Big Red Tequila (Tres Navarre #1)(78)

Rivas got up. “Send them where?"

All of a sudden Schaeffer looked much better. I guess the Sudafed had kicked in. He shook Counselor Hass’s hand.

“Danm fine work, Counselor. Y’all stay in town, but that’s it for tonight?

If Hass had acted any more like an ecstatic puppy he would’ve peed on the carpet. We filed past Rivas, who seemed to be silently assessing Schaeffer as a possible rifle target. I shook Schaeffer’s hand. I shook Hass’s hand. I even shook the assistant coroner’s hand. I probably would’ve shaken my old school chum Mickey Williams’s hand too, but he was in the general manager’s office getting a talking-to when we walked by.

"Mickey," I called. He looked up dismally.

“You need a good lawyer?" I asked. "He comes highly recommended."

48

We’d been sitting on the steps of La Villita Chapel for so long, staring at the empty building that used to be the Hecho a Mano Gallery, that I thought Maia had gone to sleep. The adrenaline had worn off. With my clothes slowly drying and my nerves shot to hell, I felt as frayed and greasy as the corn husk off a tamale.

Then we both looked at each other with something to say.

“You first," I said.

“No," Maia said. “It’s just—"

“Beau waited a little too long to run," I said. "He was still trying to salvage the scam. He let somebody into his hotel room, sat down to barter for the disk, then whoever it was shot him in the face."

She nodded. “And he wouldn’t be so relaxed if he was bargaining with the mob."

"So we’ve got a dead blackmailer," I continued, “the second disk missing, Dan Sheff looking guilty as hell and Lillian still missing."

An elderly tourist couple walked by. The old woman smiled at us the way people do at lovers in the shadows of a summer night. Then she stared sadly at her oblivious husband. When Maia looked back at me with almost the same expression, it twisted my nerves a little tighter.

“What?" I said. "Lillian’s either dead or involved, or both. Is that what you want me to say?"

She almost got angry. I wished like hell that she would. Instead she hugged her knees and stared out at the empty limestone shell of Lillian’s studio.

"No," she said. "I didn’t want you to say that."

"What then? You still want me to think my dad’s death has no connection? The pictures of Halcomb are a coincidence? You want me to forget about it?"

She shook her head. “I was just thinking about plane tickets."

It was my turn to stare. “Tickets. As in plural, tickets?"

She took a pecanwood twig and poked at the mortar between the flagstones. The twig was so dry it broke into dust.

“Never mind," she said.

"Jesus, Maia."

She nodded.

"You know I can’t just leave town."

“You never did leave town," she said. "That’s the thing."

"Like hell."

I tried to believe it. The fact that I didn’t made me madder. A group of Mexican nationals went by, talking about their weekend of shopping. They smiled at us.

We didn’t smile back.

“All right," I told Maia. "You want me to feel like shit about you and me, okay. I feel like shit. But I didn’t ask for backup."

“You didn’t turn it down last night," she said. "You should think about why."

Her eyes had turned to steel in the space of those two sentences. My face probably wasn’t much kinder. I counted the strands of lights. I watched the cars go down Nueva. I said: “So you’re leaving?"

“Tres—" Maia closed her eyes. “Why are you staying?"

“You don’t want to hear this again. You saw the damn letters, Maia."

“No. I saw a carriage full of dolls in a grown-up woman’s bedroom. Did it ever occur to you that you’re the only piece of that collection Lillian Cambridge ever lost, Tres?"

It was one of those moments when God hands you the emotional scissors and invites you to start cutting, irrevocably. Instead I just watched as Maia stood up and walked down the stairs. I don’t know why but as she passed I caught the scent of the chapel’s interior smoked into the porch beams—incense and very old wax. It was the scent of confessionals and baptisms and Las Posadas candles that had been snuffed before Santa Ana ever rode through town.

When she was ten feet away, Maia turned and looked at me. Or maybe she just looked at the chapel. I felt like I’d already blended into the limestone.

“Call me when it’s over," she said. “If it ever is."

She walked away slowly enough to give me time to call her back. Then she disappeared behind the outer walls of La Villita, heading up Nueva where the taxi stands were.

Another old tourist couple passed by, but this time I was alone. Nobody bothered smiling kindly. The woman took her husband’s arm. They shuffled a little faster.

I got up and went across the courtyard to stare in the window of the Hecho a Mano Gallery, now filled with nothing but hardwood floors and moonlight and old ghosts.

“Now what?" I asked.

But it was a closed party and the ghosts didn’t have any time to waste on me. I pulled a wad of dead man’s money out of my pocket and went to find the nearest bottle of tequila.