Mission road - By Rick Riordan Page 0,49

she could answer, or more likely hit me, the limo lurched to a stop.

In front of us, traffic had backed up behind a police barricade. Half a block ahead, Main Plaza was filled with people and the glow of luminarias.

Las Posadas.

I’d told Alex and Ralph to meet us in Main Plaza, figuring it would be deserted this time of night. I’d completely forgotten about the Christmas celebration.

Our driver apologized. He said this was as close as he could get us to our rendezvous point.

“Let us out here,” Madeleine ordered. “Circle the block. We’ll be back in five minutes.”

“And if we get spotted by the police?” I asked.

She glared at me. “Good point.” Then to the driver: “If we get spotted by the police, Mr. Navarre will be dead and I’ll be back in five minutes.”

• • •

THE SCENE IN THE PARK WAS surreal enough to curl Salvador Dali’s mustache.

Tourists mixed with candle-bearing pilgrims and carolers dressed like Hebrew shepherds. Children chased each other around the trees. Vendors worked the crowd with fajitas, atole and cerveza.

Through the middle of it all, Joseph and Mary led their donkey while mariachis sang at them in Spanish to go away; there was no posada. No room in the inn.

I couldn’t help thinking: This is San Antonio, man. We have three million hotel rooms.

At the edges of the park, a dozen cops stood on duty. None of them paid us any attention. A public Christmas celebration probably wasn’t the first place they expected dangerous fugitives.

Ralph and Alex were sitting on a park bench, watching the mariachis serenade the Blessed Couple.

Alex wore a navy blue suit and aviator’s shades that must’ve left him completely blind in the dark.

My skin crawled when I saw him. He looked so damn much like Frankie. Or maybe my skin crawled because I realized he was about my size, and the accountant’s clothes I was wearing might very well belong to him.

“You’re late,” he said.

“Any trouble?” Madeleine asked.

“With the getaway, no. With you supposed to be at your father’s party half an hour ago, yes.”

“He knows where I am.”

Alex snorted.

“What?” she demanded.

“Nothing. Let’s get out of here.” Under his breath, he muttered something that rhymed with itch.

Madeleine grabbed his lapels, hauled him to his feet. “Navarre and Arguello, will you excuse us a minute?”

She dragged Alex away through the crowd.

Ralph didn’t pay any attention. He was holding his wallet open like a tiny hymnal, staring at a photo of Ana and the baby.

I’m not sure why, but a wave of irritation washed over me. I told myself that wasn’t fair. Ralph had every right to miss his family, to feel shock and grief. Maybe he even had the right to shoot at Johnny Zapata. It had been my choice to follow him out the window . . .

I stopped a vendor, bought a couple of beers.

I sat next to Ralph and handed him one of the cups. “Salud.”

It took him a minute to focus on me. “Sam okay?”

I told him the story. I apologized that he’d risked getting captured just so I could check out a shot-off earlobe.

“S’okay,” he said. “Friends help each other.”

“Is that what we’re doing?”

Ralph stared at me. I hadn’t meant to sound so angry.

“Something you want to tell me?” he asked.

I should’ve shut my mouth, but I’d been saving up hurt I hadn’t even known about. Now it was boiling over. Too many hours on adrenaline. Too many frayed nerves.

“Been a pretty shitty reunion. Longest we’ve spent together since you got married. Look what we’re doing.”

“You saying it’s my fault we haven’t been hanging out?”

“You got a family,” I said. “I understand that.”

“I wonder if you do.”

“Christ, Ralph, you pushed me away when you got married. You amputated your whole goddamn past. Watching you today with Zapata—I don’t know. Maybe you weren’t meant for a regular family life.”

Ralph blinked. “I wasn’t meant . . . Vato, if you were anybody else telling me this shit—”

“You’d what?” I demanded. “Prove my point? Shoot me?”

“You don’t want to be here, vato, that’s cool. I didn’t ask you. But don’t start jacking with me about who cut off who.”

“Aw, come on—”

“We invited you over a dozen times, man. Whenever Ana saw you she’d ask you. I left messages on your machine. Don’t tell me you didn’t get them.”

Ralph finished his beer, crumpled the cup. “Anybody’s afraid, vato, it’s you. I think it scares the hell out of you that I got a wife and kid.”

“Bullshit.”

“You hate it that you’re the