Big Red Tiquila - Rick Riordan (22 page)

Mother took one arm, Byron Ash took the other, and we
walked outside onto the steps of the Annex. The morning sky was
overcast and a hot wind pushed dried pecan leaves across the sidewalk
like little canoes. The scent of advancing rain hung in the air like
aluminum. I’d never smelled anything so good.

I didn’t think it was possible for me to have any
more surprises that morning. One dead body, almost two including
myself, breakfast in jail, and a high-priced lawyer shaking my hand
just about filled my quota. But when I spotted Mother’s Volvo,
where she’d illegally parked it on North San Marcos, most of my
internal organs folded into a slipknot and pulled themselves taut.
Byron Ash strolled down to the Volvo, shook hands with the woman
waiting there, said "No problem," then strolled away.

My mother sighed. "I asked her to wait."

For a minute I stopped thinking about images of the
dead and started wondering whether my fly was unzipped, whether I’d
washed all the blood out of my hair in the cell sink. My mother
pushed me forward, like she used to do in junior school cotillion
dances. I felt absurd and awkward, mostly stunned.

Maia Lee gave me a dazzling smile.

"I almost thought you’d make it a whole week
without me, Tex."
 

30

Maia looked great, of course. She was wearing all
white silk—blazer, blouse, and pants—and her skin glowed like hot
caramel. Her hair was tied back in a rich brown ponytail. As usual
she wore no makeup or jewelry, and when she smiled you could see why
she dicln’t need any.

I opened my mouth to say something, but all that came
out was mumble. I think it would’ve been mumble even without the
busted mouth.

"Don’t try to talk, Jackson," said my
mother.

Maia’s eyes glittered. She touched my jaw lightly
with her fingertips. There was no pain, but I flinched. Slowly, her
smile dissolved. She took her hand away. I wasn’t used to people
being glad to see me. My look was probably harsher than it should’ve
been. I was in pain. I was angry. I resented the way it felt to see
her again. I didn’t like the way my eyes kept drifting down to the
cut of her blouse against her  collarbone. Maia’s face closed
up.

"After our talk I got concerned," she said.
"I had some vacation time coming. It wasn’t a problem. When I
couldn’t find you at your apartment—"

She nodded at my mother.

I looked at Mother, who folded her Guatemalan cloak
over her arm and sighed.

"Tres, I just wish . . ." Mother let that
statement hang, as if I should be able to complete it myself. "You
remember Sergeant Andrews, of course."

I nodded, not really remembering which ex-boyfriend
that was. Maybe Andrews was the one who had dated my mother for a few
months after her divorce, before she had exploded into full Bohemian.
As I recall, he’d shown up one night with roses and a couple of
T-bones and found her burning patchouli incense over a spread of
Tarot cards. He never came by much after that.

"Sergeant Andrews was good enough to call me."

Mother made it obvious that some people had not been.

"Ms. Lee insisted on helping. She suggested Mr.
Ash."

Mother was resentful. Maia had interrupted a
perfectly good maternal rescue operation and now Mother was obliged
to stand apart from her, avoid eye contact, and do her best to look
hurt. She crossed her arms and hugged her silver and Guatemalan
prints tight.

If Maia noticed, she ignored it. She met my eyes
again and tried to make her tone light as she spoke. "So,"
she said, "here I am."

All three of us feeling wonderful, we rode north on
McAlister toward my mother’s dentist’s office while the rainstorm
came through. After ten minutes my mother, never one for prolonged
silences, tried to break the ice.

She put on a cassette of Buddhist chants.

"Chinese mysticism is so fascinating," she
told Maia. "I’ve been studying it for years, off and on."

Maia had been staring out at the rolling live oak
forests along the highway. She pulled her eyes away and smiled
absently at my mother.

"I’ll have to take your word for it, "
she said. "Is there a good place to get
huevos
rancheros
on the way, Ms. McKinnis? I’m
afraid I’m starving."

I could almost see my mother cringing closer to the
driver’s side window. We listened to the windshield wipers for the
rest of the drive.

I should have insisted on going home immediately, but
I was tired, and it felt good, just for the moment, to be carried
along, lying down in the backseat of my mother’s car for the first
time in twenty years. I let myself be carried right into Dr. Long’s
office. My dentist from elementary school, Dr. Long was older and
grayer now, but his hands were just as big and clumsy inside my mouth
as I remembered.

“
Well," he said, "anything for a friend."

Then my mother smiled her warmest smile. Dr. Long
smiled back and immediately cleared his afternoon appointments.
Through a haze of anesthetics we had a great one-sided discussion
about the advances in porcelain grafting technology. When he poured
me out of the chair and into the waiting room, around five o’clock,
he didn’t even offer me a lollipop.

The first word I said was: "Vandiver."

Mother looked overjoyed. At least until I walked into
her house and started rifling through her knickknack displays for the
Mexican statuette that Lillian had given me a week ago at the
gallery. I finally found it on top of the piano, the two skeleton
lovers in their hideously glazed orange car parked contentedly
between a book of Zen poetry and a horseshoe. I repossessed the
statuette, then walked out to Mother’s Volvo again.

I said: “Home."

It took my mother a few minutes to realize I meant
Queen Anne Street. Then, looking pained, she asked Jess Makar to meet
us there when he had liberated my impounded VW. Fifteen minutes later
Mother dropped Maia and me off at Number 90, and was almost convinced
she could leave us there safely when Jess drove up in my car. The .45
holes in the ragtop flapped wildly.

"Tres—" she said. She started to get out
of the car for the third time.

I just shook my head and kissed her cheek. Jess
nodded at me, gave Maia a long look, then climbed into the passenger
seat.

"Tres—" she said again.

"Mother," I mumbled, "thank you. But
go home now. It’s okay."

"And Lillian?"

I couldn’t meet her eyes. I couldn’t look at Maia
either as we went up the steps.

After I had made sure that no one had been in the
house, I stretched out on the futon. I stared at the water stain of
Australia on the ceiling. Maia stood over me, hugging her arms.

"Byron Ash?" I said.

Maia shrugged very slightly. “He owed me a favor.
His son and I were at Berkeley together."

"I don’t remember his name on that list of job
possibilities you gave me."'

Maia managed a smile as she sat down next to me.

"Not that big a favor, Tex."

Eventually I slept, me and my hollow-eyed chauffeur
driving a Thunderbird blindly into some dreams about men with little
silver guns, Looney Tunes glasses full of bourbon, and pictures of
authentic cowboys. I’m not sure, but I imagined Maia keeping watch
over me all night. I think she kissed me once, very lightly, on the
temple. Or maybe I just dreamed that too. At the time, I wasn’t
sure which thought was more disturbing.
 

31

When I woke up the next morning all the police
records and news clippings were stacked in neat piles around Maia’s
bare feet. She’d changed into a beige sundress, and her hair was
loose around her shoulders. Robert Johnson sat on her lap, sticking
out his tongue at me.

“
So which one is Halcomb?" Maia said.

She looked up and smiled. I tried to focus on the mug
shots she was showing me.

"Halcomb?" I repeated.

I tried to lift my head. It throbbed, but the
swelling around my jaw had gone down to nothing larger than a Mexican
lime. My new teeth felt slick like the side of a pool. I looked up at
Maia’s very awake face.

"Shit," I mumbled, "I can’t believe
you’re here."

It almost felt good to resent something so familiar
for a change. I’d forgotten the way she woke me up with her pop
quizzes, always at the bedside, fully dressed no matter how early I
tried to rise, ready to pummel me with questions about cases I was
working on, world politics, the PGSCE bill. I stared glumly at Maia’s
coffee mug.

"Wait a minute," I said, catching the
scent. "You brought Peet’s?"

She raised her eyebrows. "You get none until you
talk to me."

“
That’s inhuman. "

"Talk," she ordered.

I muttered some of her own Mandarin curses, then sat
up and straightened my T-shirt.

"All right. That one’s Randall Halcomb."

I pointed to the mug shot of a scraggly-looking
man--shoulder-length blond hair, darker beard, thin face, a nose that
had been broken at least once. Halcomb’s eyelids were heavy and his
mouth upturned at the corners, as if he had been pleasantly stoned
when he was booked. He looked much too content to steal a Pontiac, or
to drive it past a sheriff’s house with the intent to kill.

"One of the others could’ve been Halcomb’s
accomplice in the drive-by," I said. "There had to be at
least two people in the car—one to drive, one to shoot. All those
guys knew Halcomb in prison, all are still alive and free as far as I
can tell, and if you don’t give me that coffee now I’ll have to
kill you."

"You can try."

She poured me a cup only after she had poured a
little more into Robert Johnson’s saucer.

"He definitely does not need caffeine," I
warned her.

"You’re just jealous," she said.

Maybe it was true. The traitor required exactly the
right mix of Blend 101 and whole milk, a recipe only Maia had had the
patience to master. He lapped at his
cafe au
lait
and stared at me smugly.

"So," said Maia, "maybe one of these
men was involved in your father’s death and got past an FBI
investigation. "

"Right."

She shook her head. "Or maybe the FBI knew what
they were doing, Tres. Maybe this line of suspects goes nowhere."

I drank my coffee.

On the table in front of me, the Express-News
headlines for the Thunderbird murder glared in lurid color. Detective
Schaeffer was answering questions. Terry Garza was looking battered,
trying not to look terrified. Garza told the paper that yes, the dead
man Eddie Moraga had worked for Sheff Construction, but that Moraga
had been laid-off several months ago.

Right.

Eddie’s face had been fuzzed out of the newspaper
photos just enough to titillate the gentle reader. You could vaguely
see the dark holes of his eyes. "The trademark execution style
of a well-known South Texas crime syndicate, " one caption
declared. Guy White’s name was mentioned. The nature of the death
would lead to speculations about mob involvement. This would be a PR
nightmare for Sheff Construction. There was no mention of me, which
might explain why Carlon McAffrey wasn’t sitting in my lap yet.

I spent a few minutes bringing Maia up-to-date on
what I’d learned from Mr. Garza’s computer. When I finished she
stared at her bare feet for a minute, flexing her toes against the
stack of police reports.

"Mr. Sheff is involved with some bad people,"
she said. "These fixed city contracts—I’ve seen two cases
like it before in the Bay Area, Tres. Both times the mob was behind
it. They give the construction firm an assurance that the city
project will go to them with the price tag they want, and with no
labor problems. The mob provides the bribery and the arm-twisting; in
return, they cut themselves in for several million. The project
always goes way over budget and behind schedule. Huge profits all
around."

I stared at her. "And you know about this
because—"

She shrugged. "One of those cases, I was
defending the contractor. We won."

"Terrence & Goldman, always fighting the
good fight."

"Tres," Maia said, "if Beau Karnau
messed up a profitable arrangement between Sheff and the mob by
trying blackmail, and if Sheff’s people got blamed for letting it
happen—or botching the payoff . . ."

She looked down at the picture of Eddie Moraga’s
corpse.

I nodded, trying to believe it. I remembered Dan
Sheff behind his father’s big desk, looking nine years old, his
hair sticking up like canary wings. I tried to imagine him playing
some kind of hardball game with Guy White’s organization—making
millions illegally off fixed bids on city projects, then ordering his
employees to kill, abduct, wreak havoc on any who might find out, all
while he was drinking Chivas from a Foghorn Leghorn glass.