The Last King of Texas - Rick Riordan (37 page)

Then a metallic rumbling started in the RideWorks
courtyard behind me — the warehouse door grinding partially open. I
heard Del Brandon's voice, midconversation. My attackers froze.

A few footsteps, more of Del's voice — then
nothing.

I chanced a look over my shoulder. Del and Ernie, the
human boulder with the blond cornrows, were stopped in their tracks,
both staring at the battle scene outside their gates. Ernie had his
hand protectively on Del Brandon's shoulder. Del hadn't changed his
clothes since dinner at the 410. If anything he was more disheveled,
and a lot drunker.

Slowly, Del put his hand on his gun. Probably from
his angle, in the dark, he couldn't see Vampire and Porkpie with the
P-11 — just me and the three homeboys at his gate.

"Well, well," Del called to me. "Fucking
private dick came back already. You figure I sleep? I don't. Not no
more."

I glanced at the three locos. Still frozen.

"Listen, Del," I said. "Let's talk
inside. You can beat the shit out of me there, okay? You and Ernie
come on over."

Silence.

"Come on, Del," I called. "You want to
prove you're on the good guys' team, this is your chance."

I was mentally running through wild possibilities —
Del would walk over, I'd roll and run, they'd start an inadvertent
crossfire, I would escape in the confusion.

Instead, Del laughed bitterly. "You hear
anything worth listening to, Ernie? I didn't hear nothing. Must've
been a dog."

Then their steps resumed across the courtyard. The
stairs creaked. The office door slammed shut.

Two more seconds of miserable, heavy silence, then
Bikechain and Hairnet charged. Hairnet grabbed my arm and found
himself grabbed instead, his face yanked down and slammed into my
upraised knee. My left hand intercepted Bikechain's punch and
directed it aside, the chains raking the skin on the back of my hand.
I slammed my other palm against his jaw, tried to step sideways. But
Hairnet was up too fast, tackling my waist and sending me into the
fence in a full-body slam. I landed a double chop on his ears that
almost loosened his grip but Bikechain lunged at me too, knocking all
three of us down on the pavement. There is no greater terror than
being completely prone, out of control, caught in a tangle of bodies.

It didn't last long — I remember gouging, kicking,
elbowing, yelling, getting my head free of someone's choke hold just
long enough to catch an image of the man with the bloody gash in his
nose, raising the blackjack for a second try. There was a whish
sound, then my head turned to ice. My eyesight faded. The pavement
and feet walking around me became an afterglow in the darkness, like
a television screen turned off in a dark room.

Somewhere, the bored voice of Chicharron was
commenting to Porkpie — not about me, or the fight, but about
George's red 70 Barracuda and how best to repaint it.
 

FORTY-FOUR

I was surprised to wake up, even more surprised to
realize I had been awake for some time without my mind registering
the fact.

My eyes burned from staring at a patch of yellow in
the darkness. After a while I recognized the patch as a streetlight.
I couldn't remember how to blink. There were moths fluttering around
the streetlight. I stared at them for centuries. Some part of me knew
that I should be concerned, should move, but I couldn't remember
exactly why. I just lay there on my back, anesthetized, waiting for
the dental surgeon to start drilling, for the doctor to amputate my
leg, my brain. Whatever. I had a nice streetlight to stare at.

The side of my head felt warm and wet, like a very
affectionate leech had been attached there. I was pleased to have the
company.

I'm not sure how many decades I lay like that. The
sky had started lightening to gunmetal when I became aware of voices
— two males, very close to me. They talked in conversational tones.
Every once in a while their words were interrupted by the ker-ploink
of liquor being tipped into a mouth and then settling back into the
bottle.

I thought it would be just dandy to turn my head and
look at the two men, but my head wouldn't cooperate.

Finally an upside-down face hovered above me in the
morning gloom. The young man had two beautiful nostrils. The rest of
his face was shadowy but one eye seemed darker than the other. I
could tell he wore a hairnet. I thought I'd seen him somewhere
before.

The mouth under the beautiful nostrils scowled at me,
then told someone in Spanish that my eyes were open. An offstage
voice said it was probably time to drag me inside.

Hairnet's face went away.

The sensation of movement. I heard the sound of a
body being dragged across gravel and after a time realized the body
was mine. When we took an L-turn, my head lolled to one side and I
saw the place where I'd been sleeping — a dirty blanket on the
ground of an abandoned lot. Next to the blanket was a makeshift
lean-to against the side of a warehouse — a gutted pink sofa
slumped between two cardboard refrigerator boxes, a blanket draped
over to make the top of a tent. A young Latino guy sat on the couch,
drinking from a liquor bottle. Not far away, standing at the street
curb under the lamppost, another Latino guy in a Raiders jacket was
talking to a man in a station wagon. They seemed to be trading
things.

Then I was dragged through a doorway and the scene
disappeared in darkness. My feet hit the ground. I heard footsteps
receding, then a metal door rolling shut. I lay on my back admiring
the blackness, wishing for more feeling in my body. None came.

Maybe I slept. When I opened my eyes again I could
make out the outline of an air duct above me, thin lines of a
corrugated metal ceiling. I got excited when my fingers twitched,
involuntarily, and I could actually feel the scrape of the cement
floor.

I started to be conscious of my own swallowing. I
could feel my hands and my feet. The leech on my face started
slithering around.

After a long, long time, I was able to make a fist.
Light seeped into the high ceiling through constellations of rust
holes. They made beautiful patterns — smiling faces, animals,
monsters. Metal support beams started appearing out of the darkness.

I tried to lift my arm. I was scared when my hand
actually appeared in front of my face.

I opened my mouth and a sound came out — nothing
very human, but sound. Whatever they'd drugged me with had a lot of
staying power. I still felt no pain, just a greater heat — an
invisible finger poking deeply into my rib cage over and over, trying
to get my attention.

I was almost cocky enough to try sitting up when
there was an explosion of sound, then light. The warehouse doors
rolled open behind me and blinding sun poured in.

Men came in, talking. Some stepped around me. I saw
flashes of faces — all Latino, most young and bearded, many with
ski caps or bandannas.

Somebody told somebody else to move the pile of
garbage. I recognized Chicharron's voice. Once I was jerked up off
the floor and my vision twisted sideways, I realized the garbage was
me.

I was shoved into a chair and promptly slid out of it
again. Impatient hands dragged me back into a sitting position.

When my gyroscope readjusted itself, I saw a black
leather executive chair with slash marks along the top. Chicharron
sat in that chair, his legs crossed, his casual vampire-wear on —
jeans, a billowy white shirt, lots of silver. Other men moved around
behind him — circling, watching me with predatory eyes. I
recognized Porkpie, and the kid with the hairnet who sported a nasty
shiner I devoutly hoped I'd given him.

Chicharron adjusted the folds of his shirt, then
flicked his fingers toward me.

"You got something to say?"

I worked my jaw and eloquently managed to reply,
"Uh."

Chich looked at Porkpie, who moved a little closer,
ever ready to serve and protect.

"Is he going to be like this permanently?"
Chich demanded.

Porkpie said that I would come out of it eventually
and they'd have to give me more of the stuff. "Unless we kill
him." He said this hopefully.

Chicharron looked at me like I was a throwaway carpet
sample in a color he didn't particularly care for.

"You're still alive for three reasons."

I made a small noise.

Chich examined his fingers. His nails were as long as
a classical guitar player's. "First, your name is Navarre. I'd
rather not kill a guy who's got friends in the sheriff's department
unless I have to. Second, you fight okay. I appreciate that. C,
there's a little matter about some heroin."

He waited. I blinked, once maybe.

"You want to talk?" Chich asked. "Or
you want to spend another night here with my boys, maybe be their
mascot?"

"Another night," Porkpie broke in, "and
he won't have no brain left, we keep him on this stuff."

"I can talk."

I think they were almost as surprised as I was that
the croak was comprehensible.

I tried to say something else, failed, then realized
that the more I concentrated on how to speak, the more I choked.
"Chicharron—"

Chich made an X with his index fingers. "Nobody
here by that name," he said. "You want any hope of getting
out of this place still breathing, you'll remember that. Tell me what
I want to hear, Navarre. Where's my heroin?"

I was watching his mouth move. When it stopped it
took me a while to realize he needed a response. "Don't know."

"You really want that to be your answer?"

"Ask Del Brandon."

Chich glanced at Porkpie. "If we were to pull
some of his fingers off, you think he'd feel it?"

Porkpie opined that I probably wouldn't.

Chich accepted this disappointment with a shrug.
"Brandon's been talking to the police, Navarre. He's been in
there all night, singing any song the cops tell him to sing. You know
what he's claiming, Navarre? He's swearing Zeta Sanchez's wife is
still around. He's claiming Mrs. Sanchez and Hector have been using
RideWorks to move smack. My smack. He says his job was just to shut
up and be silent about it. Says he doesn't have anything that belongs
to me. And you know why I believe Del? I believe Del because Del's
too fucking retarded to move heroin by himself. Are you hearing me?"

He snapped his fingers, which brought my eyes back
from space, back to his mouth.

I said, "You know a lot about what Del Brandon
is telling the police."

Chicharron's mouth crept up at the corner. "What
I want from you — the only thing — is the heroin."

"Heroin's not important."

"Not important. My heroin's not important."

"Hector needed runaway money. So he ripped you
off. But that's incidental."

"If it's so fucking incidental, think I'll just
take it back."

"I don't have it."

"You got Mrs. Sanchez, don't you?"

A pain slid through my head like a shard of glass. I
closed my eyes and heard myself whimper, hating myself for it.

When I forced my eyelids open again Chicharron had
his hand raised, as if to signal his pals to be quiet.

"You fought well," Chich said. "I have
three men who will not be healed for several days because of you."

"Good," I croaked. The intrepid detective
gracefully accepts a compliment.

"Be a shame to kill you. Tell me where Sandra
Sanchez is."

"I don't know."

"Let me kill him." The eager voice sounded
like Pork-pie's.

Chicharron thought about it for a full seven seconds.
I know: I counted. Then he stood up, nodded to someone behind me.
Suddenly I was falling  sideways — my chair'd been yanked out
from under me. I lurched around on the floor, but it was like
swimming through cement. The needle in the crook of my arm was the
first sharp sensation I'd experienced since becoming conscious, and
as the cement thickened around me I knew this needle would be the
last.

"We'll visit again tomorrow," I heard
Chicharron say. "If you have any brain left by then, you will be
wise and use it for me."

As I went under, someone's voice muttered, "A
shame."

Might have been my voice.

Then footsteps receded and the closing metal doors
clanged shut like an earthquake.
 

FORTY-FIVE

I had a series of nightmares. In one my mother's
house was on fire, and she was urging me and her muscular troop of
Marlboro men to bucket-brigade armloads of knickknacks out the front
door. My mother kept running back and forth down the sidewalk, her
silk kimono on fire at the edges, imploring us to work faster. I
would hand a basket of glass paperweights to the guy next to me, then
a roll of Dia de los Muertos posters, then some Ghanaian burial
masks. I was in the doorway and the fire kept intensifying until
finally the knickknacks were being handed out to me by guys whose
arms and legs were on fire and whose skin was melting from their
faces.