Alonzo Hollis, come to find out, is a six-foot, 180-pound former marine and ranch hand–born to and raised by a Pentecostal preacher, and strict father of six, in the tiny town of Needville, south of Sugar Land–who, late into his twenties, liked to hang around high school football games in his hometown, eventually running off with a sophomore who worked the concession stand, marrying her as quick as he could in a courthouse in downtown Houston, a forged parental consent form in his hand.
His now ex-wife, who at the ripe old age of twenty-three is as bitter as a baby persimmon, was more than willing to spit out a long list of the man’s shortcomings at the slightest provocation, like the appearance of Rolly Snow on her doorstep, the heels of his silver-tipped boots chipping away at her crumbling concrete steps, his smile tobacco stained and wide. He had talked his way into the house using one of the oldest cons in the book. Lucifer himself probably showed up to Jesus’s house at least once or twice, claiming to have the twenty dollars he owed him. Rolly told the young woman in the T-shirt and cutoff shorts that he owed his old buddy Alonzo a little piece, money he’d put on a ball game, tempting fate by backing the Aggies against Alabama. The screen door had opened wider at the mention of money. “How much is it?”
Rolly shook his head, appearing sheepish.
Naw, he said.
He’d rather give it to ’Lonzo himself, apologize for being a dick about it.
“You expecting him anytime soon?” he said. “I could wait a minute.”
Like every mark before her, Kyla Hollis had every intention of getting a hold of that money for herself, even if it meant hosting Rolly in her sitting room for half an hour and giving him the last two beers in the house. Once inside, he excused himself twice, claiming a trip to the bathroom, but instead searching every inch of Kyla’s home. There was no sign of the girl. Alonzo either.
Still, he thought he might be able to get something out of the former Mrs. Hollis. There is a certain kind of gal who goes in for a guy like Rolly–his long black hair, the tats across his hands and forearms–and little miss cutoff shorts could have been his for the taking. Time was, he would have tipped himself for his trouble, made a pass or a squeeze, laid a guiding hand on a lady’s back as he led her to the bedroom, letting her talk and talk when the deed was done, getting all the information he was looking for. But he was in deep with his girl, the grandmother in Hitchcock, and ultimately passed on twenty-three-year-old tail, he tells Jay. He seems proud, actually, wanting someone else to bear witness to his self-restraint. They are riding in the cab of the El Camino, traveling north on Calhoun toward the 45 Freeway, windows down on a rare starry sky, the late-morning rain having cleared out the smoky breath of industry, laying bare the city skyline. Somehow, in the last half hour or so, the night had turned pretty. Jay hasn’t heard from Evelyn or his kids after trying to reach her at her place and his. He keeps his cell phone on his lap. Across the front seat of his pickup truck, Rolly keeps tapping at the pack of cigarettes in the front pocket of his shirt, stopping himself each time he realizes he’s doing it, trying his best to show his utter respect for a man who won’t smoke in front of his kids. He doesn’t light up around Jay anymore, except for marijuana, which he claims doesn’t count.
“The whole thing cost me fifty bucks, what I said I lost on the football game. But it was worth it to get her talking. And talk she did,” Rolly says, his hair whipping in the wind. “She can’t stand the man. Thinks he’s a roach and a rat and every other low-down living thing, calls him the ‘bleacher creature’ ’cause he still hangs out at high school games, ogling cheerleaders and girls half his age. It took her a while to see she was just looking for a way out of small-town Texas, that Hollis ain’t shit. She kicked him out of the house when he got fired.”
“Fired?”
“The trucking company let him go three months ago.”
“What?”
“That’s what I said to her, like that was the first I’d heard it.”
“Where’s he working now?”
“Some low-rent tire shop, one of the chains,” Rolly says. “But the ex-wife says he wouldn’t have been at work Tuesday night anyway because he was supposed to be at her place. Whatever do-it-yourself divorce settlement they worked out, it included having him watch their kid a couple of times a month.”
“Kid?”
“I know,” Rolly says, as surprised as Jay by the plot turn. “Not a baby picture in the whole fucking house.” He pulls onto the on-ramp for the 45 Freeway. “The point is, Alonzo Hollis was due at Kyla’s house Tuesday night, and he never showed. And she hasn’t heard a word from him since.” He glances at Jay again, the freeway lights pulling shadows like warm taffy from every corner of the truck’s cab. “Tell the truth of it, I walked out of there thinking she knew I wasn’t no friend of Hollis, that I was sniffing around about something else, and Tuesday night set off alarm bells. I get the distinct feeling she wanted me to know Hollis wasn’t where he was supposed to be.”
“So he’s not living there anymore then.”
“No, but I know where he is. I swiped this when she went into the kitchen,” Rolly says, tapping an envelope that’s on the dash. It’s a piece of Hollis’s mail, on which Kyla had scribbled a forwarding address.
It’s a street Jay recognizes, somewhere out near Aldine.
“If he isn’t working for Sterling,” Jay says, “you really think he’d drive all the way back to Pleasantville, hoping to find some girl walking alone at night?”
“Depends.”
“On?”
“On whether he’d gotten away with it twice before.”
“You want to roll on him?”
“What choice we got?”
Jay glances at his watch. Wherever his kids are, it’s dinnertime. This may be the longest he’s been away from them in a year.
“Hey,” Rolly says, tapping his fist against Jay’s knee. It’s been nearly twenty years since the day they met–when Rolly walked into Jay’s law office, those five hundred cheaply carpeted square feet in the strip mall on W. Gray, asking for help with some girl troubles that had unexpectedly turned legal–and he can practically read Jay’s mind. “Nothing jumps off in a half hour, we cut out.”
“Deal,” Jay says.