The Last King of Texas - By Rick Riordan Page 0,54

friends threw out encouraging comments.

His arms were lean and smooth, his face round. The wispy black fuzz around his chin was the only testament to his graduation from puberty. He walked in an imitation of the joint walk of ex-cons, a gait he had neither the weight nor the muscles for.

"Yo, pendejo, minute's up. Little mama got to put out more better than that for me, man."

He leered at Mary, gestured for her to come away.

"Go back and sit down," I told him.

He gave me vacant eyes, a wide smile, his thoughts already retreating into his chest in a prebattle mode I recognized well. I saw the tension in his left hand, knew that he was about to impress me with a weapon-draw he'd probably practiced in his bedroom mirror a thousand times.

When the switchblade came out of his back pocket, flashing up in an arc toward my nose, I already had the rhythm of the move. My hand followed his wrist, caught it from underneath halfway, then pulled it toward me, dragging his arm across the counter between Mary and me.

Porkpie's armpit slammed against the bar. With my free hand I pressed his cheek down onto the sticky oak, crumpling his hat into a felt wad. My other thumb dug into the nerves of his wrist until the knife clattered free, falling somewhere behind the bar. The old bartender started waving his arms at me, protesting about the new management.

I let go of Porkpie's head and fished the gun out of his huge pants pocket before he could get to it. I flipped him around so he was facing his friends. I had his hand twisted up between his shoulder blades and his own Taurus P-11 pressed against his ear.

His friends were half standing, half crouching in their booth seats. All three had guns drawn - a nine, a .38. The guy with the Raiders jacket had drawn something that looked like a miniature AK-47. Nice kids.

"It's the need to show off," I said in Porkpie's ear. His face smelled like an autoshop. "You got this nice ten-shot and you have to scare me with the switchblade routine first. That won't earn you the big money from Chich."

"Fuck you." His voice was tight as a rivet.

Mary sat completely frozen. So did three tables full of patrons between me and the kids with the guns.

"Tell your homeboys to put their pieces down," I said, a little louder.

Porkpie said, "You're fucking dead"

I looked at the guys across the room. "I heard him say put the guns on the table. Did you hear that?"

Enough time passed for a line of sweat to snake its way between my shoulder blades, for Porkpie to exhale his sour breath on me six times.

His friends put their guns on the table.

I told Mary, "Outside."

"I ain't leaving," she said hoarsely.

The fear in her voice told me otherwise - that she knew who the young locos would take their revenge on once I was gone. I slid off my bar stool and side-walked Porkpie toward the door, his playmates' eyes drilling holes in me the whole ten feet. I waited until Mary was out the door behind me, until I heard her steps crunching over the gravel. She knew my car. I waited until she'd had enough time to find it.

Then I pushed Porkpie into the cantina, toppling him against a table and into the lap of a large woman in red. I backed out the door, dropped the P-11, and ran.

No shots rang out. No one followed. In a way, that just made me more nervous.

Once we were in the VW, driving north up Zarzamora, Mary exhaled more air than I would've thought possible for her small body to contain. "You're a fucker, Tres. Messing me up like that."

"You're welcome, Mary."

"They'll kill me, they see me again!"

"Sounds like a good reason not to see them again."

"You're such a fucker."

"How much do you need?"

"What?"

Her caramel curls were coming undone in the wind.

"I don't have much. I can give you maybe thirty in cash."

She drew her knees up on the seat and hugged them, a move a larger girl, a woman, couldn't have done. "I don't want your money."

"You wanted fuzz-face's instead?"

"Man, just lay off. Okay? You're not my dad. You're not even old enough."

Her real dad, I knew, had not been old enough to be her dad either, but I didn't bring that up.

We turned on Woodlawn and started east. "Your stepsister still live