Revenge of the Chili Queens (3 page)

We were plenty busy, and for that, I was grateful. Aside from the fact that the donations guests left in the big pottery-ware bowl we had near our serving station were helping to raise money for a good cause, I was talking up the Palace and people were learning about the Showdown. Lots of
them said they’d come to the fairgrounds over the next few days to buy spices.

I knew I could thank the Aji Amarillos and the pasillas for that.

“Whoo heee!” Wiping a big red bandana across his forehead, Tumbleweed Ballew plodded into our tent and helped himself to a bowl of our chili. He gave me a wink. “Hotter than a Lone Star barbeque tonight! But that’s not going to keep me from trying your chili. I’ve tried every single one of them.”

“Even Consolidated’s?” I asked him.

Tumbleweed has big ears and heavy jowls. He frowned and shook his head, and his jowls flapped. “Canned!” The way he harrumphed said it all. “But I’ll tell you what, those ladies from the Women’s League, their chili ain’t half bad.” He glanced beyond the Consolidated Chili tent to another setup where the lights seemed brighter than ours and the line for chili looked longer. And better dressed.

“No matter,” he said with a twitch of his shoulders. “I know yours will be the best, Maxie, honey.” Tumbleweed downed a spoonful, smiled, and nodded. “Sylvia didn’t have nothing to do with this bowl of goodness!”

“She had plenty to do with it,” I said, but only because Sylvia was within earshot and because I’d tell Tumbleweed the truth later. Tumbleweed and Ruth Ann, his missus, were the heart and soul of the Showdown. They scheduled our stops, they lined up city permits, they did all our advertising. All the years I traveled the Showdown circuit with Jack when I was a kid, Tumbleweed and Ruth Ann were the people I thought of as the ideal family. Even back then, I figured
they’d been married for longer than I’d been alive, and since they didn’t have any kids of their own, they took me and Sylvia under their wings. Or at least they tried. Sylvia being Sylvia, she never got close to anyone who traveled with the Showdown, and me, I was usually too busy getting into trouble to listen to much of what Tumbleweed and Ruth Ann had to say.

Which didn’t mean I didn’t adore both of them to pieces.

Smiling, I glanced around at the twinkling lights and listened to the smooth cascade of flamenco guitar that came from somewhere over near the Consolidated Chili tent. I thought of Mr. Hot Guitar Player, but there was no sign of him over there, just another of the entertainers who’d stopped to play and smiled broadly when the little clutch of people around him applauded. “It must have been something, huh?”

Tumbleweed didn’t have to ask what I was talking about. Like I said, we’d known each other a long time. “It was a wonderful tradition. The Chili Queens were the center of San Antonio social life. At least until the late 1930s when the city shut them down. Said they were a health risk. Imagine that! Imagine giving up a scene like this that played out at plazas all over town. People gathered every evening to eat and laugh and talk. You don’t get that kind of community now and it’s a shame, ain’t it? These days, it’s all about how fast you can do something, not how well you can do it. It’s all about texting and e-mailing. There aren’t enough connections between people. Look around!” We both did, drinking in the wonderful atmosphere along with a huge
helping of humidity. “Just think of how the world would be a better place. You know, if we all got out every evening and talked to our neighbors and got to know one another and—”

As sweet as it all was, Tumbleweed never got a chance to finish what he was going to say. That’s because we heard a woman scream from across the plaza. That scream was followed by another voice—also a woman’s—whose pinched falsetto could have shattered glass.

“She’s crazy. I told you the gringo was crazy! This crazy woman, you see what she is trying to do. She is trying to kill me!”

CHAPTER 2

Like I was going to miss out on something as juicy as a death threat in the middle of a charity event?

I gave Sylvia a quick “I’ll be right back,” and just like a whole bunch of other people who’d been nearby and heard the carrying-on, I raced across the plaza to see what was up.

I found the center of the commotion not far from the main entrance to
Read with the Chili Queens.

Read with them?

It looked to me like the two Chili Queens who stood toe-to-toe just inside the entrance to one of the tents were more interested in duking it out. Oh yeah, they had fire in their eyes. And chili ladles coated with tomatoes and spices and all kinds of greasy goodness in their hands.

The woman on my left was short and husky. Her silver
hair was pulled back and tucked into a neat bun, and her beefy arms were slick with sweat that sparkled like sequins when the overhead lights twinkled. She wore a long black skirt, like mine, and a red shirt. Both were covered by the white apron looped around her neck.

The woman who stood opposite her was taller by a head, with salt-and-pepper hair cut stylishly short and shaggy and a chin as pointed as the look she gave the other woman. She wore a white dress like a nurse might wear, with an apron printed with blue and red flowers over it.

“I’m crazy? Me?” Like the chili that dribbled from the ladle in her hand, the taller woman’s words dripped malice. So did the look she tossed at the other woman. “You’re the one who—”

“Loco! I told you! I told you she was nuts!” As if to gather support, the shorter woman took a moment to glance at the gathering crowd. When she stepped back and pointed her chili ladle at the other woman, the taller woman flinched, squinted, and stepped back, too. She bent her elbow and cradled the long handle of her ladle in one hand.

Across from her, the shorter woman mirrored her stance.

I held my breath and waited for someone to shout out
En garde!

Before anybody could, Nick Falcone showed up. Didn’t it figure? The guy who fuels my fantasies also ruins all the fun.

Nick stepped between the two women, and I had to give him credit; while the rest of us were waiting there, tense and perspiring and anxious to see who would twitch her
ladle first and fling the first splats of chili, Nick was his usual cool-as-a-cucumber self. Navy suit (in this heat, was the guy crazy?), starched white shirt, killer tie in swirls of green and a blue that (not coincidentally, I’d bet) matched his out-of-this-world eyes. His expression was as suave as his outfit, like he was chatting up these two adversaries at a cocktail party instead of diffusing what looked like it might turn into a rip-roaring chili smackdown.

“Ladies.” Nick nodded toward one woman, then the other, and believe me, I think he knew exactly what he was doing when he added one of his signature hotter-than-a-ghost-pepper smiles. Hey, when you’ve got that kind of talent, you’ve got to work it. “What seems to be the problem?”

“Problem?” the short woman blurted out. “Martha, she don’t know the meaning of the word
problem
.”

“Shaking in my shoes over here, Rosa,” the taller woman snapped, and as if to prove it, she gave her shoulders an exaggerated wiggle. “As always, you scare me to death!”

“I should.” Rosa’s dark eyes spit fire. When she stepped forward, so did Martha, and Nick held both his arms out to his sides to keep the women from getting any closer to each other. Or maybe he was just trying to make sure his suit didn’t get any chili on it.

He looked at the crowd in that steely sort of way cops (and, apparently, former cops) always do. “Excitement’s over, folks. Time to head back to the party.”

It wasn’t a request.

And nobody was about to argue.

One by one, the partygoers drifted away to the other tents.

Except for the one who wasn’t about to cave. Or miss one second of the excitement.

I think the moment Nick let go a breath that was all about praying for patience was just a heartbeat after he realized that I was still hanging around.

“You want to tell me what you’re doing here?” he asked me.

My shrug should have said it all, but in case he missed it, I told him. “I figured you might need my help.”

His smile was tight and not the least bit friendly.

Which was the only reason I was forced to remind him, “You know, the way you needed my help back in Taos when that Showdown roadie was killed. Or like back in Vegas when we were having the Devil’s Breath chili contest and—”

“I probably don’t need your help this time,” Nick said.

“But you might.” As if to prove it, I stepped into the tent where Rosa and Martha were still shooting death ray looks at each other. “If this has something to do with chili, let’s face it, Nick, I’m probably the only one who can help. So ladies . . .” I glanced from Rosa to Martha and back again to Rosa. “What’s shaking?”

Nick’s grumble echoed back at us from the walls of the Alamo just beyond the perimeter of this particular tent. Even though I’m not much for history and don’t know the exact story—I mean, not all the facts and all the details and the whole blow-by-blow the way a lot of people I’d already met in San Antonio did—I still recognized the iconic building made of creamy-colored stone. It was smaller than it looked in the pictures I’d seen online, and spookier
looking, too. But then, the way I heard it, the famous battle that happened here in 1836 lasted thirteen days and killed something like eight hundred people.

Spooky went with the territory.

While I was studying the building with its arched facade and distinctive columns on either side of the main doorway, Nick was concentrating on the matter at hand.

“You’re causing a commotion.” I didn’t think he could possibly be referring to me, so I let him keep talking. “Someone want to tell me what’s going on?”

“This gringo here,” Rosa began.

“She thinks she’s God’s gift,” Martha spat out.

And Nick held up both his hands again.

“One at a time. Or we’re never going to get anywhere. I was over there,” he said, “at the Consolidated Chili tent, and—”

“You’re kidding me, right?” Disgusted, I threw my hands in the air. “Don’t you know what those people are? Who they are? Purveyors of cheap chili. Cheap canned chili. You call that authentic? You call that in keeping with the traditions of the San Antonio Chili Queens?”

“This little girl, she’s right,” Rosa said, and just like I did, she shot a look back toward the tent. Even as we spoke, a woman with very big blond hair in a very short and tight black dress, a very sparkly tiara, and a banner across her chest was handing out bottle openers and chili samples to everyone who walked by—including, I noticed, the hunky guitar player I’d met earlier. Rosa’s top lip curled and left a smudge of ruby red lipstick on her teeth. “They have no business here.”

“They shouldn’t even be allowed in this sacred place,” Martha said, and for one moment, I actually thought the two women had found common ground and could put their differences aside.

That is, until Martha added, “Not this close to the Alamo where my ancestors—”

“Oh, here we go again!” Rosa groaned. “Now she’s going to make us listen to the list. Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie and William Travis. Yeah, yeah. Whatever! If I hear her say one more word about—”

“Oh, like we should listen to you?” Martha screeched. “What would you . . .” She pointed her chili ladle at Rosa. “What would you tell us about, Rosa? Your ancestors? The ones who fought for Santa Anna?”

“At least my ancestors lived to tell their story. And while they were at it, they taught their families the right way to make chili, too. That’s why my great-grandmother was the greatest of the Chili Queens.”

“Ha!” This from Martha, and I can’t say exactly what high dudgeon is, but I’d heard the phrase and I knew it had something to do with being really pissed, and if ever there was a dudgeon that was high, it was Martha’s. “My great-grandmother, she knew how to make chili. She was the greatest of the Chili Queens. Everybody knows that.”

“Everybody knows that each and every Chili Queen had her own secret recipe and her own special way of serving her chili.” I refused to get caught up in the squabble, so I kept my voice light and airy when I sailed past Nick. While I was at it, I gave him a look that pretty much told him,
See, if it’s about chili, I can handle it.
“I think it’s cool that
you’re both related to real Chili Queens. It’s an honor to meet you. Both of you.”

Martha’s bony shoulders shot back.

Rosa lifted both her chins.

“I can’t wait to try your chilies,” I said, because really, in case Nick didn’t notice, since the subject of chili came up, they’d both lowered those lethal ladles and were actually looking a little less like they were going to kill each other. “As a matter of fact, I’m going to have some right now. Whose tent is this? Which one will I be trying first?”

Rosa sniffed.

Martha snorted.

“Whose tent?” Rosa hissed. “They’re actually making us share a tent. Share? With this gringo?”

“At least I know my way around a kitchen,” Martha shot back. “My restaurant is the best place in town for chili. I use my great-grandmother’s authentic recipe,” she added as an aside that interested me no end. I knew it meant nothing to Nick. Then again, when it comes to chili, he’s something of a Philistine. “We use the freshest ingredients, and we make the best chili in the world.”