Big Red Tiquila - Rick Riordan (4 page)

“
Listen," Maia said, "I wasn’t really
calling for a reason, if you’re busy."

"That’s okay."

In my doorway the futon seemed to be holding its own.
One mover was wedged against the wall and another was trying to
extract his leg from between two of its slats. The third guy had just
figured out that the bolts could be loosened. An ice cream truck
drove by, providing us with a momentary soundtrack: a very warped
recording of "Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’."

"It’s a whole ’nother world down here,
Maia," I said.

She laughed. “I remember telling you something like
that, Tex. But everything’s going all right? I mean . . ."

“
It’s okay," I told her. "Being home
after so long is like—I don’t know."

"Coming out of amnesia?"

"I was thinking more along the lines of
infectious skin diseases."

“
Hmph. You don’t pick your home, Tres. It just
is."

Maia knew about that. Take away the Mercedes and the
law practice and the Potrero Hill loft, and Maia’s most important
possession was still a photograph of an unpainted Sheetrock shack in
Zhejiang Province. Logic had nothing to do with it.

"Some things you don’t choose," I said.

"Isn’t that the truth."

I’m not sure either of us bought it. On the other
hand, I figured it was as close to an understanding about what had
happened between us as we would ever get. She told me she was on her
way to interview a client whose teenage son had been charged with
setting part of the Presidio on fire. It was going to be a long
morning. I promised to call in a few days.

“
Drink one of those frozen strawberry margaritas
for me," she said.

"Infidel," I said.

By noon the movers had everything out of the truck
and into the living room without any major accidents. I gave them
directions back to Loop 410. Then I headed down Broadway toward
downtown.

Ten minutes later I turned up Commerce and started
looking for street parking. Fortunately I was used to San Francisco
traffic. I U-turned across three lanes and beat a Hilton valet to a
nice meter spot without so much as a fistfight, then walked south
into La Villita.

The place hadn’t changed over the last few hundred
years. Except for being cleaner and having higher rents, the restored
four square blocks of original settlement were not much different
than they’d been back in the days of the Alamo. Tourists wandered
in and out of the white limestone buildings. A family of large
Germans, severely overdressed for the heat, sat at a green metal
table in the sun outside one of the cantinas. They were trying to
look like they were having fun on their vacation, mouths open,
fanning themselves with menus.

I wandered down the narrow brick lanes for almost
twenty minutes before I found the Hecho a Mano Gallery, a tiny
building in the shade of a huge live oak behind the La Villita
Chapel. The gallery didn’t seem to be getting much business at the
moment. I came in the door just as a glass paperweight flew past,
banging into the wall and rattling a few framed pictures of
Guatemalan peasants.

A male voice around the corner of the entryway said:
“God damn it!"

A loud disagreement followed.

“
Lillian?" I called, loudly.

I looked around the corner, cautious for more flying
objects. Lillian was standing up at a small wooden desk near the
opposite wall. She was pressing her fingertips against her temples
and glaring at a man who looked nothing at all like the Beau Karnau I
remembered.

What I remembered from the few times Beau had
condescended to shake my hand a decade ago was a short, burly
brunette with a crew cut, black clothes, and a face smoothed over
with acne scar tissue and smugness. Now in his late fifties, Karnau
looked more like one of the Seven Dwarfs. He sported a potbelly, a
scraggly gray beard, a receding hairline, and a braided ponytail.
He’d traded in the black clothes for a gaudy silk shirt, boots, and
jeans. His forehead was almost purple with anger.

“
God damn it," he shouted. "You can’t."

Lillian saw me, told me with a shake of her head that
she wasn’t in danger, then "Jesus Christ, Beau! You’re going
to kill somebody with your tantrums."

“
Tantrums my ass," he said. "You will not
do this to me again, Lillian."

He crossed his arms, huffed, then seemed to notice me
for the first time. judging by his sour face he must not have been
impressed by my rugged manliness. "This must be Mr. Wonderful,"
he said.

"Dr. Wonderful," I corrected. "Ph.D.,
Berkeley, ’91."

“
Har-de-har. "

How can you fight against lines like "har-de-har"?
I looked back at Lillian.

"Beau," she said slowly, staring down at
her desk, "can we please talk about this later?"

Karnau shifted his weight from foot to foot,
obviously thinking of the most withering comment he could  make.
Finally he decided to make a grand silent exit. Arms still crossed,
he stormed past me to the front door, slamming it shut behind him.

When Lillian’s facial expression told me she had
depressurized I came over to the desk. I waited.

"Sorry," she said. “That, of course, was
Beau."

"Your great inspiration," I remembered.
“Your biggest fan. Your ticket to—"

She cut me off with a look. "Things change."

"Mm. My finely honed deductive skills tell me he
was slightly miffed at you."

She sat on the edge of her desk and made a dismissive
gesture. “He’s been getting like that over a lot of things."

“
You want to say what?"

She gave me a tired smile. “Nothing. I mean I
didn’t want to get you involved in this yet. It’s just—I’ve
decided to pull out of the business. I want to do my own work
full-time, without Beau. I’m getting tired of selling to
vacationing Midwesterners."

"It’s about time."

She took my hand. "I figured the time was right,
after we talked last night. Time to get back on track in a lot of
ways. "

I came closer. After a few minutes Lillian’s mood
had improved enough for her to give me a tour of the gallery.

They specialized, she told me, in “Border Morbid."

The main room was devoted to ceramic Day of the Dead
sculptures by artists from Laredo and Piedras Negras. There were
skeletons playing guitar, skeletons making love, mother skeletons
nursing baby skeletons in cribs. Every scene was thickly glazed in
primary colors, hideous and comical.

"I’ve been saving this one for you, Tres,"
Lillian said.

The statuette was tucked away on a corner podium--a
dead man’s road trip. The skeletal driver had his arm around his
skeletal girlfriend. They were both grinning of course, holding up
miniature tequila bottles as they careened along in a bright orange
car that looked suspiciously like my Volkswagen.

"Lovely," I said. "So this is the way
you remember our road trips?"

Lillian stared at it without replying, a little sad.
Then she smiled at me.

“
Take it," she said. "A housewarming
gift. At least this car won’t break down on you."

“
We are not amused, " I grumbled.

I let her wrap it up in tissue paper for me anyway.
If nothing else it would be good for scaring the bejesus out of
Robert Johnson.

Beau came back with a salad-in-a-box forty-five
minutes later. He had gone from inflamed to smoldering, but still
said very little. He just nodded when Lillian said she was leaving
early.

When we got back to Lillian’s house that afternoon
a new silver BMW had pulled up over the lawn and parked sideways
across her driveway. A well-built blond man in a disheveled Christian
Dior suit was sitting on the trunk, waiting.

He’d put on a few pounds since high school but it
was definitely Dan Sheff, former water polo team captain for the
fighting Alamo Heights Mules, heir to the multi-million-dollar Sheff
Construction empire, jilted ex-hunk of Miss Lillian Cambridge. By the
angle of his tie it was fairly easy to see that he’d gotten a
little too happy at happy hour. It was also obvious he was not there
to welcome me to town.
 

7

"I want to talk to you," he said, meaning
me.

Dan was speaking clearly enough but he was listing
slightly to port. Lillian had otten out of the car first and was
standing in front of him with her hands out. It was hard to tell
whether she was trying to hold him back or catch him if he fell.

"I think I’ve got a right to talk to him,"
Dan told her.

“
This isn’t fair, Dan," Lillian said.

“
You’re damn right."

She was trying to corral him back toward the BMW, but
he wouldn’t move. He looked at her and for a few seconds his
expression wavered between angry and injured. He put out his hands.

"Lillian—"

"No, Dan!" she said. “I want you to go."

The Rodriguez brothers next door were out on their
porch, drinking beer in their tank tops and swim trunks. They watched
us, grinning. One circled his temple with his finger and said
something in Spanish I couldn’t catch. The other one laughed. I
touched Lillian on the shoulder.

“
I can talk to Dan if he wants," I said.

She looked back at me, her face incredulous. "Tres,
no. I mean, you don’t have to do that. Dan, leave now."

She pushed him back. He wobbled a little but didn’t
fall over.

“
I’rn not leaving until I get my say," he
said.

Dan and I looked at Lillian.

"I don’t believe this," she snapped. She
gave us both a withering scowl as she retreated toward the house,
then slammed the screen door behind her. One of the Rodriguez
brothers opened a new beer.

“
I just want to know something." Dan rubbed
the side of his face with two fingers that had gold rings the size of
walnuts. “I want to know what makes you think that you can come
back to town after ten fucking years and act like you’re Christ
Descended. You ditch this town, you ditch Lillian, you run away from
the whole fucking scene, and then you come back and expect everything
to be waiting for you just like it was. You ever heard of burned
bridges, Navarre?"

Sheff was getting warmed up now, almost sober. As he
talked he got faster and angrier, slapping one hand into the other to
make his point. His perfectly combed hair had come unraveled, one
little curl hanging down in his face Superman style.

"You want an answer?" I said.

"Some of us stayed in town, man. Some of us
don’t run away from people we care about. We’ve been building
something, Lillian and me, for six months now. `What the hell gives
you the right to come out of nowhere and stomp on that now?"

I thought about what to say to that. Nothing came to
mind.

"You’re pathetic," Dan said. "You
can’t make a life for yourself out there, go someplace else and
leave us alone. You don’t get another chance here."

I exhaled, looking over at the Rodriguezes, who
seemed highly entertained, then back at Dan.

“
Pathetic might be a little strong," I said.

“
Fuck you."

"Lillian called me, Dan," I said, trying to
keep my voice even. “Not the other way around. If you were building
something, I think it was collapsing way before I got here."

In itself, that didn’t strike me as that much of an
insult, but there were at least two months of pent-up anger in Dan’s
first punch. I admit I wasn’t ready for it. It caught me square in
the stomach.

You don’t ever want to fight an emotionally
distraught person, especially one who’s in good physical shape.
What they lose in coordination they gain in power and
unpredictability. When he hit me I had to ignore the nausea and the
instinct to double over in order to avoid a haymaker swing that
would’ve caught me in the head.

I slid down under the punch on my left leg, a little
awkwardly, and used my right leg to knock Dan off his feet with a
sweep-kick. He didn’t know to roll, so he fell on his back pretty
hard.

I got up and backed away. My gut felt like a piece of
sheet metal that was hardening as it cooled.

Dan scrambled up and started toward me. I held up my
palms, offering a truce.

"This is stupid, Dan, " I said.

He tried one more punch but this time I was ready for
it. I stepped out of the way and let him punch air. After that he
just stood there for a minute, breathing heavily.

"God damn it," he said. “You got no
right."

He turned and started back toward his car. From the
way he walked, his lower back must’ve been in a lot of pain.

The windows of his BMW were tinted almost black, so
it was only when Dan opened the door that I saw the older woman with
bright gold hair sitting in the passenger seat. Her face rested in
her left hand as if in total mortification. As the door slammed Dan
was growling to her: "Don’t start!"