The picketers looked alarmed, as if even the metaphorical use of the word was forbidden to them.
"We've been out here every day for a year, since the city gave Gus Sterne permission to stage the All Soul Festival," said the stringy woman, who seemed to be the leader. "He calls it a celebration of food and culture, but it's really just a way to promote his chain of barbecue restaurants. Oh, sure, he'll give all the profits to local charities, but he's still responsible for the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of cows. He's made his millions off animal genocide, but no one ever talks about that."
"Eating meat is legal."
"That doesn't make it moral. Or safe."
A young man leaned into the conversation. "Cigarette smoking was acceptable, too, once. We want to marginalize meat eating in the same way, with additional taxes and more truth in labeling."
Tess had a sudden image of the office building of the future, with workers standing in little clusters, some smoking, others hunched over roast beef sandwiches.
"You didn't pick an easy state to start your fight, I'll give you that much."
She had meant to appease the group, but the stringy woman took offense.
"We aren't interested in easy battles. San Antonians think it's not a celebration unless meat is consumed. We're petitioning city hall for meatless, cruelty-free venues at all the major festivals here."
"Life is cruel. Existence is predicated on destruction."
"Those are very fancy rationalizations for being a flesh-eater," sniffed the human yellow pepper. I wouldn't want to be in the Donner Party with you, Tess decided. Although her lack of body fat would probably doom her early on, she'd be much too lean to support those left behind.
"I had a cheeseburger for lunch," Tess announced sunnily. "Medium rare."
Some of the people in the group took a few steps backward, as if they might catch something from her, but the stringy woman held her ground.
"This isn't a joke," she said. "We're willing to go pretty far to press our agenda. I wouldn't plan on having too good a time at the All Soul Festival, if I were you."
"Oh, be off before someone drops a house on you, too!" Tess muttered, pushing past the pickets to a small guardhouse that bisected the wide drive into Sterne Foods. An automatic fence separated her from the guard, and she hooked her fingers into the mesh, rattling it to get his attention.
"I'd like to see Gus Sterne," she said.
"You got an appointment?" asked the guard, barely glancing up from the sports page.
"No, it's a personal matter."
The guard shook his head. "Uh-huh. That won't work."
"Pardon me?"
"Oh, this crazy sports columnist, Robert Buchanan, he thinks the Texas Longhorns need more offense. He is so retarded. Where do they get these guys? I could write a better column."
"About Gus Sterne-"
"Sorry. No one gets in unless they're on the list. You want to see him, you have to call, get an appointment first, and show two forms of ID when you show up here. Fact is, he's pretty busy right now, what with the festival and all the traveling he's been doing. You won't be able to get an appointment for a week, maybe two."
Even as the guard spoke, a silver Lincoln Continental convertible was gliding down the hill. The gate began to slide open automatically and Tess jumped back, surprised by the sudden movement. The Lincoln was possibly the largest car she had ever seen. Brand-new, it would have been gross, the kind of stereotypical excess expected of Texans. But this car looked to be at least forty years old, which lent a certain dignity to its oversized proportions.
The same could be said of the broad-shouldered man behind the wheel, a man not much older than the car he drove. His shoulders were broad, his hair blond running to silver. As a young man, he had probably been handsome in a coarse, almost too-obvious way. Age had improved him.
One could only hope it would do the same for the young man in the passenger seat. His lines were as blurry as a second-generation photocopy. He hadn't gotten his face yet, as Kitty might say. His profile was mushy, his shoulders narrow and round, and his posture was noodle-limp.
The gate was open all the way now, and the guard lifted his hand in a gesture that was halfway between a wave and a salute. The picketers seemed confused by the sight of the car-instinctively jumping out of the way, then drawing close again as it waited to make a left turn into the heavy traffic. The driver paid no attention to them at all, but the younger man scrunched down in the passenger seat until he almost disappeared. The Lincoln caught a break in the traffic and slid smoothly into it.
"Well, you got your wish," the guard said.
"What?"
"You saw Gus Sterne. You just didn't get to speak to him. And li'l Gus. Excuse me-Clay." The guard grinned. "He's a watery-looking kid, isn't he? It's like he came out of the oven before he was baked through. Clay's a good name for him. Play-Doh would be better."
"He's young."
"He's my age," the guard said, with a truly proprietary outrage, as if he owned the year in which he was born. "Twenty-two, just graduated from UT. I hear he wants to go back and study something like history, but Daddy says the only way he'll pay for any more school is if he goes for an MBA, or a law degree. It's pretty funny if you think about it. Gus Sterne has a foundation that sends all these poor kids to college, but he won't let his own son go back. Poor baby. He wants to go be a history teacher, and his daddy's making him run a multimillion-dollar business."
"Everywhere I go, I hear Gus Sterne's a pretty nice guy. Practically a saint."
"He's fine as bosses go. But you get used to making rules for other people, you start thinking you're better than them, that you know best all the time. I could have had me one of those Sterne Scholar gigs, then I read the fine print. You wouldn't believe all the requirements attached. Not only a B average, but you had to do volunteer work, too. Man, I'd rather work for the guy than take his charity. Fewer strings attached."
Tess pulled out the photograph of Little Girl in Big Trouble, the one from the newspaper. "I'm looking for a girl, Gus Sterne's cousin. Emmie Sterne. This is her. Blond, kind of small and frail looking."
The guard shrugged. "I don't remember her coming to the gate. But she looks like she'd have fit right in with that gang at the foot of the driveway, and I don't pay them too much attention, long as they keep moving and don't block the path of any cars."
"Are they the reason security is so tight?"
"Big part of it. I think they're all talk, but you never know. Meanwhile, no one gets in, unless Sterne's secretary phones and tells me they're okay."
"What about the cops?"
"Even they don't get in, unless I'm told it's okay."
"No, I mean, have they been here recently?"
"Some captain came by a month ago, but I think it was to go over the parade route. Like there's anything to go over. We only have about twenty parades a year in this town, and they all go the same way. Down Broadway, past the Alamo. Hey, I get to work security for the All Soul parade. I'm gonna drive the car."
"What car?"
"That sweet silver Lincoln you just saw. Pretty cool, huh? Too bad I can't really open it up, but you gotta drive slow, so the boss and his son can do the big wave from the backseat." He did a passably good imitation of a prom queen's wave. "I'm going to wear mirrored sunglasses, and a little wire in my ear. I'm gonna be Secret Service, practically."
Tess nodded absently. It had been silly to come here. If Emmie had decided to pull the prodigal daughter routine, Sterne Foods wouldn't be the site of their tearful reunion, despite the surplus of fatted calves on the premises. To go home again, you have to go home. Hermosa Street, she had said. A handsome place, the shrine of Saint Gus, who had come to believe that he always knew best.