to give him Daisy as a daughter. He had no idea how he hadn't screwed it up, but she'd become something infinitely better than him. His current actions gambled all that. And for what?

He didn’t completely understand Gwen’s intentions for Starr, but had to admit that twisted political monster might be among them. He cursed himself mentally. Of course Daisy's fate would be caught up with Starr's. But all of that would have to wait. Currently the pot threatened to boil over and everyone but himself seemed intent on turning up the heat. She tapped her foot, waiting for him to respond.

“Clear.” He stood while adjusting his hat and allowed Daisy to straighten his tie. “Now I’ve got a message for you, missy. As you witnessed today, this town’s dangerous. Just because it’s dressed up nicer than Del Rio don’t mean it can’t be just as deadly.” He ushered her toward the door, eager to get further from the dead man on the balcony. “I don’t mind you being out and about with Starr. You’re right about one thing. I like him.” He flashed her his only smile, the one her mother says looks like a grimace.

“Lord willing, he’ll take you off my hands for good.” Her eyes flashed. “But watch yourself. This town’s hotter than a chili cook-off.” The reference to cooked meat in such close proximity to his charred mole caused him to choke. “Just remember what I taught you, and when I say jump, you jump.”

“Fine.” She stepped into the hall. “But I’m not doing any jumping in these shoes.”

~~~

Head spinning, a snooty gala had been the last place Starr wanted to spend his evening. The course of the day’s events had stoked his righteous anger, and these people were the logical target. But more than pointing blame, he longed for space to think. He'd landed waist-deep in muck with nearly a half dozen strangers’ hands offering to pull him free.

Granted, at the moment one of those hands looked infinitely more appealing than the others. Having exited the carriage first, he turned to stabilize Daisy. Her legs hid beneath a flowing evening gown the color of red wine. While she descended the three steps to the ground the dress worked its effect on him, her hips swaying against the tight yet not restrictive fabric. The garment rose to a high waist tucked beneath her breasts and ended with straps perched precariously on the verge of shoulder and upper arm.

As much as he wanted to focus solely on her, his mind rattled with the events of the day. The whole city threatened him, concealing violent secrets. G.W. had given him more information than he had wanted to know, even while concealing most of it. Lickter had filled him in on the evening’s events and the auction to be held the next day. Told him about Oleg’s dark past and his monstrous weapons of war about to be sold to the highest bidder. Now it was his responsibility to convince the citizens of Texas the truth about Oleg Rodchenko before it was too late. But no one knew how late too late was or what it meant.