The Last King of Texas - Rick Riordan

by Rick Riordan

  I picked up another book — this one with a gold marbleized cover, no title. A writing journal. The first half of the book was filled with tiny cursive handwriting, distinctly feminine. I read a line or two.

  When I looked up again, Ana DeLeon was standing at the window.

  On the sill next to her were three porcelain mugs, all shaped like grotesque sailors' faces with long noses and cherry cheeks and glazed rum-sodden smiles. Ana DeLeon was circling her finger absently around the rim of one.

  "Mind if I check this out?" I asked.

  It took her a while to focus on me. "What?"

  "This journal. Hector's sister's. I thought I would borrow it."

  "Let me see it."

  DeLeon flipped some pages. She looked at the words without reading them, traced the edges of the cover.

  She handed the journal back to me. "I should tell you no. But I can't see that it'll be missed."

  "No photographs."

  "What?"

  "No photographs anywhere," I told her. "None of Sandra. None of anybody else, for that matter. Did you find any during the search?"

  "I don't recall any."

  I looked out the window. Under a stand of cedars, half a dozen chickens were clucking and pecking around the feet of some SWAT guys.

  One of the men, an assault rifle on his knee and greasepaint under his eyes, glanced in my direction. I smiled. He didn't smile back.

  I looked down at the grinning sailor's-head mugs. The mugs didn't offer any advice.

  I looked toward the closet.

  "What?" DeLeon asked immediately.

  I walked over to the closet, crouched down, tugged the tiny glinting piece of red and gold paper from the crack in the cement.

  DeLeon stood over me. "What is it?"

  I kept the paper wrapper curled in my palm while my finger traced the almost invisible seam on the closet floor — the square outline I would've missed if not for the paper. "Trapdoor."

  DeLeon said, "Stand back."

  DeLeon yelled out the window for some assistance, somebody with a crowbar.

  Thirty seconds later the little room was filled with cops.

  A minute after that the excitement was over. DeLeon and I were alone in the room again, staring down at a crawl space that smelled of cool damp earth and was absolutely empty.

  "So much for that," she said.

  "Let me call Ralph."

  "No."

  "In another twenty-four hours, Mara will be gone. An APB won't accomplish anything and you know it."

  "I said no, Tres."

  The use of my first name caught me off guard as much as the tone of her refusal.

  "Ana, I want to see you win on this. Let me help."

  She turned away. After a ten-count she surprised me. She said, very softly, "Let me think about it."

  I didn't push it. I walked to the window and looked out at Hector's smashed garden, the apple tree with the muddy tracks of his Ford Galaxie still fresh underneath, the white mobile home in the field of spear grass. I tried to imagine a young woman, Sandra Mara, at this bedroom window every day — looking up from a book of poetry or from a journal she was writing in, being surprised every time that the scene outside was not the asphalt-and-brick housing of the Bowie Courts.

  I flicked a slip of paint off the window ledge, watched it helicopter into a sailor's-head mug. "I could maybe get used to it here. The quiet. The country."

  DeLeon met my eyes. She looked surprised, momentarily vulnerable, as if I'd intercepted one of her thoughts.

  I said, "If I grew up where Hector and Sandra grew up, I might not want to leave this place once I'd dug in."

  She nodded. "I suppose."

  "You want to plant tomatoes this fall?"

  Grudgingly, Ana smiled.

  Then Kelsey's voice called her name from down the hall. My reward evaporated. Ana kept my eyes a moment longer, then left without a word, leaving me in Sandra's room, staring at the hole in the closet floor, crumpling a red and gold George Berton cigar seal between my fingers and wondering about a lot of things.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  I spent the rest of the afternoon by the phone at 90 Queen Anne, waiting for calls back from my contacts with the local press. I wanted anything on the heroin trade from the last seven years, any articles that might mention the Brandons, the Maras, Zeta Sanchez, Chich Gutierrez, or Detective Thomas Kelsey of the SAPD.

  By the end of the day, my contacts hadn't returned my calls, and I'd been forced to actually grade a set of papers for UTSA. Robert Johnson, the lazy bastard, helped not at all.

  Over dinner of homemade dolmades and spanakopita, my weekly allotment from Erainya, I read Sandra Mara's journal.

  Sandra's cursive was flawless — delicate loops, perfectly slanted, page after page written in the same golden brown ink. It was the kind of cursive that would drive handwriting analysts crazy because it was completely devoid of anomalies. Sandra didn't believe in beginnings. No Dear Diary or I haven't written in a while or Today I have something special to tell you. No dates on the entries or signatures at the end. It was difficult to tell where one entry started and the next stopped. Sandra merely indented for the next paragraph and started writing.

  This to Sylvia Plath.

  I want to cut your thumb a few more times.

  I want to leave off the gauze and

  make you squeeze limes instead.

  A thrill?

  Look at my brother's leg.

  Tell me what part of him is white.

  Only what the gun splashed open, melted into a star,

  smoothed out by a year with demons so that I could live.

  Don't impress me with your slip of a knife.

  Don't talk to me about soldiers.

  No one ever bought your life with an open wound.

  Your typical light verse from a seventeen-year-old girl.

  Several pages later.

  I should have stayed inside this afternoon. The letter came.

  Acceptance. Full scholarship. Grandmother and I set a jar of raspberry sun tea under the apple tree and we danced. Grandmother with her cane and all. We laughed at the chickens. I thought of college. And then the car in the gravel drive and Hector walked up with Him. After two years. He was only larger, no less or more frightening. A devil like that can have only His fixed amount of horror, never more or less than 100% — as a child, as a man. I should have stayed inside. I knew His look, the weighing He did. I was naked on a scale. I took my letter and I went inside. My grandmother became old again, hobbling alongside and muttering encouragement about college, but I just felt His eyes on my back. I knew what He was thinking. I should have stayed inside.

  The other entries were equally intense. Tiring to read, unsatisfying. They told me about Sandra Mara like an intravenous feeding.

  I skipped to the end and read the last paragraph.

  How could a few minutes in a hallway shake me so much? He's so unexpected. I still can't write about it without catching my breath. Recognition in a dozen words, maybe less. He'd been standing in the same shadows as I, knew them instantly.

  He kissed me today.

  I closed the journal. Then I sat watching the light die in the crape myrtle outside the kitchen window.

  When the light was gone, I went out to my car.

  Fifteen minutes later I was pulling up in front of RideWorks, Inc.

  It wasn't any prettier than it had been two nights before, but it was a hell of a lot more crowded. Rusted pickup trucks and low-rider Chevies lined the curb. The chain-link gate was open and the Super-Whirl Erainya and I had seen in pieces in the warehouse on Tuesday was now fully assembled in the yard, workers buzzing around it. The ride's giant metal arms were fully extended, lit with purple and yellow bulbs like dingo balls.

  I walked through the gates, one hand in my pocket, the other slapping Sandra Mara's journal against my thigh. When I caught the eye of a worker, I smiled amiably, pointed toward the office door. "Del?"

  The w
orker had a Fu Manchu mustache and a grimy face. On his head was a metal welder's visor the size of a snowboard. He considered my question, shrugged, then went back to his cigarette.

  I went up the office steps, past the carousel animals, into the Room of Infinite Gimme Caps. No one was passed out on the secretary's desk this time. Del's office door was open. The restroom door at the other end of the reception area was closed and muffled thumping noises were coming from behind it.

  I poked my head into Del's office.

  Empty. Jeremiah Brandon smiled coldly at me from the 1940s photograph on the wall, daring me to trespass, double-daring me to sit at his son's desk.

  "Screw you, Jerry," I told him.

  I made myself comfortable and waited.

  A few minutes later, I heard water running in the bathroom. Del's voice muttered something. Then the bathroom door opened and Rita the secretary came out, followed by Del.

  Rita had her purse on her shoulder and trotted straight out the door, dabbing her lipstick as she went. Del walked toward the office. He didn't see me until he got in the doorway. Then he turned a lovely shade of magenta. "What—"

  "Hey, Del."

  He was wearing jeans and a red shirt with parrots on it. His unruly mat of black hair was flat on one side.

  He drew his .38 from his side holster. This time I didn't stop him. He said, "Get the hell out of my chair."

  "Wearing your gun in the bathroom with Rita. You're inviting embarrassing accidents."

  "Get out of my chair."

  "There's another right there. Sit down."

  Del Brandon had apparently been hoping for terror.

  He shifted uneasily, squeezed the gun's grip a few times for reassurance. "I warned you."

  "You sure did, Del. Now sit down and put away the gun. We need to talk."

  "What makes you think you can just—"

  "Sit down," I repeated.

  He seemed to be thinking of options. Apparently he couldn't come up with any. His gun hand sagged. He lowered himself into the chair across from me.

  "Hector Mara," I said. "I was about to look him up in your personnel files but maybe you could save me some time. You got him listed under M for Mara or H for heroin?"

  Del's face paled. "What?"

  "You remember. Hector Mara. The guy you were arguing with at the Poco Mas a couple of weeks ago."

  "I wasn't—" Del's eyes tried to latch on to something in my face, some toehold of doubt he could push up from. "Who told you that?"

  "That would be smart," I said, "telling you."

  "It isn't true."

  "Of course not, Del. So set me straight."

  Del glowered at the empty desk. He seemed to have forgotten he was holding the .38, which would've been all right if it hadn't still been pointed at my gut. "Hector Mara does some accounting work for me from time to time. But I wasn't at that bar. I don't go there and you should know why. My father died there."

  "Accounting work," I repeated. "Hector Mara. The bald veterano with the snakes tattooed on his arms. He's your accountant."

  Del licked his lips. "Sometimes — you know. We deal mostly in cash. It's a hassle to just drop it in the bank."

  "Mara launders money for you through his salvage yard."

  "I didn't say that."

  Del had developed this cute little tic in his right cheek that was doing a 2/4 beat — DUM-duh, DUM-duh. It made me laugh.

  "You know Ozzie Gerson, Del?"

  The tic kept up its little rhythm.

  "Deputy," he mumbled. "Used to give my dad a hard time."

  "Ozzie Gerson told me you weren't smart enough to find your way off a carousel, much less run heroin out of your company. Was he right?"

  His face slackened to putty. "Wait a goddamn minute. You got no right to talk about me that way. Ozzie Gerson..."

  His voice trailed off. He sat there on the visitor's side of his desk, suddenly staring at nothing. His shirt was mis-buttoned, longer on one side than the other — probably from his armed restroom encounter with Rita. Looking at Del Brandon, I felt tired.

  "Forget it," I told him. "Let's talk about your brother. You and he had been arguing over the company, right? Watch your muzzle, Del."

  Del managed to focus on his .38, which had been slowly tilting its little black eye up toward my forehead. Del frowned, like he was wondering where the gun had come from. He clunked it on the desk.

  "Aaron and me always argued," he told me. "Doesn't mean I shot him. You can ask the police — I got an alibi."

  I whistled. "An alibi."

  Del didn't seem to catch the sarcasm, if indeed sarcasm was something Del ever caught. With some effort, he hauled himself out of the chair. He drifted over to the file cabinet, rummaged around until he came up with a bottle of Chivas Regal, still in the little purple sack. Then he came back over and sat down.

  "Stuff gives me gas like you wouldn't believe," he grumbled. He uncapped the bottle and took a long hit.

  I braced myself.

  Del's eyes watered immediately. He tried to rub his nose off his face, then blinked at me through the tears.

  "You want to know about Aaron?" Del sloshed his bottle around, pointing at things in the office. "Aaron never wanted this damn company. Growing up, me and him, Aaron could always figure the numbers faster. He could've worked the deals, no problem. If he'd shown even a little interest, Dad would've handed him the whole company, shut me out. I'm sure of that. But God forbid Professor Aaron should ever get his collegiate hands dirty. Never wanted to touch the business. Me, I had a hard time learning the ropes. Dad used to beat the shit out of me when I'd screw something up. 'Why can't you think on your feet like Aaron?' Then he'd get pissed off that Aaron wasn't around, and he'd beat the shit out of me some more for that. I took thirty years of that kind of crap for Aaron and me both, because I was the one who was always in the office. So you tell me — who deserved this company?"

  "You, Del," I sympathized. "Obviously you."

  "Damn right." Del took another swig of liquor. "Even then Dad didn't leave me the whole business. Couldn't bring himself to cut out Golden Boy completely. RideWorks was split sixty-forty, with me named president. But there were ways to get around that."

  "Such as?"

  As if to demonstrate, Del shifted in his chair, grimaced, then glared accusingly at his Chivas bottle. Brandon: the very name connotes charm and grace.

  "You were saying?" I prompted.

  "What?"

  "How you got the whole company for yourself."

  "Oh. Yeah. According to Dad's will, I was supposed to turn over Aaron's share of the profits when the profits showed up. Only I made sure none ever did on the books. After a few years of that, I finally got Aaron's approval to sell. I sold RideWorks to a paper corporation, mine, gave my brother half the selling price — about twenty dollars. Then I bought the company back from myself and kept operating it."

  "Cute. Who helped you think up that trick?"

  Del shrugged. "Like I told you, Aaron wasn't interested in the business. He didn't deserve it. Me, all I ever wanted was to run this company. I love the rides. A good one, well made—" He shook his head in admiration. "It's the most beautiful thing you'll ever see. Some of the old classic carousels I've been restoring for this society downtown — I'm telling you."

  Del picked at the knee of his pants. His face suddenly reminded me of a little boy with the same sad, vacant expression, sitting cross-legged at the entrance of a sheet cave, digging at his knee with a toy ray gun. I didn't like seeing the family resemblance.

  "Aaron ever threaten to take the company back?" I asked.

  "Nothing that would've stood up in court. You think I was worried enough to kill him over something like that, you're crazy."

  "How about Sandra Mara? Were you worried enough to kill her?"

  A little color seeped back into Del's cheeks. "What is your thing with Sandra Mara?"

  "My thing with her is simple, Del. I've spent a long time doing missing pers
ons cases. I pay attention to the people who aren't around. They're usually the most interesting."

  Del scowled. "Maybe my dad screwed her. Maybe it got him killed. She's just a girl. Who cares? She got shipped out of town, just like ten or eleven before her."

  "Like ten or eleven before her," I agreed. "Which makes it easy to believe the same happened to Sandra. I'm starting to wonder."

  I opened Sandra's journal, read the last paragraph aloud, the one where Sandra got kissed.

  Del's face stayed blank. "So?"

  "I think that describes Sandra's lover. And I'm having trouble fitting your father into the role."

  "Maybe she was screwing somebody else. It happens."

  "Maybe. But I'm starting to put myself in your place, Del. That's a scary thing. I'm starting to wonder what it would be like if I hated my dad, and I kept playing the devoted son so I could eventually inherit the business that I loved, and then somebody like Zeta Sanchez moved in on my turf and threatened to cut into my inheritance. I'm starting to wonder exactly what I'd do."

  Del's eyes fixed on the wall behind me.

  "Maybe I'd stage something," I decided. "A scenario I was sure Sanchez would believe, something that would drive a permanent wedge between Sanchez and my dad. Then I'd make sure Sanchez found out about it. Hell, I'd tell Sanchez myself and offer to help smuggle him out of town when the poor guy got so understandably irate he pumped six hollow-tipped bullets into my father. 'Too bad, Zeta. No hard feelings. Here's your ticket to Mexico. Thanks for handing me the company on a plate.

  "Get out," Del croaked.

  "Tonight I'm going to compare notes with a friend of mine, Del. I'm hoping that between him and me, we'll have enough to give you to the police in microwave-safe packaging. My best to Rita, okay?"

  "Get out," Del said again.

  I got up and walked around him to the door. Del made no effort to stop me.

  His eyes stayed fixed on the portrait of Jeremiah Brandon behind the desk, the hatred in Del's gaze as he looked at his father a clearer message than anything he'd said aloud.

  I walked out through the reception area. Rita's cheap gardenia perfume was still lingering in the air.

  You go into conversations with people like Del hoping to shake them up, not quite sure what pieces will fall out of their pockets. Sometimes you pick up little shards of guilt, or surprise, or complicity that can tell you everything. Having shaken up Del, though, the main thing I came away with was the feeling that I'd just bullied a kid. An ugly, obnoxious, fat kid, to be sure. One who would push you off his carousel if you tried to take his seat in the flying teacup. But a kid. In the yard, Del's workers were breaking down the Super-Whirl, forcing its huge lighted arms flat like the carcass of a particularly obstinate bug. I silently wished them luck, then walked out onto Camden Street.