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Pitt smiled slowly. "Can you set us down beside his place?"
he asked Mifflin. "I think we ought to have a talk with Sam."
The sign stretched nine meters in length behind the highway turnoft. The giant horizontal board was supported by sunbleached, weather-cracked mesquite posts that uniformly leaned backward at a drunken angle. Garish red letters on a faded silver background proclaimed SAM'S ROMAN CIRCUS
The gas pumps out front were shiny and new and advertised methanol-blended fuel for forty-eight cents a liter. The store was built from adobe and designed like the Indian mesa dwellings of Arizona with the roof poles protruding through the walls. The interior was clean and the shelves were neatly stacked with curios, groceries and soft drinks. It was an echo of a thousand other small, isolated oases that stood beside the nation's highways.
Sam, though, didn't match the decor.
No baseball cap advertising Caterpillar tractors. No scuffed cowboy boots or straw range hat or faded Levi's. Sam was attired in a bright green Polo shirt, yellow slacks and expensive custom lizard golf shoes complete with cleats. His evenly trimmed white hair lay flat beneath a sporty plaid cap.
Sam Trinity stood in the doorway of his store until the dust from the helicopter's rotor blades slowly rolled away under a light breeze. Then he stepped past the asphalt drive, holding a two iron Bob Hope-style and came to a halt about six meters from the opening door.
Garza dropped out first and walked up to him. "Hello there, dirt-kicker."
Trinity's dark calfskin face stretched into a big Texas smile. "Herb, you old taco. Good to see you."
He pulled up his sunglasses, revealing blue eyes that squinted under the bright Southern Texas sun. Then he dropped them again like a curtain.
He was very tall, skinny as a fence pole, arms slender, shoulders narrow, but his voice had vigor and resonance.
Garza made the introductions, but it was obvious the names were hardly absorbed by Trinity. He simply waved and said, "Glad to meet yaal.
Welcome to Sam's Roman Circus." Then he noticed Pitts face, cane and limp. "Fall off your motorcycle?"
Pitt laughed. "The short end of a saloon brawl."
"I think I like you."
Sandecker stood jauntily with legs apart and nodded at the two iron.
"Where do you play golf around here?"
"Just down the road in Rio Grande City," Trinity replied genially.
"Several courses between here and Brownsville. I just got back from a quick round with some old army buddies."
"We'd like to poke around your museum," said Garza.
"Be an honor. Help yourself. Not every day someone drops in by whirlybird to look at my artifacts (he pronounced it 'arteefacts'). You folks like something to drink,
sody pop, beer? I've got a pitcher of margaritas in the icebox."
"A margarita would taste wonderful," said Lily, dabbing her neck with a bandanna.
"Show our guests around to the museum, Herb. The door's unlocked. I'll join you in a minute."
A truck and trailer pulled in for gas, and Trinity pau sed to chat a moment with the driver before entering his living quarters adjoining the store.
"A friendly cuss," muttered Sandecker.
"Sam can be friendlier than a down-Texas ranch wife," said Garza. "But get on his bad side and he's tougher than a ninety-cent steak."
Garza led them into an adobe building behind the store. The interior was no larger than a two-car garage, but was crowded with glass display cases and wax figures in Roman legionary dress. The artifact room was spotless; no dust layered the glass walls. The artifacts were rust-free and highly burnished.
Lily carried an attached case. She carefully laid it on a display case, unsnapped the latches and pulled out a thick book with illustrations and photographs that resembled a catalogue. She began to compare the artifacts with those pictured in the book.
"Looking good," she said after a few minutes of study. "The swords and spearheads match Roman weapons of the fourth Century."
