The Last King of Texas - By Rick Riordan Page 0,14
My guess, he was helping his brother Del put a knife in Sanchez's back."
"You got anything more than a guess?"
Ozzie's head jerked back in a silent laugh. "You know what the M.E. pulled out of Aaron Brandon's fireplace last Saturday?"
".45 slugs."
"Better than that. Hollow-tipped bullets, mercury-filled. Not many sons of bitches ever used that kind of artillery in San Antonio."
"Still - "
"And there's a witness. The professor's wife and kid were out of town but they got this maid lives above the garage. Everybody else in the neighborhood is pretty much deaf old retirees, but the maid heard the two shots, gave a pretty good description of the guy she saw coming out of Brandon's back door just afterward. She made a positive ID on Sanchez in a photo lineup."
"Two shots with a .45, in a quiet residential neighborhood. Sanchez just strolls out the back door and is nice enough to leave a witness. This after he was smart enough to stay hidden since when - '93?"
"Revenge makes you stupid. Thing about gang-bangers, they're smart only in the ways that they're smart. Kind of like academics."
"Hey - "
"I'm telling you, Navarre. I know Sanchez. He's good for the murder. SAPD looks where I told them to look, they'll nail his ass. Let's get some food." Ozzie cut across Military Drive and pulled into the parking lot of a Circle K that squatted at the entrance of a particularly bleak subdivision.
When the big-haired cashier saw Ozzie, she rolled her eyes. "Where the hell you been all week?"
"Busy, Mabel. Hot dogs warm? Damn near gave me E. coli last time."
"Oh, the hell they did," Mabel grumbled. "You wish some bacteria'd eat off that extra flesh of yours, Ozzie Gerson."
"Balls." Ozzie went behind the counter and pulled two foam cups from the special cop dispenser.
I kid you not. There is a special cop dispenser. The cups say FOR POLICE USE ONLY.
He tossed me one. "You're honorary today, Navarre. Help yourself."
I got some Big Red. Ozzie went for Pepsi. For police use only. Do not try this at home. We are trained professionals. We know how to pour soda into these special cups.
Ozzie grabbed two hot dogs and offered me one. I declined.
Ozzie began chewing on both of them. He eyed a couple of large Latinos in construction clothes who were buying cigarettes from Mabel.
"What about the pipe bomb at UTSA?" I asked him. "The death threats?"
Ozzie kept chewing. "You mean was that Sanchez? Why not? Solidox bomb is an old gang scare tactic. Lot of the veteranos know how to make them."
"They learn how to craft political hate mail, too?"
Ozzie dabbed the ketchup off his jowls with a Circle K napkin. He kept his eyes on the Latinos at the register, who were now asking for a fill-up on number four.
"I don't know, Navarre. Don't waste your time trying to figure out Zeta Sanchez. He's a gang-banger. He passed the exit for humans a long time ago." "Bullshit."
Ozzie shrugged. "You don't want to hear it, don't. Jeremiah and Aaron Brandon weren't white, we wouldn't even be having this conversation. We'd let Sanchez go on killing his own. Tell me it ain't so."
I tried to control the swell of anger in my throat, the feeling that I was back in my father's patrol car again, arguing social issues until common sense started to bend like light around a black hole. Ozzie was one of the last of my father's generation on the force, the last who could give me that feeling. Maybe that's why I'd kept in touch with Ozzie over the years. A sort of negative nostalgia. Ozzie met my eyes, tried to soften his look of obstinance. "Listen, kid. It's like I told Erainya - leave this murder to the SAPD. All your friend Berton's got to do is dig around UTSA a little, talk to some Mexican activist groups, decide they've got nothing to do with the case and UTSA is safe. And I'm telling you - this has got nada to do with campus politics. UTSA will be grateful, you'll get paid for doing squat, we'll get Sanchez in custody, everybody will be happy."
"Except Aaron Brandon, his wife, his kid."
Ozzie's eyes were the color of frozen vodka. "So the prof had a family. You become a cop, Navarre, you take that reverse gear and you rip it out of your transmission. You don't go backward. You don't think about what you can't change."