The Last King of Texas - Rick Riordan (31 page)

He shivered, trying a little too hard to focus on
her. "Once. Nothing to do with the chiva. Him and me were cool.
Zeta was just looking for his old lady, you know?" Then Chich
looked at DeLeon more closely. "W-wait. I recognize you.
You're—"

"This is my girlfriend," I told him. "You
recognize her, we're going to have us a problem."

Chich kept looking at DeLeon, probably wondering if
he had a card he wanted to play. Apparently he decided against it. "I
didn't have nothing to do with Mara getting drilled. That's the
truth."

"You're making me sad, ese," Ralph told
him.

Chich raised his bloodied hands, placating. Whatever
he was going to say was interrupted by footsteps, crunching in the
dirt outside. An African American kid, maybe fifteen, stopped at the
bottom of the running board and looked up into the shack, surprised
to find a crowd. The kid's hair was long and nappy, his eyelids
tattooed in blue like an Egyptian's, his clothes ripped camouflage
and black heavy-metal gear. He had his hands full of car stereo
parts.

Ralph said, "Come on up."

The kid got to the doorway, saw there was no room to
go farther, then noticed Ralph's gun. The kid looked at Chich.

Chich mumbled, "This ain't a good time, Paul."

Ralph stepped toward the kid, tapped the stereo parts
with the .38 barrel. "The man's right, Paul. How much you figure
for all this?"

Standing next to Paul, I caught the distinct smell of
aerosol fumes on his clothes. Looking into Paul's eyes I could see
where those fumes had gone. His pupils had a bleary but steady glow,
as if whatever brain cells still worked behind them had fused into
one singular, misshapen energy source.

Paul said, "Twenty-five dollars."

Ralph laughed, then said to Chich, "Big spender.
No wonder you and Hector such big leaguers."

From his coat pocket, Ralph took a business card and
a few folded twenty-dollar bills and offered them to Paul. Paul
dropped his stereo parts instantly and took the money.

"Next time come visit my Culebra location,
vato," Ralph told him. "We do you right. In the meantime,
hold this."

Ralph handed the kid Chich's .38. "Point this at
him and count to a hundred, okay? You remember how to count that
high? He moves, shoot him, come find me, I give you a bonus."

Paul nodded enthusiastically. Chich tensed.

"Good kid," Ralph commented. "See you
around, Chich."

We left. Chich was trying to convince the kid that
Ralph didn't really mean for him to shoot, not really. Paul was
counting aloud.

We walked out the entrance of the scrap yard.

The walruses were back to playing their dominoes.
Except for the crusted blood on the right one's face, the
bloodstained bandanna he was sometimes using to dab it with, the men
didn't look at all different.
 
They
tried very hard not to look up as we walked out, across the street to
Ralph's maroon Cadillac, which had miraculously had its windows
washed.

"Life kicks ass," Ralph told us.
 

THIRTY-SIX

It wasn't until we were several blocks away that Ana
DeLeon pounded her palm against the back of Ralph's headrest, jolting
the joint out of his hand.

Ralph cursed. "What's the matter with you,
chica?"

"You didn't have to do any of that back there,
you asshole."

Ralph couldn't look back at us and stay on the road.
He squinted indignantly at the traffic on Zarzamora.

"Do what?"

"Draw blood. Play machismo. If you were trying
to impress me, you failed."

Ralph's face darkened to a dangerous red. "You
think I did that to impress somebody?"

"Either that or you're too stupid to ask
questions another way."

Ralph and Ana started cursing at each other in
Spanish — the usual names, the usual insults. I considered opening
the car door and rolling onto the pavement. I figured my chances of
living might be better.

Instead I yelled, "Knock. It. Off!"

The insults died down. Ana held up her hands, then
dropped them, like she was throwing her disgust on the floor.

Ralph retrieved his joint, lit up, blew the smoke
thoughtfully at the windshield. "De volada."

"Bullshit," DeLeon spat.

"That's how you got to live, Ana. I'm telling
you — from the will. You think about things, plan them out too
much, do them for reasons like impressing people — shit, you last
maybe three days on the streets. You been out too long. You've
forgotten."

"The hell I've been out. I've been right there,
you shit-head. I've seen your de volada. I see it about six times a
week, every time one of the homeboys gets shot to death."

Ralph waved the comment aside. "They froze up —
the ones who stay loose, live."

"More bullshit."

"You see me breathing here, chica?"

"Yeah. And for how much longer?"

"Sour grapes, Ana. You still mad at me for the
wrong reasons."

She started to respond. I took her hand and clamped
it, hard.

Ana fumed, called Ralph some more Spanish names under
her breath. We drove for a few blocks.

"Were you prepared to kill Chich back there?"
she asked, more subdued now. Ralph blew a line of smoke.

"You don't get it. I didn't think that way. It
wasn't  like — okay I'll do uno, dos, tres. I feel what I got
to do first and I do it. Then I see what happens next."

"You're saying you can't control yourself."

Ralph laughed, glanced back at me. "Vato, I
shouldn't have tried, should I? No point explaining."

I didn't answer. Ana's hand in mine was as tense as a
coiled snake.

"Where to next?" I asked Ralph, hoping to
steer us somewhere else, someplace that might not lead to a gun-fight
in the car.

"I got a few more ideas," Ralph said.

"More ideas like Chich?" Ana put as much
disdain into the words as they could hold.

"What?" Ralph growled. "You afraid of
finding out more about me, chica?"

"Not anymore."

"If I'd told you at the start—" Ralph
began.

"You would've saved me a lot of time." Ana
sank back in her seat and turned her hand so that it was gripping
mine. Her fingernails dug into my knuckles.

Ralph's face stayed a block of sandstone for a good
five minutes — which is, I think, the longest I'd ever seen him go
without emotion.

Then he spoke in a voice that was cut from the same
hard material.

"Twenty-eight and a half days," he told the
windshield. "That ain't a lot of time. It ain't even enough."
 

THIRTY-SEVEN

There's just no stopping the momentum of a perfect
day.

None of Ralph's other leads worked out. There was no
word on the street about who had shot George and Hector Mara. No
white vans. Nobody willing to confess. Nobody demanded that Ana kiss
me to prove she was truly my girlfriend.

After riding in complete silence back to the North
Star Mall Boots and mumbling good-byes to Ralph, Ana DeLeon and I
drove back to my place in her car.
 
It
was dusk, and the facade of 90 Queen Anne was losing definition. You
could almost imagine the house in its heyday, back in the 1940s, when
the wooden trim had been unbroken, the paint new, the bougainvillea
clipped around the eaves. It had probably been one of the finer
places in Mancke Park — the home of a banker, perhaps, or a
prosperous merchant. The only thing that spoiled the illusion was the
backward slant of the building, the way it had succumbed over the
decades to gravity and bad foundation work. There were many days,
like today, when I could relate.

On the curb was a black Honda Accord I didn't
recognize, but I didn't think much of it. The Suitez family across
the street was throwing a party, as they often did, and there were
plenty of cars I didn't recognize. It wasn't until Ana looked at the
Accord, cursed, then looked at my front porch and cursed some more,
that I noticed Detective Kelsey.

He was sitting alone on the main porch of 90 Queen
Anne, sipping a glass of iced tea that had probably been provided for
him by my landlord, Gary. Gary is quite hospitable to people who come
by to abuse me.

Kelsey was dressed in khakis and a denim shirt. His
ruddy Irish face looked no friendlier than it had the day before.

As we approached the porch steps he said, "You
two got some explaining to do."

I looked at Ana. "You want to stomp on him or
should I?"

Ana had done away with the red bandanna. Her hair was
disheveled. She fixed Kelsey with a look of smoldering hatred. "Go
home, Tom."

"What the fuck were you thinking, Ana?"

"Kelsey," I said, "if you really have
to, come inside and you can yell at us some more in there. But I need
a drink."

"God damn it—" he started, but I was
already walking around the side of the house toward my apartment, Ana
behind me. After a few steps I heard Kelsey's chair creak.

I was just getting the chilled margarita pitcher from
the refrigerator when Kelsey appeared in my doorway. "You're
something, Navarre."

I handed a margarita to Ana, who had climbed, a
little stiffly, onto the kitchen stool. Robert Johnson was sitting
next to her on the counter, his eyes half-closed, mortally
unimpressed. I tried to imitate his expression.

"You want a margarita, Detective? I assume
you're off-duty."

Kelsey kept his eyes on Ana. "You think
Lieutenant Hernandez wants to hear about the company you kept today?"

DeLeon took a sip of margarita, looked up at me with
raised eyebrows. "Not bad, Navarre."

"De nada."

Kelsey took a step farther into the room. "You're
going to lose your goddamn badge, Ana. What the fuck was that stunt
you pulled at the salvage yard?"

"Interesting you heard about that so fast,"
Ana said. "You and Chicharron got some kind of relationship,
Tom?"

"Fuck you. I know Chich from when I was on vice.
He's a scumbag, but he knows when to talk."

Ana took another sip of her drink, then scratched the
base of Robert Johnson's tail. He lifted his backside farther into
the air for her. "What do you think, cat? You think this
margarita is good enough to make Kelsey seem like less of an
asshole?"

Robert Johnson closed his eyes, pleased by the
attention to his tailbone. Ana  said, "No, you're right.
Probably not."

"I'm not kidding, Ana." Kelsey was just
warming up. "If I find anything, anyone who tells me they were
coerced into giving you information pertaining to the Brandon
homicide—"

"Chicharron file a complaint?"

"You know damn well he didn't."

"Then go home, Kelsey. It's after hours. I don't
need to listen to your shit."

Kelsey smacked the drink out of her hand. Robert
Johnson disappeared before the first drop of margarita splattered on
the counter. DeLeon shoved Kelsey backward.

I started to come around the counter and Ana snapped,
"No."

"You're a fucking disgrace, Ana," Kelsey
said. "You'd think you'd be a little more careful, try to set
some kind of example. What are we supposed to think, for Christ's
sake? You screw up, you're screwing it up for every damn—"

DeLeon had a hell of a slap. Kelsey's face jerked to
one side with the force of the strike. Ana's ring made a cut on his
cheek — a small, bright ruby of blood. Kelsey stepped back, rubbed
his cheek, and smiled. "I wish it were that easy. I wish we
could go at it for a few rounds and make things better. We can't. You
know I'm right."

"Get out," Ana rasped.

Kelsey retreated, turned once in the doorway as if
thinking of a final comment, then decided against it. He closed the
screen door quietly on his way out.

"I'll get you another drink," I told Ana.
 

THIRTY-EIGHT

I filled our margarita glasses from my pitcher, came
around the counter, and pulled up the stool next to DeLeon. We sat
shoulder to shoulder, drinking silently.

When her drink was gone I refilled it.

She stared at Robert Johnson, stroked his fur. I
found myself watching her fingers.

"It's too much," she said.

"What is?"

"Being a model for every other damn Latina
detective for the next three generations. I won't accept that."

"It's too much," I agreed.

"I have enough trouble being responsible for
myself."

"Sure."

She pressed her eyes closed, then held the margarita
to her mouth.

We sat there until the Herradura tequila in my
special recipe was starting to knit its way into my joints, turning
my limbs into giant hot-water bottles. After a while Ana started
focusing on the things in my kitchen. She asked about the Bay to
Breakers poster on the cupboard door, Jem's watercolor pictures on
the refrigerator. I even managed to get a faint smile from her when I
told her about my brother Garrett and his postcard from Key West.