The Last King of Texas - Rick Riordan (24 page)

"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 persons 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.
 

TWENTY-SIX

At nine-thirty, I drove to Erainya's house to pick
her up for our rendezvous at George's.

Jem came along, too, but this time inexplicably fell
asleep in the backseat as soon as we hit the highway.

We drove toward the South Side on the upper deck of
I-10, the VW top down, the wind skin-temperature, the lights of
downtown receding behind us. Down below, dark little houses sped by,
tiny fenced yards, miles and miles of laundry lines, tableaus of beer
drinking on back porches, cars with headlights on and hoods up,
shreds of heavy metal music.

I filled Erainya in on my day.

She stared straight ahead, her index finger stroking
her lip. "Kelly came down today."

"How're things in Austin?"

"She says fine. She's dyed her hair kind of
yellow this time. Looks good."

"Ah, the rites of spring."

"She worked the county courthouse most of the
morning — got a little bored sitting around the office with both
you and George gone."

"She find anything?"

"Turns out Aaron Brandon filed a civil suit
against Del about three years ago for control of RideWorks. Aaron
claimed Del had swindled him out of his share."

"And?"

"And it never went to court. Aaron dropped the
suit a couple of months after he filed."

"Out-of-court settlement?"

Erainya shrugged. "I guess. The question is,
what kind?"

I fixed my eyes on the road and thought about the
red-and-gold cigar seal I'd found in Sandra Mara's bedroom closet. If
George had something to tell us, something that would sew up the
holes, I swore to God I'd buy him the world's largest Cuban cigar.

We exited on Roosevelt and turned south. The Tower of
the Americas swung behind us like a compass needle. On either side of
Roosevelt were closed-up car dealerships, their sale banners
flapping  apathetically. The side streets were dark and deadly
quiet.

I must've been driving on autopilot, because the next
thing I remember is Erainya shoving me and saying, "Heads."

We'd turned onto the broken asphalt of Palo Blanco.
Up ahead, George's well-kept little house was dark. Its porch light
was off. Even the carport light George used to showcase his 1970
Barracuda was off.

Next to the curb, a white van idled. Dark shapes of
men moved across the gravel lawn.

My insides froze.

We were at the end of the block, still too far away
to make out anything more, when the dark shapes melted into the van
and its brake lights flared. Doors slammed. The van accelerated away
from us.

I stopped in the middle of the street. There was no
need for Erainya or me to speak. She got out, trundled Jem from the
backseat, and carried him still sleeping to the sidewalk, already
fishing for the gun in her purse. I punched the gas. The white van
took a hard left on Mission Road and careened out of sight. I tried
to match its speed on the turn and found myself skidding sideways,
nearly slamming into the gates of the old Catholic orphanage across
the street before second gear took hold and fishtailed me forward
again.

The van was now a hundred yards ahead, speeding south
on the straight stretch of Mission Road. I pushed the VW faster. On
the left, the dark wooded boundaries of the public golf course raced
past; on the right, picnic areas, sports fields, tiny homes and
graffitied bus stops. I tore through two intersections that were
mercifully empty of traffic but the van kept pulling farther ahead. I
waited until third gear was about to explode, then shifted to fourth.
The underbelly of the VW rattled like aluminum foil.

The golf course fell away on the left and the road
widened and zigged, aligning itself with the edge of the San Antonio
River basin. Fifty yards down on my left, the river made a dark,
glittering streak through the center of what was basically a
glorified drainage ditch. Lit by moon and city night glow, the grassy
earthen walls sloped down from the guardrails to the wide marshy
banks, the underbrush fleeced with paper trash from thousands of
upriver polluters. I floored the accelerator, slashed through
potholes of standing water as the van pulled ahead of me on Mission.

The van turned hard on the Southcross Bridge and
crossed the river, doubling back north on Riverside.

I slowed for the bridge, lost some time in the turn,
then followed across and up Riverside. I got the VW back into fourth
gear, taking the curvier east bank at an insane sixty-five and still
losing my prey. Another minute and they would be gone.

For the last time in our sixteen-year relationship, I
cursed my VW. The white van swung wide for a right onto Roosevelt. I
tried to follow, feeling the arc of the turn getting away from me,
the VW going sideways with its own force toward the guardrail, my
feet starting to skid back and forth of their own accord like a
novice ice-skater's. Then there was the crumple of metal and a tilt
in the horizon and the sickening feeling of weightlessness.

I expected sound — a blast or crunch or tear of
metal and bones. I was wrong. There was no sound — just free fall,
followed by a cold, slick blackness all around me, the feeling of
tumbling, of being compressed into a smaller and smaller somersault
until something that might've been my spine went snap. 
Somewhere far away, I heard the rush of a large animal through grass
— a rhino, perhaps.

My eyes opened. Through a smear of Vaseline, I saw
the river off to my left, a huge orange-and-black beast rolling
slowly and convulsively toward it. The thing heaved itself up on end
when it reached the bank, poised there as if contemplating a drink,
then decided it had just enough momentum to topple forward one more
time. It hit the water with a resounding hollow galoosh, the wheels
still spinning.

I was afraid to move, afraid any effort might cause
what little life I still had to leak out. I didn't want to know how
bad off I was.

I stared at the water glistening in moonlight, the
dark marsh weeds and bare branches globbed with paper pulp. I smelled
like someone had stirred rotten meat into a fish tank and dumped the
contents on my head. Far away I thought I heard sirens. Lights of the
houses on Riverside blinked on. I watched the upturned back wheels of
my VW spin for one rotation. Two rotations.

I decided I was not dead yet. I tried to move my arm.
I found that my sleeve was snagged on some kind of bush. In fact, all
of me was snagged on some kind of bush. I'd been forcibly grafted
onto a large chaparral.

I tried a foot, found it suspended from a branch by a
ripped jean leg. Slowly, I managed to extract myself, then to pick
the larger gobs of thick wet river garbage off my body. I inspected
what I could of myself in the dark and realized with infuriating
certainty that I was fine.

I cursed loudly and creatively. That felt good so I
did it again.

Fueled by anger and probably a fair amount of shock,
I started walking. At least, the police told me I was walking when
they found me. I was half a mile or so from George's house. I don't
remember talking to the uniforms, or changing into the moth-eaten but
dry spare set of clothes the police kept in their trunk, or getting a
ride with them back to Berton's.

I do remember my reunion with Erainya in George's
graveled front yard. She was crouching down, holding Jem, trying to
answer a detective's questions and Jem's at the same time.

Jem was still sleepy-eyed, pointing at the house and
saying he wanted to see George.

Erainya kept saying, "Honey. Honey."

When she saw me, she closed her eyes for three
seconds, muttering some kind of prayer. "Take Jem, honey.
Please. Take him away just for a few minutes."

I did nothing.

I was staring into George's front door, into the
living room now blazing with light. I could see a left foot — a
single white Nike shoe sticking into view. Police were moving around
the shoe. Cameras were flashing.

I locked eyes with Erainya. Her glance was black as
ever, harder than ever, but starting to erode. Her voice trembled a
little when she repeated, "Take Jem for a few minutes, honey.
Can you do that?"

I looked at the detective, who nodded. "There's
hot chocolate in my car — down there, third one."

I told Jem to come with me, and when he wouldn't or
couldn't, I picked him up and carried him.

I found myself hugging him tight, trying to get
reassurance from the breaths that expanded his little warm chest, the
smell of sleep and child sweat in his rumpled hair. I carried him
down Palo Blanco and tried to keep talking in gentle tones so he
wouldn't focus on the sound behind us of his mother crying.
 

TWENTY-SEVEN

Policemen's faces and questions blurred together. At
some point Erainya reclaimed Jem. Then I was separated from both of
them. A field sergeant came by and took my statement. Halfway
through, he finally corrected my understanding of the situation. He
pulled me back from total despair with a frown and a matter-of-fact
"I thought you knew."