The Last King of Texas - Rick Riordan Read online

  Jem kept working on the perpetual motion machine. He had one wheel that turned two others and made the top spin around like a helicopter. He was now trying to figure out how to stabilize the base.

  Kelly flipped a page in her magazine. "So, Tres — you still going on that double date tonight? With your face looking like that?"

  I flashed George a look to let him know I would murder him later.

  He held up his hands. "Hey, Tres, I told her you were doing me an act of charity, man. That's all."

  "What a guy," Kelly agreed. "Always giving. Who was the recipient last month — Annie?"

  George said, "Yeah. The banker."

  Kelly made her lips do a long silent M. "If your love life was a disease, Tres Navarre, it would have killed you long ago."

  "You prescribe chicken soup?"

  "Among other things. Not that you listen."

  George cleared his throat loudly. Erainya gave him another look-of-death. "Hey," Berton whispered to Kelly, "you get tired of waiting, chica—" He curled all his fingers toward his chest.

  Kelly actually blushed.

  "She did great on the background files for this UTSA case," George told me. "Stuff on the professor, his family. Amazing what this girl can pull together in a morning. You know this dead professor, this Aaron Brandon guy — you know he's part of the same Brandon family that was in that thing a few years ago? "

  "That thing."

  I looked at Kelly for enlightenment. She didn't give me any.

  "Yeah, you know." George made a gun with his hand. "Pow, pow."

  "Pow, pow?"

  "Yeah." George smiled, apparently satisfied that we were on the same page. "Family's got some bad damn luck. Anyway, Kelly pulled up all of that in one morning. Just on the computer. She's something."

  "She's something," I agreed. "Speaking of those background files—"

  "You're going to want a copy." Kelly opened my side drawer and produced a thick rubber-banded folder, plopped it in front of me. "Erainya got me started while certain other people were out getting themselves blown up. Regretfully, not completely blown up. Was there anything else?"

  Her tone was super-sweet.

  I said, "Ouch, already."

  She batted her eyes.

  Erainya hung up the phone, put her hands on her desk, and hoisted herself to a full imposing height of five-foot-zero. She looked across the office at me, her eyes black and piercing.

  "So, what—?" she demanded. "You managed not to get yourself killed. You think that makes your morning successful? Come back here."

  "Been nice knowing you," George commiserated.

  I rapped my knuckles on his desk, then went to see the boss. I could feel Kelly Arguello's eyes on my back the whole way.

  Behind every man, there is a woman whom he's successfully pissed off. Unfortunately, with me, there's usually one in front, too.

  FOUR

  Erainya's desk was piled high with manila case folders arranged in precarious spirals like cocktail party napkins. In the valleys between were crumpled balls of legal paper, framed pictures of Jem, two phones, investigative reference books, surveillance equipment, and the disgorged contents of several purses.

  Multicolored sticky notes were slapped down here and there like stepping-stones through the chaos.

  It was difficult to tell, but the project on top seemed to be a spread of brochures, glossy three-folds like mailers for investment companies. The one nearest me read St. Stephen's. Excellence Is Our Tradition. A sepia photo of an adolescent boy with glittering braces smiled sideways at me.

  Erainya nodded me toward the client's chair.

  She had on her usual outfit, an unbelted black T-shirt dress that hung on her body like a handkerchief over an Erector set. No makeup, no jewelry, no hose. Simple black flats.

  "This is your idea of a thank-you for the nice job?" she demanded. "You get yourself detonated?"

  "I'm ungrateful, I know."

  She made a sideways slap at the air, a gesture of annoyance she does so often I'd learned not to sit next to her in restaurant booths. "You're lucky UTSA is keeping us on."

  "Totally ungrateful," I agreed. "You arrange a teaching position for me without my knowledge, let me win you an investigative contract with the University, and I don't even say kharis soi."

  Erainya frowned. "What is that — Bible Greek?"

  "Only kind I know. I'm a medievalist, remember?"

  "The modern phrase for 'thank you' is ephkharisto, honey. Good one to learn, seeing as I keep doing you favors."

  She reached toward her spiral files, used her fingers as a dowsing rod, then pinched out the exact slip of paper she wanted. She handed me a printout of classes — medieval graduate course Lit 4963, Chaucer undergraduate seminar Lit 3213, one section of freshman English.

  "Three classes," Erainya said. "Wednesday and Friday afternoons. You're a visiting assistant professor, six thousand for the rest of the semester allocated from the dean's discretionary fund. I don't call that bad."

  "What's your commission?"

  She sighed. "Look, honey, I knew you had some hard feelings when you had to turn down the teaching position last fall."

  "Completing the license was my decision, Erainya."

  "Sure, honey. The right decision. I'm just saying — this opportunity came up—"

  "A man getting shot to death."

  "—and I figured it was perfect. You get to teach some classes, keep working for me. They offer you a contract next fall, you'll get full benefits and thirty K a year. Plus what you make for me."

  I drummed my fingers, let my eyes weave across the clutter of Erainya's desk.

  "You're going to send me to boarding school if I say no?"

  It took her a second to remember the brochures. "They're not boarding."

  "Private school for Jem?"

  She scowled, began gathering up the brochures. "I want the best."

  "These places have scholarships?"

  "Stop changing the subject."

  "Most people still do public, Erainya. Kids turn out fine."

  "You're telling me Jem is most kids?"

  I looked back at Jem, who was now trying to explain to Kelly Arguello how the gears for his Tinkertoy motion machine worked.

  "All right," I admitted. "He's exceptional. Still—"

  "You worry about your college classes. Let me worry about kindergarten."

  "And the Brandon case?"

  "Let George take care of that."

  "SAPD give you anything?"

  "I just told you — wait a—"

  I leaned toward the morass of papers on her desk and did my own dowsing job, plucked a phone message slip that was sticking out of a stack of reports. "Put that back," Erainya demanded.

  I read the message. "Ozzie Gerson. Deputy Ozzie Gerson?"

  "I'm not talking to you."

  "Ozzie's about as low in the sheriffs department as you can get without crawling under one of their patrol cars. You're asking him for information. On a city homicide case, no less."

  Erainya tapped her fingers. "Look, honey, I know you."

  "Meaning what, exactly?"

  "Meaning if I tell you details, you're going to decide it's your case. You're going to go poking around when what I really need for you to do is stay safe and make UTSA happy."

  "Is this connected with that thing a few years ago?"

  "That thing."

  "Yeah. You know. That other guy named Brandon. Pow, pow."

  Erainya folded her arms. Her black hair stuck out wiry free-style, not unlike Medusa's. "Just do your teaching, honey. Give George a week and he'll have a full report for UTSA. You got an advanced degree. You can read it."

  "Gosh, thanks."

  "And what I said about the sheriffs department — just because Ozzie's a mutual friend, don't get any bright ideas."

  "You know I'll ask him."

  "Let me pretend, honey. For my pride, all right?"

  "Anything else?"

 
Erainya picked up the private school brochures again. She shuffled through them, contemplating each, then carefully dealt out three in front of me. "If you were choosing between those, which would you pick?"

  I frowned at the brochures. Maroon, green, blue. All very slick. All sported pictures of venerable school facades and happy honors students, grinning and hugging their textbooks like old friends.

  I looked up at Erainya. "I know nothing about schools."

  "You know Jem?"

  "I have that pleasure."

  "All right, then. I'm asking you."

  I picked up the brochures reluctantly. A weird memory came to me from thirteen years ago, when I'd looked through brochures for graduate schools. The forms, the spiel, the tuitions. These were about the same. "Eighty-five hundred a year? "

  Erainya nodded. "Cheap."

  "For New York, maybe."

  "I want the best," Erainya insisted. "I'm not asking you about the finances, honey. I'm asking you about those three choices."

  Hesitantly, I held up the green brochure. "This one. I've heard it's a nice place. Small. Got an arts program. It isn't Catholic."

  "I thought you were Catholic."

  "I rest my case."

  Erainya took back the brochure. "I'll get Jem a visiting date. He'll want you to take him."

  "Me?"

  "You don't know Jem adores you, honey? You blind?"

  "We need to work on the kid's taste."

  "No argument." Erainya collected the brochures. "Now get out of here and rest. You got class tomorrow. And no poking around in George's case." "Suggestion noted."

  Erainya shook her head sourly. She gazed at the gilded icon of Saint Sophia hanging on the wall next to her desk and muttered something, probably a Greek prayer to deliver the Manos clan from wicked, disrespectful employees. As I was going out, George Berton was fielding another call. He covered the receiver long enough to say, "See you tonight."

  Kelly looked up from Jem's Tinkertoys. "I'll see you Thursday." I agreed that he would and she would.

  Then I ruffled Jem's hair and told him to keep at it with the perpetual motion engine. I anticipated needing one.

  FIVE

  By the time I got home the painkillers had started to wear off. The delayed shock of the morning's explosion was starting to do funny things to my brain. As I walked up the sidewalk of 90 Queen Anne, the backward-leaning facade of the old two-story craftsman looked even more precarious than usual. The purple bougainvillea around the awnings seemed fluid and sinister. When I got around the side of the building to the screen door of my in-law apartment, I had trouble making myself touch the latch.

  Once inside, I settled onto a stool at the kitchen counter. Robert Johnson leaped up next to me and rubbed against my forearm. I ignored him. I was too busy trying to convince myself that the dots on the linoleum floor were not accelerating.

  I pulled down the wall-mounted ironing board and picked up the phone, which is installed in the alcove behind for reasons known only to God and Southwestern Bell.

  There was a message from my mom, wondering if I was going to make it for dinner. Another message from Maia Lee in San Francisco, asking if I was okay. Maia apologized for being out of town when I'd called her Sunday.

  My finger hovered over the ERASE button for a good five seconds. I punched it.

  I called Deputy Ozzie Gerson's cell phone number and found him working patrol on the far South Side. When I mentioned the Brandon murder he grumbled that he'd try to stop by.

  Then I went back to the kitchen counter, snapped the rubber band on Kelly Arguello's files, and started reading.

  Professor Aaron Brandon. Born San Antonio, 1960, graduated Churchill High in 1977. BA. at Texas A & M, M.A. and Ph.D. at UT Austin. First full-time teaching job: a year here in San Antonio, non-tenure track at Our Lady of the Lake University, 1992-93. Contract not renewed for reasons unspecified. After that, six glamorous years at UT Permian Basin, known among the region's academics as UT "Permanent Basement." Brandon had returned home to San Antonio last Christmas to accept the emergency opening at UTSA. He had been killed three weeks before his thirty-ninth birthday. He had no police record of any kind. His wife's name was Ines, age twenty-four, maiden name Garcia, born in Del Rio, also no police record. They had a five-year-old boy named Michael — older than Jem by two months.

  The curriculum vitae Aaron Brandon had submitted to UTSA looked mediocre — a minimum of articles, published in lesser-known journals, a course load that was ninety percent freshman English and ten percent medieval, references that were no more than confirmations of his past employment status. The only violent edge in Brandon's life seemed to be the works he studied. He had an affinity for the more disturbing texts — Crucifixion plays, Crusade accounts of the Jewish massacres, some bloodier stories from Chaucer and Marie de France. The theses he'd written looked adequate if not brilliant. It made me feel just dandy to have been offered the same job as he.

  Kelly's search for the name Brandon in the Express-News archives had yielded nothing about Aaron but some about his family.

  A business section interview from '67 featured one Jeremiah Brandon, founder of a company called RideWorks. Kelly had highlighted the last paragraph of the story. This mentioned that Jeremiah had two sons he was raising by himself — Del and Aaron.

  According to the article, Jeremiah Brandon was a former printing-press repairman who had made a small fortune repairing and building amusement rides for the many carnivals that passed through South Texas. Now with a permanent workshop and fifty employees, Jeremiah was increasing his profits yearly, and had invented such child-pleasing rides as the Super-Whirl and the Texas Tilt. I studied the 1967 photo of Jeremiah Brandon.

  He looked like a turkey buzzard in a suit — thin, hardened, decidedly ugly. The fierce hunger in his eyes animated his whole frame. I could imagine him descending on a broken amusement ride like so much delicious roadkill, stripping it to its frame and wrenching out the offending gears with his bare hands and teeth.

  The next article, dated April 1993, announced Jeremiah Brandon's murder. The details were sketchy. Jeremiah had been socializing with his workers at a West Side bar on a Friday night. An unknown assailant had entered the bar, walked up to Jeremiah Brandon, and fired multiple rounds from a large-caliber handgun into the old man's chest. The assailant had fled. Despite numerous eyewitnesses, the police had no positive ID to work with. Not even a sketch. The witnesses at the Poco Mas Cantina on Zarzamora had apparently been less than model citizens when it came to exercising their memories.

  There were three follow-up articles, each shorter than the one before it, each pushed farther away from page Al. They all said the same thing. Police were without leads. The investigation had failed to produce a suspect, at least none that the police wanted to share with the press.

  I flipped through a few other pieces of paperwork — Aaron Brandon's driving records, insurance policies. The lease for Aaron and Ines' Alamo Heights home was made out in the name of RideWorks, Inc.

  I was still thinking about the murdered father and son when Deputy Ozzie Gerson knocked on my front-door frame.

  "Can't believe it," he said. "You still live in this dump."

  "Good to see you too. Come on in."

  He inspected the living room disdainfully.

  Ozzie was the kind of cop other cops would like you to believe doesn't exist. He had a fat ring the size of a manatee slung around his midsection, powdered sugar stains on his uniform. He wore silver jewelry with a gold Rolex and his greasy buzz cut covered his scalp as thinly as boar's whiskers. His face was pale, enormous, brutishly sculpted so that even in his kinder moments he looked like a man who'd just attended a very satisfactory lynching.

  "You call this an apartment?"

  "I tried calling it a love cave," I admitted, "but it scared the women away."

  "This isn't an apartment, kid. This is a holding cell. You've got no sense of style."

  By my standards the in-law loo
ked great. On the futon, the laundry was clean and folded. Stacks of agency paperwork were tidily arranged on the coffee table. My tai chi swords were polished and in their wall rack. Stuck on the refrigerator, like a normal home and everything, was a kid's watercolor (Jem's) and a postcard (my brother Garrett's, with the endearing inscription IN KEY WEST WITH BUFFETT — GLAD YOU AIN'T HERE!!!). The only possible eyesore was Robert Johnson, who was now lying on the kitchen counter with his feet curled under his chest and his tongue sticking out.

  "Track lighting," Ozzie advised. "White carpet. A big mirror on that wall. Go for open. Light and airy."

  "I feel it," I said. "I really do. You want to sit down while I call the decorator?"

  He pointed over his shoulder. "We can talk and ride."

  I turned to Robert Johnson, who had seen Ozzie too many times to get excited by him or his designer tips. "Lock up if you leave."

  Robert Johnson curled his tongue in a tremendous yawn. I took that as an assent.

  My landlord, Gary Hales, was now on the front porch of the main house, cracking pecans into a large metal pail. The spring afternoon wasn't particularly hot, but Gary had one of those head-mounted mist sprayers slung across his balding skull. The thing must've been on full blast. Droplets floated around him like a swarm of gnats, dripping off his nose and chin and speckling his Guayabera shirt. Gary looked up apathetically as Ozzie Gerson and I walked by, then went back to his work. Just Tres Navarre getting picked up by the police.

  Nothing out of the ordinary.

  "Last week fucking parade detail," Ozzie told me. "Today I been on duty an hour and already three calls. I need a hot dog."

  "Life on the edge," I sympathized.

  "Balls." He unlocked the passenger's door of his patrol car, realized he had about sixty pounds of equipment on the seat, then started transferring it to the trunk with much grumbling.

  Inside, the unit was about as spacious as a fighter jet cockpit. The area between the seats was filled with cellular phone and ticket pad and field radio. In front, where the drink holder and my left leg should've gone, an MDT's monitor and midget keyboard jutted out from the dashboard. The overhead visors held about a foot of paperwork, maps, and binders. The big book, the one with the whole county vectorized, was wedged between Ozzie's headrest and the Plexiglas shield that sealed off the backseat. I had just enough room to buckle my seat belt and breathe occasionally.