The Devil Went Down to Austin (11 page)

"I guess I didn't mean that," I said.

His eyes were our dad's eyes—steady, scolding, a slowburning fire that said, You best not lie to me, 'cause I know better.

I watched the soccer game playing in triplicate on the TVs above the bar.

Maia's conversation with Matthew Pena didn't appear to be getting any friendlier. The bartender put two margaritas on the rocks in front of her. I wondered if she planned on drinking them both.

"You were going to have to square things with her eventually," Garrett told me. "You know that, little bro."

"My brother the shrink."

"Tell me you're over Maia," he insisted. "Tell me there's been one time since you moved back to Texas you were really convinced. If you listened to me once in a while, dumbass—"

He stopped abruptly. Maia Lee was standing by us now, a margarita in each hand.

"Don't stop insulting him on my account."

She plopped into a chair, shoved the margaritas forward, spilling most of them. Her face was bright red from her encounter with Pena.

"Went that well, huh?" I asked.

Maia crossed her legs at the knee, tugged at the hem of her black linen funeral dress.

Her calves below the hemline were lean and smooth. I didn't notice them at all.

"You can't sell out to Pena," she told Garrett. "You can't give the bastard the pleasure."

The margarita wasn't bad. Cointreau. Probably Cuervo Gold. Maia had called it well.

Then again, I'd taught her.

I took another sip. "What did Pena do to you, Maia?"

Her eyes managed to look ferocious and serene at the same time. Predator cat eyes.

"He didn't do anything."

"Used to be, you had two rules. You didn't defend paedophiles, and you didn't defend anyone you knew in your heart was guilty of murder. Now you're telling me this guy—a guy you defended twice—could be a murderer."

Over at the bar, Dwight Hayes was now arguing with Pena. Pena looked amused—as if he was not used to hearing anything but yes from Dwight Hayes.

Maia spread her fingers on the table, waited long enough to count them. "Ronald Terrence, my wonderful boss. He gave me the job of representing Matthew Pena last year."

"The Menlo Park case," I said. "The guy who ate his shotgun."

She nodded. "It wasn't a hard assignment. There was evidence Pena had harassed the victim, but absolutely nothing to suggest foul play in the shooting itself."

"Harassing like how?"

"Pena sent the victim email threats, spiked them with a virus so they'd crash the victim's system. He made some taunting phone

calls. But the shooting was a suicide. In the end, the police couldn't touch Pena for it. I came away with the feeling that my client was a creep, but not a murderer. I could live with that. Most of my clients are creeps. Then in January, Terrence sent me down to see Pena again. This time it was a little tougher."

"Adrienne Selak."

Maia pressed her fingers on the table, made a silent piano chord. "One of Adrienne's friends came forward. She gave a statement that Pena was violent, that he had threatened Adrienne several times. Adrienne's family pushed the police hard, demanding he be charged. They told the press their daughter's death was no accident, she was a good swimmer, she never drank to excess. Plenty of witnesses on the boat saw Matthew and Adrienne arguing. There was no physical evidence, but the circumstantial case looked bad. Pena's attitude when I interviewed him—he seemed stunned, maybe even griefstricken. But I didn't know. I had my doubts."

"You defended him anyway," I reminded her.

"That was my job. Dwight Hayes' statement was solid. I rounded up other statements from people on the boat who'd seen Adrienne inebriated, clearly not in full control of her faculties. I found some . . . less reputable acquaintances of Adrienne's, people from her past. I got statements about her unstable personality, her drug use, some other things . . . things that would've been embarrassing for her family to hear in court.

I made it clear that I would destroy Adrienne Selak's character in a trial, make it seem highly plausible she'd fallen off that boat, maybe even committed suicide. I would trash the prosecution's lack of physical evidence. Adrienne's family backed off. The police wavered. That's where we left it, as of January. They never filed charges."

"All in a good day's work," I said.

Maia didn't respond.

Garrett nursed his margarita. He was watching Pena and Hayes, who were still having words at the bar. Despite the crowd, the seat Maia had vacated there was still empty.

None of Jimmy Doebler's friends was rushing to fill it.

"Most of what I learned about Matthew Pena," Maia said, "I learned afterward. He tries to destroy people, Tres. It doesn't stop when he gets what he wants. He follows up, pays visits, twists the dagger as much as he can. He toys with people's minds."

"And you found this out ..."

"Because he tried to do it to me."

Before I could respond, Ruby McBride was there, her large friend Clyde Simms in tow.

"Well!" she said. "This must be the happy people's table."

Ruby had shed her white jacket since the memorial service. Her blouse was sleeveless and sheer. She'd wrapped a Cleopatrastyle silver snake armband around her biceps. Versatile outfit—perfect for the woman who needs to hit the singles scene right after her ex husband's funeral and doesn't want the hassle of changing.

There were no seats for our guests. Clyde folded his arms, seemed content to root there and let the crowd navigate around him.

Ruby knelt next to Garrett, draped one arm around his neck, then slipped a tiny silver camera out of her pants pocket.

She smiled at Maia and me. "Got to get this for the scrapbook."

The flash left me blinking black amoebas.

"We are so indebted to you for coming, Miss Lee," Ruby said. "Your advice so far—well, we wouldn't be here today, would we?"

"You want to blame somebody—" Garrett started.

"No blame," Ruby protested. "Of course, I hope Miss Lee won't mind—just this once—if we don't invite her to our meeting tonight. I really think it should be just the company's principals. Those of us who are still left."

Maia started to get up. "I'll see you later, Garrett. Tres."

"Oh, Miss Lee. Don't leave on my account!"

"I've got to go to the little girls' room," Maia said. "Repair my hairspray and stuff. You understand, Miss McBride."

Once she was gone, Ruby said, "I love that woman."

"She's good looking," Clyde grumbled. "You made her leave."

Ruby waved her camera like she was dispelling smoke. "You have bad taste, Clyde."

"You make me talk to Pena and Hayes again," Clyde warned, "I'll show you taste. I'll murder them."

Ruby rolled her eyes. She slid into Maia's chair, aimed the camera at me diagonally. I held my hand in front of the lens until she gave up. "Spoilsport. I'm not excluding you from tonight's meeting, Tres, honey. After all, you have some direct interest in the capital at stake, don't you?"

"You mean he's likely to side with you," Garrett complained.

Ruby said cheerfully, "That too."

Over at the bar, the argument between Pena and Hayes was escalating, some of the words even cutting through the bar noise. She. Sell. No.

From the back patio, Kinky Friedman let out a loud aiyyaiyy aiyy! There was a spattering of applause, then Kinky launched into "Waitress, Please Waitress." The perfect romantic wedding song.

Clyde was glaring at the fight between Pena and Dwight Hayes, which was now beginning to stop the conversations around them.

"Somebody should kill that guy," Clyde groused.

"Now, now," Ruby said. "That guy is our next paycheck, dear."

Then Dwight Hayes pushed his boss. Maybe Dwight didn't mean to push as forcefully as he did. Maybe he caught Pena off balance. But Pena toppled backward, right off his barstool, flat on his ass.

There were two seconds of frozen surprise at the bar, then bemused looks, then catcalls. Somebody started clapping.

Matthew Pena got slowly to his feet.

Dwight was apologizing, his arms raised, and Pena nodded reassuringly that everything was okay, then picked up a beer bottle and slammed it into the side of Dwight Hayes' face. It was Dwight's turn to go down.

A woman shrieked. The crowd surged back.

Clyde Simms said, "That's fucking it."

Ruby tried to call after him, but Clyde was hearing none of it. He plowed through the crowd, toward the bar.

There were two Travis County deputies working the wedding party's security by the back door, but they weren't moving yet— probably trying to decide if their duties included breaking up a nonweddingparty bar fight.

Clyde tapped Matthew Pena's shoulder, got his attention, and decked him.

Another surge backward from the crowd.

I stood, but it was still hard to see.

Dwight Hayes had just gotten up, and some misguided sense of loyalty or guilt prompted him to grab another beer bottle, which he brought down in a shipchristening manoeuvre on top of Clyde Simms' skull with a loud, hollow POCK.

That just made the big man mad. Clyde swung around, bellowing "Fucking motherfucker!" and slashing three or four drinks off the bar.

He tried to lift Dwight by his shirt, but that only works in the movies. All Clyde managed to do was yank fabric into Dwight's armpits, showing us all his skinny, tan midriff. Clyde slammed Dwight against the bar, slipped on something, and both men went over onto the floor, crushing Matthew Pena, who'd just been trying to get up.

Garrett was cursing at me to wheel him the hell out of there before he got trampled.

Ruby had her hand over her mouth. Whether she was amused or mortified, I couldn't tell.

Across the room, the two deputies were finally trying to push toward the fight, but the crowd kept pushing them back. Maia Lee had come out of the bathroom; she wasn't having much luck moving, either.

Clyde came up for air like a breaching whale, holding Dwight sideways by one leg and his neck. Dwight had found another bottle on the floor and was swinging it desperately, occasionally hitting Clyde, more often swiping somebody in the crowd. Someone yelped. Clyde started wading across the room, toward the bathrooms. People scrambled to get out of his way.

Kinky Friedman was playing "We Reserve the Right to Refuse Service to You." The tuxanddress folks were pressing their faces against the patio windows, watching us lower classes partake in our quaint amusements.

It was now an easier matter for me to get close to Clyde, although the deputies still had the bulk of the crowd in their way. One of the guys at a nearby table yelled, "Hey, that's Dwight! Fuck that!" and tried to jump Clyde. The guy missed and slid out of sight.

Another guy picked up a chair. Dwight kept swinging the bottle and hitting people, causing a chain reaction of pissedoff drunks.

I'm not sure where Clyde thought he was taking Dwight, but when he got to the booths on the opposite side of the room, between the Damen and Herren rest room doors, he decided the trophy case of German bier steins on the wall was as good a spot as any.

He stepped onto the platform of the first booth, the people at the table cringing away from him, and he heaved Dwight into the glass. It broke with a mighty crash. Dwight didn't fit in the cabinet, so he fell onto the booth table, his knees straddling a woman's blond hairdo, glass and broken bier steins showering on his back and into the diners' plates of sausage and sauerkraut.

The deputies yelled for people to get out of their way. The music on the back patio was finally unravelling to a stop.

Clyde Simms swung around and started scanning the crowd— no doubt looking for his original target, Matthew Pena. He seemed surprised to find me blocking his way.

"What the faaaaaah—"

The last sound because of the knucklestrike I jabbed into his larynx.

I shoved my palm into his nose hard enough to spout blood. Then I grabbed his wrist, twisted myself under his arm and came up behind him, putting Clyde's arm in a double joint lock—his arm twisted at the elbow and wrist so he was forced to make a capital letter C between his shoulder blades.

He said, "Aaaadddd!"

I suggested, "Let's go outside."

Fistfights were breaking out here and there like brushfires, slowing down the deputies who were wading toward me.

I walked Clyde toward the door. The crowd parted for us. Ruby got a great shot of us with her camera.

Over by the back patio, I caught a glimpse of a swarthy guy in black Western clothes—pencil moustache, cigar, white Stetson pulled down over his eyes. He was watching the proceedings calmly.

Kinky Friedman, collecting lyrics for his next song, no doubt.

I got Clyde outside and was trying to figure out where best to deposit him when a voice said, "Freeze!"

Just like that. Freeze. Like he'd been watching Real Cops.

Without turning around, I said, "Just trying to help calm things down here, sir."

The next sound I knew—the dry swishclick of a metal asp being extended. The deputy said, "Let him go."

"I'll fucking kill you," Clyde murmured to me.

"My friend here just got a little upset, Deputy," I called back to the cop. "I was just trying to cool him down a little bit. No harm done. Right, buddy?"

Clyde stopped cursing. I think the word Deputy sobered him up. I could feel the tension seep out of his shoulders.

"Yeah," he agreed. "This fucker's right."

I tightened the joint lock.

"Aadd! Yeah my good buddy's right, officer. No problem. No problem."

I let Clyde go, stepped quickly out of his way. We both turned and smiled at the deputy.

He looked familiar—probably one of the guys who'd been giving me dirty looks at the station on Saturday.

Clyde did a good job looking friendly, even though he had a line of blood leaking from his left nostril. The blood matched his suit beautifully.

The deputy didn't smile back. His collapsible baton was a black televisionantennalooking thing with a handle on the thick end— the only difference being that a television antenna could not break your thighbone.