Heaven, Texas (5 page)

“Why, thank you.”

“And a pleasant torso, also.”

He gave a crack of laughter. “Damn, Miz Gracie, I'm going to keep you around today just for the entertainment value.”

“You are?”

He shrugged. “Why not? I've been acting crazy ever since my retirement.”

She could hardly believe he'd changed his mind. She heard him chuckle as he retrieved her suitcase and asked Bruno to return her rental car. His amusement had faded, however, by the time he'd once again settled behind the steering wheel, and he gave her a stern gaze.

“I'm not taking you all the way to Texas, so get that out of your mind right now. I like to travel alone.”

“I understand.”

“A couple of hours. Maybe as far as the state line. The minute you start to aggravate me, I'm dropping you off at the nearest airport.”

“I'm sure that won't be necessary.”

“Don't bet on it.”

B
obby Tom drove the freeways of the Windy City as if he owned them. He was king of the town, mayor of the world, top cat of the universe. As the radio blasted out Aerosmith, he drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, keeping time to “Janie's Got a Gun.”

In his red Thunderbird convertible and pearl gray Stetson, he was highly conspicuous. To Gracie's amazement, drivers began pulling alongside the car, their horns blowing, windows lowered to call out to him. He waved and drove on.

She could feel her skin flush from the hot wind and the sheer delight of speeding down a big-city freeway in a vintage red Thunderbird with a man who wasn't respectable. Strands of hair escaped from her lumpy french twist and whipped her cheeks. She wished she had a hot pink designer scarf to wrap around her head, a pair of trendy sunglasses to slip on her nose, a tube of scarlet lipstick to slide over her lips. She wanted big, full breasts, a tight dress, a sexy pair of high heels. She wanted a gold ankle bracelet.

And, perhaps, a very discreet heart-shaped tattoo.

She played with this enticing vision of herself as a wild woman while Bobby Tom placed and received calls on the car phone she'd noticed earlier. Sometimes he used the phone's speaker feature; other times he held the receiver to his ear and spoke privately. His outgoing calls seemed to involve various business deals and their tax effects, as well as charity functions he was involved in. Most of his incoming calls, she was interested to note, seemed to come from acquaintances hitting him up for money. Although he conducted these calls with the phone to his ear, she received the distinct impression that, in every case, he ended up offering more money than had been requested. After less than an hour in his presence, she'd already figured out that Bobby Tom Denton was an easy mark.

As they reached the outskirts of the city, he placed a call to someone named Gail and spoke to her in that lazy drawl that sent shivers up Gracie's all-too-receptive spine.

“I just wanted you to know I'm missin' you so bad I got tears in my eyes this very minute.”

He raised his arm to wave at a woman in a blue Firebird who whizzed by blowing her horn. Gracie, a very safe driver herself, grabbed the door handle as she realized he was steering the car with his knee.

“Yeah, that's right.  .  . I know, sweetheart, I wish we could have made it, too. The rodeo doesn't come to Chicago nearly often enough.” He draped his fingers over the top of the wheel, while he tucked the receiver farther into the crook of his neck. “You don't say. Well, now, you give her my best, y'hear? Kitty and I had some real good times together a couple months back. She even took the quiz, but she hadn't studied up near enough on the '89 Super Bowl to pass. I'll call you as soon as I can, darlin'.”

As he replaced the phone, she regarded him curiously. “Don't all your girlfriends get jealous of each other?”

“'Course not. I only date nice ladies.”

And treat every one of them like a queen, she suspected. Even the pregnant ones.

“The National Organization of Women should seriously consider putting out a contract on you.”

He looked genuinely surprised. “On me? I love women. More than I like a lot of men, as a matter of fact. I'm pretty much a card carryin' feminist.”

“Don't let Gloria Steinem hear you say that.”

“Why not? She's the one who gave me the card.”

Gracie's eyes flew open.

He flashed a wicked smile. “Gloria is one nice lady, I'm tellin' you that.”

She knew right then that she couldn't afford to lose her concentration around him, not even for a moment.

As the suburbs of Chicago gave way to flat, Illinois farmland, she asked if she could use his phone to call Willow Craig, assuring him that she would pay for the call with her new business credit card. That seemed to amuse him.

Windmill had set up its headquarters at the Cattleman's Hotel in Telarosa, and as soon as she was connected with her employer, she began to explain the problem. “I'm afraid Bobby Tom is insisting on driving to Telarosa instead of flying.”

“Talk him out of it,” Willow replied in her brisk, no-nonsense voice.

“I did my best. Unfortunately, he wasn't listening. We're on the road now, just south of Chicago.”

“I was afraid of this.” Several seconds slipped by, and Gracie could picture her sophisticated employer toying with one of the large earrings she always wore. “He has to be here by eight o'clock Monday morning. Do you understand?”

Gracie eyed Bobby Tom. “It may not be that easy.”

“That's why I chose you to go after him. You're supposed to be able to handle difficult people. We have a fortune tied up in this film, Gracie, and we can't afford any more delays. Even people who aren't sports fans know Bobby Tom Denton, and we're getting a huge amount of publicity out of signing him for his first film.”

“I understand.”

“He's slippery. It took us months to negotiate this contract, and I want this picture made! I'm not going to see the studio bankrupt just because you don't know how to do your job.”

Gracie had a small knot in the pit of her stomach by the time she had finished listening to another five minutes of warnings about what would happen if she didn't have Bobby Tom in Telarosa by eight o'clock Monday morning.

He replaced the phone. “She really give you the business, huh?”

“She expects me to do the job I was hired for.”

“Has it occurred to anybody at Windmill Studios that sending you after me was pretty much like sending a lamb to the slaughter?”

“I don't see it that way. I happen to be exceptionally competent.”

She heard a chuckle that sounded faintly diabolic, but was quickly drowned out as he flipped the volume back up on the radio.

Listening to the raucous sounds of rock and roll instead of the innocuous music heard around Shady Acres gave her a moment of such delicious pleasure that her tension faded and she nearly shivered with delight. Her senses seemed especially acute. She felt dizzy from the woodsy scent of Bobby Tom's after-shave, while her hands unconsciously stroked the soft leather seats of what he had informed her was a restored 1957 Thunderbird. If only the car had a pair of fuzzy pink dice swinging from the rearview mirror, it would be perfect.

She'd had so little sleep the night before that her head began to nod, but even so, her eyes wouldn't stay closed for long. The fact that Bobby Tom had allowed her to come along on the first leg of his trip didn't lull her into thinking she could easily persuade him to change his mind about letting her stay with him. Unless she was very much mistaken, he planned to get rid of her as soon as he had the chance, which meant she couldn't let him out of her sight, no matter what.

The car phone buzzed. With a sigh, Bobby Tom pushed the button that activated the speaker.

“Hey, B.T., it's Luther Baines,” a boisterous voice proclaimed. “Damn, boy, I just about give up runnin' you to ground.”

The pained expression on Bobby Tom's face told Gracie he wished Luther hadn't succeeded. “How you doin', Mr. Mayor.”

“Right as rain. I lost ten pounds since I last saw you, B.T. Lighter beer and younger women. Works every time. 'Course we don't have to tell Mrs. Baines about that.”

“No, sir, we sure don't.”

“Buddy's lookin' forward to seein' you.”

“I'm anxious to see him, too.”

“Now, B.T., the folks on the Heavenfest organizing committee are gettin' a little nervous. We were expectin' you in Telarosa last week, and we need to be sure that you're getting all your friends lined up for the Bobby Tom Denton Celebrity Golf Tournament. I know Heavenfest isn't till October, but we have to get some advance publicity going, and it sure would be nice to put a few of those big names up on the posters. You heard from Michael Jordan and Joe Montana yet?”

“I've been kinda busy. They'll probably make it, though.”

“You know we picked that weekend because the Stars and the Cowboys aren't playing. What about Troy Aikman?”

“Oh, I'm pretty sure he'll be there.”

“That's good. That's real good.” Gracie heard a deep-pitched chortle. “Toolee told me not to say anything until you get down here, but I wanted you to know right away.” Another chortle. “We took over the lease to the house just last week. We're going to kick off Heavenfest with the dedication of the Bobby Tom Denton Birthplace!”

“Awww, man.  .  . Luther, that whole idea is crazy! I don't want my birthplace dedicated. For one thing, I was born in a hospital like everybody else, so it doesn't even make sense. I just grew up in that house. I thought you were going to put a stop to this.”

“I'm surprised and hurt by your attitude. People been sayin' it's only a matter of time before being famous went to your head, but I kept tellin' them they were wrong. Now I have to wonder. You know how bad the economy is down here, and with that lowlife sumbitch planning to pull out Rosatech, we're facing disaster. Our only hope is to turn Telarosa into a tourist mecca.”

“Putting a plaque on that old house is not going to turn Telarosa into a tourist mecca! Luther, I wasn't the president of the United States. I was a football player!”

“I think you lived up North too long, B.T. It's ruined your perspective. You were the best wideout in the history of the game. Down here, we don't forget something like that.”

Bobby Tom squeezed his eyes shut in frustration. When he opened them again, he spoke with infinite patience. “Luther, I said I'd help set up the golf tournament, and I will But I'm warning all of you right now that I'm not going to have anything to do with this “birthplace thing.”

“Course you are. Toolee's plannin' to restore your childhood bedroom exactly like it was when you were growin' up.”

“Luther  .  .  .”

“By the way, the auxiliary's puttin' together a Bobby Tom cookbook to sell in the gift shop, and they want to include a special celebrity section at the end. Evonne Emerly says for you to call Cher and Kevin Costner and some of those other Hollywood people you know for their meat loaf recipes and such.”

Bobby Tom stared bleakly ahead at the empty stretch of highway. “I'm heading into a tunnel, Luther, and I'm gonna lose the signal. I'll have to call you later.”

“Wait a minute, B.T. We haven't talked about—”

Bobby Tom disconnected the call. With a heavy sigh, he leaned back in his seat.

Gracie had been absorbing every word, and she was brimming with curiosity, but she didn't want to irritate him, so she bit her tongue.

Bobby Tom turned and looked at her. “Go ahead. Ask me how I managed to stay sane growing up around crazy people.”

“He seemed quite  .  .  . enthusiastic.”

“He's a fool, is what he is. The mayor of Telarosa, Texas, is a certifiable fool. This whole Heavenfest thing has gotten completely out of hand.”

“What exactly is Heavenfest?”

“It's a three day celebration they're planning to hold in October, part of a harebrained scheme to bring economic prosperity back to Telarosa by attracting tourists. They've spruced up the downtown, added a Western art gallery and a couple of restaurants. There's a decent golf course, a dude ranch, and a mediocre hotel, but that's about it.”

“You forgot to mention the Bobby Tom Denton Birthplace.”

“Don't remind me.”

“It does seem rather desperate.”

“It's insane. I think people in Telarosa have gotten so scared about holding on to their jobs it's scrambled their brains.”

“Why are they calling it Heavenfest?”

“Heaven was the town's original name.”

“Church groups seemed to have had a strong influence in founding some of the early Western towns.”

Bobby Tom chuckled. “The cowboys named it Heaven because it had the best whorehouses between San Antone and Austin. It wasn't until the turn of the century that the town's more respectable citizens got the place renamed Telarosa.”

“I see.” Gracie had a dozen more questions, but she sensed that he wasn't in the mood for further conversation, and since she didn't want to irritate him, she fell silent. It occurred to her that being a celebrity had its drawbacks. If this morning was any indication, an awful lot of people seemed to want a piece of Bobby Tom Denton.

The phone buzzed. Bobby Tom sighed and rubbed his eyes. “Gracie, you mind answering that for me and telling whoever's calling that I'm on the golf course.”

Gracie didn't believe in lying, but he looked so worn out that she did as he asked.

Seven hours later, Gracie found herself staring with dismay at the peeling red door of a seedy Memphis bar named Whoppers. “We drove hundreds of miles out of our way to come here?”

“It'll be an education for you, Miz Gracie. You ever been in a bar before?”

“Of course I've been in a bar.” She saw no need to tell him that it had been attached to a respectable restaurant. This bar featured a neon beer sign with a broken
M
flickering listlessly in the dirty window, and a front sidewalk littered with trash. Since he had already kept her with him longer than she'd expected, she didn't want to antagonize him further, but neither could she abandon her responsibility.

“I'm afraid we don't have time for this.”

“Gracie, sweetheart, you're gonna have a heart attack before you're forty if you don't learn to take life a little easier.”

She gnawed nervously at her bottom lip. It was already Saturday evening, and with this detour, they had seven hundred miles left on the journey. She reminded herself that they didn't have to be in Telarosa until Monday morning, so, assuming Bobby Tom didn't try anything funny, there was plenty of time. Even so, she wasn't reassured.

She still couldn't believe he had decided to go to Telarosa by way of Memphis when, as she'd pointed out several times, the map in the glove compartment had shown that the most direct route stretched west through St. Louis. But he kept talking about how he couldn't let her live another day of her life without visiting the finest eating establishment east of the Mississippi. Until only moments ago, she had been envisioning something small, expensive, possibly French.

“You can't stay long,” she said firmly. “We need to get several more hours of driving in before we stop for the night.”

“Whatever you sazy, honey.”

The raucous sounds of a country and western song assaulted her ears as he held the door open for her and she stepped into the smoky interior of Whoppers Bar and Grill. Square, wooden tables sat on a grubby orange and brown checkerboard floor. Beer signs, fly-specked calendar girl posters, and deer antlers provided ambience. As her eyes slid over the rough-looking crowd, she touched his arm.