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'My real father never give me his damn name. You know what I'm talking about, too,' he said.

'Your honor, I object,' Marvin said.

'Mr Holland—' the judge said.

'Who is your father?'

'I ain't got one.'

'Say his name.'

'You are! Except you'd never admit it! 'Cause you slept with my mother and let somebody pick up after you. That's what you done. You think I'd do that to my own kid?'

Then he started to cry, his face in his hands, his back shaking.

Judge Judy Bonham leaned her chin on her hand and let out her breath.

'Take your client down from the stand, Mr Holland, then report to my chambers,' she said.

Marvin leaned back in his chair, flipped a pencil in the air, and watched it roll off the table onto the floor.

* * *

chapter thirty-three

It went to the jury late that afternoon. I stood at my office window and looked out at the square, at the trusties from the jail scraping mud out of the gutters, the scrolled neon on the Rialto theater, the trees puffing with wind on the courthouse lawn, all in their proper place, the presummer golden light of the late sun on the clock's face, as though the events of the last few days had no significance and had ended with a whisper.

Then Darl Vanzandt came out of a side street on a chopped-down chromed Harley motorcycle, wearing shades and bat-wing chaps, his truncated body stretching back on his arms each time he gunned a dirty blast of air through his exhaust pipe.

He drove around and around the square, mindlessly, with no apparent purpose, causing pedestrians to step back on the curb, his metal-sheathed heel scotching the pavement when he cornered his bike, his straight exhaust echoing off the buildings like an insult.

Then he turned into the shade of a narrow street and opened up the throttle, his tan shoulders swelling with blood and power, blowing newspapers and a cluster of Mexican children out of his path.

The phone rang on my desk.

'We'll probably fly in there this weekend. You going to be around?' the voice said.

'Mary Beth?'

'I'm in Houston with a task force. Brian is out of the picture. We're about to pull the string on some individuals in your area.'

'Let me know what I can do.'

'I don't think you quite understand, Billy Bob. The greaseball drug agent, Felix Ringo? He's gone apeshit. We get the impression you put some glass in Garland Moon's breakfast food.'

'So what?'

'So Ringo is part of a bigger story than the town of Deaf Smith.'

'Bad guy to break bread with.'

'Yeah? Well, as FDR once said of Somoza, "He might be a sonofabitch, but he's our sonofabitch."'

'I never found a lot of humor in that story.'

'No, you wouldn't.'

I waited for her to say something else but she didn't. 'Why'd you call?' I asked.


Tags: James Lee Burke Billy Bob Holland Mystery