The Last King of Texas - By Rick Riordan Page 0,20

showed up again, started asking about his new business connections. Especially if Sanchez had ideas about getting back into the chiva. Sanchez, man - he's a war hero. People admire his style. He could take over Chich Gutierrez's business without half trying."

"I'll look into that."

"Just do it careful. Tell George Berton when you see him tonight - tell him I said to be careful."

"How'd you know I was going to see George?"

Ralph grinned.

"Uh-oh," I said. "Kelly?"

"No, man, I didn't hear it from her."

He was enjoying some excellent, private joke.

"What?" I demanded.

He took a long last pull on the marijuana, then flicked the joint to the ground, crushed it under his heel. He offered me a hand and pulled me effortlessly out of the butterfly chair. "Just remember to deal me in, vato, once you're ready."

"You said Hector Mara's salvage yard was taking away some of your fencing business."

"That's right."

"So are you siccing me on Hector because you think it might help me? Or because you want to get rid of the competition?"

Ralph grinned. "Your perception of the world is overly grim, vato. Enjoy your date."

I could hear him laughing quietly all the way through my house.

Chapter 8

Aaron and Ines Brandon's house was a driftwood-colored craftsman on Castano, a few blocks east of Alamo Heights High School.

The street was one of those San Antonio gullies that floods in the smallest rainstorm, houses perched atop forty-five-degree yards on either side, the cars on the curb caked with dried flood lines of oak leaves and pecan pollen.

I parked on the street behind a red Fiat and walked up the sidewalk, over a Big Wheel, through a scatter of street chalk.

There was a brass mezuzah on the doorjamb.

I was just raising my hand to knock when the door swung open and a large Anglo man collided with me. He was maybe two hundred pounds, my height, loud yellow shirt, and a square face.

He muttered, "Damn, fricking - " then pushed past in a wake of cheap sports cologne.

I watched him lumber down the unlighted walk. The back of his retreating head looked like gorilla-mask fur, greased and combed. He skidded on a piece of pink street chalk, cursed, kicked the Big Wheel, then kept trudging down the steps toward the Fiat.

Glass shattered somewhere inside the house. A woman yelled angrily. I took that as an invitation.

The living room was stark white - carpet, walls, sofa, molding. Against the right wall was the limestone fireplace I'd seen in Detective DeLeon's crime-scene photo. The freshly scrubbed bricks still retained the craters of two .45 rounds that had slowed down not at all traveling through Aaron Brandon's body. Open moving boxes clustered next to the sofa. Through an archway on the left, in the dining room, glass shards of a newly broken window dangled from the frame. At the far end of the sofa, a woman stood with her back to me.

She was leaning over an oak end table forested with framed family photos, her hands clamped tightly on the table corners as if she were contemplating a war map. She was a light-skinned Latina, tall and slender, her hair shoulder length and silky red-brown, the color of roasted peppers. She wore a beige blouse and black jeans. If she'd been any more earth-toned she could've laid down in a South Texas oil field and disappeared.

I rapped on the doorjamb.

"Forget something, Del?" Her voice was small and cold. "You want my checkbook, too, you fucking bastard?"

I cleared my throat. "Wrong bastard."

She whirled to face me.

Her mouth was wide and pretty, her nose slightly crooked, her eyes so large and brown the color seemed to tint her corneas like a cinnamon overdose. It was the kind of face that strikes you as beautiful because of a successful combination of flaws.

"Who - " She stopped herself, shook her head vehemently. "No. I don't care who you are. What the hell are you doing in my home?"

I wasn't technically inside, but I remedied that by stepping over the threshold. "Sorry to disturb you, Mrs. Brandon." I plucked an Erainya Manos Agency card from my front pocket, held it up. It was one of the granite-gray executive cards. Somber. Professional. I tried to make my expression match the card. "I came by to ask you some questions. Your brother-in-law Del ran over me on his way out, then I heard the window break. I got concerned."

She made a little feral noise. "Another goddamn cop. You