The Devil Went Down to Austin (Tres Navarre #3)(87)

Maia picked at a fold in the bedspread. "We don't even know it's her yet, Tres. The condition of the body—"

"Yes, we do."

"We'll bring Pena down."

"You were right. It would have been better if I'd stayed out of this, let you handle it."

"No," she said. "That was my bitterness talking."

She slid Robert Johnson out of her lap, scooted onto the bed, lay down next to me.

She put her arm across my chest, her chin resting on my shoulder.

We lay like that, the fan at the top of the dome pin wheeling shadows across the ceiling, for a long time. I thought about dark green water through the branches of frozen pecan trees.

She kissed my neck. "Stop, okay?"

"Stop what?"

"Thinking."

She slid the sheet down, away from my chest.

"You're running up a bill at the Driskill," I said. "For a room you aren't using."

"Mmhmm."

She put a finger on my chest, ran it up to my collarbone, traced the starburst of pink scar tissue just below my right clavicle. "What's that?"

"Gunshot."

"I can see that." Three fingers now, tracing the skin. "But it's new. How?"

"An old friend. He gave it to me last spring."

She exhaled a laugh against my shoulder. "Figures."

I kissed her and she didn't object. Then another kiss—longer, more earnest.

I looked in her eyes—amber, bright, defying me to stop.

"I'm pretty sure this is a reaction to trauma, here," I warned her.

"So react," she said.

She shifted her weight onto me.

I crossed my arms around her neck, pulled her face down to mine.

Robert Johnson murred, protesting an obvious error in the direction of our affections. I nudged him with my foot, as gently as I could, to the edge of the bed, and then thump.

After that I didn't care much what the cat did all night. And he extended us the same courtesy.

CHAPTER 36

I awoke in full daylight. The house was silent. The two notes I found pinned to my covers made me feel like a piece of transfer luggage.

The first note said, Gone to chase Garrett. No regrets. Call you later. —M.

The second note said, PS. Aren't you late for class?

I looked at my watch, then practiced my Middle English expletives as I disentangled myself from the sheets, got dressed, and ran to my truck to make the fortyfiveminute drive to UT in half an hour.

I walked in so late Father Time had already done one warmup story and was now starting the second. I thanked him, apologized to the class, then adlibbed a lecture on the Wakefield Crucifixion. We skimmed through the Croxton Play of the Sacrament—just enough to introduce the Jewish communionwafertrampling villains who would prefigure Barabbas in Marlowe's The Jew of Malta. We spent the rest of our time talking about antiSemitism. Your basic uplifting English lit session.

By the time we adjourned, West Mall foot traffic was starting to pick up outside. The air smelled of clove cigarettes and the eggroll vending carts on Guadalupe. The cute Asian girl with the Henry James novel had staked out a bench in the shade by the entrance to the Student Union.

Down at the crosswalk, Vic Lopez was talking to a street musician.

Lopez was dressed in fatigue pants, combat boots, tight blue shirt. His face was pasty and grim, his sunglasses reflecting the sidewalk.

The musician wore a poncho instead of a shirt, pants the colour of bread mould. He had one Birkenstock planted on a small amp, a harmonica holder and a Gibson acoustic strapped around his neck. Written in black across the face of the guitar was Australia or Bust.

As I walked up, the musician was telling Lopez, "Yeah. It's really nice down there this time of year."

"Barrier Reef?" Lopez asked.

"Dude!" To emphasize his excitement, the musician sucked a few notes out of his harmonica. "I'm telling you, this friend of mine—his first nightdive and shit, they told him to watch for green eyes. And he gets down there and this Great White glides past him not five feet away. Oh, man. A little more spare change, and I'm there!"

I thought of green eyes underwater, tried not to shudder.

Lopez patted the musician on the shoulder. Dust poofed from the poncho. "You take it easy. Professor Navarre and I—we got to talk, now."

The musician wagged all his fingers at me. "Yeah, you're that new dude. Yeah. My friend said your class is f**king awesome."

"Fucking Awesome 301," I said. "That's me."

"Teach it again next summer so I can audit, okay?"

"You promise you will?"

"Hey, man, right after Australia, I'm there."

Lopez grabbed my shoulder. "Let's talk."

We followed a herd of pigeons toward a table under a live oak.

"Nice fatigues," I told Lopez. "Expecting a war?"

He leaned back in his chair, picked his sunglasses off, hung them from the collar of his Tshirt. "In one already. I've been put on paid leave."

"For finding Ruby?"

Seeing Lopez without his usual smile, I realized how big he was. I felt like I was back in high school varsity, looking across the scrimmage line at a fulltackle behemoth patiently waiting for the signal to pulverize me.