The Devil went down to Austin tn-4 Page 9

  I made it clear that I would destroy Adrienne Selak's character in a trial, make it seem highly plausible she'd fallen off that boat, maybe even committed suicide. I would trash the prosecution's lack of physical evidence. Adrienne's family backed off. The police wavered. That's where we left it, as of January. They never filed charges."

  "All in a good day's work," I said.

  Maia didn't respond.

  Garrett nursed his margarita. He was watching Pena and Hayes, who were still having words at the bar. Despite the crowd, the seat Maia had vacated there was still empty.

  None of Jimmy Doebler's friends was rushing to fill it.

  "Most of what I learned about Matthew Pena," Maia said, "I learned afterward. He tries to destroy people, Tres. It doesn't stop when he gets what he wants. He follows up, pays visits, twists the dagger as much as he can. He toys with people's minds."

  "And you found this out…"

  "Because he tried to do it to me."

  Before I could respond, Ruby McBride was there, her large friend Clyde Simms in tow.

  "Well!" she said. "This must be the happy people's table."

  Ruby had shed her white jacket since the memorial service. Her blouse was sleeveless and sheer. She'd wrapped a Cleopatrastyle silver snake armband around her biceps. Versatile outfit-perfect for the woman who needs to hit the singles scene right after her ex husband's funeral and doesn't want the hassle of changing.

  There were no seats for our guests. Clyde folded his arms, seemed content to root there and let the crowd navigate around him.

  Ruby knelt next to Garrett, draped one arm around his neck, then slipped a tiny silver camera out of her pants pocket.

  She smiled at Maia and me. "Got to get this for the scrapbook."

  The flash left me blinking black amoebas.

  "We are so indebted to you for coming, Miss Lee," Ruby said. "Your advice so far-well, we wouldn't be here today, would we?"

  "You want to blame somebody-" Garrett started.

  "No blame," Ruby protested. "Of course, I hope Miss Lee won't mind-just this once-if we don't invite her to our meeting tonight. I really think it should be just the company's principals. Those of us who are still left."

  Maia started to get up. "I'll see you later, Garrett. Tres."

  "Oh, Miss Lee. Don't leave on my account!"

  "I've got to go to the little girls' room," Maia said. "Repair my hairspray and stuff. You understand, Miss McBride."

  Once she was gone, Ruby said, "I love that woman."

  "She's good looking," Clyde grumbled. "You made her leave."

  Ruby waved her camera like she was dispelling smoke. "You have bad taste, Clyde."

  "You make me talk to Pena and Hayes again," Clyde warned, "I'll show you taste. I'll murder them."

  Ruby rolled her eyes. She slid into Maia's chair, aimed the camera at me diagonally. I held my hand in front of the lens until she gave up. "Spoilsport. I'm not excluding you from tonight's meeting, Tres, honey. After all, you have some direct interest in the capital at stake, don't you?"

  "You mean he's likely to side with you," Garrett complained.

  Ruby said cheerfully, "That too."

  Over at the bar, the argument between Pena and Hayes was escalating, some of the words even cutting through the bar noise. She. Sell. No.

  From the back patio, Kinky Friedman let out a loud aiyyaiyy aiyy! There was a spattering of applause, then Kinky launched into "Waitress, Please Waitress." The perfect romantic wedding song.

  Clyde was glaring at the fight between Pena and Dwight Hayes, which was now beginning to stop the conversations around them.

  "Somebody should kill that guy," Clyde groused.

  "Now, now," Ruby said. "That guy is our next paycheck, dear."

  Then Dwight Hayes pushed his boss. Maybe Dwight didn't mean to push as forcefully as he did. Maybe he caught Pena off balance. But Pena toppled backward, right off his barstool, flat on his ass.

  There were two seconds of frozen surprise at the bar, then bemused looks, then catcalls. Somebody started clapping.

  Matthew Pena got slowly to his feet.

  Dwight was apologizing, his arms raised, and Pena nodded reassuringly that everything was okay, then picked up a beer bottle and slammed it into the side of Dwight Hayes' face. It was Dwight's turn to go down.

  A woman shrieked. The crowd surged back.

  Clyde Simms said, "That's fucking it."

  Ruby tried to call after him, but Clyde was hearing none of it. He plowed through the crowd, toward the bar.

  There were two Travis County deputies working the wedding party's security by the back door, but they weren't moving yet- probably trying to decide if their duties included breaking up a nonweddingparty bar fight.

  Clyde tapped Matthew Pena's shoulder, got his attention, and decked him.

  Another surge backward from the crowd.

  I stood, but it was still hard to see.

  Dwight Hayes had just gotten up, and some misguided sense of loyalty or guilt prompted him to grab another beer bottle, which he brought down in a shipchristening manoeuvre on top of Clyde Simms' skull with a loud, hollow POCK.

  That just made the big man mad. Clyde swung around, bellowing "Fucking motherfucker!" and slashing three or four drinks off the bar.

  He tried to lift Dwight by his shirt, but that only works in the movies. All Clyde managed to do was yank fabric into Dwight's armpits, showing us all his skinny, tan midriff. Clyde slammed Dwight against the bar, slipped on something, and both men went over onto the floor, crushing Matthew Pena, who'd just been trying to get up.

  Garrett was cursing at me to wheel him the hell out of there before he got trampled.

  Ruby had her hand over her mouth. Whether she was amused or mortified, I couldn't tell.

  Across the room, the two deputies were finally trying to push toward the fight, but the crowd kept pushing them back. Maia Lee had come out of the bathroom? she wasn't having much luck moving, either.

  Clyde came up for air like a breaching whale, holding Dwight sideways by one leg and his neck. Dwight had found another bottle on the floor and was swinging it desperately, occasionally hitting Clyde, more often swiping somebody in the crowd. Someone yelped. Clyde started wading across the room, toward the bathrooms. People scrambled to get out of his way.

  Kinky Friedman was playing "We Reserve the Right to Refuse Service to You." The tuxanddress folks were pressing their faces against the patio windows, watching us lower classes partake in our quaint amusements.

  It was now an easier matter for me to get close to Clyde, although the deputies still had the bulk of the crowd in their way. One of the guys at a nearby table yelled, "Hey, that's Dwight! Fuck that!" and tried to jump Clyde. The guy missed and slid out of sight.

  Another guy picked up a chair. Dwight kept swinging the bottle and hitting people, causing a chain reaction of pissedoff drunks.

  I'm not sure where Clyde thought he was taking Dwight, but when he got to the booths on the opposite side of the room, between the Damen and Herren rest room doors, he decided the trophy case of German bier steins on the wall was as good a spot as any.

  He stepped onto the platform of the first booth, the people at the table cringing away from him, and he heaved Dwight into the glass. It broke with a mighty crash. Dwight didn't fit in the cabinet, so he fell onto the booth table, his knees straddling a woman's blond hairdo, glass and broken bier steins showering on his back and into the diners' plates of sausage and sauerkraut.

  The deputies yelled for people to get out of their way. The music on the back patio was finally unravelling to a stop.

  Clyde Simms swung around and started scanning the crowd- no doubt looking for his original target, Matthew Pena. He seemed surprised to find me blocking his way.

  "What the faaaaaah-"

  The last sound because of the knucklestrike I jabbed into his larynx.

  I shoved my palm into his nose hard enough to spout blood. Then I grabbed his wrist
, twisted myself under his arm and came up behind him, putting Clyde's arm in a double joint lock-his arm twisted at the elbow and wrist so he was forced to make a capital letter C between his shoulder blades.

  He said, "Aaaadddd!"

  I suggested, "Let's go outside."

  Fistfights were breaking out here and there like brushfires, slowing down the deputies who were wading toward me.

  I walked Clyde toward the door. The crowd parted for us. Ruby got a great shot of us with her camera.

  Over by the back patio, I caught a glimpse of a swarthy guy in black Western clothes-pencil moustache, cigar, white Stetson pulled down over his eyes. He was watching the proceedings calmly.

  Kinky Friedman, collecting lyrics for his next song, no doubt.

  I got Clyde outside and was trying to figure out where best to deposit him when a voice said, "Freeze!"

  Just like that. Freeze. Like he'd been watching Real Cops.

  Without turning around, I said, "Just trying to help calm things down here, sir."

  The next sound I knew-the dry swishclick of a metal asp being extended. The deputy said, "Let him go."

  "I'll fucking kill you," Clyde murmured to me.

  "My friend here just got a little upset, Deputy," I called back to the cop. "I was just trying to cool him down a little bit. No harm done. Right, buddy?"

  Clyde stopped cursing. I think the word Deputy sobered him up. I could feel the tension seep out of his shoulders.

  "Yeah," he agreed. "This fucker's right."

  I tightened the joint lock.

  "Aadd! Yeah my good buddy's right, officer. No problem. No problem."

  I let Clyde go, stepped quickly out of his way. We both turned and smiled at the deputy.

  He looked familiar-probably one of the guys who'd been giving me dirty looks at the station on Saturday.

  Clyde did a good job looking friendly, even though he had a line of blood leaking from his left nostril. The blood matched his suit beautifully.

  The deputy didn't smile back. His collapsible baton was a black televisionantennalooking thing with a handle on the thick end- the only difference being that a television antenna could not break your thighbone.

  A second deputy burst out the door, dragging poor Dwight Hayes by the elbow. They were followed by Ruby McBride and Matthew Pena. The latter sported a beautiful contusion on his left cheek.

  The first deputy looked at Dwight. "This your good buddy, too, Mr. Navarre?"

  It bothered me that he remembered my name.

  "Misunderstanding," I promised. "Everything's fine."

  "Be even finer in the city jail," he said. "You like assaults, you'll love it there."

  Matthew Pena said, "No."

  The cops looked at him.

  Pena's eyes were remarkably serene-that same burnt black look that had unnerved me thirty feet under Lake Travis. Blood traced his cheekbone, there was beer drool on his designer jacket, but the attack had not ruffled his composure for long. He seemed the same untouchable, patiently dangerous man he'd been that afternoon.

  "I don't want to file charges," Pena said. "Mr. Hayes and Mr. Simms don't want any more trouble. Am I correct, gentlemen?"

  Dwight stared at the asphalt, muttered something in the affirmative.

  Clyde said, "Goddamn-"

  I elbowed him. He said, "Yeah. Uhhuh."

  The cops exchanged glances, silently conferred with each other. I'm sure they could've worked up enough justification for an arrest, called APD and had us all hauled away. But then the music started up in the back, Kinky Friedman started singing, and I guess the deputies remembered who was paying their tab.

  The first one pointed at me.

  "I see you again…" He let the threat hang in the air.

  Pena turned and headed inside.

  Ruby smiled at me, mouthed the words, See you later, honey, then followed.

  Clyde gave me a look that was slightly less friendly. He wiped a string of blood off his lip, then stomped down the street toward the parking garage.

  Dwight Hayes didn't look too bad for a guy who'd just decorated a display case. He had some superficial lacerations on his arms, a more respectable gash in the leg of his jeans, specks of broken bier stein in the brown fuzz of his hair.

  I said, "Pena offer good health benefits?"

  His features were pinched with anger. He reached into his pocket, pulled out part of a bier stein handle.

  "Need a goddamn taxi," he mumbled.

  "I'll give you a lift," I said. "Black truck across the street."

  I got out my keys and pressed the remote, beeped off the car alarm and unlocked the doors.

  Dwight muttered something. Maybe it was "thank you." Maybe it was just something stuck in his teeth. He stumbled across the street and climbed into the passenger seat of my F150, slamming the door behind him.

  Finally, Maia and Garrett appeared in the doorway of the club. Maia helped Garrett pop a wheelie, then bump his way down the front steps to the sidewalk.

  I told them I was taking Dwight home.

  Maia took the news about as well as I had expected. She looked like she wanted to kill me, then like she wanted to throw up, then she gave in.

  "I'm going to my hotel," said Maia. "I'm going to eat, take the longest bath in history, and then sleep. And Tres-just take Dwight home. All right? No weapons. No interrogations. No humorous excursions. Please?"

  "Trust me," I said.

  She closed her eyes, muttered some bitter ancient curse, and then walked toward the taxi stand.

  I looked at Garrett, who seemed in a somewhat better mood now, no doubt thanks to the drubbing recently inflicted on Matthew Pena, Inc. "What's your plan?"

  "My plan," he said, "is tequila shots on Sixth Street. The Iron Cactus. Pick me up on your way back."

  "And then?"

  "And then, just maybe, I'll be ready for Ruby."

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  I can only go by what she's told me, but she's told me so muchmore than she realizes.

  I imagine a girl of fourteen.

  She's too tall for the boys, developed, impossible to miss with her long hair, her brilliant eyes, her temper. She is so physical, so sexual, that she intimidates her peers, and yet she tries to imitate them as best she can. She studies fashion the way she studies calculus. She wears the right jeans, the right designer tops and shoes. This just sets her apart even more. She has never had a date, or a best friend. Since she turned twelve, she has learned to endure the looks grown men give her-comments from her father's workers at the dock, bits of Spanish they think she doesn't understand.

  She understands.

  Her discomfort makes her more stubborn, more determined to look mature and feign confidence.

  I imagine this girl on a November afternoon at the top of a hill, in the woods, the lake spread out below her, glittering in the long winter light. Today she is not fashionable.

  She is wearing a pair of boys' Wranglers, a longsleeve Tshirt, hiking boots, an orange down vest. She is not worried about how she looks now. She is with the one man she is not afraid of.

  The air is cold enough to let steam escape from the cavity of the whitetail deer she and her father are field dressing.

  She thinks of it as a joint effort. In fact, she does all the work, while her father stands nearby, drinking from a thermos, watching the lake.

  He has green eyes, like hers, but they are cloudy, troubled. His hair has thinned over the years to a weak shade of pumpkin. His features are angular, like the eroded ridges of a chewed cuttlebone. She thinks of him as tall and strong, but he has already started his decline. The smoking and drinking, the bouts of
depression-all this has begun to take its toll.

  She cuts the connecting tissue from the liver of the deer, holds the organ in her gloved hands-a heavy thing, milky black like petroleum, quivering as if it still held life. She checks for disease spots. Finding none, she sets the liver on ice along with the heart.

  Her father always insists on this-save the heart. Save the liver.

  She tells him that the liver is healthy, hoping this will please him, but he just stares at the lake. She wishes his thermos held coffee, but she knows it is whiskey with lemon and sugar.

  Her job done-the entrails scooped out, the carcass cleaned with fresh water-she wedges a stick into the deer's empty chest to keep the rib cage apart.

  Her gloves are sticky with blood, but she doesn't mind the work-the cutting, the cleaning. There is something satisfying about seeing the mess, the chaos of organs-and slowly cleaning it out, tying off the tubes, avoiding spills that could spoil the meat, sorting the innards, leaving a clean and empty shell, neatly framed by the symmetry of ribs.

  "Would you like me to clean your doe?" she volunteers.

  Her smile is sincere. She hopes for a smile in return. She has been so efficient-learned everything he taught her, done everything to make him proud.

  She recalls the time when she was about eight, going with her father to Crumley's Store. He had ruffled her hair, told his friends that he needed no son, that he had his best hunting buddy right here. She protects that memory-drinks from it when she's thirsty, keeps her hands cupped around it like an exposed pilot light.

  Now, her father is not five feet away from her-wearing the hunting parka she bought him for his birthday, tattered jeans, the deer rifle he has had as long as she can remember, even before her mother died.

  It takes him several minutes just to remember she is there. He has been watching the waterline, as if suspecting that even now, so many years later, the lake is rising, eroding what is left of his inheritance. Only recently, a third business failed on his propertyanother lessee defaulting on their contract. What little money he has invested in stocks is doing poorly. He doesn't share the worst of this with his daughter-not yet-but she knows something is wrong. She knows the lake is sapping his life.

  At last he says, "I'm sorry, sweetheart."