Winning Texas (11 page)

“
Why don
’
t we get a bite to eat at Gaido
’
s and look at the listings I printed out?
”
Lila Jo said. She turned right to the Seawall area and soon they were sitting in the venerable restaurant looking across the plate-glass window at a view of the Gulf.

They ordered shrimp salads and Lila Jo continued to talk nonstop, this time about Galveston and its luckless history. Pirate Jean Lafitte haunted the island in 1817 and just after the Civil War, about 1,800 died in an outbreak of Yellow Fever. But that was just a prelude to the terrifying number of casualties the island suffered in the great hurricane of 1900.

“
The Galveston hurricane killed between 6,000 and 8,000 people
–
still the biggest natural disaster in the United States,
”
she said with a certain relish Juliana noticed when Texans gloried in the awfulness of Texas.
“
Historians say that the drowned bodies just kept surfacing and floating back after the city flooded. Absolutely ghastly.
”

Juliana felt nauseous and put down her forkful of shrimp salad.
“
Lila Jo, can we talk about the listings?
”
she said.

“
Oh honey, I
’
m sorry,
”
Lila Jo said.
“
I was just getting to the happy ending. The Seawall was built after the great hurricane. It
’
s seventeen feet high and runs for ten miles. Now the island mostly doesn
’
t flood.
”

Juliana didn
’
t want to consider the implications of the
“
mostly
”
caveat when she was determined to buy a beach house, so she changed the subject.
“
Did you meet Kyle when you became his real estate agent?
”

“
No, we met long before that, when he played poker,
”
Lila Jo said.
“
He doesn
’
t play any more, but he recognized the potential early on. We
’
re sort of partners now. He gives me seed money and I set up games around town. I guess you
’
re the reason he stopped playing.
”

“
We
’
re very busy with our businesses,
”
Juliana said.
“
He works a lot at night, visiting our clubs.
”

“
Yeah, I know,
”
Lila Jo said.
“
I told him he should buy a condo before prices went up the last time. He listened to me and I found him that awesome place you
’
re in now.
”

“
It
’
s very nice,
”
Juliana said.
“
But I love the water, so I
’
d like to be here on the weekends.
”

“
Does Kyle want to spend his weekends here?
”

“
Not as much as I do,
”
Juliana said. To her horror, tears began to leak from her eyes and suddenly she was sobbing. She muffled her sobs into a tissue and wiped her eyes, but not before Lila Jo bobbed up, ran around the table and enveloped her in a hug so tight it took her breath away. She hated the attention Lila Jo
’
s impulsive gesture was getting from the curious diners, but despite herself, she was grateful for the woman
’
s sympathy.

“
What
’
s the matter, sweetie? A pretty lady like you shouldn
’
t have any reason to boohoo,
”
Lila Jo said, returning to her seat.

“
I came from Brazil five years ago to marry Kyle, but he keeps putting it off,
”
Juliana said in a tremulous voice.
“
Now my parents and sisters and cousins are all laughing at me. They say I should come back to Brazil and find a good man. And he has other women sometimes. I can feel it.
”

“
Well, he does seem to have an eye for the ladies,
”
Lila Jo said.
“
But I don
’
t have to tell you that all men stink like polecats. I left my husband when I found him screwing the twenty-year-old tart doing the filing at his office. We
’
re not divorced yet, but I
’
m holding that over his head until our settlement, believe me.
”

Juliana nodded, still embarrassed that she
’
d shown her emotions in public.

“
The thing, Julie Girl, is to bide your time till you can get even,
”
Lila Jo said, pointing her magenta-colored fingernail theatrically.
“
Now let
’
s look at these listings. I
’
d suggest something at the higher end. Make that boy pay.
”

Juliana and Lila Jo looked at five listings on the island
’
s fancier West End that were adequate, if not spectacular. Then, prompted by Lila Jo
’
s additional iPhone search, they looked at four others that were more elaborate. Juliana agreed with the real estate broker that a four-bedroom, four-bath house facing the Gulf with a pool and spacious grilling deck was the best. By the time they left the island, close to dusk, Lila Jo had put a contract on the half-million-dollar beach house. It was about 20 percent more than the upper end of the budget Kyle had suggested, but Juliana, egged on by Lila Jo, decided that she deserved it.

CHAPTER 10

Kyle Krause careened down Interstate 35 toward Laredo, giddy at the thought of being on his own for a precious few days. Juliana had been impossibly crabby for weeks and it would do her good to look at weekend houses in Galveston with the perpetually upbeat Lila Jo Lemmons. Maybe she
’
d catch some of Lila Jo
’
s happy spirit. It wouldn
’
t do their finances any good if the real estate agent found something Juliana wanted to buy, but that was another story.

Krause was using a low-key gray SUV for this trip because he was picking up three Salvadoran immigrant women and ferrying them to the ranch in the Hill Country. It was an onerous chore, but his good deed for Juliana might cancel out the bad behavior he was planning at the end of the trip. He missed driving his Porsche, not the least for the envious glances it drew from male motorists and admiring looks from female drivers and passengers.

He
’
d left early enough so that with luck, he
’
d make it to the ranch of his friend Spud Jarvis by late afternoon. The three Salvadorans were temporarily housed there, so he
’
d spend the night with Spud and his wife Daria before leaving for the Hill Country with the women. After dropping them off at Krause Ranch, he
’
d swing over to San Antonio where he was looking forward to a layover at his business, the Texas Gas Emporium. Bonita Vasquez, a manager at the gigantic travel mart, was also his lover. But he wouldn
’
t see her until tomorrow night, so his mind flicked past her and on to nagging worries.

He mostly kept out of Juliana
’
s secret business, though he
’
d given her the go-ahead to base her operations at the ranch they
’
d bought three years ago. She was devoted to the clandestine enterprise but he wasn
’
t enthusiastic about it. He
’
d rather focus his energies on expanding his topless empire and avoiding unnecessary risks. Juliana had argued that her family had made big money from a similar business in Brazil, so as usual, she got her way.

Like many self-made Texans, he
’
d wanted a ranch to prove to himself and the business world that he
’
d arrived. But once he
’
d acquired the Hill Country property, he wasn
’
t sure what to do with it. So using it for her business made sense, at least for a while. The massive ranch, fenced in and located in a fairly remote area, would increase in value and could be used for a number of purposes. If he and Juliana didn
’
t fancy it as a weekend getaway, they could turn it into a dude ranch, or raise emus, ostriches or even something as prosaic as cattle.

His thoughts drifted to other Hill Country interests. He
’
d recently invested in the fledgling campaign to create a German Texas after his childhood friend, Sam Wurzbach, had sold him on the plan. Sam had kept up with him after he left the Hill Country for Houston
’
s more lucrative business climate. Krause appreciated that Sam retained old friends, even one who
’
d excelled in the strip club business. Krause guessed that Sam knew he
’
d be interested in his concept of German Texas because he knew the truth about Krause
’
s origins.

Krause
’
s grandfather, a low-level leader in Hitler
’
s Nazi regime, had been smart enough to flee to Brazil at the frenzied end of World War II. Juliana
’
s wealthy grandparents, along with several other right-wing Brazilian families, had helped Rudolf Krause conceal his identity. Rudolf
’
s son, Frederic, was ashamed of the family roots, wanting a fresh start in the United States. Frederic started a produce farm in the Hill Country, but soon ran it into the ground. He killed himself, leaving his wife and two young sons nearly destitute. Kyle Krause
’
s success had helped to preserve the small farm for his mother and brother.

Krause liked Sam
’
s German-Texas quest partly because he wanted to reclaim the German heritage his father had tried to escape. He had no love for Nazis or any use for the Old Country, but he
’
d always felt at home with the German-Texas flavor of the Hill Country. And he
’
d quite liked his pirate of a grandfather, who
’
d died a decade ago. Krause couldn
’
t find it in his heart to condemn the old man for something he
’
d gotten caught up with in his youth. Besides, the concept of German Texas made a lot of entrepreneurial sense. Krause could see himself expanding his strip club empire there, especially if he helped set up more lenient rules.

He shifted mental gears, relaxing in the freedom of the road, even this pallid stretch of interstate with its predictable scenery. On a clear, bright day, the heat shimmered in ribbons on the asphalt as he flew past low-lying brush. He turned up the air-conditioning, though he
’
d dressed for the weather in cargo shorts, a threadbare T-shirt and a Texas Girls cap pushing back the hair he hadn
’
t bothered to style. He played his favorite country music CDs, Brad Paisley and other crooning pseudo-cowboys as loud as he wanted, since Juliana wasn
’
t around to criticize his taste. She never could get into country music, preferring Brazilian and American pop, which he hated.

He consulted scribbled directions from Spud Jarvis and turned off the interstate to a farm-to-market road. He drove for a few miles and turned again, this time to a dirt road. A faux-rustic wooden sign identified the property ahead as the Jarvis Ranch. The main building was a low, dirty-white stucco house with a few outbuildings behind it. He knew Jarvis had acquired the foreclosed property recently at a courthouse-steps sale. Spud had described it as his first and last Texas home. To Krause, it looked like a far cry from paradise.

As he drove into the rutted driveway, he could see the balding figure of Jarvis puttering in the front yard. His elongated arms and legs always hung out of clothes that weren
’
t quite long enough and he had an old man
’
s protruding belly. Krause wasn
’
t sure why he
’
d been nicknamed Spud, but knew it had something to do with an impoverished childhood on an Iowa potato farm. He
’
d come to Laredo as a young man and quickly perceived that it needed a dose of fun. The first of his topless clubs was a hit and he followed up with several satellites, quickly saturating the small city. Across the Rio Grande, virgin territory beckoned and he was eager to plumb its heights
–
or depths
–
with adult entertainment. Nuevo Laredo was more than twice the size of Laredo with an even higher quotient of fun-loving visitors, so it was easy to establish outposts there. But the growth of violent drug organizations along the border had stopped Jarvis
’
s Mexican expansion. He
’
d reached a d
é
tente with several groups in the mid-1980s, and in a grudging sign of respect, they even paid him some go-away money.