Big Red Tiquila - Rick Riordan (41 page)

"Goddamn Cementville," I said.

Ralph grinned. "There’s no place like home."
 

58

The sign on the fence outside the factory said "
Sheff Construction—Keep Out."

There was no movement inside the barbed wire. No
trucks, no lights in the broken windows of the old factory. Ralph and
I sat in his car for a while and just watched while the Cadillacs
went by, old men going to the golf course, women going to shop
Albertson’s and SteinMart. The new subdivision, Lincoln Heights,
had its own private security, and after the same patrolman drove by
us twice, real slow, Ralph and I decided it was time to move on.

“
Tonight," I said. “I can’t do anything
until then without being seen by half the North Side. Neither could
they."

Ralph followed the security car with his eyes until
it was out of sight. "How you know who ‘they’ is, man?"

"One way to find out."

As if he were reading my mind, Ralph reached into his
backseat and produced a cell phone. I dialed a number I had memorized
from Lillian’s datebook and got an answering machine.

“
I’m thinking about visiting Cementville," I
said. Then I hung up.

Ralph started the Lincoln and pulled it into traffic.

"You got the right person, they got to move her
tonight," he said. "Or at least they got to look."

“
Yeah."

"You want some backup?"

I started to say no, then I decided not to be hasty.

“
I’ll call you."

Ralph nodded, then handed me a card.

“
Two numbers," he said. "Cell phone and
beeper."

“
A beeper?"

Ralph grinned. “Hey,
vato
,
the doctor is in."

When Ralph dropped me at home it was early afternoon.
Several hours until dark, when I could actually do something. Rather
than go crazy watching Robert Johnson run circles around the living
room, I took my sword and walked down the street to the edge of
Brackenridge Park.

The cicadas were the only thing stirring. Nobody was
stupid enough to walk over a block in this heat, much less exercise
in it. I crossed Broadway and jogged over to the Witte Museum where
the old iron gates of the Alligator Gardens were hanging off their
hinges. One of the less successful tourist attractions in San
Antonio, the Gardens had seen ticket sales to the public schools drop
off dramatically after the alligators had eaten a few hands off the
trainers. Then the place had faded into obscurity and eventually
closed. The gates were easy to climb, though, and the dried basin
where the gators had been kept made a perfect shady
tai chi
surface. I did an hour and a half of
high stance until I was sweating and about to pass out from the heat.
Then I rested for a few minutes and did another two hours of sword.
By the time the sun started going down, I had cleared my mind and
worked the kinks out of my body. I knew what the plan was.

I bought some provisions from the Lincoln Heights
Albertson’s, then I drove down to Vandiver and traded cars with my
mother. More or less. Actually she’d taken her Volvo somewhere so I
had to leave the keys to the VW in her mailbox and hot-wire Jess’s
truck. With luck he’d need to run for beer between TV shows and
would find it missing long before I could get it back to him. My
evening was starting to look up.

Jess’s monstrous black Ford must’ve known I was
not wearing the obligatory Stetson and boots required to ride such a
beast. It bucked and kicked all the way down Nacodoches until I
pulled it over into the scrub brush on Basse, just behind the old
freight entrance to Cementville.

“
Whoa, Nelly," I told the truck.

The engine shuddered resentfully and died. just as
well. Another few blocks like that and I would’ve had to shoot it
anyway.

I waited outside the fence for a couple of hours.
What I was lookin for didn’t materialize. I ate an Albertson’s
deli sandwich. I had some terrible Italian bottled water. On this
side of the old factory there were fewer high-priced new homes, which
meant there were fewer nervous security guards. After dark, traffic
died down to almost nothing. Nobody seemed to care about me and my
semi-stolen truck.

It was full dark when the Sheffs’ cherry-red
Mustang passed me and slowed down a quarter mile up the road, right
outside the old loading docks. I couldn’t see the driver very well
when he got out. He unchained the gates, got back in the Mustang, and
drove through.

I was about to drive back to the Albertson’s pay
phone when I noticed the cargo holder by the stick shift. No chance,
I thought. I opened it anyway and found Jess’s deep dark yuppie
secret. The real cowboys would’ve laughed him off the open range if
they’d known. Suddenly liking Jess more than I cared to admit, I
picked up this cellular phone and dialed Ralph’s number.

He picked up almost immediately.

"Annie get your gun," I said.

The line was silent for a moment. “Give me ten
minutes." Ralph hung up.

Exactly eleven minutes later the maroon U-boat slid
to a stop behind the truck. Ralph stepped up to the shotgun window
and leaned his head into the cab. "Nice wheels, vaquero. You
chewing Red Man, yet?"

“
The gun rack wouldn’t fit on my VW."

"No shit."

Ralph had changed into work clothes—Levi’s and a
loose black shirt, untucked. I didn’t need to ask what he was
carrying underneath. I pointed out the red Mustang up ahead, now dark
and silent just inside the chain-link fence. Ralph nodded.

"Meet you up there," he said. Then he
disappeared. By the time I got out of the truck and followed the
fence up to the gate, Ralph was crouched in a patch of wild cilantro.
He had his straight razor in one hand. In his other hand were four
severed tire valve stems. He held them up, grinned, then tossed them
through the fence. We watched the old factory for a while—the
weed-covered shipping yard, the storage silos, the grimy windows with
most of the glass broken out. The only thing moving were the
fireflies. They were everywhere tonight, pulsing off and on in the
hackberry bushes around the fence like defective Christmas lights.
Ralph nudged my arm. We watched the yellow cone of a flashlight,
aimed from the factory roof, slide up the right side of one of the
huge smokestacks and illuminate a metal rung ladder that led up to
the wraparound catwalk just below the red “O” in ALAMO. The light
clicked off abruptly.

I could hear Ralph swallow. "There’s a small
maintenance room up there where they wired up the sign," he
said. “I think."

His voice sounded like it was closing up all of a
sudden. I couldn’t see much in the dark, but I could’ve sworn he
was turning pale.

"Ralphas?"

“
Heights, man. I can’t handle them."

There was a quivery tone to his voice that might’ve
been funny under other circumstances, like Ralph trying to imitate
somebody who was really scared. But you don’t laugh at your
friend’s phobias. At least not when your friend is holding a
straight razor.

"Okay," I said. “We’ll deal with it
when we get there."

"Shit, vato, I didn’t think—"

"Forget it, Ralphas. Any other chained gates
between her and there, you think?"

Ralph showed me a small but wickedly sharp set of
metal cutters. His grin came back slowly.

"Not anymore,
vato
."

Minutes later we were crossing the train tracks under
the shadow of the factory walls. The ground was littered with dried
globs of cement, old railroad ties, scrap metal, dry sage grass—none
of it conducive to sneaking around in the dark. It was my turn to be
embarrassed. When I stumbled the second time Ralph had to grab me by
the shirt to keep me from sliding face first into a quarry pit. The
sound of the loosened gravel skittering into the hole echoed off the
building like a standing ovation. We froze. No sounds, no light from
above. Ralph’s childhood memories came through. He found a set of
metal doors around the side of the building that were standing wide
open. What moonlight there was fell in a square over the bottom steps
of a spiral stairwell. We went inside.

“
This goes to the roof," he said. "I
guess—yeah, there was talk about saving the old smokestacks for a
restaurant or something. You could store something up there for a
long time and none of the workers would think to bother it."

I looked up at the rickety stairwell.

"You okay with this?" I whispered.

"Don’t ask,
vato
.
Just start climbing. "

By the way every creak and groan of the staircase
echoed around as we ascended, I figured the interior of the building
must’ve been one massive chamber, stripped to a shell when the
plant shut down. I gave up counting steps when I got to a hundred. I
gave up counting missing bolts that were supposed to secure the
stairwell to the wall when I got to one. More I didn’t want to
know.

Somehow Ralph stayed behind me. After what seemed
like a thousand years we came to a door that was open to the roof. I
stepped out and immediately flattened my body against the wall of the
roof house to avoid making a silhouette. Ralph crawled out and sat
down, breathing heavily.

“
I’m not getting up," he said. “No way."

The view was tremendous—to the south, the lights of
McAlister Freeway snaking through the darkness of the Olmos Basin,
then emptying into the hazy glow of the downtown skyline. The
buildings there were all lit up gold except for the stark white Tower
of the Americas, the proverbial needle in the haystack. In the
opposite direction, Loop 410 made a glittering curve of hotels,
malls, singles apartment complexes around the North Side--"Loopland"
as it was not-so-affectionately called. Beyond that was the dark rise
of the Balcones Escarpment, and more storm clouds rolling in. Ralph
was not impressed. He sat cursing the horizon quietly in Spanish.

After being in the dark of the building, the moonlit
roof was easier to see across. A few yards away to the south, the tar
had sagged and caught a sizable lake of rainwater from the last
storm. It had almost evaporated after several days in the sun, but
not quite. There was still enough moisture around the edges to track
footprints—at least one set, leading toward the edge of the roof.
From there an old steel catwalk spanned thirty yards of empty space
to the ladder on the side of the smokestack. About one story up, the
ladder dead-ended at an oval door that resembled a submarine hatch.
The door was ajar, with light seeping out from behind it. I looked at
Ralph, who was either invoking God or preparing to throw up.

"I’m okay, " he croaked.

Then I looked back up and saw the door open, a
familiar face in the portal.

“
I wish I could say the same," I said.
 

59

With the light behind her, her hair looked
disheveled, like straw. She was wearing an old T-shirt and black
sweatpants smeared with paint. I couldn’t see her face well, but
she was moving slowly, like a sleepwalker.

Kellin hadn’t even changed out of his black
chauffeur’s outfit. He got onto the ladder first and guided Lillian
down onto the rungs,. cradling her with his body so she wouldn’t
fall. It took them a long time to descend to the catwalk.

"Thank God," Ralph whispered. He said a
prayer to the patron saint of acrophobics, then crept around to one
side of the roof house while I crept to the other. We waited.

Lillian started talking as they approached, but it
didn’t sound much like her. She giggled, then spoke in a low voice.
Kellin shushed her the way you would a child. I made a silent promise
to force-feed Kellin whatever the hell they’d doped her up with.

Then they were at the doorway, close enough for me to
catch Lillian’s scent—her perspiration, the way her skin smelled
on a hot night. Maybe that’s what tripped up my timing.

Whatever it was, Kellin froze. It should’ve been
over when Ralph stepped around, bringing the .357 over his head.
Instead, Kellin pushed Lillian into him, then knocked Ralph’s arm
away. It’s hard to send a S &W Magnum flying; it’s not
exactly a light gun. Nevertheless, it flew.

"Lillian said something like “Whoops” as she
toppled into Ralph. Only Ralph’s sheer terror of falling back into
the stairwell kept them both on their feet.

The .357 skittered across the tar and came to a stop
somewhere in the shadows off to my left. I stepped out and
immediately had to duck Kellin’s right cross. So much for the
surprise factor.

I didn’t think he was carrying, but I couldn’t
give him time to pull a weapon. Kellin stepped back and I stuck to
him like glue. That’s the most disconcerting thing about fighting a
tai chi opponent: you step back, they step forward; you advance, they
retreat; you swing right, they disappear to the left. The whole time
they’re only a few inches away, but you can’t connect a punch.
And they touch you almost the whole time—there’s a hand on your
shoulder, maybe, or fingertips on your chest, feeling exactly where
the tension is, where you’re going to move next. It’s very
annoying.