The Devil Went Down to Austin

Page 20

I was standing over him. I held the blade up, the tip resting flat against my left hand, the hilt raised high in my right. I held it close for the private eye to inspect. I moved my left hand, guided the point so it was just above his collarbone, not an inch above.
He said, "I don't see—"
I moved both hands to the hilt, used the weight of my entire upper body. The blade met surprisingly little resistance. The carapace of a beetle would've been much, much harder.
His little eyes opened wide, as if to overcompensate for a lifetime of blinking. He tried to rise, but I had leverage on my side. We held that position, nose to nose, his breath growing faint against my lips.
His briefcase alone was worth all the trouble. The files I found later in his office—just before I put the match to the kerosene rags—opened up the world.
CHAPTER 16
When I got to the University of Texas, Guadalupe Street was nearly deserted. A few homeless people were cocooned in sleeping bags in merchants' doorways. Two students were buying coffee at the sidewalk vendor. Pigeons practiced their serpentine manoeuvres across the pavement.
I had about fifteen minutes, so I grabbed some iced tea at Texas French Bread, checked over my syllabus and my notes, and tried to convince myself that the shower had really removed the stench of rotting catfish.
My classroom turned out be a miniature amphitheatre with seats for fifty, but nowhere near that many had trickled in. Most were middleaged—return students like the ones I was used to teaching at UT San Antonio. In the back row sat a few younger undergrads—hungover, sandyhaired guys in shorts and tees and hiking boots. As I was arranging my handouts, a man who must've been a septuagenarian wandered in—potbellied, frayed jeans and Tshirt, long ivory hair around a balding crown, a beard like Father Time. He smelled of patchouli, among other things.
He wheezed, "You the professor? Hell, I've got socks older than you."
I smiled, thinking he was probably wearing a pair of those right now.
Then Maia Lee made her entrance.
She wore a white cotton dress, sunglasses, espadrilles, black knit purse—the kind of outfit she preferred when visiting a potentially
helpful witness. She looked like a young single woman on her way to breakfast with friends: casual, attractive, nonthreatening. At least she looked nonthreatening if you didn't know, as I did, that Maia's purse contained a gun and pepper spray and several other deadly toys. She had a notebook and pencil. She walked up to my desk with a piece of paper that looked like a class admit slip.
"You still have space, Professor?"
I murmured, "What are you doing here?"
"Can't I watch? I'll try not to mess up things for you too badly."
I probably blushed, damn her.
"I think there's a seat in the back, miss," I said. "Just for today."
Maia smiled, then climbed the steps to the back tier. The younger dudes all checked her out.
By 9:05 I had nineteen students, not including Maia.
I started with my standard jokes, my standard disclaimers. I told the class it was impossible to sardine the whole of British literature into six weeks, but we'd try to hit the really salacious bits. I warned them there would be dirty jokes in the Corpus Christi cycle, bigotry and torture in Marlowe's Jew of Malta, a needlessly high body count in The Revenger's Tragedy.
One of the younger dudes said, "Cool."
Father Time wheezed and grinned at me from the first row like nothing could surprise him. He'd probably seen The Jew of Malta opening night.
"Right," I said. "Might as well start at the beginning."
I launched into the story of Beowulf.
By the third or fourth minute, most of the students were hooked. I'd figured this was better than asking them to read Beowulf cold, on their own tonight. Twothirds of the class would sink in the mire a long time before Grendel ever did.
Halfway through, a middleaged lady in the back raised her hand apprehensively. She asked what I was doing.
I said, "Telling the story."
She frowned. "Isn't that—" She fumbled for the right word. "Cheating?"
One of the younger dudes said, "Cool."
I suggested that the Saxon warriors who'd first heard Beowulf had probably not sat around in rows of desks analyzing it.
"This is storytelling," I said. "Entertainment. You have to imagine a filthydrunk audience on a cold winter night, demanding their skald give them a good riproarer or they'll cut his throat."
Inspired, one of the dudes raised his hand and asked if we could adjourn to the Hole in the Wall Saloon.
Father Time asked, "Can we kill you if we don't like it?"
I told them both regretfully, no. Group health and liability coverage had been significantly better for Saxon skalds than it was for parttime professors.
We got back to Heorot.
Maia listened dutifully in the back row.
At last we got the monsters slain and Beowulf home to the Geats.
Some of the students even clapped.
We discussed historical context for a few minutes, then the imagery and literary devices they should pay attention to when they read the text on their own. I distributed handouts of questions they should be prepared to discuss tomorrow.
Maia accepted the assignment along with everybody else. At the top of her sheet, I'd written: Don't even think about it.
We adjourned. I stayed behind to answer questions and was relieved—albeit confused—to see that Maia didn't wait around to harass me. She slipped out the door with a smile and a discreet thumbsup.
After the last person was gone, I shut off the lights and stood in the doorway, looking at the dark tiers. I tried to reconcile the fact that I'd just put aside PI work for an hour and gotten paid to tell a story. Compared to what I was planning for the rest of the day, this was like being paid to show people the sunset.
I locked the classroom, walked through the campus' West Mall—down the flagstone paving, past twisted live oaks, bronze fountains, signup tables for student political organizations, kids pushing newspaper subscriptions.
I crossed Guadalupe. On the other end of the 24th Street parking lot, I saw Maia leaning against the side of my truck. The driver's side door was open and the stereo was on, KGSR turned up very loud. Toni Price was jamming about her old man.
Maia said, "Can I drive?"
"Funny thing—I always lock my car."
"Must've forgotten," she sympathized. "Keys?"
"No."
If she weren't a grown woman, I would've called her expression a pout. She got in and scooted to the passenger's side. I started the AC before shutting the door. The joys of owning a black truck—all the heat in Texas gets sucked right into your cab.
Maia rubbed the dashboard. "I didn't ask yesterday about the new wheels."
She politely didn't add: Because I was too pissed off at you.
"Jess Makar's," I told her.
"What'd you do? Kill him?"
Jess Makar had been my mother's livein boyfriend until a few months ago, when Jess dumped her.
I explained to Maia that I'd kept track of Jess through my PI contacts.
"The credit agencies," she guessed.
"Just out of concern, you understand."
"Oh. Sure."
I told her things hadn't gone financially well for Jess. My credit agency friends had helped a little bit with that. When it came time to repossess Jess' pride and joy, his black '97 Ford F150, I'd been more than happy to do the honours. Strangest thing, I'd also gotten the high bid for the truck at the creditors' auction.
"I never considered you much of a pickup truck guy," Maia said.
"But you got to admit—" I gestured over my shoulder. "The tai chi swords rock."
She looked back, nodded. "Yes. They fit perfectly in the gun rack."
We pulled out of the parking lot, heading west toward Lamar.
"You going to tell me why you're here?" I asked.
"I can't seek higher education?"
"You've reconsidered. You're desperate for my help."
It was the first laugh I'd heard from her in over two years.
We drove past the Lamar playground, the rusted old bridge over Shoal Creek. I had no idea where I was going.
"I spoke with Garrett," Maia said. "He told me about the Techsan sale. Said you were very encouraging."
We reached the red light at 12th Street. I looked over. "You want to whip me?"
Her eyes were hidden behind sunglasses now, dark as solar panels. "Tempting, but no. It struck me as odd, though, how quickly Ruby and Matthew Pena were able to seal the deal."
"Almost like they had a hot line set up," I agreed.
A horn honked, letting me know I was sitting on a green light.
"By the way," I said. "Pena left me a housewarming present this morning."
I told Maia about the gutted catfish.
I might've been announcing another ninetyfivedegree day with mosquitoes and rain, for all the surprise Maia showed.
"Goddamn him," she muttered.
"Last night," I said, "you were going to tell me how Pena had gotten under your skin."
"You assume I was going to tell you."
We drove a few blocks in silence.
Maia crossed her legs—a task that would've been impossible in my old car, the VW
bug. She touched her sunglasses. "In February, after it was clear the SFPD wouldn't be pressing charges in the Selak case, Matthew invited me to dinner—a thankyou present, he said. I wasn't thrilled, but I saw no reason to be rude. I didn't realize that by accepting, I was opening a door. He began calling me. Sending emails—increasingly personal emails, as if he'd been doing research on my life. I mean, thorough research, Tres. Once . . ." She paused. "He came into my apartment."
I glanced over, but her face was impassive.
The idea of someone forcing his way into Maia's apartment seemed incredible. Not to mention insanely dangerous.
"You caught him?" I asked.
"No. I could just—tell. He was becoming a stalker. I should know. I've defended a few.
Finally, I forced him into a meeting at a very public place—a cafe in North Beach. I gave him a ceaseand desist speech. I was rather forceful."
I couldn't help grinning. "And after that?"
"After that, things got better for a while. Then, when Garrett called me in March, asked my advice about Techsan, Pena became a problem again, as if he knew I'd been talking about him. Pena started calling my bosses, telling them I was being unprofessional, perhaps even breaking attorneyclient confidences."
"April Goldman must've laughed in his face."
Maia stared out the window, watching shops go by, suntanned bikers braving the heat.
"April's leaving the firm, Tres. I work for Ronald Terrence now—only."
In my darkest moments, when I had been the angriest with Maia, I never would've wished that on her.
Ronald Terrence was the archetypical conservative law partner, politically moderate by Texas standards? by San Francisco standards, a neoNazi. He didn't have much use for professional women, or liberals, and so had made the deliberate decision to hook up with April Goldman, a liberal woman partner, to soften his image and increase his clientele base. The result had been a surprisingly successful and longlived firm. At least until now.