Texas Showdown Read Online Free PDF Page B

in?" Blancanales asked.
    "101st Airborne. Death From Above. Winged Victory." Pardee's grin suddenly became a sneer. "The PAVN couldn't stop us but a goddamned army of hippies and politicians did."
    The backstage door opened again. A young blond woman in a black velvet pantsuit and ten-gallon hat carried a guitar to the stage. Pardee's sour look faded. He watched her admiringly as she adjusted the microphone, tuned her guitar. "God, she's so pretty," he said out loud.
    While Pardee gazed at the girl on the stage, Blancanales studied Pardee. The man had a face scorched and creased by years of exposure. Squint lines marked the corners of his eyes. White sunburn scars splotched his high cheekbones. When Craig Pardee had sneered, Blancanales noticed a very limited mobility to the right side of his face. Now he saw why. A pattern of little scars crossed his face and disappeared into his short-cut hair.
    Though Pardee stood six foot in street shoes, his muscles made him look squat. He wore a size nineteen collar. But despite his bulk, all his motions were fluid and precise. Pardee was a hard man. He was the image of the professional soldier.
    Watching the girl now, however, he had the soft eyes and smile of a boy in love. Blancanales decided to drop it on Pardee: "Oh, yeah. I want to introduce you to some friends of mine. They're good guys. And they're looking for work."
    Pardee turned to Blancanales, his face suddenly expressionless, his eyes dead, but the arteries and tendons in his throat stood from his weathered skin.
    "What?"
    "Slow, Pardee. Slow. I didn't break your security. They don't know what's going on. They don't even know your name. I told them nothing. I just said there's a chance for work, and that I'd vouch for them. That's it. You say no, they fly on to Miami. No problem."
    "Who are they?"
    "We just came off a run. One guy's like me, a shooter. Great with a rifle, better with a pistol. The other guy's into electronics. Radio, radar, high-tech stuff. But when there's trouble, he knows how to rock and roll."
    "Drugs?"
    "It was work. There's no war on, so..."
    "I mean them. They into drugs?"
    "I've lived with them for weeks at a time, on ships, in neighborhoods. I never saw them do anything except a little alcohol. Pardee, you don't know that business. Dopers don't last long in the dope trade."
    "What's their background?"
    "Nam. Some police trouble. The shooter says he's on the run. The electronics man is clean."
    "So what's he doing running dope?"
    "Making money." .
    On the stage, the girl began her song. She accompanied herself with the guitar. Pardee turned away from Blancanales and watched her. He gently responded to the rhythm of the guitar chords as he sipped his beer, making it last. Blancanales waited.
    The girl paused after her song and Pardee applauded. His clapping moved two or three other patrons to applaud. Blancanales joined in, but the applause was lost in the nonstop barroom noise. Pardee glared miserably at the tourists and phony cowfolk who were ignoring the girl. Then he demanded of Blancanales: "Who else will recommend them?"
    "Ask Senor Meza. Ask the people we both know. But I can't give you any other names — security works both ways. I didn't give anybody your name, I can't give anybody's name to you. They'd think you were Federal. And then it would be all over for me. But anybody on the yacht will vouch for them. They wiped out a hijack most professionally."
    Without commenting, Pardee returned his attention to the girl. He listened to the several more songs in her set. He didn't ask any more questions of Blancanales.
    The girl hit the last chords of her last song as the jukebox blasted away her final lyrics, drowning out the few patrons who had the courtesy to applaud.
    She hurried off the stage and rushed through the backstage door.
    "Assholes," Pardee muttered, casting a surly eye at the crowd. "Don't have good manners. They pay to hear a singer, then they don't listen. They work in an