The Last King of Texas - Rick Riordan (34 page)

Footfalls on the steps outside.

"La policia believe me." Paloma said it
evenly.

"The police are licking their lips to put
Sanchez away. What really happened, Paloma? Why are you willing to
lie?"

From the doorway, her son said, "Leave her
alone, mister."

I turned. Juan's face was hard. His red Chris
Madrid's T-shirt was untucked from his shorts. His fists were balled.

Paloma kept turning the deer's eye around in her
thick fingers like a tiny steering wheel. She darted her eyes at Juan
and said, "La caja, mijito."

Juan hesitated, then saw the sternness in his
mother's expression. He got the box, hefted it, then carried it out,
his dark eyes still cracking the whip at me as he passed.

When he was gone, Paloma sighed. "I saw what I
saw, senor. Es todo."

"Somebody put two bullets into Hector Mara. If
you think silence will keep you safe, it won't."

Her expression hardened. She picked up another
ceramic mug, this one shaped like a man's head with a battered blue
hat and grizzled beard and a drunken grin. Paloma wrapped its face in
newspaper.

"I keep everything, senor." Paloma set the
mug in her box, picked up an ashtray. "My children's things. My
husband's photograph. Ines' things too, now. Where I go, these things
all go with me. Even the bad is important."

She gave me a wary look, as if she hoped but did not
anticipate that I would follow her reasoning. "You understand,
senor?"

I stared down into Paloma's half-packed box. I took a
deep breath, trying to control the desire to kick myself. "Maybe
I do, Paloma."

I headed back down her rickety stairs, past her
glaring son, down the driveway to George's red Barracuda. I had a
meeting to make at the 410 Diner.
 

FORTY-TWO

Sunset was a good time to hit the 410. The luminous
strips of blue and orange sky went well with the neon trim on the
nuevo moderne diner. Its long oval windows glowed with light and the
bar inside glistened green and black. Even the menu board exuded a
kind of oily class — black acrylic inscribed with Day-Glo colors
that made the words mashed potatoes & meat loaf seem chic and
trendy.

In the main room, booths were molded from enough
chrome to refit several '57 Chevy Biscaynes. Along the walls hung
neon-laced portraits of Jimmy and Marilyn and the other Hollywood
regulars.

By the front window, three middle-aged Anglos were
drinking margaritas and talking about a cattle auction. Midroom, at
one of the black Formica tables, an older couple ate in silence —
the man with grizzled beard and pony-tail, leather cowboy hat, pastel
Apache-print Western shirt; his date an enormous pasty woman in a
denim dress.

Ines and the kids sat at a back booth. Del Brandon,
my favorite person, sat in a chrome chair at the end of the table.
Del was talking to Ines, tapping his finger on a set of documents.
Jem and Michael were playing with packets of Sweet'n Low.

I grabbed a menu from the waitress station, then slid
into the booth beside the kids. "Sorry I'm late."

Jem shrieked with delight and gave me a crushing hug.
Nobody else did. Ines' hair was loose around her shoulders, her face
washed clean of makeup. She was dressed for moving — jeans, no
jewelry, an oversized Fiesta '98 T-shirt with a glistening crumple of
packing tape stuck to one sleeve.

Del's Hawaiian shirt and slacks were disheveled. His
wedge of black hair had started to crumble. His expression was equal
parts anger and weariness. "What the fuck are you doing here?"

"There are children present, Del. Behave. I'm
just picking up my amigo Jem. You remember Jem."

Jem waved hello by flapping a Sweet'n Low packet.

Del glared at Ines. "You invite this jerk?"

I picked up the three-page document in front of him.
"Something from your lawyers?"

Del tried to swipe the papers.

I kept them away.

The document seemed to be an agreement between Ines
and Del. It recognized Del's ownership of RideWorks, Inc., and
renounced all future claims by Aaron Brandon's estate. Ines had
already signed it. Her signature—

I looked up at her. "Why?"

Del said, "That's none of your goddamn
business."

"Tres." Ines looked protectively at
Michael, saw that he and Jem were occupied with saccharin and
Captain's Wafers. "Del's right," she said firmly. "This
isn't your business."

I flipped the document into Del's chest. "Won't
do you much good in jail, partner."

He tried to grab the front of my shirt.

I intercepted his wrist, forced it down on the
Formica tabletop. "Temper," I said softly.

Ines hissed, "Stop it! Both of you."

Del yanked his hand away. "You want to see
something from my lawyers, Navarre? You'll get it."

"Del," Ines said. "You have what you
wanted. Now leave."

Del kept glaring at me. He folded the papers,
pocketed them. "Don't fucking come near me again, Navarre. You
understand?"

"Good-bye, Del," Ines insisted.

Brandon shoved the metal chair back, gave me one last
drop-dead look, then pushed past the waitress who was just bringing
the food. The waitress called after him, "But... sir—?"

I tapped the table for her. "Right here,
please."

Ines and Michael and Jem accepted their meals without
a word. Low-cal chicken breast salad for Ines. Hot dogs and corn on
the cob for Michael and Jem. Del had ordered the Sonora casserole
platter with black-eyed peas and buttered squash and enough corn
bread to construct a small toolshed. That was fine by me.

At the next table, the older couple sawed into their
chicken-fried steaks. The geezer with the cowboy hat looked away
quickly when I caught his eye.

Ines poked at her salad. Jem ate his hot dog. Michael
sat frowning at his.

"Michael, eat your food," Ines said.

"Not hungry."

"Try the corn. You like corn on the cob."

Michael picked at the corn skeptically.

Jem got halfway through his dinner and announced
himself full.

"Tell you what, guys," I said. "I've
got some quarters. How about you check out the sticker machines by
the entrance. See if you can get me a Betty Boop, okay?"

Jem negotiated for a Felix the Cat, too. I told him
he drove a hard bargain. Then I fished out as many quarters as I had
and handed them over. I got out of the booth and let Jem and Michael
scramble past.

When I scooted back in, I tried to concentrate on
Del's Sonora casserole — corn tortilla, cheese, squash, tomato, a
hint of salsa and sour cream. Eating was easier than what I needed to
say.

"I didn't expect Del," Ines told me. "I
wouldn't have brought the boys."

"Why did you sell out?"

She stabbed her fork into the salad. A strip of
mirror set into the black wall tiles by Ines' shoulder gave back her
reflection, hazy with grease specks.

"I don't want any part of RideWorks," she
said. "What's the difference?"

"You really think signing the company over will
keep Del silent about you?"

Her hesitation was almost imperceptible. She brought
the fork to her mouth, took a bite, only then glanced up. "What
are you blathering about?"

"You're Sandra Mara."

She tried to maintain her look of cold annoyance, but
something in her eyes spiraled downward. She lowered her fork,
arranged it parallel to her plate. "No. I'm not."

At the entrance of the diner, Jem and Michael
scrutinized the toy vending machines, looking for just the right
investment. Behind them, the second hand on the pink neon bar clock
ticked its way between the only two numbers — 4 and 10.

Ines managed a small, bitter laugh.

"You don't know..." she started. "You
can't possibly know how many times I've anticipated this
conversation. I've imagined facing a cop. Or a veterano with a gun
pointed at me. Now I'm sitting across from a pissant private dick
who's a closet English teacher and his boss' baby-sitter, and the
best I can come up with to save myself is, 'No, I'm not.'"

"I wouldn't call it baby-sitting."

She crumpled her napkin, threw it against the A.l.
steak sauce in disgust.

"Well" — her voice dry as a West Texas
creekbed— "what now?"

"Wish I knew."

Cheers from across the room. The three Anglos by the
window were applauding the waitress as she brought them fresh
margaritas.

Ines said, "Tres, I can't lose my son."

"Don't you think I've considered that?"

"The police would find reasons to take him away.
If Zeta knew, he'd have me killed. You haven't—"

"Not yet. I wasn't sure until tonight. Paloma
has some of your old things, some mementos you meant to get rid of.
One of them was a sailor's-head mug. There's three just like it in
the farmhouse on Green Road. Something from your grandmother?"

Ines pushed her salad away. "What do you want?"

"Tell me you didn't know about your husband's
murder. Tell me you're innocent."

"Why? So your report will be more complete?"

"Come on, Sandra."

"Don't call me that."

"Ines, then. Let me help."

"Zeta will have me killed. Michael will have no
one."

"Talk to me. We'll figure it out."

"Ha."

I dropped my fork into the casserole. "You're
right. You should be having this conversation with someone else."

I started to slide out of the booth.

Ines said, "Wait."

She studied me, her hands pressed together,
fingertips to her lips. She looked like she was weighing a lot of
options she didn't like.

"You want to know about Sandra Mara?" she
asked. "Let me tell you about Sandra Mara."

She sat forward, tapped the scar on the bridge of her
nose. "Sandra Mara got this when she was eleven, trying to fend
off her drunk stepfather. She didn't do a very good job. He broke her
nose with a beer bottle. If he hadn't scared himself so bad with the
amount of blood coming from her face, that would've been her first
experience with sex."

"Ines—"

"Just listen," she insisted. "You
think that was unusual for a girl in the Bowie Courts? My point is,
most girls would've fought better. They would've had their own razor
blades by then and known how to use them. At least they would've
screamed, raised hell with their mother or their brothers, told
somebody the truth about what had happened. Sandra did none of that.
She was too afraid. She spent the next five years in the Rosedale
Library, every afternoon and evening, reading books, trying to avoid
going home. By the time she was thirteen, when the neighborhood locas
threatened to kill her if she didn't join a gang, Sandra had read
Jane Eyre, Great Expectations, fifty other books — but she had no
survival skills. She would've died if her brother Hector hadn't
joined Zeta Sanchez's set, got himself shot in the leg so his little
sister would have the right connections to be left alone."

Jem and Michael had scored their first purchase from
the sticker machine. Michael was prying open the plastic capsule
while Jem watched impatiently. "You're pretty hard on yourself,"
I said.

Ines picked a toothpick from the dispenser, rolled it
between her thumb and finger. "Sandra Mara couldn't have been a
mother, Tres. Her idea of heaven was her grandmother's farm, where
she and Hector moved when she was sixteen. No homeboys running
through the house. No strung-out mother or drunk stepfather to avoid.
Nothing to keep Sandra from losing herself in books. She even got a
college scholarship her senior year. But you don't get away from the
South Side without a fight. The same afternoon Sandra found out about
the scholarship—"

"—was the afternoon Hector brought Zeta
Sanchez out to visit," I said. "I read your journal."

Her mouth hardened with distaste. "When you dig
into somebody's past, you really dig, don't you?"

"It wasn't hard to find."

Ines snapped her toothpick, flicked the pieces away.
"If you read it, you know. Sandra and Zeta hadn't seen each
other in two or three years, since back at the Courts, when Sandra
hadn't been much to look at. But Zeta looked at her that afternoon,
and you know what? Sandra couldn't fight it. Hector couldn't help
her. She let herself get claimed. Zeta and Sandra got married two
months later. A few months after that, Zeta said, 'You stop college.'
Sandra went along with that, too."

"Zeta Sanchez wouldn't be an easy person to
fight."

Ines stared at me as if her perspective were
shifting, as if she were suddenly aware that I was much farther away
than she'd thought. "Maldicion. Always an excuse, eh? Always a
reason to give in. You and Sandra Mara would have gotten along fine,
Tres. Sandra might've had five or six of Zeta's babies after quitting
school, waited for Zeta to get tired of her and leave, or start using
her as a punching bag. Sandra saw her mom go through all that.
Would've been easy to follow tradition. But that fall while I was at
Our Lady of the Lake, something happened that made me want to stop
being Sandra Mara."