Con Law Part 25

She replaced the phone and folded her hands on the table.

'Most law professors love to hear their own voices so they lecture the entire cla.s.s. You didn't.'

'I don't lecture. I'm just a tour guide through Con Law.'

'Problem is, we never knew what you were thinking.'

'Good.'

'But we're not in your cla.s.sroom, Professor. We're in Marfa. So tell me what you're thinking.'

It was past noon, and Nadine was homesick and hungry. He had not yet found Nathan's truth, so he couldn't take her home, but he could feed her. They had ridden back into town for lunch at the Pizza Foundation, just a few blocks up Highland Avenue from the Border Patrol headquarters. The building had been a gas station in a prior life. A purple Vespa was parked outside.

'I'm thinking there's a connection. Between Nathan, the art, fracking, his death ... my gut tells me it's all tied together.'

'Maybe your gut's just telling you it's hungry.'

'Could be.'

'Connected by what?'

'Not what. Whom.'

'Hi, I'm Kenni with an "i." I'll be your waiter.'

A skinny young man wearing skinny jeans and a T-shirt that read Frack Off stood at their table. He seemed too somber to be a waiter in Marfa. He wore purple with a pa.s.sion-in his hair, on his back, and on his feet. He was young, pierced, and tattooed. On the fingers of his left hand letters had been inked into his skin, one letter per finger: WWDJD.

'I've seen that WWDJD all over town,' Nadine said. 'What's it stand for?'

'"What would Donald Judd do?"'

Nadine frowned. 'Isn't it supposed to be WWJD? "What would Jesus do?"'

'Not in Marfa.'

Kenni's face was puffy, and his eyes were red, as if he had been crying. Or as if he were stoned. Or both.

'You okay?' Book asked.

Kenni gave a weak nod. 'Just sad.'

He offered no more, so Book ordered the chicken, tomatoes, spinach, and olive oil on thin crust. Nadine went for pepperoni, sausage, Canadian bacon, and extra cheese and her hand sanitizer. When Kenni left, Nadine said, 'He's gay.'

'You're not going to stop, are you?'

She shrugged. 'Just stating the obvious. He walks with his palms to the ground.'

Book turned and observed Kenni. He walked with his arms tight to his body and his wrists angled up so his palms faced the floor.

'Telltale sign,' his intern said.

'All right, Ms. Honeywell, since you're apparently an expert on this sort of thing, why do you think Nathan was gay?'

'His photos.'

'Explain.'

'What did you see?'

Book shrugged. 'Black-and-white photos.'

'You're not gay.'

'I know. But why do you think Nathan was?'

'The brilliant law professor is clueless. I love it.' She smiled and wiped the table down then rubbed sanitizer on her hands. 'All the photos were black and white, manly scenes, cattle and cowboys, the rugged landscape, a drilling rig, but in each photo there was one object in color, one thing that didn't belong in the scene-a Barbie doll, a red rose, pink underwear.'

'Okay.'

'Like Nathan. He was saying he didn't belong here. He was a gay guy in manly West Texas, living a black-and-white life, forced to hide his true colors.'

Book pondered her words a moment.

'Ms. Honeywell, either you're really smart or all that ethyl alcohol is poisoning your brain.'

A gray-haired man wearing a plaid shirt, creased khakis, and cowboy boots walked up and stuck his hand out to Book.

'Ward Weaver, mayor of Marfa.'

They shook.

'John Bookman. And Nadine Honeywell.'

'Read in the paper you were in town, Professor. Mind signing my Nook? Got your e-book on it. Been carrying it everywhere with me the last couple days, hoping to run into you.'

Book used a Sharpie to sign the mayor's Nook.

'Mind if I sit?'

'Pull up a chair.'

The mayor sat then sniffed the air. 'Smells like a hospital.'

He waved at Kenni across the room.

'So how do you folks like our little town? Number eight on the Smithsonian's "twenty best small towns in America" list.'

'The museum?' Nadine said.

'The magazine.'

He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a newspaper clipping.

'Got the article right here.'

He unfolded it on the table like a teenage boy with a Playboy centerfold. He read.

'"It's just a flyspeck in the flat, hot, dusty cattle country of southwest Texas-closer to Chihuahua than Manhattan. But it's cooking, thanks to an influx of creative types from way downtown."'

The mayor looked up with a grin.

'We beat out Key West.'

He carefully folded the article and replaced it in his pocket. He then reached into his other shirt pocket and removed another clipping. He spread it on the table and read.

'"The Art Land. In Marfa, the worlds of beef and art collide, giving the town a unique kick." New York Times. Course, you know what that's like, being in the Times, don't you, Professor? I read that story, "Indiana Jones Goes to Law School." Was all that true?'

'It was.'

The mayor grunted then folded and replaced that article. He patted his shirt and then the pockets of his khakis. He returned with several more clippings.

'"Marfa makes an art out of quirky." Chicago Tribune. "Minimal, marvelous Marfa: avant-garde art, deep in Texas." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. "Marfa, oasis d'artistes." Le Monde. You read French?'

Book shook his head.

'Don't know what it says, been hoping someone could translate it.'

Nadine reached over, took the article, and read: '"This is a charming and strange village, a world apart. In the late afternoon, you can enjoy a Spritz (Champagne, Campari, seltzer water) on the terrace of the only restaurant on the main street ..."'

The mayor smiled and nodded in approval. 'That's nice.'

Nadine scanned down the article. 'It goes on to tell the history of the town, how Marfa got its name, blah, blah, blah, Judd's story, the boxes, blah, blah, blah ... Oh, this is interesting.'

'Read it to me,' the mayor said like a kid wanting his mother to read the ending to a Harry Potter book.

Nadine translated. '"The widening gap between the arts and the Marfa 'from below' also casts a shadow on the picture. At the last census, the population was seventy percent Hispanic, and the median income less than half of Texas. But there are few artists who are interested in Marfa's poor and Mexicans. Chicanos, for their part, do not mix with the 'chinatis,' as they call the newcomers ... The next contention could focus on education. Founded by two personalities from the art world, an international private school will open in September for twenty students. Do we want to educate the entire community or a few? Donald Judd enrolled his children in the public schools. This is one of the poorest counties in Texas or in the United States. Our schools are starving for money."'

The mayor's excited child's face had turned into a deeper frown with each word of Nadine's translation. He gestured at the article.

'That's what those French words say? You sure about that?'

'Unh-huh.'

'Well, h.e.l.l's bells, that ain't a good story at all. And I've been carrying it around all this time. G.o.dd.a.m.n French people.'

He s.n.a.t.c.hed the article and wadded it into a ball and threw it at a distant trash basket. Nadine turned to Book; she was trying not to laugh.

'French, Ms. Honeywell?'

'The finest private school education available in San Francisco.'

The mayor spit out the bad taste of French and put his other prized articles away.

'Anyway, we've been written up in GQ, Vogue, Vanity Fair, Wall Street Journal, Texas Monthly, papers and magazines from California clear to New York City. Before Judd, all we had was the Marfa Mystery Lights. After Judd, we got art. And that's a marketable concept.'

'A concept?'

'You know, a promotional gimmick.'

'Judd's art is a gimmick?'

The mayor shrugged. 'Disneyland has Mickey Mouse.'

Kenni brought a gla.s.s of iced tea for the mayor. He grabbed the sugar dispenser and turned it up. And left it there, dispensing a load of sugar into the tea.

'You like a little tea with your sugar?' Book said.

'What? Oh, I've got a bit of a sweet tooth.'

'Lucky you still have teeth.'

'Don't pay him any mind, Mayor,' Nadine said. 'He doesn't know anything about the sweeter things in life. Like sweet tea and chocolate-covered donuts and ... pizza!'

Kenni had returned with their pizzas, which kept Nadine quiet.

'See,' the mayor said, 'when you think of Dallas, you think of J. R. Ewing and the Cowboys. Austin, you think of music and hippies. Houston, you think of ... mosquitoes. We want you to think of art when you think of Marfa. And let me tell you, Professor, art is a promotional gimmick that works.'

He drank his sugar with tea then continued.

'I mean, we're an airplane flight and a four-hour drive from anywhere, but ten thousand art tourists make the pilgrimage every year. And that's what it is for those folks, a religious experience, like Judd was a G.o.d and Marfa's a shrine. I don't get it myself-h.e.l.l, they're just boxes-but they come and they see and they spend. We got a bookstore, fourteen art galleries'-the mayor pointed out the window-'right over there, that's the inde/jacobs gallery, two h.o.m.os.e.xuals from Minnesota moved down here and opened it-and nine restaurants. Got a French place called Cochineal, gay couple owns it, they had a place in New York called etats-Unis, cost you a hundred bucks to eat there, place is packed-h.o.m.os.e.xuals, they can cook. We got Italian, Mediterranean-that's the Food Shark. Serves falafel, hummus, fatoush salad ... folks like the stuff, but it gives me gas.'

'Good to know.'

'But it gives the town a bit of flavor. And they buy real estate. Home values, they've skyrocketed.'

'Taxes, too, which I've heard is forcing locals to sell and move out of town.'

The mayor shrugged away any such concern. 'Price of progress. I've got a house listed for half a million dollars. Ten years ago, you could buy all the houses in town for less than that. That's progress.'

'You're a real-estate broker?'

The mayor nodded. 'I was an accountant, but never much money in Marfa to count, so I got my real-estate license. And business is booming, all the newcomers buying up homes and land. The Ryan Ranch, where they filmed Giant, it's up for sale-for twenty-seven million.'

'Is it a big ranch?'

'Nah. Only about thirty-four thousand acres. But I read it's half as big again as Manhattan Island, and only the son lives on it now. Maybe he'll get his price. New Yorkers, they think our prices are cheap. h.o.m.os.e.xuals, they've got beaucoup bucks, I guess because they don't got children. Kids are expensive.'

He shook his head as if in wonderment at the world around him.