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“Sometimes Clete drinks at the Depot.”
“I thought he only drank in dumps,” Gretchen said.
“It was James Crumley’s hangout.”
“Who?”
“The crime novelist. He passed away a few years back. Can I make a suggestion?”
“Go ahead.”
Alafair pulled away from the curb. “Ease up on your old man. He thinks the world of you. He’s easily hurt by what you say.”
“So don’t hurt your father’s feelings, even if he’s about to walk in front of a train?”
“You’re a hard sell,” Alafair said.
They drove up the street and stopped in front of the restaurant. Gretchen went inside by herself. She looked in the dining room, then went into the bar and gazed through the French doors at the people eating on the terrace. A man hunched on a stool a few feet from her had just said something about the state tree of Kansas. Through a door pane, she could see Clete sitting with a small woman at a linen-covered table under a canopy stretched over the terrace. The woman had a shawl across her shoulders. A candle flickered on the table, lighting her hair and mouth and eyes. She seemed captivated by a story Clete was telling while he drank from a tumbler of ice and whiskey and cherries and sliced oranges, both hands lifting in the air when he made a point, the ice rattling in the glass. Gretchen was breathing hard through her nose as though she had walked up a steep hill.
“Buy you a drink, legs?” asked the man hunched on the stool.
“I didn’t catch that,” she replied, not taking her eyes off Clete’s back.
“You’ve got long legs, lady. I should have called you ‘beautiful.’ I didn’t mean anything by the other name.”
“Blow me,” she said without looking at him. She went out on the terrace and approached Clete’s table. “You shouldn’t be driving,” she said.
Clete and the small woman looked up. His cheeks were flushed, his eyes lit with an alcoholic shine. “Hey, Gretchen. What’s the haps?” he said. “Miss Felicity, this is my daughter, Gretchen Horowitz.”
“Did you hear me?” Gretchen asked.
“Hear what?” he said, grinning, squinting as though the sun were in his eyes.
“You’re sloshed,” she said.
“It’s so nice to meet you,” Felicity said.
Clete tried to hold his smile in place. He pushed out a chair. “We just ordered. Did you eat yet?”
“Yeah, by myself. After I fixed supper for both of us.”
He looked confused. “We were supposed to eat together? I must not have heard you. Is Alafair with you?”
“Yeah, I’ll drive the Caddy. She’ll follow us home. Let’s go.”
“Maybe we should do this another time, Clete,” Felicity said.
“No, no,” Clete said. “Sit down, Gretchen. I’ll go get Alafair. Order me a refill.”
Gretchen propped her palms on the table and leaned down. “What’s your name again?” she said to the woman.
“Felicity Louviere.”
“You’re married to Caspian Younger?”
“Yes. How would you know that?”
“I’m making a documentary on your family and your oil and natural-g
