The Last King of Texas (Tres Navarre #3)(34)

He snatched his ray gun, gave me an upward glance.

Paloma receded in the doorway and gestured for me to follow. I told Michael I'd see him around.

The last I saw of him he was digging the muzzle of his ray gun into his bare knee.

"This," Paloma said, "is normal."

It took me a few steps before I could speak. "Since his father's death?"

"Before. Since the fights. Now will you go?"

We stopped in the living room, Paloma once again holding the front door open for me. Her face seemed even more compressed, her eyes almost slits, her mouth flattened into a hard amber line. The irreverently stretched Holy Father smiled up at me from Paloma's shirt, one papal eye bigger than the other.

"I'll go," I promised. "But the apartment in back, above the garage — is that yours?"

She stiffened.

"You were the witness — the one who ID'ed Zeta Sanchez for the police."

"Madre de Dios, if you don't leave now—"

I didn't make her finish the threat. I said good-bye and went out to my car. When I looked back, Paloma stood motionless in the doorway — her eyes dark, her face hard and impassive, as if she'd turned back into red Texas granite. I couldn't blame her for that. Anything as soft as human flesh could never have supported the weight of the Brandon household.

SIXTEEN

Sometimes necessity is the mother of invention. Sometimes necessity is just a mother.

All the way back to the University, I brainstormed ideas for the graduate seminar, knowing I would have just enough time to stumble into the classroom with none of Brandon's backlogged papers graded and no prepared lecture notes. I kept trying to come up with some brilliant game plan to make a good first impression. At ten past one, sitting on a table in front of eight graduate students in HSS 2.0.22, I was still without that plan.

"So." I tried to sound enthusiastic. "I thought we'd start by going around — tell me your names, a little about yourselves. Ask whatever you want about me.

Who wants to start?"

No hands shot into the air.

I waved encouragingly toward a couple of mid-fiftyish women by the door. They were crocheting from a shared bag of pink yarn.

"You ladies?"

They introduced themselves as Edie and Marfa, escaped housewives. Marfa told me she wanted to read some medieval romances. Edie smiled and gave me the eye.

"Ah-ha," I said. "And you, sir?"

The elderly man cleared his throat. He wore a mechanic's jumpsuit and a buzz cut. "Sergeant Irwin, USAF, retired. I'm still in this class because the military is paying every penny, and so far I'm damn glad of it."

I thanked him for sharing, then waved toward the next man — a young Anglo in a Men's Wearhouse Italian suit.

He looked up from his organizer long enough to say, "Brian. I run a small carpeting business and I'm probably going to drop the class. Don't mind me."

Behind Brian was Gregory, the giant radish mail boy who delivered pipe bombs.

"Always nice to see a familiar face," I told him.

Gregory mumbled something. He didn't meet my eyes.

Next to him sat two guys in Nirvana T-shirts and jeans and plentiful chains clipped to their belt loops. Simon and Blake. They asked me how it was hanging. I asked them how they'd come to choose a medieval literature class and they shrugged and grinned like Class? We're in class?

The last student, in the far corner by the window, mumbled hello but didn't give a name or any other firm indication of gender. He/she looked like a Morticia Addams drag queen.

"Great." I looked at the clock. We'd managed to burn four whole minutes. "So — any questions?"

After some awkward silence and pencil fumbling, one of the grunge guys, Blake, raised his hand and asked about class hours. Would he still receive full credit for the first three months of the semester even though What's-his-name had gotten bumped off?

"Yes," I said. "Full credit, even from What's-his-name."

That emboldened the others.

Morticia asked if their essays had ever been graded. I said that most of them had been salvaged from the bomb blast and were currently on my desk. They'd be graded soon.

Marfa lowered her knitting needles and asked Brian the carpet salesman if he'd really be able to drop the course. Wasn't it too late in the semester? Brian told her she would need special permission from the dean's office, but he was pretty sure she could get it if she raised enough hell. Marfa looked at me to see if that was true.

I tried to look sympathetic. I wrote down the question on my notepad. "I'll find out. Something else?"

Simon, the second grunge boy, raised his hand and complained that Dr. Brandon had been, well, a psychopath, and was I one too?

Gregory the mail boy broke in. "I liked those stories."

Morticia groaned. "Oh, man, you're nuts. I was all like — I don't want to know how it feels to be impaled, okay?"

I wrote on my notepad, NO IMPALING. "You're talking about the Crusade narratives?"

Several heads nodded. Edie informed me that Dr. Brandon had been obsessed with violence. More heads nodded.

Sergeant Irwin, USAF, retired, raised his hand. "The Marie de France stories. We bought this whole book and only read one. Some of the others aren't quite so, well, offensive. Maybe we could read them."