I’ve just come back up to the house from seeing to my cows the next morning when the phone rings. It’s Vic from the motorcycle shop. I’d almost forgotten about him in all the excitement.

“I hear you were looking for me Saturday. Sorry, I was down in Galveston for the weekend.” He says he’ll be working at High Ride all day, and I can come in anytime. He tells me that Curtis’s two boys are being brought to the shop. “We’re putting ’em to work. Walter says they need a little dose of the real world.”

I call Ryder, and find out that the highway patrol had a quiet night, for once. “Still nothing on Coach Eldridge’s car. But it’s been forty-eight hours now, so we can put a little more manpower into it. But what I’m thinking is that it’s going to be a local person who finds Eldridge, dead or alive.”

Before I head for the motorcycle shop, I swing by to check on Linda Eldridge. I can tell when she opens the door that she’s had a shock. Her face is dead white. “What’s happened?”

Without a word, she walks over to the edge of the porch and vomits over the side. I hold onto her until she’s done. She obviously hasn’t eaten much; it’s mostly bile that comes out.

When I get her sat down in the kitchen with a glass of water she says, “Just before you got here, two men came to the door. They said they were looking for Boone. They said they were expecting a call from Boone and they hadn’t gotten it. I told them I hadn’t seen him since Saturday morning.” She starts to shiver.

“Did they say what they wanted?”

“They didn’t have to. When I told them I didn’t know where Boone was, they said I’d better not be lying, that if I was, they’d be back. They sounded so mean.” She puts her head in her hands. “I think I’m beginning to figure out that Boone has done something bad. Probably what you were asking about.”

She describes the two men as looking like the same ones her daughter saw the night Boone was beaten up. I don’t like it one bit. I don’t like strangers coming to town and threatening people. I don’t like that Boone Eldridge has brought this on his family. First Curtis, and now Boone, each in his own way letting weakness drive their actions. And both of them brought low because of it. There’s no doubt now that Boone Eldridge has gotten himself involved in trouble that he’s not likely to be able to weasel out of.

“Well, at least we know they haven’t killed him,” I say. “It may be a matter of money. If Boone can manage to pay them off, he’ll be okay.”

“But if he threw that game . . .”

She doesn’t have to finish. If Boone threw the game, he’ll never coach football again, never hold his head up in this town. His kids will be tormented. It’s a bleak prospect.

Suddenly Linda stands up and looks at her watch. Her expression has gone from fear to fury. “I’m not going to sit around and wait for Boone to show up. I’m going to work this morning. If Boone needs to reach me, he can call me there.”

I get to my feet. “I think that’s a good idea. It will keep you from worrying so much. There still might be a good explanation for what’s happened.”

Tears spring to her eyes and she draws a couple of deep breaths. “I wish I believed that, but meanwhile somebody has to bring some money in for this family.”

When I arrive at the motorcycle shop, Vic is explaining to Curtis’s wide-eyed teenage boys how he plans to repair the engine on a big Harley-Davidson. You couldn’t have taken those boys to Disneyland and entertained them any better.

Vic tells them to keep their hands off the parts lying around, but he gives them a manual and shows them the page that identifies the parts and tells them he’s going to give them a quiz when he gets back. I’m curious why they gave Vic the job of working with these boys, seeing that he’s the only one of them without a family. But he seems to do pretty well with them.

We step outside to enjoy the nippy weather. Vic lights up a cigarette. “Walter told me you were interested in the last time we went to Coushatta with Jack.”

“That’s right.” I tell him what the blackjack dealer overheard. “Walter says you might have seen who Jack was talking to.”

“I did. Jack and I were playing blackjack, and all of a sudden I see this man I know by sight, but don’t know who he is. I tell Jack I think he’s from Jarrett Creek, and Jack wants to go over there and say hello. I wheel him over to the craps table next to this guy and tell him Jack came to say hi. And then things get a little weird. The guy turns around, and his mouth falls open and he looks at me like he’s seen a ghost. He doesn’t say anything for a second and Jack says, ‘Who am I talking to?’ And the guy kind of laughs and says, ‘It’s Boone, Jack. How you doing?’”

“Boone? Are you sure that’s who it was?” My heart drops to my stomach.

“Yeah, the high school coach. I didn’t know him at the time, but I saw him again when I came to a game a couple of weeks ago with Walter.”

“So did Jack and Boone talk to each other?”

“They did, but they both acted a little strange. Jack asked the coach what he was doing there. And the coach got all jolly and made a big fuss about how glad he was to see Jack, and what a coincidence it was. You know, clapped him on the shoulder, good buddy stuff. But he was looking at Jack like he’d seen the devil.”

“What did Jack say to him?”

“Jack said he’d see the man back in Jarrett Creek and that they needed to talk and then Jack told me he wanted to go back and play some more blackjack. After that it happened pretty much the way the dealer told you. Jack was mighty pissed off. He said the coach shouldn’t be gambling—especially with his money. We asked him what he meant, but he said that was between him and Boone. That was the end of it. He didn’t want to talk about it anymore. We went off and had some drinks, and that was that.”

On the way back to Jarrett Creek, I try every which way to put the best face on what I’ve heard. But there is no good way to get out of what I know. I thought the worst thing that could have happened was that Boone Eldridge had gotten himself into trouble as a gambler. But now I know he’s done worse than that.

I feel like I need to talk to some regular people and try to figure out what to do next, so I stop by the café. The regulars are there, gathered around Gabe LoPresto. I remember what Louis Cardoza’s dad said yesterday morning about asking LoPresto if he knew anything about where coach was. So I pull up a chair, wondering if I’m dealing with a whole gambling cartel I didn’t even know existed. I listen for a few minutes while the men wrangle over a couple of plays that were called in the game Friday night.

Lurleen brings me coffee and leans down to ask me if I’ve found out anything about Jack’s killer. I tell her I’m working on it and may have something soon.

When the squabble comes to an end, LoPresto says to me, “I hear you were in the thick of that shoot-out yesterday. That family has had more than its share of troubles.”

“Curtis brought trouble on himself,” I say.

“How so?” LoPresto is grinning like a fool.

I tell them about his involvement with the survivalist group in Waco.

One of the men leans in, his eyes narrowed. “Seems to me he was protecting his family. You can’t charge him with anything.”

“I’m in no position to charge him or not charge him. That’s up to the law.”

“By God, if it was me and my family, they’d have a court fight on their hands if they tried to tell me I couldn’t use my lawful firearm to protect my wife and kids. So I don’t see how you can say he brought it on himself, if someone came after him.”

“I’m talking about his decision to throw in his lot with somebody without bothering to find out anything about his past. If he’d done his homework, he would have known this guy Marcus was a criminal and wasn’t anybody he should be involved with.”

“It’s a matter of trust,” the man says.

“You lie down with dogs, you get fleas,” LoPresto crows. He likes a good argument. But his statement brings me to the reason I’m here.

“You all know Coach Eldridge is missing?” I say.

“I heard that, but I didn’t take it seriously,” LoPresto says. “Where would the man go? You think he’s got somebody on the side?”

“You know his wife,” one of the men pokes the man next to him. “He’d be crazy to look elsewhere.”

“Anybody here ever gamble on the football games?”

They look at me uneasily. “Well sure,” LoPresto says. “We have a pool down at the office, and anybody can get in on it. I don’t think the law is too excited about that.”

“I’m talking about big gambling. Like with a bookie.”

“On a high school game?” Dilly Bolton’s dad sneers.

“Hold on,” LoPresto says, sizing me up. “I’ve heard something about that. You know my sister lives in Houston. Her husband likes to bet on college and pro games, and he told me once that somebody asked if he was interested in betting on high school games, too. My brother-in-law said he thought it was crazy, but the guy told him there was serious money to be made on Texas high school football.”

“I’ll be damned,” somebody says. “If I’d known that, I could have been rich by now.”

They all laugh. It’s not serious to them, because it would never occur to them that their coach would be involved in something so sordid.

Only LoPresto realizes there’s more to it. He acts like a buffoon half the time, but I know he’s a shrewd businessman when it comes to his real estate business. “Why are you asking?”

“Those guys who beat up Eldridge a few weeks ago? There’s some question that they might have something to do with gambling.”

“What?” Bolton says. “I thought that was just somebody mad about the team losing to Bobtail.”

Again, it’s LoPresto who gets the connection. “You’re not saying Eldridge gambled on the games, are you?”

“Anybody ever hear any rumors of that?” I say.

None of them have. “But if I find out that’s what Eldridge has been up to, and he threw that game, I’m taking a horsewhip to him,” the gun guy says. He’s still riled up about our gun talk and looking for a target. He doesn’t know I’m thinking that Eldridge’s gambling problem took him a long way farther than just throwing a game.

LoPresto’s face has grown fierce. “You’re thinking he threw the game.”

I nod.

“Son of a bitch. So that’s why he’s skipped out of town?”

“Where would he go?” someone says.

“I’d look in Mexico,” the gun guy says. “If he stays around here, he’d be in a hell of a fix.”

“You think those boys who beat him up last time might have gotten hold of him and done worse?” LoPresto asks.

“I know they haven’t gotten to him yet, because they called on Linda this morning.”

“Serves Eldridge right if they find him,” somebody says.

LoPresto shakes his head. “I imagine he’s pretty desperate about now, trying to find some way to get them off his back.”

And just like that, I know where Boone Eldridge has gone.