The Last King of Texas (Tres Navarre #3)(53)

I want to leave off the gauze and

make you squeeze limes instead.

A thrill?

Look at my brother's leg.

Tell me what part of him is white.

Only what the gun splashed open, melted into a star,

smoothed out by a year with demons so that I could live.

Don't impress me with your slip of a knife.

Don't talk to me about soldiers.

No one ever bought your life with an open wound.

Your typical light verse from a seventeen-year-old girl.

Several pages later.

I should have stayed inside this afternoon. The letter came.

Acceptance. Full scholarship. Grandmother and I set a jar of raspberry sun tea under the apple tree and we danced. Grandmother with her cane and all. We laughed at the chickens. I thought of college. And then the car in the gravel drive and Hector walked up with Him. After two years. He was only larger, no less or more frightening. A devil like that can have only His fixed amount of horror, never more or less than 100% — as a child, as a man. I should have stayed inside. I knew His look, the weighing He did. I was na**d on a scale. I took my letter and I went inside. My grandmother became old again, hobbling alongside and muttering encouragement about college, but I just felt His eyes on my back. I knew what He was thinking. I should have stayed inside.

The other entries were equally intense. Tiring to read, unsatisfying. They told me about Sandra Mara like an intravenous feeding.

I skipped to the end and read the last paragraph.

How could a few minutes in a hallway shake me so much? He's so unexpected. I still can't write about it without catching my breath. Recognition in a dozen words, maybe less. He'd been standing in the same shadows as I, knew them instantly.

He kissed me today.

I closed the journal. Then I sat watching the light die in the crape myrtle outside the kitchen window.

When the light was gone, I went out to my car.

Fifteen minutes later I was pulling up in front of RideWorks, Inc.

It wasn't any prettier than it had been two nights before, but it was a hell of a lot more crowded. Rusted pickup trucks and low-rider Chevies lined the curb. The chain-link gate was open and the Super-Whirl Erainya and I had seen in pieces in the warehouse on Tuesday was now fully assembled in the yard, workers buzzing around it. The ride's giant metal arms were fully extended, lit with purple and yellow bulbs like dingo balls.

I walked through the gates, one hand in my pocket, the other slapping Sandra Mara's journal against my thigh. When I caught the eye of a worker, I smiled amiably, pointed toward the office door. "Del?"

The worker had a Fu Manchu mustache and a grimy face. On his head was a metal welder's visor the size of a snowboard. He considered my question, shrugged, then went back to his cigarette.

I went up the office steps, past the carousel animals, into the Room of Infinite Gimme Caps. No one was passed out on the secretary's desk this time. Del's office door was open. The restroom door at the other end of the reception area was closed and muffled thumping noises were coming from behind it.

I poked my head into Del's office.

Empty. Jeremiah Brandon smiled coldly at me from the 1940s photograph on the wall, daring me to trespass, double-daring me to sit at his son's desk.

"Screw you, Jerry," I told him.

I made myself comfortable and waited.

A few minutes later, I heard water running in the bathroom. Del's voice muttered something. Then the bathroom door opened and Rita the secretary came out, followed by Del.

Rita had her purse on her shoulder and trotted straight out the door, dabbing her lipstick as she went. Del walked toward the office. He didn't see me until he got in the doorway. Then he turned a lovely shade of magenta. "What—"

"Hey, Del."

He was wearing jeans and a red shirt with parrots on it. His unruly mat of black hair was flat on one side.

He drew his .38 from his side holster. This time I didn't stop him. He said, "Get the hell out of my chair."

"Wearing your gun in the bathroom with Rita. You're inviting embarrassing accidents."

"Get out of my chair."

"There's another right there. Sit down."

Del Brandon had apparently been hoping for terror.

He shifted uneasily, squeezed the gun's grip a few times for reassurance. "I warned you."

"You sure did, Del. Now sit down and put away the gun. We need to talk."

"What makes you think you can just—"

"Sit down," I repeated.

He seemed to be thinking of options. Apparently he couldn't come up with any. His gun hand sagged. He lowered himself into the chair across from me.

"Hector Mara," I said. "I was about to look him up in your personnel files but maybe you could save me some time. You got him listed under M for Mara or H for heroin?"

Del's face paled. "What?"

"You remember. Hector Mara. The guy you were arguing with at the Poco Mas a couple of weeks ago."

"I wasn't—" Del's eyes tried to latch on to something in my face, some toehold of doubt he could push up from. "Who told you that?"

"That would be smart," I said, "telling you."

"It isn't true."

"Of course not, Del. So set me straight."

Del glowered at the empty desk. He seemed to have forgotten he was holding the .38, which would've been all right if it hadn't still been pointed at my gut. "Hector Mara does some accounting work for me from time to time. But I wasn't at that bar. I don't go there and you should know why. My father died there."