The Last King of Texas - Rick Riordan (12 page)

Before I could comment, a new set of headlights cut
in directly behind us, coming up Camden. Del Brandon's red Fiat
convertible glided up to the RideWorks gates and stopped.

"Someday, honey," Erainya told me, "I'm
gonna decide whether you got the best timing in the world or the
worst."

Del Brandon got out of his sports car. He looked the
same as he had that afternoon, storming out of Ines' house — same
greasy wedge of gorilla hair, same yellow shirt, now snagged on a
side-holstered gun. His face was large and washed out and marked with
a terminal heartburn scowl.

He looked warily at my VW.

Then the Fiat's passenger's-side door opened and
Del's companion got out. Erainya said, "Mother of Jesus."

Del's friend was a boulder of a man with
incongruously girlish hair — tight blond cornrows curled up at the
bottom and tied off with little blue rubber bands. Bo Peep on
steroids. His facial features were thinly applied to a block-shaped
head — his eyes shallow, dull dents; his smile an accidental mark.
Gray running clothes. Height maybe six-five, density three or four
tons. I didn't see any gun, and I didn't have any illusions that it
mattered. Bo Peep was not a man who would bother with, or be bothered
by, weapons smaller than a ballista. They were both still staring at
us when the cigar smoker in the truck opened his cab door and called,
"Del."

In the sudden illumination of the dash light, the man
in the truck appeared weathered and dour, maybe sixty years old,
rough and thick as a granddaddy oak. He resembled any number of Texas
ranchers from here to Brownsville, his mouth mostly lower lip and
cigar.

The rancher planted his boots on the street, glowered
in our direction, then walked toward the sports car, where Del and Bo
Peep were waiting. The three men stood together, looking at us. They
didn't talk. That was a bad sign. It meant they had no disagreement
about us.

"Are they going to show us the rides?" Jem
asked. He was bouncing now, a well-placed fifty pounds on bad shocks,
and the VW was bouncing with him. The three guys across the street
didn't frown at us any less.

"Maybe we should drive on," I suggested.

Erainya opened her door, got out, and leaned across
the car's roof. She hollered, "One of you guys Del?"

"Or," I mumbled, "maybe you have
another idea..."

The three guys glanced at one another.

Del Brandon stepped forward. "Who's asking?"

"Who's asking? Come on, honey. You want to come
closer, see we aren't monsters or anything?"

Something about the way Erainya talks — I've seen
it a dozen times and I've never quite gotten the magic of it. It
makes even the most hardened guys red around the ears. They check
their zippers, check that their ears are washed, try to remember if
they ate a good dinner. They get uncomfortable and deferential.
Erainya immediately becomes the hard-assed mother from the Old
Country they never had.

Del walked toward us, stepping carefully through the
dark maze of crisscrossed railroad tracks. He stopped about five feet
away from my window. From there, he could probably see Erainya's
face, Jem's pressed against the glass behind me, my face in the
driver's window. If Del recognized me from our brief encounter at
Ines', he didn't let it show.

"What'd you want?" he asked.

"Look, honey," Erainya told him. "I
didn't know you had another deal to take care of tonight. It's just I
thought you'd be expecting me."

Del shook his head slowly, fishing around for some
possible explanation. After almost a minute, when I was sure he was
going to decide Erainya was bullshitting him, he seemed to come up
with an idea. "You mean you're—"

"Sure," Erainya agreed instantly.

Del's large mouth opened, then closed. "Southwest
Carnival? The buyer from Arno?"

"I don't want to mess up your deal," she
said. "You go ahead with whatever."

Del came a step closer. He peered in at me, then back
at Jem. "You've got a kid with you."

I was getting the feeling Del had never scored real
high on those standardized achievement tests.

"That's Jem," Erainya agreed. "He's
mine. What — you make kiddie rides, you've never seen kids?"

Del held up his hands, immediately defensive. "I'm
just asking — I mean, if Arno sent you—"

He faltered, then gestured to where the human boulder
and the old rancher stood waiting. "It's just that we didn't—"

"You think you can give us a few minutes
afterward?" Erainya asked.

Del shifted, looked back at his two compadres. "It's
kind of late."

"My five-year-old, he's still up. You got an
earlier bedtime than a five-year-old?"

Del looked chastised. "What kind of unit do you
need?"

"I won't know that until we talk."

"You're prepared to do business tonight?"
He gestured toward the VW. "You ain't going to haul nothing in
this."

"I am always prepared to do business."

Del thought about that, then nodded with a little
more certainty. "I'll try to wrap things up. Wait here. You damn
near screwed my deal."

"Manners," Erainya warned him.

He held up his hands defensively again, patted the
air a few times, then retreated to his two friends.

The men talked. It took some doing, but Del
apparently got the old rancher to ease up, to go ahead with whatever
business they were planning.

Once the transaction started it went fairly fast. Bo
Peep opened the gates and the rancher backed his truck in. The three
of them opened the hangar doors and walked out a trailer — about
the same size as the truck but twice as tall. We couldn't see much of
the amusement ride on the trailer, since it was covered in yellow
tarp, but the shape was like a giant tulip.

Once the men got it hooked up, the rancher handed Del
a grocery bag. Del sat on the bumper of the truck and counted bricks
of cash while Bo Peep and the rancher waited. Apparently Del was
satisfied. He gave the bag to Bo Peep, shook hands with the rancher.
No smiles anywhere. The truck pulled away with its huge trailer and
disappeared down Camden. Del wiped the sweat off his brow, then
looked across the street at us and waved big, indicating we should
drive the VW in.

Erainya got in and closed the passenger door.

"I want you to notice something, honey,"
she told Jem. "I didn't lie to that man. Not once."

Del and Bo Peep stood in front of us, their faces
yellow and stern in our headlights. As we came in Bo Peep walked
behind us, very casually, and closed the gates. We wouldn't be
leaving quickly. And we didn't have any bags of cash to offer Mr.
Brandon.

"Honesty," I told Jem, "is good in
small quantities."
 

THIRTEEN

"It's been a crazy day," Del Brandon said.

He opened Erainya's door for her. Jem clambered out
first, did a beautiful  tight-end run around Del, then headed
for the old-fashioned carousel animals that flanked the steps of the
office.

Del raised a finger and said "Don't" about
the time Jem launched himself onto the blue elephant's saddle and
started bouncing. Del put his finger down, giving up.

I got out on my side and found myself in
rock-climbing position against Bo Peep's chest. I looked up into his
nostrils. "Howdy."

He receded a step. Gravity stopped pulling my arm
hairs toward his body.

Del sized me up, gave Erainya an amused
"my-bodyguard's-bigger-than-your-bodyguard" kind of smile.
"You want to take a look around the shop?" he asked her.

He led us through the open hangar doors. Bo Peep
trailed about twenty feet behind, Jem doing tight fearless orbits
around him and asking what PlayStation games he liked.

The tour was quick. Del waved in different
directions, said a few words, snuck occasional glances at Erainya to
see if bags of money were forthcoming. The corrugated walls of the
warehouse were lined with workbenches and machine tools, welding
equipment, scrap metal shavings heaped in corners. In the middle of
the room were three carnival rides in various states of assembly —
a Super-Whirl with the multicolored base attached but the seats
scattered around the cement floor like massive wobbly Easter eggs; an
eight-armed Spider Rider stripped to just the hydraulic mechanisms; a
miniature carousel that looked pretty much complete.

"I can have the two ready in a few hours if I
call up some of my boys," Del promised. "The carousel's
cash-and-carry."

Del led us over to the Super-Whirl and started
pointing out the hydraulics underneath. "Forty-five-degree
lift-and-twirl action. Thirty rpms. You don't get any better on a
trailer-mounted unit. It's a classic."

Erainya nodded sagely. "How much?"

"Very reasonable. Thirty thousand."

Erainya managed to keep any reaction off her face. I
set my mouth hard, thinking about the few people I'd known in my life
who dealt in cash amounts that large and were fearless enough to tote
it around in grocery bags. None of them were nice people.

Jem had been jumping on the balls of his feet,
anxious to try out everything. Finally he broke loose and ran toward
one of the disassembled carriage units on the ground. Del lifted his
finger, thought about the last time he'd told the kid "Don't,"
then turned to Erainya instead. "That's not safe."

"Jem," Erainya said. Jem scootched to a
stop, reined himself back to his mom's side. He didn't stop grinning.

"It's late," Del reminded us. "Let's
talk business."

Erainya said, "So this is all you got?"

"Right now. We can also repair any old units you
got."

She nodded toward the Cro-Magnon man looming behind
me. "You always need him in the room?"

Del glanced at Bo Peep, then at me. He apparently
decided the security risk was not high. "Get a Nehi, Ernie.
We'll be in the office."

Bo Peep drifted away. The rest of us followed Brandon
out of the warehouse. "You got to understand about Ernie,"
Del said as we crossed the yard. "Guy's gone state-to-state with
the carnies so long, on the lam, he's just about fanatical to me for
giving him a settle-down job, no questions asked. You worked the road
long?"

"I know Ernie's type," Erainya assured him.

We walked up the office steps between the plaster
horse and the blue elephant. Both glistened with hysterical smiles.

Inside, the reception area was no more than seven
feet square, rafter beams lower than a miner's cabin, walls so old
and dim and brown it was impossible to tell what they were made of.
Whatever it was, it was solid enough to accept nails, which is how
the majority of things were posted — an old Hung Fong's calendar,
some company notices, photographs of workers at the shop, pictures of
the rides. Up along the top of the walls were ripped fragments of old
party decorations in several different colors. A truly impressive
collection of gimme caps hung on more nails behind the receptionist's
desk.

The receptionist, in fact, was about the only thing
that wasn't nailed to the wall. She was flat on her back on the desk,
snoring. After what I'd already seen of Del Brandon's business
practices, it somehow didn't surprise me to find his receptionist in
this condition, still in the office at midnight. She was Latina —
minute size, frizzy red hair, improbably large bosom, and much
spandex. In sleep, her little pointy face twitched and slanted like
the drunken dormouse from Alice in Wonderland.

Brandon walked past her and swatted her knee. "Jesus
Christ, Rita."

She stopped snoring instantly. "Yeah, Del, like
you don't want me horizontal."

Brandon glanced back at us, his face pained. "She's
got a lousy sense of humor. I got a wife."

Rita snorted. She sat up, rubbed her eyes, then
focused on Jem and grinned.

"Hey. A cutie." She groped in the drawer
behind her and came up with a smushed box of Mike and Ikes. "Want
some?"

Del grumbled something about Rita getting to work,
then led us down a short hall into a somewhat larger office. The
carpet was threadbare sulfur. The fluorescent lights gave everything
a greasy hue. Lined along the floor next to Del's desk, like
luminarias, were leftover Taco Cabana bags filled with aluminum foil
wads and smelling of old carne guisada.

Behind the desk was a framed, poster-size
black-and-white photograph of Jeremiah Brandon, Our Founder as a
young man, leaning against a half- dismantled printing press. The
shot looked straight out of a World War II-era Life — the happy
industrial worker laboring for Democracy. Except for the youthful
softness in his cheeks and neck, Jeremiah looked not much different
from the other picture I'd seen of him in middle age. Still the
buzzard's face, crooked smile, a merciless light in his eyes that
spoke of past poverty and a determination to avoid it in the future.
Jeremiah's fingers were long, resting on the rubber-coated rollers
and steel gears of the printing press like they were keys of an
organ. His arms were black with machine grease up to his elbows.
Grease speckled his collarless white shirt, his trousers, his cap. I
had a feeling the liquid could've been blood and Jeremiah would've
smiled just the same way.