The Last King of Texas - Rick Riordan (39 page)

My head ached. I rubbed my temples, discovered that
was a major mistake. I  tried to drink a little water from a
paper cup Ralph handed me.

"I got to be going, vato," he said. "More
than a couple of hours out here in redneck country, I start getting
nervous."

"We wouldn't want that."

He grinned. "Give me a call when you want the
Barracuda back, vato. I'll have it waiting for you."

"Thanks."

"There a back way to San Antonio?"

"Old Highway 90. Why?"

"I had to phone DeLeon, tell her what was up."

"Ines—"

"No, man. Not about that. That's your call. But
Ana's coming out right now. She wants to kick my manly ass for the
scene we pulled on Commerce. Some people are never grateful."

When Ralph was gone, it was just me and Erainya,
watching the sun come up over the fields, the dew start to glisten on
the leaves in the trees, the cows lining up for their daily trek down
to the creek. Single file, heifer style.

Erainya stood over me, examining my face skeptically.
"I thought we'd lost you, honey. Couple of times in the car, I
put my hand on your chest, just to make sure you were still
breathing."

I closed my eyes. My cheek had started to tremble.
The trembling didn't stop.

"We didn't say anything to your mother,"
Erainya told me.

"Thank God for small favors."

"I figured it was better she didn't know."

"I've never been so scared, Erainya."

"I know, honey."

"I couldn't move. My arms—"

"I know. Here."

She came closer and helped me drink a little more
water. Some of it dribbled out the side of my mouth and down my jaw,
my neck, soaking into the collar of my shirt.

I lay back and shut my eyes, opening them again only
with great difficulty. Erainya was still there. She had her hand on
my chest and her eyes were closed. I let myself drift into sleep.
 

FORTY-SEVEN

When I woke up again I was on the leather couch in
front of the fireplace. The embers from the morning fire were just
barely alive under the ash, and daylight was streaming through the
windows.

The roaring of the water pipes in the old house told
me that somebody was either taking a shower or locked in mortal
combat with the toilet.

Harold Diliberto was still at his post by the fire,
his coffee cup and half-empty bottle of bourbon on the mantel. In the
crook of Harold's arm was his Remington 700 — the decrepit deer
rifle with the bent magazine spring dangling uselessly in front of
the trigger.

I looked down at my feet and discovered they were
resting in Ana DeLeon's lap. She was leaning back against the couch,
her eyes small and dark and her face soft in thought. She was wearing
jeans and a baggy black turtleneck. One hand rested on my ankle as if
she'd long ago forgotten it was there. The other held the letter she
was reading. I thought I recognized the distinctive block print —
small, square, precise lettering. Ralph.

I said, "Hello." Ever the inventive
conversationalist.

Ana started, looked at me, folded the letter, and put
it aside.

"God damn you," she said. "When you're
better I'm going to strangle you."

"Not the most loving thing I've heard all week.
But close." I looked at Harold.

"How long have you been standing there?"

"It's Tuesday afternoon," he muttered.
"They brought you in late Sunday night."

"Jesus. You can go to the bathroom now, Harold.
Thanks."

He glanced distrustfully at DeLeon.

"Thanks, Harold," I repeated. "Take a
rest."

He drifted off to do whatever it is drunk recluses
do.

Ana squeezed my ankle. "You look like shit."

"Hotel Chicharron — no mints on the pillows."

When I tried to sit up, my head popped painfully back
into its original shape. Ana slid my feet off her lap and onto the
floor.

I looked down at myself. I was wearing boxers with
little polo players on them, a T-shirt with a large Wild Turkey logo,
and black socks.

"Whose idea of revenge was this?"

Ana shrugged. "You were like that when I got
here. I'm still trying to figure out where here is."

I rubbed my eyes. "Welcome to the Navarre family
ranch. Things get rough, I sometimes lay low out here. It's a hard
place to get to. Hard for outsiders to come into Sabinal and make any
trouble."

"Mmm." Ana didn't say more, but I wondered
if she'd met some of our rancher neighbors, any one of whom would've
given her more than a little polite trouble if she'd asked for
directions.

"UTSA knows you're on sick leave this week,"
she said. "It's okay with Professor Mitchell."

"Probably has his professors abducted by drug
dealers all the time."

"Mitchell should be relieved it was only that. I
doubt the University's insurance rating could stand another
fatality."

"Damn, you're cheery."

I listened to Harold clink around in the kitchen. I
could smell butter sizzling in a frying pan.

"Can you talk about what happened?" Ana
asked.

I did my best.

When I was done, Ana said, "Will you press
charges against Chich?" Ever the cop.

"If you think it will do any good. But there's
something else, before I change my mind. It's about Ines Brandon."

Once I got the truth out, I didn't feel a damn bit
better. Apparently neither did DeLeon. She sat silent, staring at the
embers in the fireplace.

"I didn't want to tell you," I said.

She flashed me an irritated look. "You want
thanks?"

"Michael Brandon's only five years old. I don't
want him to be the one who's punished."

"Tres — I already knew."

I stared at her. Vague memories started to form of my
conversation with Chich. "Del Brandon."

"Kelsey and I played some hardball with Brandon
on Saturday — hauled in one of his employees, man named Ernie
Ragan."

"Big guy," I remembered. "Blond
cornrows."

DeLeon nodded. "Turns out Ernest is wanted in
three states — grand theft auto, agg. assault, rape. If you were
him, would you want to be extradited to Mississippi? You ever been to
one of their penitentiaries?"

"He decided to deal — give you his boss."

"Ernie would've given us his sweet old mother,
we asked him to. So we chatted awhile, then brought in Del. Ten hours
of questions, no lawyers. We told Del we wanted to ask him some
questions about the murder of Hector Mara, mentioned how very
cooperative Ernie had been. His employee in custody, the murder
charges — that scared him. Del told us about Sandra Mara — Ines
Brandon. Told us the whole thing was about her."

"The prick admit to anything himself?"

"He said he helped Sandra Mara change her name,
then he threatened to give her up to keep Aaron from suing for the
business a few years back. He says her brother Hector came to see him
soon after that, intending to strong-arm him into silence, but they
came to terms, decided to strike up a little business. Del admitted
that there'd been some smack going through RideWorks, but he pinned
the whole idea on Hector. He denied any knowledge of his brother's
murder. Or Mara's."

"Del's lying."

"You can put that into past tense."

"What?"

"You can put Del in past tense."

My eyelids felt heavy, so I closed them. "How?"

"We didn't detain him overnight," Ana said.
"Big mistake."

I thought about a big galoot in a loud shirt, gorilla
hair, block face. I tried to remember why I'd hated his guts, but all
I could picture was Del's look of pleasure when he spoke about
well-constructed merry-go-rounds.

"Del went home about three in the morning
Sunday," DeLeon said. "Walked inside and caught two rounds
in the chest."

"Like his brother."

"Except a .357, this time. Silencer. Like Mara
and Berton. Del's neighbors, of course, saw and heard nothing."

"And the killer's still out there."

"Where's your friend Ines?"

"I don't know. But it wasn't her."

"You are going to bring her in."

"I didn't say I had her."

"Don't insult my intelligence, Navarre."

I rubbed my temples. "Give me some time, okay?"

"Time. Oh, is that all."

A quake started and it took me more than a minute to
remember that I no longer lived in California — that it wasn't the
ground trembling but me. I heard DeLeon say, "Go ahead and
rest."

She put a quilt over me, lifted my feet back into her
lap.

"Do me a favor," I said.

"Yes?"

"Don't disappear while I'm asleep. People keep
disappearing on me."

And she didn't.

Sometime later, I opened my eyes in a haze and she
was still there — pensive and beautiful, staring into the
fireplace, Ralph's letter in her hand.
 

FORTY-EIGHT

I woke up flinching to the popcorn sound of distant
gunfire — the ping of bullets on metal somewhere out in the fields.

A block of sunlight was glowing on my quilt. Ana
DeLeon stood over me, snapping her Glock 23 into her Sam Browne
holster. She'd changed into business clothes — blazer and skirt and
immaculate white silk blouse.

"What's happening?" I asked.

"Your friend Deputy Gerson. That odd man, Mr.
Diliberto. They're practicing on your target range."

"Since when does a line of beer cans constitute
a target range?"

Ana checked her gun, straightened her blazer over it.
"You want me to call them back in? I need to get to town. I'm
already late."

"That's okay. Good luck with Rey Feo's
murderer."

Ana's eyebrows knit together. "What?"

I was hazy about how much I had told her the night
before, or even if it was the night before when we'd talked, so I
recounted my conversation Saturday with the bartender at the Poco
Mas. I told her that the old man had seen Hector Mara arguing several
weeks ago with a heavyset, dark-haired Anglo, a man Hector had
derisively referred to as Rey Feo.

"It was Del," I said. "Zeta Sanchez
had just gotten back into town. Del and Hector were meeting to figure
out what to do."

DeLeon looked at the Army Corps of Engineers' map of
Sabinal above the mantel. She seemed to be tracing the elevation
lines, trying to separate them.

"Ana?"

She shook her head. "I'm fine. It's just —
something Kelsey told me once. It rang a bell there for a second..."

Another round of gunfire crackled in the fields.

"Be careful when you go back. Chich knew you had
Del. He knew exactly what Del was telling you. Chich has somebody in
the department feeding him information."

Ana was silent.

"Kelsey was vice," I said, unnecessarily.

"Tres, he's my partner."

"As soon as you got into Chich's life, Chich was
on the phone to Kelsey."

"Look, Kelsey may not be the best partner, but—"

"Ana, just tell me you'll be careful."

She hesitated, then slowly reconstructed her smile.
"You're one to give advice. You sure you don't want me to get
your friends?"

"Let the boys have their fun with the beer
cans."

She kept her eyes on me a few seconds longer.

"What?" I asked.

"Nothing. You're going to be okay, is all. I'm
glad for that."

"You make it sound like a good-bye."

DeLeon came over and gave me a swift kiss on the
lips. Then she was gone. I listened to her car engine start, the
sound of gravel pinging under her wheels as she drove off.

After a few minutes I sat up, waited for the black
spots to clear, then tried to stand. I felt like I'd just dismounted
from an unfriendly bull. I looked down at the black socks and Wild
Turkey T-shirt.

"No," I decided.

I made my way through the bedrooms until I found some
spare clothes I'd left on my last visit — jeans, a flannel shirt.
After a year or two I managed to get dressed.

I checked the cupboard for something easy on the
stomach and found nothing except ammo boxes and rat poison. The
refrigerator held Budweiser and some cow drugs, massive syringes half
full and dirty with blood from their last use. I settled for a large
glass of tap water. On second thought, I didn't drink that 
either. After finding my boots, I opened the front door and did a
quick duck underneath the wasp nest forming there. Harold was as good
about keeping up the property as he was at stocking the larder.