"God damn it," he shouted. "You can't."

Lillian saw me, told me with a shake of her head that she wasn't in danger, then looked back at Karnau and sighed in exasperation.

"Jesus Christ, Beau! You're going to kill somebody with your tantrums."

"Tantrums my ass," he said. "You will not do this to me again, Lillian."

He crossed his arms, huffed, then seemed to notice me for the first time. Judging by his sour face he must not have been impressed by my rugged manliness.

"This must be Mr. Wonderful," he said.

"Dr. Wonderful," I corrected. "Ph.D., Berkeley, '91."

"Har-de-har."

How can you fight against lines like "har-de-har"? I looked back at Lillian.

"Beau," she said slowly, staring down at her desk, "can we please talk about this later?"

Karnau shifted his weight from foot to foot, obviously thinking of the most withering comment he could make. Finally he decided to make a grand silent exit. Arms still crossed, he stormed past me to the front door, slamming it shut behind him.

When Lillian's facial expression told me she had depressurized I came over to the desk. I waited.

"Sorry," she said. "That, of course, was Beau."

"Your great inspiration," I remembered. "Your biggest fan. Your ticket to-"

She cut me off with a look. "Things change."

"Mm. My finely honed deductive skills tell me he was slightly miffed at you."

She sat on the edge of her desk and made a dismissive gesture. "He's been getting like that over a lot of things."

"You want to say what?"

She gave me a tired smile. "Nothing. I mean I didn't want to get you involved in this yet. It's just-I've decided to pull out of the business. I want to do my own work full-time, without Beau. I'm getting tired of selling to vacationing Midwesterners."

"It's about time."

She took my hand. "I figured the time was right, after we talked last night. Time to get back on track in a lot of ways."

I came closer. After a few minutes Lillian's mood had improved enough for her to give me a tour of the gallery.

They specialized, she told me, in "Border Morbid." The main room was devoted to ceramic Day of the Dead sculptures by artists from Laredo and Piedras Negras. There were skeletons playing guitar, skeletons making love, mother skeletons nursing baby skeletons in cribs. Every scene was thickly glazed in primary colors, hideous and comical.

"I've been saving this one for you, Tres," Lillian said.

The statuette was tucked away on a corner podium-a dead man's road trip. The skeletal driver had his arm around his skeletal girlfriend. They were both grinning of course, holding up miniature tequila bottles as they careened along in a bright orange car that looked suspiciously like my Volkswagen.

"Lovely," I said. "So this is the way you remember our road trips?"

Lillian stared at it without replying, a little sad. Then she smiled at me.

"Take it," she said. "A housewarming gift. At least this car won't break down on you."

"We are not amused," I grumbled.

I let her wrap it up in tissue paper for me anyway. If nothing else it would be good for scaring the bejesus out of Robert Johnson.

Beau came back with a salad-in-a-box forty-five minutes later. He had gone from inflamed to smoldering, but still said very little. He just nodded when Lillian said she was leaving early.

When we got back to Lillian's house that afternoon a new silver BMW had pulled up over the lawn and parked sideways across her driveway. A well-built blond man in a disheveled Christian Dior suit was sitting on the trunk, waiting.

He'd put on a few pounds since high school but it was definitely Dan Sheff, former water polo team captain for the fighting Alamo Heights Mules, heir to the multimillion-dollar Sheff Construction empire, jilted ex-hunk of Miss Lillian Cambridge. By the angle of his tie it was fairly easy to see that he'd gotten a little too happy at happy hour. It was also obvious he was not there to welcome me to town.

7.

"I want to talk to you," he said, meaning me.

Dan was speaking clearly enough but he was listing slightly to port. Lillian had gotten out of the car first and was standing in front of him with her hands out. It was hard to tell whether she was trying to hold him back or catch him if he fell.

"I think I've got a right to talk to him," Dan told her.

"This isn't fair, Dan," Lillian said.

"You're damn right."

She was trying to corral him back toward the BMW, but he wouldn't move. He looked at her and for a few seconds his expression wavered between angry and injured. He put out his hands.

"Lillian-"

"No, Dan!" she said. "I want you to go."

The Rodriguez brothers next door were out on their porch, drinking beer in their tank tops and swim trunks. They watched us, grinning. One circled his temple with his finger and said something in Spanish I couldn't catch. The other one laughed.

I touched Lillian on the shoulder.

"I can talk to Dan if he wants," I said.

She looked back at me, her face incredulous. "Tres, no. I mean, you don't have to do that. Dan, leave now."

She pushed him back. He wobbled a little but didn't fall over.

"I'm not leaving until I get my say," he said.

Dan and I looked at Lillian.

"I don't believe this," she snapped. She gave us both a withering scowl as she retreated toward the house, then slammed the screen door behind her. One of the Rodriguez brothers opened a new beer.

"I just want to know something." Dan rubbed the side of his face with two fingers that had gold rings the size of walnuts. "I want to know what makes you think that you can come back to town after ten fucking years and act like you're Christ Descended. You ditch this town, you ditch Lillian, you run away from the whole fucking scene, and then you come back and expect everything to be waiting for you just like it was. You ever heard of burned bridges, Navarre?"

Sheff was getting warmed up now, almost sober. As he talked he got faster and angrier, slapping one hand into the other to make his point. His perfectly combed hair had come unraveled, one little curl hanging down in his face Superman style.

"You want an answer?" I said.

"Some of us stayed in town, man. Some of us don't run away from people we care about. We've been building something, Lillian and me, for six months now. What the hell gives you the right to come out of nowhere and stomp on that now?"

I thought about what to say to that. Nothing came to mind.

"You're pathetic," Dan said. "You can't make a life for yourself out there, go someplace else and leave us alone. You don't get another chance here."

I exhaled, looking over at the Rodriguezes, who seemed highly entertained, then back at Dan.

"Pathetic might be a little strong," I said.

"Fuck you."

"Lillian called me, Dan," I said, trying to keep my voice even. "Not the other way around. If you were building something, I think it was collapsing way before I got here."

In itself, that didn't strike me as that much of an insult, but there were at least two months of pent-up anger in Dan's first punch. I admit I wasn't ready for it. It caught me square in the stomach.

You don't ever want to fight an emotionally distraught person, especially one who's in good physical shape. What they lose in coordination they gain in power and unpredictability. When he hit me I had to ignore the nausea and the instinct to double over in order to avoid a haymaker swing that would've caught me in the head.

I slid down under the punch on my left leg, a little awkwardly, and used my right leg to knock Dan off his feet with a sweep-kick. He didn't know to roll, so he fell on his back pretty hard.

I got up and backed away. My gut felt like a piece of sheet metal that was hardening as it cooled.

Dan scrambled up and started toward me. I held up my palms, offering a truce.

"This is stupid, Dan," I said.

He tried one more punch but this time I was ready for it. I stepped out of the way and let him punch air. After that he just stood there for a minute, breathing heavily.

"God damn it," he said. "You got no right."

He turned and started back toward his car. From the way he walked, his lower back must've been in a lot of pain.

The windows of his BMW were tinted almost black, so it was only when Dan opened the door that I saw the older woman with bright gold hair sitting in the passenger seat. Her face rested in her left hand as if in total mortification. As the door slammed Dan was growling to her: "Don't start!"

Then he drove over half the Rodriguezes' front lawn and over the curb getting back on the street. The BMW swerved slowly down Acacia like a drunk shark. The Rodriguez brothers looked at me and grinned, raising their beer cans in a salute.

Lillian was in her bedroom, pretending to read.

"Just a little man-to-man talk?" she asked coldly. "Did you mark off your territory for him?"

"Lillian-" I started. I stopped, realizing I sounded like Dan had a few minutes before.

She threw down her magazine. "I don't like being told to go to my room while the big fellas fight it out, Tres."

"You're right. I should've let you handle it."

"You think I couldn't have?"

No answer would've worked, so I didn't try one.

She got up and looked out the window. Finally, she walked over to me and put her arms around my waist. Her eyes were still angry.

"Look, Tres, this hasn't been a real great day for me. I think I need a hot bath and a night alone with a book."

"I love you," I said.

She kissed me as lightly as you'd kiss a Bible.

"I think we should talk more tomorrow," she said quietly. "I don't want any more surprises from my past."

I closed the front door quietly on my way out.

Back at home, I checked my newly installed answering machine. Mother had called twice, upset that I hadn't given her a report yet on my first date with Lillian. Bob Langston had left a cryptic message threatening me with bodily harm and legal action.

I unwrapped the ceramic skeleton-driven car Lillian had given me and put it down on the carpet in front of Robert Johnson. He hissed at it, puffing up his tail as thick as a raccoon's, then walked backward into the closet, still staring at the new monstrosity.

Two days back home and I'd managed to mess up my fragile relationship with Lillian, aggravate my mother, traumatize my cat, and make at least three new enemies.

"Just about par," I told myself.

There was only one other thing I could possibly stir up to make myself feel worse. I called directory assistance and asked for Carl Kelley, retired deputy sheriff, my dead father's best friend.

8.

"I'll be damned," he said. "I never thought I'd hear from you again, son."

Years of smoking hadn't been kind to Carl Kelley's voice. Every word sounded like it was being scraped across a metal file as it left his throat.