'What are you gonna ask me?'
'I don't know.'
He looked seasick.
'Do what Billy Bob te
lls you,' Temple said.
He pressed his napkin to his mouth, then got up from the table and walked quickly to the men's room.
'You're gonna take him apart, huh?' Temple said.
We waited in my office until the power went back on in the courthouse, then a bailiff phoned me and we went downstairs and across the street and met Marvin Pomroy coming down the courthouse walk.
'I need to talk to you,' he said to me.
'What's up?'
He looked at Temple and Lucas.
'I bet it's earth-shaking stuff, like prosecuting parking offenders in the most corrupt shithole in Texas,' Temple said, and went up the walk with Lucas.
Marvin looked at her back, his eyes involuntarily dropping to her hips.
'You think she'd work for me?' he asked.
'How about getting to it, Marvin?'
'Getting to it? You stoked up Garland Moon and aimed him at this Mexican drug agent, didn't you?'
The air smelled of wet leaves and sewer mains swollen with rainwater and pavement drying in the sunlight. A sheriff's deputy led five black inmates in jailhouse whites past us on a wrist chain.
'Look at me!' Marvin said.
'Take it easy, Marvin.'
'Felix Ringo's got a fuck pad at the Conquistador. He says a guy he swears is Garland Moon tried to get through the bathroom window. He says the guy was carrying one of these small chainsaws, the kind you cut up cordwood with.'
'That's bad news, isn't it?'
'Are you out of your mind? You bust up a psychopath with an ax handle, then screw down his dials and turn him loose on a policeman. You're supposed to be an officer of the court.'
'How do you know I sent him after Ringo?'
'Because you're still a vigilante. Because you still think this is the O.K. Corral.'
'Thanks for sharing, Marvin. I really appreciate it.'
'Sharing? Moon trashed Ringo's place down in San Antone. Get this. He defecated on the upholstery. What's all this tell you?'
'He's terminal and knows it.'
'Yeah, well, here's the surprise. Felix Ringo's getting a Mexican warrant on Moon for scoring some dope across the border. Moon might do time in a Mexican slam. The centipedes come free with the rice and beans.'
'For some reason, you don't look all broken up.'
'You're still not hearing me. When Moon gets word of this, and he will, who's he going to come after?'