The Last King of Texas - Rick Riordan

by Rick Riordan

  I glanced at Ana. "We go with Ralph, you're liable to see him do something illegal."

  "I'll make some U-turns, chica."

  "And he'll smoke," I warned her. "Not Marlboros, either."

  "On the other hand," Ralph said, "that sweet little Miata of yours only got two seats, Ana. Right? Guess somebody could sit on my lap."

  "Don't look at me," I objected.

  Ana DeLeon looked back and forth between us.

  "I have no intention—" Then she faltered. Moral dilemma.

  Ralph grinned, waved with a flourish toward the curb where his maroon Cadillac El Dorado was parked in a red zone.

  "The road to hell is paved with that shit, chica," he consoled. "Right this way."

  THIRTY-FIVE

  The U-Best Scrap Yard on Southeast Military was a fine example of Early Apartheid architecture. Razor wire topped the fence. Sheets of corrugated metal lined the inside of the chain link so you couldn't see in to contemplate stealing the proprietor's countless riches. Dandelions choked the base of the fence and the sidewalk glittered with broken beer glass.

  Beyond the entrance, narrow lanes twisted between mountains of electronics scraps, broken appliances, car fenders, road signs from defunct businesses. Sitting in folding chairs by the gate were two large Latino men who resembled lounging sea mammals. They were playing dominoes on a three-legged card table.

  "Mira, affirmative action," Ralph said. "Yard used to belong to this gringo named Sammy L. He retired, sold the place to Hector, now it's an equal-opportunity fence spot. Hector got North Side kids, West Side kids — whatever. Didn't tell the kids what to steal — just took anything they brought. Paid by the pound, I hear."

  Ralph's tone was disdainful, like this was a business arrangement seriously below his caliber.

  As we watched, a couple of kids strolled out past the human walruses. One kid was Anglo, the other Latino — both about sixteen, both thin and hard-bodied, greasy hair and baggy clothes. Both were counting money from wads of cash.

  "Looks like somebody's still minding the store," Ana DeLeon said. She opened the back door and got out. We followed suit.

  One of the walruses nudged the other as we approached. They watched, sleepy-eyed, their slightly buck-toothed mouths slack under bristly spots of mustache. The guys must've weighed about two-fifty apiece. Their arms were slick, hairless brown slabs; their faces had the apathetic look of men who'd never had to move for anyone.

  They barely blinked when Ralph drew his .357. The one on the right didn't even show expression when Ralph pistol-whipped him across the side of the face and sent him sliding to the ground.

  The struck walrus slumped there on the pavement, his eyes glazed and stupid, the skin split open in a Z along his cheekbone. Even his blood ran slow, like it too was not used to being picked on.

  His friend stayed frozen in his chair, gaping up at us.

  I glanced at Ana. Her hands were in her back pockets. Her expression hadn't changed.

  Ralph told the walruses, "That's how we say hello, eses. We're going in to talk to Chicharron now. You keep playing your little game, keep an eye on my car. You do anything else, anything stupid, we teach you how to say good-bye.

  Comprendes?"

  They stared at us in complete silence, amazed. Then, real slow, both nodded. We went inside.

  "That was unnecessary," DeLeon grumbled.

  "What's more," I said, "do you really think they're just going to sit still?"

  Ralph grinned at me, and with a little discomfort I realized he didn't care in the slightest.

  In the center of the scrap yard stood a stilted clapboard office that resembled a henhouse. Its exterior was covered with airbrushed graffiti — faux-cursive names outlined and colored to neon illegibility, scenes of violence and clusters of guns like bouquets, Spanish slogans, gang symbols from a dozen different neighborhoods. The windows were ragged squares made with a power saw. One of them held a large electric wall fan. A running board led up to the uncovered entrance.

  Inside, Chich Gutierrez was sitting behind a metal desk, tapping a purple felt-tip pen against some paperwork that fluttered in the breeze of the fan's high-speed setting. Chicharron was sporting the same vampire look he'd had at the Poco Mas two nights ago — ponytail, silver cross earring, black leather boots, black jeans. He'd shed the trench coat in favor of a white tux shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows. With a quill pen, the fashion statement would've been perfect.

  Instead, there was a .38 revolver on his desk, but Ralph walked in and knocked it to the floor before Chicharron could even register our faces. The room could comfortably hold two. With four of us, the floor sagged. Ralph pointed his .357 at Chicharron. He said, "Get up."

  The hum of the fan made Ralph's voice sound submerged. Chich studied us with black eyes. He looked at the gun, then at Ralph.

  "You know who I am, Chich?" Ralph asked.

  "Arguello."

  "Then you know to get the fuck up."

  Chich's eyes slid to Ana DeLeon. They dismissed her, then focused on me. I smiled.

  Slowly, Chich stood.

  His face was dead still except for his mouth, which kept twitching at the corners — from fear or amusement, I couldn't tell which. He said, "You going to make this a small mistake or a big one, Arguello?"

  Ralph motioned for him to move to one side. I frisked him, removed two switchblades and a tiny 9mm from his pockets. Ralph found some keys and a cash box in the desk. We threw it all in the corner with the .38.

  "You can sit down now," Ralph told him.

  Chich sank back into his chair.

  "You ice Hector?" Ralph asked.

  Chich's mouth twitched. "That supposed to be a joke?"

  "You the man in the white van, Chich. You better start telling me some things about last night."

  "Fuck off, Arguello."

  Ralph moved to the wall fan. He ran a fingernail thoughtfully along the plastic grill, then slid his .357 back in his belt. "I knew a guy once, got his hand stuck in one of those old metal fans. You know the round ones? Nowadays everything is fucking plastic, man. Look at this."

  Ralph put his left hand on top of the fan, worked the fingers of his right into the holes of the grill, and pulled. The top wasn't fastened very well and bowed out. On Ralph's second pull, the grill ripped away with a watery zing, exposing the white circular haze of spinning fan blades. Ralph dropped the grill to the floor. He had little bloody lines on the pads of his fingers.

  Ana stood in the corner of the room, her black Justin boot resting on Chich's .38.

  "Cheap Taiwanese shit," Ralph said. "You think it'd do much damage, Chich?"

  Chich tried for a smile. "You're full of it. Fuckin' pawnshop man."

  He wasn't so chatty when Ralph picked up the open-faced fan and heaved it at him.

  The spinning blades caught Chich's upraised forearms, grinding into him. The sound was like an outboard motor hitting a sandbar. Metal and plastic shuddered and Chich screamed. He lurched backward out of his chair, flailing, cursing, brushing himself violently like he was covered with fire ants, dragging the fan with him, a blade snagged on his tux shirt, the cord ripped free from the outlet. The fan clattered at his feet.

  "You fucking lunatic!"

  Chich held up his arms. They were ridged from wrist to elbow with smile-shaped contusions, some merely deep welts, a few ripped open and bleeding. Ralph walked over to Ana, smiled at her, then bent down and picked up the .38 he'd knocked off Chich's desk. He pointed it at its owner. "Get up."

  "I'm bleeding!"

  "That was just an icebreaker, man. Get us through the posturing shit. Now sit in your chair."

  Chich stood. He wiped his clothes, wiped his mouth. He didn't seem to notice he was smearing blood. Finally he got back into his chair.

  Ana said, "Ralph—"

  Ralph raised his hand, gesturing for patience. "So, ese, you want to tell us what you been up to?"

  Chich crossed his forearms, pressed the
m against his stomach to stop the bleeding. The gesture didn't hide the fact that he was shaking. "I'll fucking kill you, man."

  Ralph checked the revolver's chamber, spun in a round, aimed the gun at Chich's head.

  "Me and some of my men," Chicharron started, "we were following Hector around. We were there last night. We didn't kill nobody."

  "Uh-huh."

  "I'm telling you. Hector and me done business together for years. I had some questions over the last month or so, but I wasn't looking to kill him."

  Ralph kept the gun leveled. "What kind of business?"

  Chich's look of hatred dissolved momentarily in pain. He chewed his lip, pressed his bloody forearms against the cloth of his shirt. "Jesus, man, put the damn gun down. Four or five years, Hector's been a steady customer — a key or two a month. Mostly black tar."

  A kilo of black-tar heroin, depending on how it was cut, how far north it went, could bring anywhere from $20,000 to $50,000.

  "Hector moved the stuff through RideWorks?" I asked.

  Chich glared at me, then squeezed his eyes shut, rocked a little bit. "You're that asshole from the Poco Mas."

  "Answer his question," Ralph said.

  "I don't know how Hector moved the smack," Chich said. "I got my suspicions about RideWorks, but Hector's a friend. He pays on time, wants his privacy, I respect his business."

  "Which is why you were following him in your white van, why you're here the day after he died, going through his desk."

  "Hector'd been doing some strange shit. I was getting a little curious. Last month, he doubled his order — got two extra keys of heroin, wanted it on credit. Man's money's never been a problem before, so I said sure. He's an old friend. But that was four weeks ago and I ain't seen no money yet. Then I see him at the Poco Mas Wednesday night with this asshole—" He nodded courteously to me. "And I'm starting to get a little nervous. Last night, I shadow Hector and watch him make this meet out on Palo Blanco. While me and my boys are waiting, thinking about what to do, boom — gunshots inside. By the time we get inside and check it out, there's two bodies. Mara's dead. Your buddy Berton's bleeding like a pig. Looks like they got in a little discussion that went bad, I figure maybe it's over my stuff. But there's no heroin, no money around that we can see. Then you drive up, and we decide it's best to hit the road. So you tell me. You answer my question — where's my fucking stash?"

  Ralph grinned, looked at me. "I ain't happy yet, vato. You happy?"

  Chich made a shaky sound that might've been a laugh. "I'm going to tell some of my friends in the big league, Arguello. I'm going to mention that an asshole named Arguello's been threatening me, throwing fans at me. What do you think my friends would do, man?"

  Ralph jacked the hammer on the .38. "I think they'd have you replaced in twenty-four hours."

  Chich's eyes went blank. "I don't know nothing else."

  Ana DeLeon asked, "You see Sanchez since he was back in town, Chich?"

  He shivered, trying a little too hard to focus on her. "Once. Nothing to do with the chiva. Him and me were cool. Zeta was just looking for his old lady, you know?" Then Chich looked at DeLeon more closely. "W-wait. I recognize you. You're—"

  "This is my girlfriend," I told him. "You recognize her, we're going to have us a problem."

  Chich kept looking at DeLeon, probably wondering if he had a card he wanted to play. Apparently he decided against it. "I didn't have nothing to do with Mara getting drilled. That's the truth."

  "You're making me sad, ese," Ralph told him.

  Chich raised his bloodied hands, placating. Whatever he was going to say was interrupted by footsteps, crunching in the dirt outside. An African American kid, maybe fifteen, stopped at the bottom of the running board and looked up into the shack, surprised to find a crowd. The kid's hair was long and nappy, his eyelids tattooed in blue like an Egyptian's, his clothes ripped camouflage and black heavy-metal gear. He had his hands full of car stereo parts.

  Ralph said, "Come on up."

  The kid got to the doorway, saw there was no room to go farther, then noticed Ralph's gun. The kid looked at Chich.

  Chich mumbled, "This ain't a good time, Paul."

  Ralph stepped toward the kid, tapped the stereo parts with the .38 barrel. "The man's right, Paul. How much you figure for all this?"

  Standing next to Paul, I caught the distinct smell of aerosol fumes on his clothes. Looking into Paul's eyes I could see where those fumes had gone. His pupils had a bleary but steady glow, as if whatever brain cells still worked behind them had fused into one singular, misshapen energy source.

  Paul said, "Twenty-five dollars."

  Ralph laughed, then said to Chich, "Big spender. No wonder you and Hector such big leaguers."

  From his coat pocket, Ralph took a business card and a few folded twenty-dollar bills and offered them to Paul. Paul dropped his stereo parts instantly and took the money.

  "Next time come visit my Culebra location, vato," Ralph told him. "We do you right. In the meantime, hold this."

  Ralph handed the kid Chich's .38. "Point this at him and count to a hundred, okay? You remember how to count that high? He moves, shoot him, come find me, I give you a bonus."

  Paul nodded enthusiastically. Chich tensed.

  "Good kid," Ralph commented. "See you around, Chich."

  We left. Chich was trying to convince the kid that Ralph didn't really mean for him to shoot, not really. Paul was counting aloud.

  We walked out the entrance of the scrap yard.

  The walruses were back to playing their dominoes. Except for the crusted blood on the right one's face, the bloodstained bandanna he was sometimes using to dab it with, the men didn't look at all different.

  They tried very hard not to look up as we walked out, across the street to Ralph's maroon Cadillac, which had miraculously had its windows washed.

  "Life kicks ass," Ralph told us.

  THIRTY-SIX

  It wasn't until we were several blocks away that Ana DeLeon pounded her palm against the back of Ralph's headrest, jolting the joint out of his hand.

  Ralph cursed. "What's the matter with you, chica?"

  "You didn't have to do any of that back there, you asshole."

  Ralph couldn't look back at us and stay on the road. He squinted indignantly at the traffic on Zarzamora.

  "Do what?"

  "Draw blood. Play machismo. If you were trying to impress me, you failed."

  Ralph's face darkened to a dangerous red. "You think I did that to impress somebody?"

  "Either that or you're too stupid to ask questions another way."

  Ralph and Ana started cursing at each other in Spanish — the usual names, the usual insults. I considered opening the car door and rolling onto the pavement. I figured my chances of living might be better.

  Instead I yelled, "Knock. It. Off!"

  The insults died down. Ana held up her hands, then dropped them, like she was throwing her disgust on the floor.

  Ralph retrieved his joint, lit up, blew the smoke thoughtfully at the windshield. "De volada."

  "Bullshit," DeLeon spat.

  "That's how you got to live, Ana. I'm telling you — from the will. You think about things, plan them out too much, do them for reasons like impressing people — shit, you last maybe three days on the streets. You been out too long. You've forgotten."

  "The hell I've been out. I've been right there, you shit-head. I've seen your de volada. I see it about six times a week, every time one of the homeboys gets shot to death."

  Ralph waved the comment aside. "They froze up — the ones who stay loose, live."

  "More bullshit."

  "You see me breathing here, chica?"

  "Yeah. And for how much longer?"

  "Sour grapes, Ana. You still mad at me for the wrong reasons."

  She started to respond. I took her hand and clamped it, hard.

  Ana fumed, called Ralph some more Spanish names under her breath. We drove for a few blocks.
>
  "Were you prepared to kill Chich back there?" she asked, more subdued now. Ralph blew a line of smoke.

  "You don't get it. I didn't think that way. It wasn't like — okay I'll do uno, dos, tres. I feel what I got to do first and I do it. Then I see what happens next."

  "You're saying you can't control yourself."

  Ralph laughed, glanced back at me. "Vato, I shouldn't have tried, should I? No point explaining."

  I didn't answer. Ana's hand in mine was as tense as a coiled snake.

  "Where to next?" I asked Ralph, hoping to steer us somewhere else, someplace that might not lead to a gun-fight in the car.

  "I got a few more ideas," Ralph said.

  "More ideas like Chich?" Ana put as much disdain into the words as they could hold.

  "What?" Ralph growled. "You afraid of finding out more about me, chica?"

  "Not anymore."

  "If I'd told you at the start—" Ralph began.

  "You would've saved me a lot of time." Ana sank back in her seat and turned her hand so that it was gripping mine. Her fingernails dug into my knuckles.

  Ralph's face stayed a block of sandstone for a good five minutes — which is, I think, the longest I'd ever seen him go without emotion.

  Then he spoke in a voice that was cut from the same hard material.

  "Twenty-eight and a half days," he told the windshield. "That ain't a lot of time. It ain't even enough."

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  There's just no stopping the momentum of a perfect day.

  None of Ralph's other leads worked out. There was no word on the street about who had shot George and Hector Mara. No white vans. Nobody willing to confess. Nobody demanded that Ana kiss me to prove she was truly my girlfriend.

  After riding in complete silence back to the North Star Mall Boots and mumbling good-byes to Ralph, Ana DeLeon and I drove back to my place in her car.

  It was dusk, and the facade of 90 Queen Anne was losing definition. You could almost imagine the house in its heyday, back in the 1940s, when the wooden trim had been unbroken, the paint new, the bougainvillea clipped around the eaves. It had probably been one of the finer places in Mancke Park — the home of a banker, perhaps, or a prosperous merchant. The only thing that spoiled the illusion was the backward slant of the building, the way it had succumbed over the decades to gravity and bad foundation work. There were many days, like today, when I could relate.