by Rick Riordan
I found nothing incriminating. Not even the dominatrix suit I’d long suspected Erainya might own.
On second thought, perhaps that did ruin my image of her a bit.
I ended the evening with a tequila bottle, doing my thinking and drinking on top of the Olmos Dam-something I hadn’t done in a very long time. The last time I’d been there, the water level hadn’t been nipping the soles of my shoes.
I tried to concentrate on Erainya, but my mind kept coming back to Sam Barrera, the perplexed look he’d given me from his living room window as I’d driven off in his BMW.
The old curmudgeon probably had family somewhere who could look after him. The fact that he lived alone, that he had absolutely no photographs of relatives in his house… Forget it. I had other problems.
I chunked a rock into the flooded basin. It made a deep sploosh.
My father, Bexar County Sheriff Jackson Navarre, had been a contemporary of Barrera and Barrow. He hadn’t lived as long. One summer when I was home from college, my dad had been gunned down in front of my eyes by a drive-by shooter, an assassin hired by one of his enemies. At the time, I’d gotten a lot of support and sympathy from my friends. Nobody could imagine going through anything so terrible.
But in the last few years, something funny had happened. My older friends’ parents had started aging. Now, many of them were dealing with their parents’ cancer, dementia, Parkinson’s, assisted living nightmares. When my friends talked to me about these problems, I could swear they were giving me wistful looks, suppressing a guilty kind of resentment.
I would never have to go through what they were going through. I wouldn’t have that lingering hell to deal with. My dad had died quickly, still in his prime. My mom-well, she was much younger. She never seemed to age. She had told me many times that she intended to go off a cliff in a red sports car as soon as she began doubting her own faculties, and I had no doubt she was telling the truth.
My friends didn’t have quite so much sympathy for Tres Navarre these days. I’d had it pretty easy when it came to parents. Death in a drive-by? Piece of cake. In fact my last argument with Ralph Arguello-almost two years ago, after the death of his mother-had been along those lines. But the more I saw of what my friends with aging parents went through, the more I tended to agree-I’d had it easy.
Which didn’t explain why I felt so damn empty, or why Sam Barrera’s unraveling bothered me so much.
I took another swig of Herradura Anejo.
I stayed on the dam, watching emergency lights flash all across the city, until a National Guard patrol came by and chased me off.
I probably would’ve slept through the rest of July had the phone not woken me up the next morning.
I opened my eyes. There was a cat on my head. Sunlight was baking my mouth.
Much to Robert Johnson’s displeasure, I crawled off the futon, made it to the ironing board, and yanked down the receiver. “Yeah.”
“Oh…” A female voice, on the edge of panic. “Coach Navarre, I didn’t expect you to be home…”
Several things went through my head.
First: Where the hell else would I be at-Jesus, did the clock really say ten?
Second: Why was this woman calling me coach?
Behind the caller, children were screaming. Then it hit me. I realized why she was close to panic. It was Thursday morning. Jem’s summer school volunteer soccer coach was late to practice again.
“Crap,” I said. “I mean darn. Um… Mrs…”
“Toca,” she said. “Carmen’s mother? If you can’t make it today, I suppose I can watch the children…” A pregnant pause-letting me imagine torture with soccer cones, mass destruction in the goalie’s box. “But the first game is Saturday. I didn’t know if you had the uniforms…”
Uniforms. Damn.
Game. Damn.
In my mind, my commitment to soccer had ceased as soon as Jem wasn’t able to make practice anymore. Apparently, I’d forgotten to share that assessment with the other fifteen players and their families.
I should have taken up Mrs. Toca’s offer to watch the kids. I could make up an emergency excuse. Like I didn’t have an emergency excuse.
Ma’am, there’s an escaped fugitive I have to kill. Just tell the kids to work on their passing.
But I heard the team yelling behind her, and the primal fear closing up her throat as she pleaded, “Coach…?”
“I’ll be there in five minutes.”
“Oh, okay,” her voice quavered. “Thank God. I mean, we’ll see you in five minutes.”
She either hung up or a child broke the phone.
Seventeen minutes later I was on the field-which again had dried out just enough to avoid canceling practice. It was as if God had declared divine protection over this small patch of ground, and scheduled His Flood around practice times, just so I could get my twice-weekly punishment.
Except for Jem, the whole team was there-fifteen miniature tornadoes who’d been cooped up indoors since the last time I’d seen them, two days ago, and were desperate to unwind every ounce of energy at my expense.
A few mothers waited impatiently on the field. No doubt I’d made them late for their manicures at Patricia’s.
I circumvented their disapproving looks by brandishing the soccer shirts.
“Sorry,” I mumbled. “Trouble getting these.”
In fact, the plastic bag full of neon-orange clothes had been sitting in my truck for a week, but the distraction worked.
The kids yelled, “Uniforms!” and mobbed the bag like Somali refugees. The mothers had to retreat or get trampled.
“First game Saturday against Saint Mark’s!” I called to the mothers as they left.
My grumpy inner voice: And I hope you have fun without me.
The kids were running down the field holding bright orange tube socks from their ears like streamers. The Garcia twins were tackling each other. Laura and Jack were playing leap-frog.
I blew my whistle. “On the line!”
Nobody got on the line, but the chaos moved into a tighter orbit around me. I was making progress.
“I’ve been practicing my kicks, Coach!” Paul told me. “My dad said you were teaching us wrong!”
“That’s great, Paul.”
Kathleen pointed at me and giggled. “You look like a cat’s been sleeping on your head!”
“Scrimmage!” the Garcia twins screamed.
“We’ve got to do some drills first, guys,” I said.
“Scrimmage!”
Pretty soon the whole tribe had taken up the call.
I relented.
We went eight on seven. Jack took Jem’s place as keeper.
Two scrimmages and twenty-seven water breaks later, the rain started coming down-just in time for the end of practice.
I blew my whistle. “Circle up!”
To my surprise, the whole team responded. They sat in a circle around me on the wet grass.
“The game is at ten on Saturday,” I said. “What time is it, Laura?”
“Ten on Saturday!”
“Who are we playing, Paul?”
“Saint Mark’s!”
Two right answers in a row temporarily stunned me.
One of the Garcia twins tugged at my sock. “Where’s Jem? Is he sick?”
“He’s… out of town.”
“He’ll be here, right? He’s our best goalie!”
I blinked, and wondered if they’d been practicing in some alternate universe last time.
“I don’t know,” I said. I didn’t add that I probably wouldn’t be there, either. “Listen, just play your best. Practice your kicks. Saint Mark’s is supposed to be a good team, so don’t be discouraged. ..”
“We’re gonna win!” Paul yelled, and bounced the ball off Maria’s head. She didn’t notice.
“Yeah!” said Kathleen. “Best coach ever!”
Jack gave me his best loyal dog bark.
“Okay,” I said. “Well… your parents will be
here soon. So.. . let’s clean up the equipment.”
The team spirit was too good to last. They gave a cheer and went screaming en masse toward the playground.
I watched them go. Then I stared down at the extra uniform in my plastic bag. I’d saved Jem his favorite number: 13. I’d saved him the yellow goalie vest.
Somewhere during the night, I’d decided not to call Maia’s. Despite the time crunch, I had to go in person. I had to talk to Jem, face-to-face, find a way to tell him what was going on. He deserved to know.
It would be better not to bring the uniform. The kid wouldn’t be playing in Saturday’s game. Even best-case scenario-no way.
I shouldn’t waste another minute on soccer. I’d lost half the morning and done nothing to help Erainya. I needed to get Ralph Arguello working on my problem. Now. Immediately. Then I needed to get to Austin.
But I took the time to walk the rainy field. I collected the balls the kids had kicked to the far corners of creation. I locked up the supply shed. And I stayed at the playground until my last player got put safely in her parent’s car.
“Vato.”
Ralph Arguello held out his arms. His gold-ringed fingers and white guayabera shirt and fan of black hair across his shoulders made him look like the Brownsville version of Jesus.
He pulled me into a bear hug, which disconcerted me. I wasn’t sure I’d ever touched Ralph before, except maybe for the time I’d pulled him back from killing our high school football coach.
“We were about to eat lunch,” he told me, leading me down the hallway. “You like Gerber’s tapioca?”
“Tempting, but I’m okay.”
Ralph grinned. His thick round glasses made his eyes float like dangerous little fish. “Change your mind, I can fix you up.”
“ Ralphas, I need help.”
A few more steps into their home-past the tintype of Ralph’s great-grandfather who rode with Pancho Villa; the tiny altar to Ralph’s deceased mother; Ana DeLeon’s framed Police Academy graduation picture.
“Ana told me,” he said, his voice even. “Come on. Meet my main chica.”
His den windows overlooked Rosedale Park, so close to the bandstand that in the spring the whole house must have vibrated with conjunto music from the annual festival. Marmalade walls were hung with Frida Kahlo prints. Patchouli incense coiled up the blades of a potted yucca. eBay flickered on the computer screen. The bookshelves were crammed with Spanish poetry, homicide manuals and children’s stories.
In the center of the carpet, a baby sat suspended in a plastic saucer seat, her tray sprinkled with Apple Jacks.
She had a drool stalactite on her chin, tufts of black hair, and little wrinkled fists. I could tell she was a girl because her ears were pierced and fitted with gold studs. Then again, so were her dad’s.
She looked up at Ralph and grinned in a way I’m sure must’ve been very cute-though her expression struck me as not too different from an I’m-pooping-now look.
“There she is- mi bambina!” Ralph stuck his face down toward the baby, who squealed happily.
She kicked her feet. The saucer went whumpity-whump.
I decided I needed to sit down.
I pulled a teething ring out of the crack in Ralph’s brown leather recliner and settled in, outside what I hoped was drool-flinging range.
“So-Erainya.” Ralph turned toward me, trying to suppress his parental euphoria long enough to focus on my problem. “Tell me about it.”
I filled him in on what his wife the police sergeant didn’t know-the fourteen million dollars, Stirman’s ransom deadline, my feeling that Stirman would kill Erainya whether I found the money or not.
Ralph picked up a jar of processed yellow goop. He stabbed it a few times with a spoon. “You willing to kill, vato? ’Cause you go after Stirman yourself, that’s what you’ll have to do.”
I didn’t answer. The baby was trying to pick up an Apple Jack with tiny, clumsy fingers.
“Don’t tell me,” Ralph decided. “I see it in your eyes, man. I don’t want to know. I’d have to tell Ana, entiendes?”
“Can you help me or not?”
He spooned some goop into the baby’s mouth. Most of it dribbled down her chin. “I got a name.”
I nodded, relieved but not surprised.
Ralph had spent years on the streets. He’d built a million-dollar pawn shop empire, occasionally branching out into less legally correct businesses. Until he’d stunned the town by marrying a police officer, Ralph had known the disreputable side of San Antonio as well as he knew the resale value of gold or used guitars.
“Guy’s name is Beto Falcone,” he said. “Pimps whores out of the Brazos Inn over on Crockett. He and Stirman used to do business, running fresh meat up from the border.”
“Ralph…”
“Falcone would know Stirman’s hiding places. Little persuasion, he might be willing to tell you. I got the number.”
“Ralph, Beto Falcone got whacked six months ago.”
Ralph stared at me.
“Couple of gang-bangers,” I said. “Killed him for thirty bucks in cash. Beto’s dead.”
Something shifted between us, like the fulcrum of a seesaw.
Ralph turned to his computer. He stared at his items on eBay-the new heart of his pawn shop business. “Nobody told me.”
It was a statement I’d never thought to hear Ralph Arguello say, right up there with I’m sorry and Let’s let him live.
“You’ve been on paternity leave,” I offered halfheartedly. “You’ve been out of it.”
The lenses of his glasses flashed.
He turned to his daughter. He held out his little finger for her to grab.
Other than the fact she had no teeth, she looked a lot like her dad when she smiled. Her glee was so complete it could’ve been innocent or diabolic.
“I’ll make some calls,” Ralph said. “Give me a couple of hours.”
“Be faster if we hit the streets.”
Phones were unreliable for the kind of information we needed. We both knew that. Hell, Ralph hated phones.
But I sensed his hesitation-his completely un-Ralph-like reluctance to move.
The baby was pulling at his hand, trying to get the spoon.
“Haven’t set foot in the shops for months,” Ralph said. “Nowadays, I run my business from right here, you know? Some of the stuff I was into… I let it slide, vato.”
I didn’t respond.
“Ana and me-if we were going to stay together, something had to give. You understand?”
“And that something was you.”
He acted like he hadn’t heard.
He crushed an Apple Jack on the baby’s tray, made a line of brown dust. “From what you’re telling me, Barrow and Barrera stepped way over the line. They stole Stirman’s money. Now you’re telling me they killed his wife and kid, too.”
“What’s your point?”
“Stirman’s got a legitimate gripe.”
“Stirman’s a sociopath. Doesn’t mean Erainya and Jem should suffer.”
Ralph stared out the windows toward Rosedale Park, the way he had always stared at the landscape of San Antonio-as if it was his private domain, as if he could feel everything happening out there. In a way, it was his domain. When he and Ana had moved into this house, their combined reputations had been enough to permanently halt all gang activity within a five-block radius. Nobody wanted to mess with Arguello and DeLeon’s domestic bliss.
Ralph said, “You think Erainya kept the money?”
“No… I don’t know. It just feels wrong.”
“And if Barrow hid it from her-what would he have done with it?”
I shook my head. “Something self-destructive-something pathetic. Gambled it away. Maybe a whore stole it. Maybe it mildewed in a bus station locker until some lucky attendant busted the lock. Who the hell knows? I’ve gone through Barrow’s case files. I’ve run every angle in my mind.”
“Maybe he had better plans. Maybe if
he’d lived, he would’ve tried to use it for a fresh start.”
“Like hell.”
“That’s what I’d do.”
The baby had gotten hold of her spoon now. She was trying to pull it away from her father, but Ralph kept his finger hooked around the handle.
“Good people do bad things,” he said. “No surprise. Funny thing, though-you never think about it going the other way. Even fucking sociopaths can do something good once in a while. You know that? Nobody wants to live in hell, vato. Nobody.”
“You’ve been reading too many picture books.”
“Maybe you need to look at Barrow from a different angle, man. All I’m saying. And maybe Stirman can be dealt with short of killing.”
“A minute ago-”
“I said if you went after him yourself, you’d have to kill him. But you could listen to Ana instead. You could let her help.”
Ralph Arguello, lecturing me on trusting the police.
“I’ll let you eat your lunch,” I said. “Good seeing you, Ralph.”
“Streets ain’t mine no more, vato. You ain’t gonna hold that against me, right?”
I listened for regret in his voice, heard none-just protectiveness of his new family, his new self. I tried to be happy for him. I tried not to feel unwelcome in his den.
“Sure,” I said. “Hey, I understand.”
“Call me in a while. I’ll let you know what I find out.”
I promised, though I knew I wasn’t going to call.
Ralph walked me out. We shook hands at the door.
“What’s the baby’s name, anyway?” I asked.
“Lucia.”
“Lucia.”
“It was Ana’s mom’s name,” he said.
“I remember.”
“I’ll be here, man, if you need me.”
He meant it. But he was offering support, not backup, and there was a big difference.
I walked down his front steps. I felt like I’d just been fitted with someone else’s Kevlar vest, and it was way too big for me.
When I turned at the curb, Ralph’s expression was a mix of concern and relief, as if he was glad to watch me walk away, his violent past entrusted to the keeping of another man.
He turned inside and closed the door, leaving a thumbprint of tapioca on the doorjamb.