Big Red Tiquila - Rick Riordan (28 page)

The first thing I noticed when the light came on was
the color of my hand. Then the thing I was sitting on. I’d thought
it was a waterbed mattress, the way it gave under me, but waterbeds
aren’t covered in blue silk and they don’t have white hair. I got
up, turned it over, then made a face as contorted as the corpse’s.

Terry Garza was four hours early for our appointment.
Blood had flowed out of his neck so freely it had finally blossomed
and crusted over into a huge, grotesque rose on his neck. The
anticucho
skewer that
had brought it into bloom still sprouted from the center.

I tried to remind my stomach that it belonged inside
my rib cage, not my mouth. It didn’t listen very well. Look
someplace else, I told myself. I stared at the flower-patterned sofa
Garza had rolled off of, the stripped mattress in the far corner, the
three empty beer cans rattling on top of the air conditioner. There
was nothing else in the trailer.

Maia unfroze more quickly than I did. Without
speaking, she retrieved her keys and purse from Red, then killed the
overhead light. With her flashlight and a handkerchief, she started
going over Garza’s body, checking pockets, looking at his hands and
feet. Garza’s face had a twisted, almost puzzled expression. His
eyes stared out the ragged skylight Red had blown in the roof. At the
moment Garza looked like he had even more questions than I did.

"Don’t hold your breath," I told him.

Garza held his breath.

If anybody in Happy Haven had heard the shot, or
cared about it, we hadn’t had any indication of it so far.
Nevertheless, my internal timer was telling me it was past time to
leave. I used Red’s flashlight to make a quick check of the kitchen
while Maia examined the dead man. Under the silverware tray in the
left kitchen drawer was a six-month lease to Terry Garza of Sheff
Construction. When I got back to Maia she was looking at a photograph
she’d found on the dead man. She frowned when I interrupted her
train of thought by showing her the lease.

"Chez Garza."

She looked at me, nodded as if I’d said something
of absolutely no consequence, then looked back down at the photo.

"Hello?" I said.

"I apologize," she said at last. “Maybe
you should tell me more about your father’s murder."

She handed me the photo. It was almost identical to
the one I’d seen in Karnau’s portfolio, but in this one, the
blond man’s face was turned toward the camera. I still didn’t
recognize him. The two missing figures were slightly closer to him.
On the back "6/21" was written in black pen.

"Last month’s bill from Mr. Karnau," I
said.

Maia starting complaining in Mandarin about my
ignorance. "—facial hair fooling you again. Look at the bone
structure of the cheeks, the eyes."

I looked more closely at the face of the blond man.
It was thin, with deep-set eyes, crooked nose. Cleanshaven and short
slicked-back hair. I imagined him with longer hair, curly, and a
darker beard.

Suddenly I realized what the blackmail had been
about. The revelation wasn’t exactly uplifting.

"Randall Halcomb," I said.

"With his killers," Maia agreed.
 

38

I got no sleep the rest of the night. At sunrise I
was lying on my futon memorizing the ceiling and getting cold from
Maia’s breath condensing on my skin. Finally I extracted myself
from underneath her arm and got up.

Robert Johnson looked amazed that, for once, I was
the first one out of bed. He immediately began playing tackle
football with my feet as I tried to walk toward the kitchen. I
would’ve cursed at him except I knew he’d curse back loud enough
to wake Maia. I stumbled here and there, righting the coffee table,
picking up clothes, putting the fallen paperbacks back on the kitchen
counter. I struggled into some underwear and stood in front of the
bathroom mirror for a while, picking wood paneling out of my arm,
then reapplying Mercurochrome to my busted cheek.

"What a looker," I told myself. Robert
Johnson stared at me from the lid of the toilet and yawned. I slipped
into shorts and a sweatshirt, then did a solid two hours of tai chi
on the back porch, starting with the  low stance to shock my
muscles into working. After a while the thighs and calves unknotted
and I got too sweaty even for the mosquitoes.

I was just starting to feel better when the
neighborhood woke up for Sunday. The two pairs of eyes reappeared in
the upstairs window across the alley and stared at me through the
miniblind slats. The lady next door came out to read her paper on the
patio again. This time I hardly warranted a second look. She kept her
coffee cup firmly in hand and tightened her terry-cloth robe. Then
she smiled wickedly as she let a small herd of Chihuahuas out the
back door. For the last half of my set, they threatened me from their
side of the fence, yapping insanely and popping up into the air like
a tireless row of Mexican jumping beans. Meanwhile their mother read
aloud to them from Roddy Stinson, repeating the funny bits.

I tried to be grateful for the challenge to my
concentration. Think emptiness, Navarre. Blue water trickling down
through your body. Cultivate the chi. This morning, all I cultivated
was a headache and the need to pee like a racehorse. I said my silent
apologies to Sifu Chen and went inside.

Maia was making the last of the Peet’s coffee. Her
hair was blown into a mass on one side of her head, as if she’d
been walking on the beach. She was wearing my last clean T-shirt. She
looked up, smiled, and for a second burned the images of dead bodies
out of my mind. But only for a second.

"You look like hell, Navarre. And you just about
wore this poor girl out last night."

"I’m always great in the sack after getting
the shit kicked out of me."

"I’ll remember that." She pulled me
closer by the elastic of my shorts, then kissed my face. I winced.

" Speaking of last night--" I said.

She smiled, a little sad. "Leave it alone for a
while, Tex. Okay?"

I sat down with coffee at the counter, pushed Robert
Johnson’s butt out of my face, and stared at the .45 Maia had taken
from Red, the stacks of fifties I’d taken from Beau Karnau, the
crumpled photo of Randall Halcomb we’d found on Terry Garza’s
corpse.

I didn’t like the connections I was coming up with.
Ten years ago my father somehow finds out about the scheme to fix the
contract on Travis Center. Before he can make it public, the people
behind the plan use Randall Halcomb to silence the Sheriff. Then,
before the FBI can track down Halcomb, his employers silence him too.
Maia and I looked at each other.

"First rule of assassination," I told Maia,
"kill the killer."

Maia frowned. "And Beau Karnau just happens to
be there with a camera—in a field in the country in the middle of
the night. That’s a hell of a coincidence."

I agreed. It didn’t make sense. Neither did the
fact that blackmail payments for a ten-year-old murder had only been
happening for the last year.

I rubbed my eyes. "We need to know about Guy
White. Whether the mob’s really in this, or whether it’s just
convenient for somebody to make it look that way. We need to know
what the police have on Garza’s murder, and Moraga."

"And Lillian, " said Maia quietly.

I stared out at the crape myrtles. Maia came closer.
She put her hands lightly on my shoulders.

"First, you need to eat something," she
said. "Then we’ll see about the police."

I rubbed my eyes again, pondering how to make
breakfast from one beer and some baking soda. Thinking about my empty
refrigerator led me to thinking about Larry Drapiewski’s card
sitting in my medicine cabinet.

I looked at the time—9:00. Almost a civilized hour.
If I made it sound urgent enough, he could be here in under thirty
minutes, but only if I was prepared to discuss police matters in the
serious businesslike manner to which he was accustomed. Which meant
only one thing.

I peeled a few fifties off Beau Karnau’s stack.

“
First," I told Maia, "we go grocery
shopping."
 

39

I wasn’t sure whether Pappy Delgado was glad to see
me or just happy to meet Maia. I harbored illusions that the old
grocer took an interest in my well-being. It was probably closer to
the truth that he took an interest in Maia’s white culottes and
brown legs. Whichever, it was a slow morning in his little pink
Christmas—lighted store, and Pappy decided to give us a guided tour
of the produce aisle. On the way he helped me correct my Californian
Espanol
so I sounded
more like a
Tejano
than a Cuban. Sandia instead of
patia
for watermelon
agua fresca
.
Forget guinea for banana. He seemed endlessly amused to be schooling
the gringo. Finally, while Maia was picking out avocados, Pappy
nodded his huge nose her way and grinned at me.

"
Y la chica
?"
he whispered.

I told him he was a dirty old man. He just grinned
and told me he bathed daily, preferably not alone.

I called Drapiewski from the pay phone at the corner
of New Braunfels and Eleanor and told him we had things to talk about
and
pan dulce
to eat.
He grudgingly agreed to come over.

"You want to give me some context here, Navarre?
What’s the problem?"

“
Heard about the murder at Sheff Construction? You
guys had some deputies on the scene, I remember."

He was silent.

"Okay, how about Terry Garza dead on Austin
Highway? We called it in anonymously last night."

He was still silent.

"Can I take that as a yes?" I asked.

"Holy hell," Drapiewski said. Then he hung
up on me. Back at Queen Anne, I heated up the
pan
dulce
Pappy’s wife had made in the back of
the shop that morning and added a little butter and cinnamon. By the
time they were out of the oven, Drapiewski was at the door. He wasn’t
in a jovial mood.

Before he said anything he took a fistful of
pan
dulce
and sat on the futon. On impact, it
sank a few feet into the foundation. Robert Johnson was flushed out
from underneath and belly-crawled all the way to the closet.

"All right," said Drapiewski. "Now
what the fuck is this about homicides?"

Then Maia came out of the bathroom. Larry turned
redder than he already was and pulled off his hat. He started to get
up.

“
Sorry," he said. "Didn’t know you had
company."

Maia smiled and motioned him to stay seated.

"That’s all right, Lieutenant. I’m
enchanted—I didn’t know anyone apologized for saying ‘fuck’
anymore."

"Ah—" Larry said.

Maia laughed, then introduced herself. One hand shake
and Larry was in love. He grinned cinnamon and butter. He tried to
make room on the futon for her and just about goosed himself with his
nightstick. Since he’d totally forgotten he was supposed to be
pissed at me, I decided to help him out. "Homicide, Larry? You
were saying?"

He tried to scowl at me. Maybe it was for Maia’s
benefit.

"I checked the telex on Garza a few minutes ago.
Nothing’s even been posted yet."

Maia sat back as much as she could on the two inches
of the futon not occupied by Drapiewski’s body.

“
Is that unusual?"

"What’s unusual is that I hear about it from
your friend here first." His eyes bored into me with all the
accusatory power of a faithful hound dog I’d just kicked.

"I also followed up on Karnau this morning—had
one of my deputies swing by his apartment, then his studio. They were
both empty, like Karnau’s left town."

Maia and I looked at each other. Larry waited.

“
So you want to tell me?" he asked.

I told him. By the time I got to last night’s
soiree
in Terry
Garza’s trailer, Drapiewski didn’t look too happy. When I’d
finished he put his hands together like he was praying and pointed
them at me.

“
You walked out on a murder scene after removing
evidence."

"That’s one interpretation," I admitted.

"And the only solid evidence you have about this
construction scam you obtained during a B & E at Sheff’s
offices, which pretty much ruins it for the courts."

I nodded.

Larry’s huge red eyebrows came together. He
exhaled.

“
Son, you probably just ruined the best chance we’d
ever have to string Guy White up by his balls for murdering your dad.
I would’ve given anything, anytime in the last ten years for that
chance and you just—" He stopped, collected himself. I could
tell he was counting silently. "All right, let’s say you
broached this whole thing as a hypothetical. Okay, fine. I’m not
obliged to follow up. But here’s my hypothetical advice: Get your
ass down to SAPD and cooperate like hell."