Page 185 of Light of the World (Dave Robicheaux 20)

“There’re ways,” he replied. “What are you doing?”

She stepped out on the patio. The girl in the bikini was sitting in a deck chair, taking a hit off a pair of roach clips. “What’s your name, honey?” Gretchen asked.

“Dora,” the girl said.

“You need to hit the road, Dora. My father beat the shit out of these two assholes. I may have to do the same. You don’t want to be here when that happens.”

The girl looked at Jack Boyd. He smiled and shook his head. “She’s a kidder,” he said.

“This guy was fired from the Missoula County Sheriff’s Department because he’s a dirty cop,” Gretchen said. “His bud was a geek named Bill Pepper who liked to tie up girls and rub his penis on them. A serial killer named Asa Surrette emasculated Pepper up at Swan Lake. Surrette is buds with Caspian Younger. That’s the kind of people you’re hanging out with.”

The girl looked at Jack Boyd again, this time clearly frightened.

“Don’t pay attention to her,” Boyd said. He was still smiling. “I was in a car accident. She makes movies. Ask her.”

“Good-bye, Dora,” Gretchen said.

Dora glanced at Jack Boyd, then at Gretchen. She pulled on a pair of sandals, picked up her beach bag, and walked hurriedly through the side yard to her car, her buttocks jiggling.

; “Why don’t you give Caspian a break?” Boyd said.

“Where is Surrette?” Gretchen said.

“You think I know that?” Boyd said.

“I hope one of you does.”

“Or it’s going to get rough?” Boyd said.

“I’ll handle this, Jack,” Caspian said, stepping out on the patio, setting aside his wineglass. “Ms. Horowitz, I don’t want to be unkind, but would you please go away? You and your father and Mr. Robicheaux and his daughter have been a constant nuisance. Mr. Boyd and I could have had your father arrested for aggravated assault, but we didn’t. Know why? Because that’s not my way. With one phone call, I could have your father ground into fish chum. He would disappear without a trace, other than a bloody skim floating on Flathead Lake.”

“You’re connected in Vegas?”

“I know some of the same people you do. Except they listen to me because I have money,” he said. “You won’t change anything. I made some mistakes. There’s no way to undo them. What’s done is done.”

“You’re going to give me Surrette. On this one, there are no lines.”

His eyes shifted sideways, as though he were processing her words. “I’m sure that makes sense to you. It’s lost on me.”

She glanced at her watch. “Your window of opportunity is closing,” she said.

“I’ll walk you to your truck. You’re a filmmaker. Maybe I can help you later. I know a number of people in the industry.” He fitted his hand around her upper arm and squeezed it tentatively. “Nice. You lift weights?”

Jack Boyd was grinning lasciviously.

Gretchen wet her bottom lip before she spoke. “I was never good at communication skills. A psychologist told me that. He suggested I try what he called ‘massage therapy.’ He was going to do it for me in his off hours. For free.”

Caspian was standing beside her as he clutched her arm. Without removing his hand, he stepped in front of her, looking warmly into her face. His eyes were pale blue and didn’t seem to belong inside the graininess of his face, like blond hair on a Mexican. He had a weak chin and a nose that was both sharp and small. She had seen toy men like him on the French Riviera. They seemed like caricatures of nineteenth-century aristocracy whose bloodline had run out. Gretchen wondered what life would have been like for Caspian Younger in the kinds of public schools she had attended in Miami and Brooklyn.

“I told you I could read your thoughts,” he said, sinking his fingers a little deeper into her upper arm, a flicker of lust and anticipation lighting on his mouth. “Be a good girl. Don’t do something rash. If you’d like to stay and have a good time, I’d say all sins are forgiven, including your father’s.”

Jack Boyd’s grin would not go away. “I wouldn’t argue with sloppy seconds,” he said.

“You’re asking me to get it on?”

Caspian raised his eyebrows and smiled. “You can tell me about your documentaries.”