The Last King of Texas (Tres Navarre #3)(28)

Del raised a finger and said "Don't" about the time Jem launched himself onto the blue elephant's saddle and started bouncing. Del put his finger down, giving up.

I got out on my side and found myself in rock-climbing position against Bo Peep's chest. I looked up into his nostrils. "Howdy."

He receded a step. Gravity stopped pulling my arm hairs toward his body.

Del sized me up, gave Erainya an amused "my-bodyguard's-bigger-than-your-bodyguard" kind of smile. "You want to take a look around the shop?" he asked her.

He led us through the open hangar doors. Bo Peep trailed about twenty feet behind, Jem doing tight fearless orbits around him and asking what PlayStation games he liked.

The tour was quick. Del waved in different directions, said a few words, snuck occasional glances at Erainya to see if bags of money were forthcoming. The corrugated walls of the warehouse were lined with workbenches and machine tools, welding equipment, scrap metal shavings heaped in corners. In the middle of the room were three carnival rides in various states of assembly — a Super-Whirl with the multicolored base attached but the seats scattered around the cement floor like massive wobbly Easter eggs; an eight-armed Spider Rider stripped to just the hydraulic mechanisms; a miniature carousel that looked pretty much complete.

"I can have the two ready in a few hours if I call up some of my boys," Del promised. "The carousel's cash-and-carry."

Del led us over to the Super-Whirl and started pointing out the hydraulics underneath. "Forty-five-degree lift-and-twirl action. Thirty rpms. You don't get any better on a trailer-mounted unit. It's a classic."

Erainya nodded sagely. "How much?"

"Very reasonable. Thirty thousand."

Erainya managed to keep any reaction off her face. I set my mouth hard, thinking about the few people I'd known in my life who dealt in cash amounts that large and were fearless enough to tote it around in grocery bags. None of them were nice people.

Jem had been jumping on the balls of his feet, anxious to try out everything. Finally he broke loose and ran toward one of the disassembled carriage units on the ground. Del lifted his finger, thought about the last time he'd told the kid "Don't," then turned to Erainya instead. "That's not safe."

"Jem," Erainya said. Jem scootched to a stop, reined himself back to his mom's side. He didn't stop grinning.

"It's late," Del reminded us. "Let's talk business."

Erainya said, "So this is all you got?"

"Right now. We can also repair any old units you got."

She nodded toward the Cro-Magnon man looming behind me. "You always need him in the room?"

Del glanced at Bo Peep, then at me. He apparently decided the security risk was not high. "Get a Nehi, Ernie. We'll be in the office."

Bo Peep drifted away. The rest of us followed Brandon out of the warehouse. "You got to understand about Ernie," Del said as we crossed the yard. "Guy's gone state-to-state with the carnies so long, on the lam, he's just about fanatical to me for giving him a settle-down job, no questions asked. You worked the road long?"

"I know Ernie's type," Erainya assured him.

We walked up the office steps between the plaster horse and the blue elephant. Both glistened with hysterical smiles.

Inside, the reception area was no more than seven feet square, rafter beams lower than a miner's cabin, walls so old and dim and brown it was impossible to tell what they were made of. Whatever it was, it was solid enough to accept nails, which is how the majority of things were posted — an old Hung Fong's calendar, some company notices, photographs of workers at the shop, pictures of the rides. Up along the top of the walls were ripped fragments of old party decorations in several different colors. A truly impressive collection of gimme caps hung on more nails behind the receptionist's desk.

The receptionist, in fact, was about the only thing that wasn't nailed to the wall. She was flat on her back on the desk, snoring. After what I'd already seen of Del Brandon's business practices, it somehow didn't surprise me to find his receptionist in this condition, still in the office at midnight. She was Latina — minute size, frizzy red hair, improbably large bosom, and much spandex. In sleep, her little pointy face twitched and slanted like the drunken dormouse from Alice in Wonderland.

Brandon walked past her and swatted her knee. "Jesus Christ, Rita."

She stopped snoring instantly. "Yeah, Del, like you don't want me horizontal."

Brandon glanced back at us, his face pained. "She's got a lousy sense of humor. I got a wife."

Rita snorted. She sat up, rubbed her eyes, then focused on Jem and grinned.

"Hey. A cutie." She groped in the drawer behind her and came up with a smushed box of Mike and Ikes. "Want some?"

Del grumbled something about Rita getting to work, then led us down a short hall into a somewhat larger office. The carpet was threadbare sulfur. The fluorescent lights gave everything a greasy hue. Lined along the floor next to Del's desk, like luminarias, were leftover Taco Cabana bags filled with aluminum foil wads and smelling of old carne guisada.

Behind the desk was a framed, poster-size black-and-white photograph of Jeremiah Brandon, Our Founder as a young man, leaning against a half- dismantled printing press. The shot looked straight out of a World War II-era Life — the happy industrial worker laboring for Democracy. Except for the youthful softness in his cheeks and neck, Jeremiah looked not much different from the other picture I'd seen of him in middle age. Still the buzzard's face, crooked smile, a merciless light in his eyes that spoke of past poverty and a determination to avoid it in the future. Jeremiah's fingers were long, resting on the rubber-coated rollers and steel gears of the printing press like they were keys of an organ. His arms were black with machine grease up to his elbows. Grease speckled his collarless white shirt, his trousers, his cap. I had a feeling the liquid could've been blood and Jeremiah would've smiled just the same way.