The Last King of Texas (Tres Navarre #3)(66)

I went through the north entrance, past the metal detector into the sheriffs office foyer where I'd spent a lot of time playing as a kid.

Finding a deputy who knew me and would arrange a visit with Zeta Sanchez was no problem. Finding a deputy who thought it was a good idea would've been impossible.

I was led through the silvery bulletproofed doors into the sheriffs offices — hallways filled with men in soft uniform jeans and blue polo shirts, the sounds of phones and printers and fax machines.

Past the guards' entrance to the jail, I stopped at the desk so another deputy could go over my clothes with a metal detector wand.

The security doors clanked open. We passed down a long hallway, glassed-in guard stations at every intersection, then left into the visiting area. The room was bisected by a Plexiglas wall that cut through the center of a long wooden table. The table was marked off into three sections by black tape, black letters on the Plexiglas above. My guard escort waved me toward "B," then left.

I was the only person in the room.

I sat down and studied the empty chair across from mine.

I'd just about memorized it when Zeta Sanchez was buzzed through on the opposite side.

Some people look like walking corpses after one night in jail. Then there are people like Sanchez, who actually seem to thrive on incarceration — who look more robust in prison than they ever did out in the real world. Jail is a world guys like Sanchez engineered, one that fits their sensibilities.

His ponytail had been shorn off and the hair that was left had been combed back and oiled. His once-thin line of beard had spread like watercolor ink across his cheeks and neck.

He sat down in front of me, his eyes a brilliant gold. His mouth was still swollen and stitched, but he managed a smile. He looked like a man who had just punked his cellmate out of smokes and dessert and was looking forward to more fun after dinnertime.

"Professor," he said. "You pulled me out at yard time, man. I was playing some B-ball."

I said, "Hector Mara's dead."

Sanchez's sated expression didn't change. He sat back, crossed his arms.

"Yeah?"

"My question to you," I said, "is why are you still protecting Del Brandon?"

"I was shooting three-pointers, man. You pull me out for this?"

"Del lied to you, Zeta. There was no affair between Jeremiah Brandon and Sandra. I think you know that now. I think that's why you were asking around about your wife before you got arrested. Hector Mara was going to say something to a friend of mine last night — maybe something about what really happened six years ago. Now Hector's dead and my friend is dying. Chich Gutierrez saw to that."

Sanchez's eyes were gold ice. "I'm listening."

"Del wanted his father out of the picture. He decided he wanted him dead. He gave you the bait about Sandra and you made his kill. Del helped you out of town with a big thank-you handshake and the hope that you'd stay gone forever. Guy with your temper, it was a pretty safe bet you'd end up in prison somewhere. So when you came back, Del got a little nervous. He'd been striking up some business with Hector Mara and one of your old enemies, Chich. None of them were sure they wanted you finding out about that, or asking questions about what really happened to your wife. You wouldn't feel good learning that you'd gone into exile for six years for the murder of an old man who never even touched Sandra. Kind of make you feel stupid, wouldn't it?"

Sanchez put his large hands on the table between us and tapped his fingers slowly, as if trying to remember a keyboard routine. His eyes stayed fixed on me. "You know something for a fact?"

"Not yet."

"Then you got nothing to sell."

"You could help me along. Or you could keep sitting there behind bars, quietly taking the rap, trying to convince yourself that your old revolver just got into the police's hands by some weird accident. Surely good old Del couldn't have set you up."

Sanchez's face darkened. "I'm a patient man."

"You're waiting to be sure of things before you open your mouth. It bothers you, doesn't it — wondering if Sandra's dead, or with somebody else in some other state, or maybe laughing at you right here in town."

He sat forward an inch.

"You want a deal, pendejo?" he said calmly. "Bring me the bitch. Or tell me where she's buried. Then we can talk. Until then, you've got nothing I want."

Zeta stood. He strolled to the barred door, rapped against the window, and told the guard he had a basketball game to get back to.

THIRTY-THREE

Fifteen minutes after I'd decided she wasn't going to show, Ana DeLeon walked into my apartment.

She wore boot-cut jeans, the hems tucked into black Justins, her white collarless blouse overlaid with a denim work shirt, the sleeves rolled up. Her short black hair was tied with a red bandanna, the triangular flap hanging loose in the back. She looked like a Sandinista poster girl.

"I'm here," she said, like she was trying to come to terms with the fact.

I was sitting cross-legged on the floor between the futon and the coffee table, the final stack of undergraduate papers in front of me. I'd saved the freshman-comp gems for last. I had my trusty red pen in one hand and a Shiner Bock in the other and Robert Johnson draped across my shoulders like a fox stole — a habit that was somewhat cute when he was a kitten but many years and twenty-one pounds later had become chiropractically unsound.