The Last King of Texas - Rick Riordan (8 page)

I pointed to my stitched-up cheek. "Most of me."

Ralph stepped onto the porch, took a joint from his
shirt pocket, then held it up toward me with a question — maybe did
I want some? or did I mind? He proceeded to light up without waiting
for the answer. I didn't want some, and I did mind, but neither of
those facts would've fazed Ralph.

He held in the first toke, looked up at the
corrugated tin of the porch roof, and let smoke escape through his
nostrils. "Just wanted to tell you — when you're ready to mess
with these people who blew you up today, come find me."

"You don't buy that the police have it under
control?"

Ralph laughed. "Yeah. Mi amigo Zeta Sanchez."

"You know Sanchez?"

Ralph stared at me. Stupid question. Ralph knew San
Antonians the way Audubon knew birds. The kill-and-study ratio was
probably the same. "Zeta is sangron," Ralph admitted. "He
makes a threat, it's going to happen. But pipe bombs at professors?
No, man."

"Why so sure?"

"Zeta wanted to kill you, he'd walk up and shoot
you."

"Sounds like that's what he did, in the end."

Ralph shook his head dolefully. "You meet
Sanchez's brother-in-law, Hector Mara?"

"Bald guy, lives in a trailer home, likes to
scream at policemen."

"That's him. Hector and Sanchez — they used to
be rivals back at the Courts. Patched things up when Sanchez married
Hector's sister Sandra."

"So they were brothers-in-law. So?"

Ralph took a second toke, stared into the backyard.
"So nothing. Just that Hector Mara's been doing okay for himself
the last six years since Zeta left town. Bought himself a scrap-metal
yard on the West Side. Found enough money to pay off the mortgage on
his grandmother's old house — that place he inherited out on Green
Road."

"All that money from a salvage yard?"

Ralph shrugged. "He does a little fencing, takes
away some business from my pawnshops. But the way I heard it, that's
not where most of Hector's money comes from. Once Zeta Sanchez left
town, Hector was freed up to do business with some of Zeta's old
rivals — one guy in particular, Chich Gutierrez. Chich and Zeta,
man — they couldn't stand each other."

"What kind of business?"

"Chiva, man."

"Heroin."

"Another thing — I hear Hector's more than a
little bit in debt to Chich right now. Like maybe in debt enough to
owe some large favors."
 

"Mmm. Hector thought Sanchez was gone for good,
might be kind of inconvenient if his old compadre showed up again,
started asking about his new business connections. Especially if
Sanchez had ideas about getting back into the chiva. Sanchez, man —
he's a war hero. People admire his style. He could take over Chich
Gutierrez's business without half trying."

"I'll look into that."

"Just do it careful. Tell George Berton when you
see him tonight — tell him I said to be careful."

"How'd you know I was going to see George?"

Ralph grinned.

"Uh-oh," I said. "Kelly?"

"No, man, I didn't hear it from her."

He was enjoying some excellent, private joke.

"What?" I demanded.

He took a long last pull on the marijuana, then
flicked the joint to the ground, crushed it under his heel. He
offered me a hand and pulled me effortlessly out of the butterfly
chair. "Just remember to deal me in, vato, once you're ready."

"You said Hector Mara's salvage yard was taking
away some of your fencing business."

"That's right."

"So are you siccing me on Hector because you
think it might help me? Or because you want to get rid of the
competition?"

Ralph grinned. "Your perception of the world is
overly grim, vato. Enjoy your date."

I could hear him laughing quietly all the way through
my house.
 
 

EIGHT

Aaron and Ines Brandon's house was a
driftwood-colored craftsman on Castano, a few blocks east of Alamo
Heights High School.

The street was one of those San Antonio gullies that
floods in the smallest rainstorm, houses perched atop
forty-five-degree yards on either side, the cars on the curb caked
with dried flood lines of oak leaves and pecan pollen.

I parked on the street behind a red Fiat and walked
up the sidewalk, over a Big Wheel, through a scatter of street chalk.

There was a brass mezuzah on the doorjamb.

I was just raising my hand to knock when the door
swung open and a large Anglo man collided with me. He was maybe two
hundred pounds, my height, loud yellow shirt, and a square face.

He muttered, "Damn, fricking—" then
pushed past in a wake of cheap sports cologne.

I watched him lumber down the unlighted walk. The
back of his retreating head looked like gorilla-mask fur, greased and
combed. He skidded on a piece of pink street chalk, cursed, kicked
the Big Wheel, then kept trudging down the steps toward the Fiat.

Glass shattered somewhere inside the house. A woman
yelled angrily. I took that as an invitation.

The living room was stark white — carpet, walls,
sofa, molding. Against the right wall was the limestone fireplace I'd
seen in Detective DeLeon's crime-scene photo. The freshly scrubbed
bricks still retained the craters of two .45 rounds that had slowed
down not at all traveling through Aaron Brandon's body. Open moving
boxes clustered next to the sofa. Through an archway on the left, in
the dining room, glass shards of a newly broken window dangled from
the frame. At the far end of the sofa, a woman stood with her back to
me.

She was leaning over an oak end table forested with
framed family photos, her hands clamped tightly on the table corners
as if she were contemplating a war map. She was a light-skinned
Latina, tall and slender, her hair shoulder length and silky
red-brown, the color of roasted peppers. She wore a beige blouse and
black jeans. If she'd been any more earth-toned she could've laid
down in a South Texas oil field and disappeared.

I rapped on the doorjamb.

"Forget something, Del?" Her voice was
small and cold. "You want my checkbook, too, you fucking
bastard?"

I cleared my throat. "Wrong bastard."

She whirled to face me.

Her mouth was wide and pretty, her nose slightly
crooked, her eyes so large and brown the color seemed to tint her
corneas like a cinnamon overdose. It was the kind of face that
strikes you as beautiful because of a successful combination of
flaws.

"Who—" She stopped herself, shook her
head vehemently. "No. I don't care who you are. What the hell
are you doing in my home?"

I wasn't technically inside, but I remedied that by
stepping over the threshold. "Sorry to disturb you, Mrs.
Brandon." I plucked an Erainya Manos Agency card from my front
pocket, held it up. It was one of the granite-gray executive cards.
Somber. Professional. I tried to make my expression match the card.
"I came by to ask you some questions. Your brother-in-law Del
ran over me on his way out, then I heard the window break. I got
concerned."

She made a little feral noise. "Another goddamn
cop. You people think you've been here so often you can just walk in
my front door now?"

She picked up the nearest potential projectile — a
lead-framed photo. "Vete ya! No more questions. No more cops."

The granite-gray executive approach didn't seem to be
winning me many points. I tried for a smile.

"There's no need to break things," I
assured her. "Actually I'm not—"

The photo banged into the wall two feet to my left.
Glass cracked when it hit the floor. Little pieces spiraled into the
air.

Mrs. Brandon picked up another piece of ammunition.
She motioned toward the front door with the new frame.

"You don't want to throw that," I told her.

In fact, she did. I had to lurch forward and catch
her wrist before she could. She tried to hit me with her free hand. I
intercepted that too.

We stood in that dance position for a few heartbeats,
Ines Brandon glaring up at me.

Her breath smelled faintly of red wine. Close up, the
little crook in her nose looked like an old break, probably some
childhood accident. She had the faintest white scar across the
bridge, about where reading glasses would sit. Whatever she'd run
into so long ago, she looked like she'd never quite gotten over the
indignation.

"You can goddamn well let me go," she
growled.

I released her wrist, took away the photograph she'd
been about to throw. Mrs. Brandon stepped back and sank to the edge
of the sofa.

Her eyes became hot and vacant, like jettisoned
rocket rings.

"Well?" She gestured around listlessly.
"Ask your questions. Search the house. What do I care? It's not
mine anymore."

I looked at the photo — a wedding picture of her
and Aaron, taken in front of a grimy adobe chapel with freestanding
pink silk flower arrangements on either side. The setting, and the
look of desperate, guilty excitement in the young couple's eyes,
screamed bordertown wedding. I set the photo back on the table.

"RideWorks holds the lease on your house,"
I said. "Del's kicking you out?"

"That's my brother-in-law."

"Quite a human being. How's your son holding
up?"

She pressed at the corners of her eyes. "Leave
Michael out of this."

"He's here?"

"He's with Paloma. Our — my maid. I couldn't
have Michael here with Del coming over. My brother-in-law and I —
we aren't exactly cordial."

"Nice guy like Gorilla-Head? Hard to imagine."

She studied my face more closely.

"You were on the news today," she decided.
"When they showed that man's arrest. You're with the sheriffs
department?"

"Tres Navarre. I'm a private investigator."

She mouthed the word private. "A real P.I.
You're joking. For UTSA?"

"Yes."

"Ah-ha. The University wants to be sure they're
not liable for Aaron's death."

"Something like that."

She laughed without humor. "I'm not going to
sue, P.I. Tell them not to worry."

"The man in custody — Zeta Sanchez. Had your
husband ever mentioned him?"

"Don't you have someplace better to be?"

"Or Del? Did he ever mention Zeta Sanchez?"

"Del doesn't talk to me unless he's kicking me
off his property. Or calling me a Mexican whore. Sorry."

I looked at the fireplace.

"My language embarrass you?" Ines Brandon
demanded.

"No. But keep trying if you want to. Your son's
not home. You might as well cut loose."

Her face reddened. She made a fist and then couldn't
seem to decide what to do with it. She flattened it on her thigh, dug
her fingers into the flesh above her knee. "I don't think I like
you very much, P.I."

I tapped one of the boxes with my foot. "Where
to? Back home to Del Rio?"

She punished me with some silence. I counted to
fifteen, sixteen, seventeen. Tres Navarre, tai chi sage. Man with the
Patience of Mountains.  Finally Mrs. Brandon glared up at me,
annoyed that I had not yet spontaneously combusted. "I can't go
home. Too much to take care of here. Michael and I are getting a
small apartment for a few months. The police—" She faltered,
took a shaky breath. "The police suggested I make no immediate
plans to leave town."

"You were away when your husband was murdered,
weren't you?"

"In Del Rio with my son, visiting friends. But
you never know. I might've—"

Her voice broke apart. "I might've paid that
Sanchez man. The police can't be too careful. I might've — oh,
shit."

She slid from the arm of the couch into the seat,
brought up her legs and hugged them, her forehead on her knees.

I waited while she shivered silently. I found myself
looking at the mantelpiece, the gunshot holes in the limestone. I
stepped back toward the front door, ran my fingers along the
doorjamb, then went to the front window, looked at the latch.

"Did your husband have a gun?"

She spoke into her knees. "They already asked. A
.38. In the bedroom closet. I hated Aaron keeping it in the house
with Michael."

"And it's still in the closet?"

"It was. The police took it."

"No forced entry. Your husband answered the door
wearing nothing but his jeans. He let his killer in, made no attempt
to get his own gun. They talked in the living room, standing up, your
husband here in front of the fireplace. The killer shot him twice. If
your husband didn't know his killer, it would've played out
differently."

Mrs. Brandon gathered her knees closer to her. "My
maid will be back with Michael in a few minutes. I want you gone."