don't like it at all. You're about to throw a goddamned wrench
into all my carefully orchestrated plans for expansion."
"As I recall, NGB, Incorporated proposes to build a resort
hotel near Purcell Downs."
"That's right. A resort complete with golf course, putting
greens, tennis courts, racquetball, swimming. You name it,
it'll have it."
"And does a whore come with every room?"
Nora Gail gave another of her bawdy laughs, taking no
offense. "No. But who knows better how to show folks a
good time than an old whore? I've got the best resort architects
in the country working on the layout. It'll be spectacular,
gaudy as hell, which I've decided the tourist trade likes.
Everybody who comes to Texas from out of state, particularly
from back east, expects us to be loud, raucous, and tasteless.
I don't want my customers to be disappointed."
"Have you got the money to build a place like that?" Alex
asked, her peevishness giving way to curiosity.
"I've got enough put aside to borrow against. Honey, more
cowboys, truckers, roughnecks, white-collar types, statesmen,
and would-be statesmen have trooped up those stairs
than I could count," she said, pointing toward the staircase.
"Actually, I could tell you exactly how many, how long each
stayed, what he did, what he drank, what he smoked, whatever
you wanted to know. My records are that meticulous.
"I'm a whore, but I'm a goddamned smart one. You don't
go into this business just knowing how to make a John come.
You go into it knowing how to make him come quickly so
you can move on to the next one. You've also got to know
how to get him to drop more dollars than he intends to while
he's visiting."
She sat back and stroked the cat.' 'Yes, I've got the money.
More important, I've got the brains to pyramid it into a
fortune. With that resort, I can go legitimate. I'll never have
to give a blow job to another stiff cock unless it's one of my
own choosing, or listen to another hard-luck story from a
man about how his wife doesn't understand him.
"I'm living for the day I can move out of this place and
into town, hold my head up, and say, 'Kiss my ass,' to
anybody who doesn't like me moving into his neighborhood."
She pointed her cigarette toward Alex. "I don't need
a cheerleader like you to come in here and fuck it up for
me."
It was quite a speech. In spite of herself, Alex was fascinated,
though not cowed. "All I'm trying to do is solve a
murder case."
"Not for the sake of law and order you're not. The state
doesn't give a damn about Celina Gaither's killing, or it would
have been looked into years ago."
"You've just admitted that the case warrants being reopened."
Nora Gail gave an elegant shrug. "Maybe from a legal
standpoint, but not from a personal one. Listen, sugar, take
my advice. I'm talking to you now like I would to one of
my girls when things aren't working out for her." She leaned
forward. "Go home. Leave things here the way they were.
Everybody'll be happier, especially you."
"Do you know who murdered my mother, Ms. Burton?"
"No."
"Do you believe that Gooney Bud killed her?"
"That harmless idiot? No."
"So, you suspect someone else. Who?"
"I'd never tell you."
"Even under oath on the witness stand?"
She shook her head of glorious white hair. "I wouldn't
incriminate my friends."
"Like Reede Lambert?"
"Like Reede Lambert," Nora Gail repeated firmly. "We
go way back."
"So I've heard."
Nora Gail's husky chuckle brought Alex's head up. "Does
it bother you to know that Reede and I used to screw our
brains out?"
"Why should it?"
Without taking her eyes off Alex, Nora Gail sent a plume
of smoke ceilingward and ground out her cigarette in a crystal
ashtray. "You tell me, sugar."
Alex drew herself up, attempting to reestablish herself as
a tough prosecutor. "Was he with you the night my mother
was killed?"
"Yes," she answered without a second's hesitation.
"Where?"
"I believe we were in my car."
"Screwing your brains out?"
"What's it to you?"
"My interest is strictly professional," Alex snapped. "I'm
trying to establish Reede Lambert's alibi. I need to know
where you were, what you were doing, and for how long."
"I fail to see the relevance."
"Let me decide the relevance. Besides, what difference
does it make if you tell me now? I'm sure you gave the
answers to the officers who questioned you before."
"No one ever questioned me."
"What?" Alex exclaimed.
"No one ever questioned me. I guess Reede told them that
he was with me and they believed him."
"Was he with you all night?"
"I'd swear to that in court."
Alex gave her a long steady look. "But was he?"
"I'd swear under oath that he was," she said, her eyes
openly challenging.
That was a dead-end street. Alex decided to stop butting
her head against the bricks. It was giving her a headache.
"How well did you know my mother?"
"Well enough not to cry over her death." Her candor
matched Stacey Wallace's. Alex should have been inured to
it by now, but she wasn't. "Look, sugar, I hate to put it to
you so bluntly, but I didn't like your mother. She knew that
Reede and Junior both loved her. The temptation was just
too strong."
"What temptation?"
"To play them against each other, see how far she could
go. After your daddy got killed, she started playing up to
them again. Reede was slow to forgive her for getting pregnant,
but not Junior. I guess he saw his chance and took it.
Anyway, he started courting her in earnest.
"His folks didn't like it. Stacey Wallace was about to come
apart at the seams over it. But it looked like Junior was going
to get Celina, after all. He made it known to anybody who
wanted to listen that as soon as he graduated, he was going
to marry her. Tickled your grandma to death. She'd always
been jealous of Reede and fancied Junior Minton as a son-in-law."
She paused to light another cigarette. Alex waited impatiently,
a knot of tension drawing tighter in her chest. After
Nora Gail's cigarette was lit she asked, "How did Reede feel
about the pending marriage between Celina and Junior?"
"He was still pissed at Celina, but he cared--a hell of a
lot. That's why he came to me that night. Celina had gone
out to the ranch for supper. Reede expected Junior to pop the
question. By morning, he expected them to be engaged."
"But by morning, Celina was dead."
"That's right, sugar," Nora Gail replied coolly. "And in
my opinion, that was the best solution to their problem."
As though punctuating her startling statement, a shot rang
out.