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Authors: Rick Riordan

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The Devil Went Down to Austin (26 page)

BOOK: The Devil Went Down to Austin
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Neither Maia nor I had come so prepared—no blanket, no provisions, no funny costumes.

A warmup act came on stage and began an instrumental number to a spattering of applause.

Maia's eyes were fixed on the horizon, studying the stars above the oak trees.

"I've apologized," I told her. "I don't know what else to say."

"I don't blame you for bringing evidence to Lopez's attention. I blame you for not calling me. Not telling me. Not warning me."

Garrett glared up at us from his halfrolled joint. "Could we not talk about this anymore? I'm trying to get stoned. You want to plan my funeral, how about you two go up that way some?"

Then Garrett was besieged by a group of tropicalshirted fans who wanted to admire his bird. Flasks of liquor came out.

Maia and I exchanged looks, then moved up the hill.

We found an abandoned quilt kicked into a U—its owner either gone to get beer or gone toward the stage.

Metal drums trilled on stage. The lights surged.

What I'd taken for a warmup band was actually Buffett's band.

Mr. Margaritaville himself was now coming on stage. The mega screen TVs flashed online to either side of the stage, so that J.B. was either a small orange and red dot walking across the stage or a huge, grinning tan face with blond cropped hair.

The cheering started.

"At least Garrett's talking to you again," Maia said.

"Sure," I agreed. "What better punishment?"

She didn't try to make me feel better.

Buffett launched into something I didn't recognize, but the crowd did. A guy near us raised a beer can and did a pretty good approximation of a rebel yell.

Maia hugged her arms, as if the eightyfivedegree night warranted shivers. "I want you to know, I tried to convince Garrett to get another lawyer. The DA didn't contest my right to represent, but ... I don't want a trial. That's not why I came to Texas. Garrett insisted. I guess he was too shaken to think about hiring someone he didn't know."

At the moment, Garrett didn't appear shaken. He and his friends were nodding their heads to the music, drinking, passing around the joint.

"You'll have to suggest a plea bargain," I told Maia.

"Unless something changes drastically. Manslaughter, maybe."

"He won't go for it."

"Of course not," she said bitterly. "Navarre stubbornness forebears."

A prickly silence formed between us.

"Tell me I'm not crazy," I said. "Pena could be responsible for Jimmy's murder. Or Ruby. Or W.B."

"Garrett's your brother. You don't need permission to take his side."

It wasn't the kind of answer I'd wanted, and I guess it showed.

"You've been acting guilty for days," Maia said. "It's not just finding that casing. What's bothering you?"

Buffett was still playing that song I didn't know. Pot smoke was so thick that every few seconds another wisp of it would cross the moon like a cloud.

"Listening to Ruby," I said, "how she abandoned Garrett after his accident. I guess I hadn't thought about that night in a long time."

Maia studied my face.

In all the years we'd been together, I'd never discussed my family with her much. She hadn't even known Garrett was disabled until she'd met him.

"We found him on the tracks," I told her. "My father, my sister, and I. I knew where Garrett went to hop trains. I waited almost two hours before I said anything to my dad."

"That was twenty years ago," she said. "You were how old, twelve?"

Garrett was up on the hill, having a great old time. A young blond girl, maybe twentythree, had settled into his lap. She coaxed Dickhead the Parrot onto her wrist, then lifted her arm up and down to the beat, forcing Dickhead to hold his wings open for balance like a hang glider.

"Garrett's fine," Maia said gently. "Look at him, for God's sake."

I didn't answer.

I wasn't sure I could explain to Maia that she was giving me too much credit. What bothered me wasn't the idea I might've done more for Garrett, all those years ago.

What bothered me was that I finally understood how Ruby McBride felt. She'd made me remember the revulsion, the horror of Garrett's condition, the desire to run away from him. She'd reminded me of my darkest, most contemptible wish when I was twelve years old—that perhaps it would have been better if I'd just gone to sleep that night, not said anything to my father.

Maia reached out, took my hand.

She was about to say something when her face went blank.

Matthew Pena was walking toward us.

He'd changed out of business clothes, into a sleeveless Gold's Gym Tshirt and workout pants. Unfortunately, he did not appear to have sustained any permanent injuries from Maia Lee tossing him into his bookshelf yesterday. His hair gleamed with gel and his eyes were brighter than I'd seen them before, almost animated. If dead things can be animated.

"A picnic," Pena said. "How cozy."

"Matthew." Maia's tone was steady and cold. "I didn't figure you for a Buffett fan."

He held up the laminated card around his neck. "Gift from a prospective client—backstage pass. How could I say no?"

For Pena, the event could've been ballet or baseball or an art opening. It didn't matter.

The important thing was that he could walk around with that backstage pass on, prove to the diehard fans that he could do better than they could without half trying.

I looked back at Garrett. He saw us, all right. He made a finger gun, fired it at us, then he returned his attention to the young blonde dancing in his lap.

Pena crouched in front of me. "Had a busy day, Navarre? I heard your brother is in a little trouble. If there's anything I can do—"

"Like confess?" I asked.

Pena smiled. "By the way, I thought I'd return this to you."

He took the button recorder I'd left stuck under his desk, tossed it in my lap.

"Expensive piece of equipment," he said. "Shouldn't leave it sitting around. I had my people erase it for you. All it failed to pick up, I'm happy to tell you, is good news. We've isolated the problem in Techsan's software. Stupid mistake on the part of the original programmers, I'm afraid. Easily corrected."

"Surprise, surprise."

"Of course, there's the matter of those confidential documents being posted. I can't promise there won't be a criminal investigation against your brother and Ruby, maybe some more lawsuits, but hey— at least the program will be on track. Your brother's AccuShield stock should go up. By the time he gets out of jail, he'll be able to pay his debts, retire to the lower middle class."

"I think," Maia said, "that you should leave."

The Buffett song ended to deafening applause.

Pena checked his watch. "You're right. I'd better get back to my clients. We've got a night dive scheduled after the concert—going to check out an old observatory mirror and a few concrete sculptures sunk at eighty feet off Starnes Island. Sure you don't want to come along? Either of you?"

Before Maia could strangle him with our quilt, I said, "Treat Ruby well, Matthew. Listen to her."

He looked at me as if I'd just slipped into another language. "Whatever you say, Navarre. Enjoy the evening."

Then he melted back into the crowd, people around him fawning over his backstage pass.

Maia followed him with her eyes. Her face was pale, tightly controlled.

I asked the question I'd been trying to avoid for two days. "Did you tell him about Hawaii?"

Maia's eyes reproached me. "No."

"Then how?"

"How does a shark smell blood, Tres? I don't know."

Hawaii, four years ago, had been Maia's and my last vacation together as a couple.

We'd spent a week on the west side of Oahu— drinking, walking on the beach, making love. And then I'd gotten the bright idea it would be fun to dive the Mahi shipwreck off Waianae.

I remember Maia forcing herself through the scuba class, coming up shaky after every practice dive, even the pool sessions, but successfully conning me into believing she was fine. She made it through the skills tests, even convinced our instructor, who was no slacker for safety, that she could handle open sea. We didn't know the kind of terror she'd been suppressing until she hit de^> water— sixtyfive feet under—and panicked.

We fought to get her to breathe and not shoot to the surface. Through the mask, her eyes had been the size of silver dollars. As we made our emergency ascent, she'd purged the contents of her stomach through the air manifold, then clawed my regulator out of my mouth and breathed on it, forcing me to grope for my backup.

For another diver, the failure might not have been so personal, but Maia Lee never retreats, never surrenders. She was raised on stories of her greatgrandfather who survived the Long March, her grandfather who survived reeducation during the Cultural Revolution. For Maia, admitting defeat to a phobia is unthinkable.

We'd flown back to San Francisco twentyfour hours later, Maia curled into her plane seat, intensely quiet, as if she were trying to compress the Mahi dive into her safebox for darkest memories. For months afterward, whenever she looked at me, I saw a tinge of resentment—shame that I'd witnessed her moment of vulnerability.

The fact Matthew Pena had so quickly read that fear, had played up the part of his own life that would maximize her discomfort, filled me with dread. What worried me more was Maia—the fierce pride that had made her push through scuba lessons, deny the warning signs, get sixtyfive feet under before realizing she couldn't handle it. I was worried what would happen if she handled Matthew Pena the same way she handled scuba.

The second song ended. The crowd yelled.

Jimmy Buffett told Austin hello. He wished us all a very merry pina colada, then began something I knew—"Coconut Telegraph."

There'd been a time in Maia's Potrero Hill apartment, cooking green pepper and ham omelettes, coffee percolating, Maia barefoot, in linen white shorts and one of my Tshirts. This song had come on and she'd forced me to dance through the breakfast nook, ended up spraying me with the champagne she was using for mimosas.

The memory passed between us. Her expression softened.

"You want a drink?" I asked her.

"You don't know how much."

We joined the beer line, made uncomfortable small talk while we waited, listened to the Buffett set in progress. The band played "Little Miss Magic" while we tried very hard not to look at each other, not to give each other any cue that we remembered what this song had once been our sound track for.

We got our beers. By the time we made it back to our borrowed quilt, the song had ended and a new peal of excitement had broken out down by the stage. A couple was making their way toward the front in a spotlight. They wore full wedding regalia—the bride in a white silk dress that must've been a thousand degrees inside.

Off mike, the whole audience heard Jimmy Buffett saying, "When—just now?"

Then to the audience, his face grinning on the big screen, "Got a special dedication to the newlyweds, folks."

A big cheer, which got even more riotous as the audience realized the song he'd just begun was "Why Don't We Get Drunk (and Screw)." The bride disappeared below the audience. Maybe she fainted. Somebody knocked the groom's gray top hat off.

I had no special memories associated with this song, which was either reassuring or disappointing, depending on your perspective.

Maia caught me staring at her, tried to look annoyed. "Yes?"

"Nothing. I just—" Stop. Regroup. "What happens next for you— after you clear Garrett of all charges, get Pena sent to the asylum?"

She didn't look happy with the change of subjects. "My choices may be limited."

"Terrence call you again?"

"We've agreed to part company. My junior partnership is over. How amicable the split is, how it affects my chances at a job in another firm—Terrence claims that's up to me."

The "Get Drunk" song wound down. The cheering kept going. Jimmy Buffett yelled, "

Well what did you think I was going to play?"

More cheering.

Maia looked at me like she was choosing her words carefully. "Tres, I may want to look outside the Bay Area."

My heart slowed. "Such as?"

She circled her arms around her knees. "I want to defend people who deserve defending for a while. Coming out here—I may have been trying to tell myself something. I can see why so many Bay Area people have moved to Austin."

I stayed quiet.

"Nothing is certain, Tres. And you are not to get any ideas about my motives."

"No. Of course not."

"You would not stay in San Francisco for me. I would definitely not move here for you."

"Understood."

Something hung in the air between us—fluttery and unformed as a new cobweb, vibrating with the breeze. I was afraid to speak for fear it would rip.

The band started their next song. Jimmy Buffett sang about boat drinks.

I looked down the hill for Garrett, whom I'd momentarily forgotten about. There was no longer a girl on his lap. Next to him stood a biker—a guy in his fifties, with an enormous belly, grizzled beard, and a greasy gray ponytail tied with leather strips. His arms were flabby and lobster red, bulging from a leather vest that had the word DIABLO and a cartoon devil face stitched above the breast. The biker was pointing, his eyebrows raised, his face grim, as if making sure Garrett had heard his point.

Now Garrett looked shaken.

I was on my feet, pushing past a couple of guys with beers in their hands, not bothering to see if Maia was following me.

When I got to Garrett, the biker had vanished into the crowd. Garrett was staring into space, all his enthusiasm for the concert gone.

"You okay?" I demanded.

Garrett nodded, dazed. The parrot waddled back and forth on his shoulder, eyeing me accusingly.

Maia came up next to us.

"Who?" she asked. "And what did he want?"

"Nothing," Garrett said. "A friend of Clyde's. He was saying— he asked if I needed any help. That's all."

He was lying. I hadn't been brothers with him all my life and not learned to tell.

BOOK: The Devil Went Down to Austin
7.8Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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