Big Red Tiquila - Rick Riordan (34 page)

Rivas was in a good mood tonight; you could hear it
in his voice. After he lit a cigar, over the protests of the
forensics crew, he studied everybody in the room, finally nodding to
Schaeffer.

"Can I help you, Detective?" Schaeffer
said, without enthusiasm.

Rivas came up to me and stuck his face in mine, like
I was some kind of weird exhibit. His wandering eye drifted merrily
downstream. Then he sat on the arm of the loveseat directly above
Maia and put his hand on her shoulder.

Maia didn’t flinch. Her eyes examined Rivas’s
hand clinically, like she was locating all its breakable bones and
pain-inducing pressure points. Rivas shifted, a little uncomfortably.
The hand moved.

"Detective," Rivas said to Schaeffer,
“could I get a few minutes with Mr. Navarre and his friend?"

Schaeffer stared at Rivas, then at me. Maybe he
remembered what my mouth had looked like after I accidentally hit it
on the door last time Rivas wanted a few minutes, that night at Sheff
Construction. Or maybe Schaeffer was just pissed off because his
sinuses felt like a worn-out transmission and the Hilton was out of
Red Zinger. Whatever it was, he made a decision.

"I got a better idea," he told Rivas. "You
could explain what you’re doing in my homicide investigations. All
my homicide investigations?

Rivas glanced at his audience. When he spoke to
Schaeffer again, it was much more polite. And much colder.

“
Maybe we could discuss this outside," he
said.

“
That’s a good idea," Schaeffer said. "You
go ahead. I’ll be out as soon as I send these people home."

Rivas got up. “Send them where?"

All of a sudden Schaeffer looked much better. I guess
the Sudafed had kicked in. He shook Counselor Hass’s hand.

“
Danm fine work, Counselor. Y’all stay in town,
but that’s it for tonight?

If Hass had acted any more like an ecstatic puppy he
would’ve peed on the carpet. We filed past Rivas, who seemed to be
silently assessing Schaeffer as a possible rifle target. I shook
Schaeffer’s hand. I shook Hass’s hand. I even shook the assistant
coroner’s hand. I probably would’ve shaken my old school chum
Mickey Williams’s hand too, but he was in the general manager’s
office getting a talking-to when we walked by.

"Mickey," I called. He looked up dismally.

“
You need a good lawyer?" I asked. "He
comes highly recommended."
 

48

We’d been sitting on the steps of La Villita Chapel
for so long, staring at the empty building that used to be the Hecho
a Mano Gallery, that I thought Maia had gone to sleep. The adrenaline
had worn off. With my clothes slowly drying and my nerves shot to
hell, I felt as frayed and greasy as the corn husk off a tamale.

Then we both looked at each other with something to
say.

“
You first," I said.

“
No," Maia said. “It’s just—"

“
Beau waited a little too long to run," I
said. "He was still trying to salvage the scam. He let somebody
into his hotel room, sat down to barter for the disk, then whoever it
was shot him in the face."

She nodded. “And he wouldn’t be so relaxed if he
was bargaining with the mob."

"So we’ve got a dead blackmailer," I
continued, “the second disk missing, Dan Sheff looking guilty as
hell and Lillian still missing."

An elderly tourist couple walked by. The old woman
smiled at us the way people do at lovers in the shadows of a summer
night. Then she stared sadly at her oblivious husband. When Maia
looked back at me with almost the same expression, it twisted my
nerves a little tighter.

“
What?" I said. "Lillian’s either dead
or involved, or both. Is that what you want me to say?"

She almost got angry. I wished like hell that she
would. Instead she hugged her knees and stared out at the empty
limestone shell of Lillian’s studio.

"No," she said. "I didn’t want you
to say that."

"What then? You still want me to think my dad’s
death has no connection? The pictures of Halcomb are a coincidence?
You want me to forget about it?"

She shook her head. “I was just thinking about
plane tickets."

It was my turn to stare. “Tickets. As in plural,
tickets?"

She took a pecanwood twig and poked at the mortar
between the flagstones. The twig was so dry it broke into dust.

“
Never mind," she said.

"Jesus, Maia."

She nodded.

"You know I can’t just leave town."

“
You never did leave town," she said. "That’s
the thing."

"Like hell."

I tried to believe it. The fact that I didn’t made
me madder. A group of Mexican nationals went by, talking about their
weekend of shopping. They smiled at us.

We didn’t smile back.

“
All right," I told Maia. "You want me to
feel like shit about you and me, okay. I feel like shit. But I didn’t
ask for backup."

“
You didn’t turn it down last night," she
said. "You should think about why."

Her eyes had turned to steel in the space of those
two sentences. My face probably wasn’t much kinder. I counted the
strands of lights. I watched the cars go down Nueva. I said: “So
you’re leaving?"

“
Tres—" Maia closed her eyes. “Why are you
staying?"

“
You don’t want to hear this again. You saw the
damn letters, Maia."

“
No. I saw a carriage full of dolls in a grown-up
woman’s bedroom. Did it ever occur to you that you’re the only
piece of that collection Lillian Cambridge ever lost, Tres?"

It was one of those moments when God hands you the
emotional scissors and invites you to start cutting, irrevocably.
Instead I just watched as Maia stood up and walked down the stairs. I
don’t know why but as she passed I caught the scent of the chapel’s
interior smoked into the porch beams—incense and very old wax. It
was the scent of confessionals and baptisms and
Las
Posadas
candles that had been snuffed before
Santa Ana ever rode through town.

When she was ten feet away, Maia turned and looked at
me. Or maybe she just looked at the chapel. I felt like I’d already
blended into the limestone.

“
Call me when it’s over," she said. “If it
ever is."

She walked away slowly enough to give me time to call
her back. Then she disappeared behind the outer walls of La Villita,
heading up Nueva where the taxi stands were.
 
Another old tourist couple passed by, but this time
I was alone. Nobody bothered smiling kindly. The woman took her
husband’s arm. They shuffled a little faster.

I got up and went across the courtyard to stare in
the window of the Hecho a Mano Gallery, now filled with nothing but
hardwood floors and moonlight and old ghosts.

“
Now what?" I asked.

But it was a closed party and the ghosts didn’t
have any time to waste on me. I pulled a wad of dead man’s money
out of my pocket and went to find the nearest bottle of tequila.
 

49

When my brother Garrett called the next morning I had
been asleep about fourteen minutes. Most of the night I’d sat
cross-legged on the bathroom floor next to the toilet, rereading my
father’s old notebook and debating with Robert Johnson about the
pros and cons of drinking white tequila by the pint. I don’t
remember who won the argument.

“
You and Maia find the other disk?" Garrett
growled in my ear. “I can’t do shit with this one."

Once I found my vocal chords I told Garrett I had no
other disk. Then I told him I had no Maia. My brother was quiet. In
the background, Jimmy Buffett was singing about cheeseburgers.

“
If I had legs," Garrett said, “I’d come
down there and kick your stupid ass."

“
Thanks for the vote of confidence," I said.

The line was silent for a few seconds. “So what
happened?"

I told him.

Almost as an afterthought I read the four lines to
Garrett that had been bothering me for days, the ones underneath my
father’s trial notes for Guy White. Sabinal. Get whiskey. Fix
fence. Clean fireplace. Afterward I could hear Garrett scratching his
beard.

“
So what?" he said.

“
So I don’t know. I keep wondering how Dad
might’ve gotten mixed up with the Travis Center deal. I keep
remembering what Carl told me, about some new lady in his life. You
got any ideas?"

“
Fuck it," Garrett said. "Get your ass
back to San Francisco and forget it."

“
If I had a dime—" I said.

"Yeah. You ever wonder if all us poor schmucks
who care about you might have a point?"

I didn’t tell him how often. Finally he grunted,
probably rearranging himself in his chair, then called me a few
names.

"Okay," he said. "Sabinal. Hell, he
was there damn near every Christmas shooting the fucking bambis.
What’s so unusual?"

“
I don’t know. That note just doesn’t sit
right. For one thing, he wrote it in April. You ever know him to go
up in the spring?"

He thought for a minute. "Fireplace. Christ.
Only thing that reminds me of was the Christmas Dad stayed sober,
burning the furniture in the fireplace. That was a shitter."

A memory started forming. “When was this?"

“
Way before you’re talking about. You must’ve
been in fourth grade, little bro. You remember the argument about the
Lucchese chairs?"

Then it came back to me.

Dad had been "between terms” as sheriff,
meaning that he’d gotten voted out of office. My mom had blamed it
on the booze, I guess, and Dad was making a real effort not to drink
so he could get his campaign in shape for the following four years.
So our first day up at the ranch for Christmas he announced this,
lined up all his liquor bottles on the fence, and shot them up. After
that, all I remember him getting were more deer than usual and a very
bad temper. After the second day the trees outside the ranch house
had more dead deer strung in them than the Christmas tree had
ornaments. When that got old, my dad got his .22 and started hunting
cats instead. Somebody had dropped a whole litter off in the country
rather than put them to sleep, I guess, and of course they’d grown
up feral and started eating all the quail on the property. So Dad
went out and popped cats all day, then came home with a bloody bag
full like Santa Claus the ax murderer, sank into his recliner, drank
coffee, and scowled all night. By the time Garrett and Shelley joined
us for Christmas dinner, Dad had just about run out of things to kill
and my mom and I were starting to get nervous.

There’d been a stupid argument at the dinner table,
something about who was going to inherit the dining-room chairs.
They’d been custom-made for my dad by Sam Lucchese, the boot maker,
right before Lucchese died. The argument ended with Garrett taking
the chairs out back and grinding them up with a chain saw for
firewood. In the meantime, while my mom and Shelley sat consoling
each other in the kitchen, I’d watched my dad pace around in the
living room. He went over to the fireplace and lifted a huge chunk of
limestone off the hearth. I hadn’t even known it was loose. Then he
took a fifth of Jim Beam out of the hole underneath and drank it
almost empty. When he turned around and saw me I was sure he was
going to slap me across the back forty, but he just smiled, then put
the rock back. He pulled me up on his knee and started telling me
stories about Korea. I don’t remember the stories. All I remember
is the smell of the Jim Beam on his breath and the sound of that
chain saw going in the backyard. Finally Dad leaned close and said
something like: "Every man’s got to have a stashing hole, son.
A man tells you he’s shot up his whiskey good and permanent, you’d
best be sure he’s either got a stashing hole full somewhere or he’s
a damn fool." Then he helped Garrett load the fireplace with
Lucchese chair legs. By the time it was over they were joking
together. I never said a thing about the stashing hole. I think I’d
forgotten about it until now.

"Clean the fireplace," I said to Garrett.
“I’ll be damned."

"What about it?" he said.

I was probably still drunk from the night before. It
was a stupid idea. On the other hand, my other option was to spend
the day thinking about dead people, missing people, and Maia Lee.

"What?" said Garrett. “I don’t like it
when you get quiet."

I watched the water swirl into patterns as it washed
down the bathroom drain. Jimmy Buffett was still jamming in Garrett’s
office.

"Who’s got the keys to the ranch?" I
asked.

Garrett swore. "I do, you know that."

I waited.

"No way," my brother said. “You’re a
total fruitcake."

"Runs in the family."

He was silent. "Probably. I can pick you up in a
couple of hours."