Big Red Tequila (Tres Navarre #1)(54)

"No," I said.

Maia just nodded. She gave me a hand and pulled me up.

We looked at each other for a minute. Then she turned and headed toward the car.

I beaned a mallard with the last of the bread. He stood there for a minute with the same dazed expression I probably had. Then he honked and went skittering into the San Marcos River like he’d seen a ghost.

33

Around eight we pulled into the Marriott parking lot off Riverside in Austin and walked down to the water. You could barely see the city because of the sunset. Town Lake was a half-mile sheet of corrugated silver. Beyond it, behind a few wooded hills, downtown blazed with a dozen mirrored office buildings I’d never seen before. About the only things that looked the same as in 1985 were the red dome of the Capitol and the white UT tower.

The cement underside of the Congress Avenue Bridge echoed with chatters from a few million bats and only slightly fewer sightseers. When I spotted Garrett, he’d just pulled his wheelchair up to a newly erected plaque that honored the "bats of Austin" and was staring with distaste at the army of camera-toters. His tie-dyed shirt was stretched a little tighter these days and he’d gone almost completely gray, but he still looked like the love child of Charles Manson and Santa Claus, minus the legs.

"Man," he said, by way of greeting, “this is worse than f**king Carlsbad. They’ve discovered this place."

We shook hands. Garrett looked at Maia for a moment longer than he needed to, scratching his beard. Then he nodded.

“Last time I was here," he said, "it was me, couple of Hell’s Angels, three kayakers, and a lady with a poodle. Now look at this shit."

He led the way down the grassy slope, waving gnats out of his face and running over as many people’s feet as he could. Maia and I followed a few yards back.

"That’s—" Maia started to whisper. She looked at me, then at Garrett’s rainbow-clad back.

"Yeah, my half brother."

"You didn’t mention—"

"That he’s so much older than me?"

Maia glared at me.

"We got about five minutes," Garrett called back to us. He swung his chair around and squinted up at the top of the bridge, where the stone arches made a honey-comb of little caves. "Then the little peckers start coming out thicker than pig shit."

A line of retirees was standing in front of us, watching the bridge with binoculars. When we sat down on the grass knoll I found myself staring at a row of old butts in pastel prints. I exchanged looks with Garrett. He grinned.

"Yeah," he said. "Kind of gives you a different perspective of the world, doesn’t it?"

Maia sat down between us, her left arm pressing against mine just slightly, very warm. She smelled like amber. But of course I noticed none of that. She put her other hand on Garrett’s armrest.

"So, Garrett," she said, "Tres tells me you can break into high security networks with half your RAM tied behind your back."

Garrett laughed. He had more teeth than any human being I’d ever known, most of them yellow and crooked. Maia smiled back at him like he was Cary Grant.

"Yeah well," he said, "my little brother tends to exaggerate."

"He also says you could be running the world if you didn’t spend so much time at jimmy Buffett concerts."

Garrett shrugged. But he had a pleased gleam in his eyes.

“A man’s got to have a hobby," he said. "Just please no jokes about wasting away in Margaritaville. That one got old faster than Ronald Reagan."

Maia laughed. Then in a very quiet, very passable voice she started singing "A Pirate Looks at Forty."

Garrett kept smiling, but he looked at Maia as if he were reevaluating her.

“My theme song these days," Garrett said.

"Mine too."

It was the first and only indicator I’d ever had of Maia’s age. Garrett showed his teeth, all hundred of them.

"So, Tres," he said, "where’d you meet this lady again?"

With that he took out a joint and lit up.

Paranoia was not a concept that existed in Garrett’s mind. I’d seen him smoking pot in shopping malls, restaurants, just about anywhere. If questioned he would talk poker-faced about his "prescription." Nobody ever wanted to argue much with a paraplegic. The line of retired sightseers froze when the smell of the mota hit them. They glanced back nervously at Garrett, then dissolved. We no longer had butts obstructing our view of the bridge.

Maia and I both refused the joint, politely. Then Garrett spent half an hour telling us about his last Parrot-head tour of the South, his ass**le bosses at RNI, the impending collapse of Austin society at the hands of Silicon Valley transplants.

"Damn Californians," he concluded.

"I beg your pardon," said Maia.

Garrett grinned. "You can come into the state, honey. It’s just this ugly bastard you brought with you."

I showed Garrett a hand gesture. Maia laughed.

It got dark and cool. God poured grenadine on the horizon. Finally, when he was ready to talk business, Garrett said: "So what’s all this about, little brother?"

I told him. For a minute Garrett blew smoke. He stared at me, then at Maia’s legs. His expression told me he’d just reevaluated my IQ downward a hefty percentage.