"Lookie right there, Frank," he said, pointing to the Lincoln’s windshield. "A DVD entertainment system. By haggling, I got it for no extra charge. Pretty slick, eh?”

“Oh yeah,” I said. “Slick. Lawyer slick.”

“Walk with me. Now, feast your eyes on that power trunk. It's the best in its class, they tell me." Jostling his balls, Gatlin strutted around to the Lincoln's far side. "I'm especially proud of its state-of-the-art navigation system. Powered by GPS. In case you don't know, GPS is -- "

Waving an impatient hand, I interrupted. "I'm hip to GPS. This Lincoln is a fine ride. You'll go apeshit driving it."

Exaggerating his blinks and eye rolls, Gatlin said, "You get to enjoy it, too."

"Sure, I can take it for a spin around the block."

"No-no, Frank. This Lincoln will be home for the next few days."

"Come again, Counselor?"

"Didn't I mention it on the phone? Lord, where's my memory these days? A client in San Antonio has retained me. I'll be needing PI support, too."

I made a noise in my throat.

"Before you fling a fit, I realize we only colluded one case," said Gatlin.

I wanted to sneer but didn't. "Yeah. Buda-Pest. Last year. You almost got me killed."

"We just hit a rough patch," said Gatlin. "This time I don't anticipate any assassins or car bombs."

"What do you anticipate?" I asked him.

Gatlin's hammy hand caressed the Lincoln's quarter panel. "A wealthy buddy of mine, Ditch Hopkins, owns and operates an upscale bed-and-breakfast. Anyway, he needs his Last Will drawn up. That'll be a cinch for me. He also needs his little girl, Madison, found. That’ll be a cinch for you."

"What happened to Little Miss Madison?" I asked, already too suspicious and wary.

"Ditch said he’ll explain once we arrive," said Gatlin.

If a way existed to tell your boss to buzz off without jeopardizing your job, I hadn't heard of it. "Do I bring my own firepower?" I asked.

"Nope, we're traveling light," said Gatlin. "Beside in these terrorist times, we can ill- afford trying to explain away a trunkful of armament to any good ole boy lawmen who pull us over. Once we hit town, Ditch can get whatever you need."

"When do we split?" I asked.

"In ten minutes," said Gatlin. "We'll buy what we need en route."

"Any way for me to stay out of this?"

"Not a chance," said Gatlin. "It's San Antonio or get fired."

“Who drives first, me or you?”

Undoing the door latch, Gatlin doled out his one concession. “Frank, I’ll give you the honor to first drive my new chariot.”

* * *

San Antonio, Texas marks where Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie, and Billy Travis got their collective butts whipped by the Mexican militia. For that reason among others, the city bristles with negative vibes, especially for similar yahoos like Robert Gatlin.

He'd amassed his billions in businesses bordering on the illicit and then retired to defend hopeless causes in courts of law. He'd transformed himself into a lawyer-superstar on Court TV. Since just enough of Gatlin’s rubbed off on me, I shunned fortune and fame.

Somehow we blew through the Deep South without any serious mishap and arrived in San Antonio early on a bright, clear mid-April afternoon. The wintry nip to the air played hell with my sinuses but Gatlin on his side of the Lincoln with his window cranked halfway down sweated like a boar hog. We managed to get lost twice despite all the Lincoln’s gee-whiz technology.

When we rolled by the ramshackle ecru stucco where Ditch Hopkins ran his upscale bed-and-breakfast, I arched a leery eyebrow and appraised Gatlin behind the steering wheel. His expression matched my own.

Three tall, rangy good ole boys on the verandah sprawled out in chaise lounges or parked their butts on top of a green picnic table. They were three sheets to the wind as an opened bottle of Jim Beam made the rounds. Squinting, I counted two empties on the table.

"I never knew Ditch was such a party animal," said Gatlin.

"My bet says that’s not our first surprise here," I replied.
"They’re probably just a few exuberant guests. Stay cool."

"Leave the Lincoln's engine idling," I said, "for a quick getaway."

In a nifty maneuver, Gatlin parallel parked us and switched off the ignition key. "I hope I jotted down the correct street address. Goddamn cell phones."

"Invite 'em over to check out your entertainment system," I said. "We'll put a DVD of The Sound of Music."

“Not funny.” Gatlin coughed into his cufflink. "Frank, you can walk ahead of me."

"Sure," I said bailing out of the Lincoln. "I haven't cleaned anybody’s clock in a coon’s age."

"Stay cool," said Gatlin. "No trouble, hear me, boy?"

We tramped across the narrow macadam street, over a short flagstone walkway, and entered the verandah's sacred shade. The one with bullish shoulders bounded off the picnic table, asking me in a surly drawl, “You lost, podner?”

“Looking for Ditch Hopkins,” I said in a stony tenor. “Are we at the right hacienda?”

“Sure enough, this is Ditch’s party,” he said. “Sorry, but assholes didn’t get invited.”

"But I RSVP’d my invitation," I said, close enough to catch his sour sweaty reek. "Didn't ya get it?"

"Frank," said Gatlin behind me. "I know that tone. Stay cool, hear?"

Grinning wolfish fangs, the tough turned to his two cohorts now also standing, arms loose and boots planted wide apart. "Nope, I ain’t seen it," he said.

"Well, here it comes now," I said.

My right fist connected on the jutting tip to his glassworks chin. The nauseating crunch of crushed bone didn't absorb the blow enough to mute the pain exploding through knuckles into hand and up my wrist. My left hand groped behind me. The Charter Arms .44 snub-nose I whipped out checkmated the two cohorts scuttling into action.

"Tend to your buddy," I told them. "His jaw is broken." I didn’t add how my right hand had suffered similar bodily damage.

"Jesus, look at this," said Gatlin in a gurgling, tight voice. “It’s Buda-Pest all over again.”

"This is my boss, Mister Robert Gatlin," I went on. "Go on inside and tell your boss he's here. Move it!"

The two goons dropped their bleeding cohort and did as I said. A sputtering curse erupted from his wounded mouth until I leveled the .44 on him. "I beg your pardon. Did you have something to say to us?"

The tough's eyes hardened.

"What did he say?" asked Gatlin, now pale as an albino hippo.

"Welcome to San Antonio, Counselor."

"Where did you obtain that handgun?" Gatlin asked next.

"Another little extra frill that came with your spanky new Lincoln," I said.

Gatlin grunted.

A short while later, after Ditch Hopkins had ordered his drunken posse back to the bunkhouse, we assembled in his airy den jazzed up in a cowboy décor. Lariats, six-shooters, and shellacked tumbleweeds hung on its walls. The tackiness didn’t end there. Ditch wore a complimentary cowboy outfit, heavy on glittery rhinestone. Roy Rogers or Trigger never looked any dandier. A large man, he moved at will. You jumped out of his way or else ended up in the ditch, thus his colorful appellation. I decided I didn’t like him.

"I don't know what flew into their heads." Ditch licked his bloodless lips. "They're usually well-mannered buckaroos. It had to be the hootch."

“Don’t fret about it, Ditch.” Gatlin squirmed in the red brocade armchair trying to get comfortable. "Frank excels in bringing out the worst in folks. Or maybe he’s just extra cranky. But he’s tops in his field."

Ditch rolled his thick tongue around purplish dark gums, then sucked his teeth dingy as yellowing piano ivory. "Johnson, I don't gave a rosy red rat's ass if you knock around my help. They could, I suppose, stand more of it. But here's my real problem, why I asked your boss and my friend for help. My daughter Madison has vanished and I'm worried sick over it."

"M’m. Does she live here?" I asked, staring around us.

"Sometimes Madison does, sometimes she doesn't," said Ditch’s colorless eyes never stayed on you. "She is, you see, a high-spirited girl. Perhaps I’m an overindulgent father but I can’t seem to ever say no to her.” He smiled at us for reassurances. Only Gatlin nodded. Ditch continued. “Madison is her own person free to lead her own life. Believe me when I say she’s done a ton of tall living for being only 23."

"Madison’s 23?" Gatlin pasted on an incredulous look. "Lord, the time, where does it go?"

"Mr. Hopkins, if your daughter is her own captain and sails about as she damn well pleases," I said, “why are you in knots over her absence? Madison is off on another lark. Give her a few days and she'll pop up. Give her a glass of warm milk and tuck her into bed."

Ditch bristled. "If you can’t take this case seriously, then get the hell out of my house."

Waltzing in with practiced diplomacy, Gatlin moved to mollify sore nerves. "Frank lacks tact for which I apologize," he told Ditch. "Of course, we're both very concerned over Madison’s welfare. You have our unquestioning professional cooperation."

Not mine, I thought. To borrow from our host's lexicon, I didn't give a rosy red rat's ass. For a start, Madison Hopkins my gut told was a pampered rich princess and I didn’t intend to play her knight in tarnished or shiny armor. To make it look good, I asked, "Give us the background, Mr. Hopkins."

"That’s better. Well, Madison has been seeing Claude Briles," said Ditch. "Why in heaven, I don’t know. Like any boy living in a goddamn trailer park, he's nothing but scum-sucking white trash. You got that ilk back home in Virginia, right Robert?"

Gatlin shot me a warning look. That declaration had poked a red-hot tong up my ass since I resided in a doublewide back in Virginia. “Yes, I know what element to which you refer,” he said. "Nevertheless, please proceed, Ditch."

"Madison took it in her head that she wanted to shack up with Claude," said Ditch. "Only he wasn't having any of it. I got the impression she was more nuts about him than vice versa. Maybe he didn't like feeling crowded and put her off.

“Things just drifted along like that until last week. On a whim, Claude decided he'd like to bolt off for old Mexico for a little kick. Only he'd go solo. Madison cried her eyes out but it didn't sway him to invite her along -- ”

"So, she went chasing after her beau across the Rio Grande," said Gatlin. "Frank, how is your Spanish?"

"Lousy," I replied. "It's also illegal for me to operate outside the borders of the United States."

Gatlin grunted.

Ditch spoke. "I had the same reaction since her clothes were all missing. Then two days ago, I found this note tacked to the front door." He drew out a sheet of yellow paper from a desk drawer and handed it to Gatlin. He grunted and forwarded it to me. Its shaky handwritten lettering read:

YOUR LITTLE GIRL IS WITH US.

FOR A SNUG SUM, YOU CAN BUY
HER BACK!!!

NO COPS!

AWAIT FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS.

"These further instructions." Gatlin's thumbnail flicked the ransom note he’d taken back from me. "Have you heard anything about them?"

"Not even a peep," said Ditch. "That's what gives me bleeding ulcers."

“I can empathize, Ditch.” Gatlin then rotated on his large haunches to face me square on. "Observations, Mister PI?"

"It stinks like a royal scam," I said. "Your daughter is bilking you for money, Hopkins. Up in Middleburg where we live with the horsey jet set, I see it all the time. Some squire’s daughter gets a wild hair and cooks up a hare-brained caper like this. We end up playing the mop up crew."

“Interesting point,” said Gatlin.

"But why?" asked Ditch, a father’s anguish seaming his scabrous face. His nervous fingers fiddled to loosen the miniature cow skull clasping together his bola tie. "Why would she? I'd give Madison the world if she ever asked me for it."

"I’m only guessing here but I’d say because her way is more exhilarating," I told him. “Plus which, she gets a charge out of putting the screws to you.”

"Frank, I think you're way off base on that part," said Gatlin. “Way off base.”

Despite my fist on fire, I shrugged my bland best. "No matter. Our starting place is the same. Give us directions to this Claude Briles' place. We trailer trash have the same look and speak the same lingo, so you're in luck, Mr. Hopkins."

“Um, Frank,” said Gatlin, with a head jerk. “We better go and get started on this. Now.”

* * *

Across from The Alamo, Robert Gatlin and I sat at an outdoor cafe table to eat our lunches, beef and chicken burritos on the hard shell. We weren't talking much until Gatlin had to go and break the golden silence.

"Frank, who pissed in your flapjacks this morning?" he said. "Your impudent attitude insulted Ditch Hopkins and almost jeopardized my friendship with him. I went back inside and apologized for you to try and smooth things over. What’s gotten into you, boy?"

"Look, you know how these things work with rich divas. They do it to get attention or for some Freudian shit."

"Alternate possibilities do exist. For instance, what if one of the malcontents who greeted us on the verandah abducted Madison?" he asked. "Working for Ditch, they'd have ample opportunity to survey the lay of the land. The workmen's wages he pays them aren't good enough. They figure he can afford to cough up big bucks to buy back his little girl. They kidnap her and pull this stunt.”

"Interesting theory," I admitted, a little less certain of myself.

"You’re damn right it is," said Gatlin. "You better keep an open mind and don't rule anything out until you can eliminate it from what your investigation bears out. Hell on second thought, I ought to conduct this investigation on my own."

"Yeah, right. Let's get over to this damn trailer park," I said. Sometimes I brooded over who was who in our dealings. Gatlin was shrewd enough to play a detective but I didn't know diddly squat about the damn law. That inequity grated on me, too.

“What is it you have against Ditch?” Gatlin glanced over at me from piloting the dusty pimpmobile.

I stared out tinted windows. The unstinting Texas sun’s glare bounced off the pavement white as chalk. The alkaline landscape was lunar -- all barren and sterile and dangerous. I felt desiccated, sapless, and craved seeing vegetation.

“Nothing personally,” I replied at last. “He’s the type of indulgent father who let’s his daughter run wild as a jackrabbit. Now all of the damn sudden he’s on thorns about her wellbeing. Why?”

“You tell me,” said Gatlin. “But if you can’t drum up any viable motive, then stuff a sock in it.”

“Simple,” I said. “Guilty conscience. Same as it is back in Middleburg.”

“All right,” said Gatlin. “Ditch is a lousy father who feels guilt. So shoot him.”

“Don’t tempt me,” I said with portentous grimness.

In short order, we headed out of town past big villas of gaudy-hued adobe. Their flat, black tile roofs meant not much snow fell during San Antonio winters. Once the Lincoln cleared that sector of town, however, we stuck out like a couple of white dandies slumming in the barrios.

Further out in the wilds of the Texan plains just this side of a copse of mesquite trees, Gatlin made a hard right turn. The bumpy lane we took soon spread into small village situated in a dustbowl studded with all models and makes of trailer. Pandemonium City. Everywhere I looked yelling and scampering kids played with dogs and kites.

After sneezing, Gatlin blew his nose on a yellow silk handkerchief. "Something vile has riled my allergies," he said. "I’ll scoot us up in Claude's yard. It's nothing but hard-packed clay."

Humming, he maneuvered the Lincoln with playful ease into an unfenced plot in front of a rust-pitted, faded turquoise Air Stream riding on cinderblocks stacked at precarious angles. Burlap brown curtains were drawn across its jalousie windows and an old Ford truck hood substituted for a porch awning. I used a Chevy’s for mine.

"Did you notice any brushless car washes back in town?" Gatlin said. "Betsy screams out for a wash and wax."

As we piled out, I couldn't believe he'd already gone and tagged the Lincoln with a pet name. Betsy. Cripes. The meaty shank of my fist hammered on the Air Stream's tin door flimsy on its two-hinged frame. My knocks went unheeded.

"Can’t you pick the lock or something?" Gatlin asked.

"Not when the doorknob works fine," I said twisting it open. We filed inside.

"Phew," said Gatlin, recoiling and throwing up his hands. "Does your trailer smell like Mr. Briles'?"

"Worse," I said doing a visual scan. In the near corner beside a brass floor lamp shade lay a shoulder holster. From the size, I identified it for scabarding a 9mm handgun. Gatlin didn't like seeing it lying there either.

"Two things are missing from here," he said. "Claude Briles and a 9mm. That can't bode well for our side."

“Stay sharp.”

We asked around the neighborhood. I can only guess Gatlin's flashy Lincoln impressed because the folks we talked to were all forthcoming and friendly. Claude had bolted, they said, some five days earlier in his truck and no one had seen hide nor hair of him since then. That timeline jibed with Madison’s so-called disappearance.

"Luck of our Irish, Frank." Gatlin sitting in the Lincoln fanned himself with a folded Spanish newspaper. “A damn dead end.”

"Come on, let's go comb through Claude's castle again," I said.

Gatlin only groaned. “Lord, we’ll contract some toxic virus,” he said.

Our second ransack turned up a snakeskin, mildew, rat shit, and a matchbook. Only the last item piqued my curiosity. Its waxy cover bore an embossed gold insignia of what had to be a titty bar in San Antonio, "The Quiver of Shivers." I showed the artifact to Gatlin. We agreed it rated slim to nil as far as clues went but on the other hand we had nowhere better to go snoop next.

“Back to your thought at lunch,” I said. “What if Claude Briles turns out to be one of Ditch’s thugs?” We were on our way in the Lincoln back to San Antonio.

The aqua sunshades hid Gatlin’s pink-washed eyes shifting from the stark road to me. “Then it’s an inside job.”

“I hate inside jobs.” I said. No abundance of brilliant Texas sunshine could brighten the darkening corner where we now stood.

* * *

The Quiver of Shivers from the outside in late afternoon light was a hole-in-the-wall bar. A boxy, bare cinderblock affair, the neon tubing over its entryway was bent into the bizarre, grotesque shape of giraffe. Gatlin opted to wait inside the idling Lincoln with its air-conditioner vents pointed to hose over him.

While crossing the street's centerline, I felt the hair on the back of my neck quill up. I turned around and went back to fetch the .44, then stuffed it in the waistband underneath my shirttail. Gatlin's eyes grew saucer-wide and bugged out. "Just as a precaution," I told him.

“Try to stay cool,” he said in a feeble squeak.

The front door under the neon giraffe was locked from the inside. A CLOSED sign lodged in the window didn't apply to me. They never did. Leaving, I hurried down a sun-baked alley to reach a smaller rear door. This one proved more cooperative and I edged inside the bar about as stealthy as a Gila monster. I sniffed again. It smelled rancid just like Claude's Air Stream had earlier. Ah, clue number one.

"Yo-ho," I shouted. "Anyone holding down the fort?"

No response was supposed to denote the bar was empty at the long siesta hour but I knew a lie when I heard one. The antsy scuffing noise sounded again. After sidling into the kitchen, I stuck my palm a few inches from the grill’s charred surface. Still warm. Well, well. Talk about your literary symbolism -- I really was getting warmer.

I gazed in a 360. The walk-in freezer froze my scan. “Aha.” I popped open its stainless steel door. A gout of white, frosty fog swirling out engulfed me. My jaws gritted upon sight of the specter. An inert man dangled from a meat hook. Waving away the foggy remnants, I stared even harder. Then groaned.

A young, nubile girl hogtied in duct tape on the floor next to mayonnaise buckets was except for blue lips and conical breasts the spitting image of Ditch Hopkins. Madison would have to wait longer for any heroic rescue. I never like playing a hero, especially while on the verge of puking my eyes out.

I made ready to vacate the walk-in when from the corner of my eye, I flagged a shadowy flicker of movement across its outspill of harsh, cold light.

Once I’d backed out on tiptoe and cornered the walk-in, I jerked up and fired the .44 on instinct. At what, I didn't much care. This slug slammed into a man's fleshy chest. Backpedaling, his all-white eyes recognized me.

The hatred I viewed crackling and flaming there like hellfires burned to do me grievous bodily harm. His handgun wailed. “Ouch!” Mine retaliated a millisecond later. This followup round punched a final, demure hole in the bastard's heart.

Cordite clawing my eyes, I bumbled over the quivering corpse. Staggering into the alleyway, my bleeding ears thawed enough to hear “Betsy” peeling tire rubber down the street where I’d left her.

After braking in a shrieking skid, a disheveled Gatlin vaulted out. "What's up? Frank, are you hurt?"

“It’s not so bad.” I jerked a thumb over my shoulder. Pain ripped through it where my assailant's slug had penetrated and lodged. "Our client's daughter. Inside the freezer. Tied up. Dead."

"Christ," said Gatlin. “I’ll call her dad right now.”

"No need to bother," I said, feeling new strength. "He's dead lying on the hot grill. I whacked him. Claude hangs on a meat hook."

“Three corpses?” Gatlin went half-hysterical. “What the fuck went down here, Frank?”

“As I can best figure it, we had our part down accurate enough,” I said. “Claude and Madison ran a con on Ditch. My big mouth must’ve tipped him off.”

Nodding, Gatlin said, “Then in a blind rage Ditch made a beeline here seeking his revenge while we ate lunch and tooled out to the trailer park.”

“Right. Maybe Ditch knew Claude had once worked here,” I said. “Madison used it for her hiding place, too.”

“We were too late on the scene,” said Gatlin.

Me: “Well at least you won’t have to write Ditch’s Last Will.”

“Wrong,” said Gatlin. “I’m legally still on the hook. Only now it’s anything but a cinch.”