The Last King of Texas

Page 48

Next to us, the two babies started crying softly.
"I never lied to you, Zeta," Ines said. "I never forced you to kill anyone. But you can't take responsibility for any of it, can you? Couldn't be your fault."
Zeta curled his fingers into his palm, tightened them until they turned white. "What do you want, Sandra? You come to apologize or yell at me?"
"I came to tell you I'm leaving you."
He laughed. "Thought you did that six years ago."
"I'm sorry. I was too afraid to say it then. I'm saying it now."
"And if I get out of here? If I come after you?"
Ines didn't flinch. She said, "I won't run anymore. I won't do that to my son."
I'm not sure which of us was caught off-guard most by the certainty in her voice.
Zeta focused on Michael for the first time. "Hey, chico, come here."
Michael didn't move.
Zeta cupped his hand inward, gesturing for the boy to approach the glass. Michael stepped forward. He kept his head down. He hooked a finger under his collar and scratched.
Zeta crouched a little. "Show me your eyes."
Michael didn't.
Zeta looked at Michael, then Ines. His expression said, Kid sure as bell ain't mine.
"Somebody talks to you," said Zeta, "you need to look them in the eyes, little man. It's respectful."
Michael looked up.
Zeta's face was deadly serious. No smile for the little kid. He looked like he was trying to burn a message into Michael's mind and I had a feeling he'd be able to do it pretty successfully.
"What's your name, little man?"
"Michael."
"M-mml?" Zeta mimicked. "What's your name? Speak up."
"Michael."
"You scared, Michael?"
"My daddy had that, too."
Zeta frowned. "What?"
Michael pressed one finger to the Plexiglas, pointing at Zeta's face, then poked his own cheek. "Cut himself shaving. My daddy let me put the Band-Aid on for him. Yes. I'm scared."
Ines' hands made a tent over her mouth.
Zeta cleared his throat. "I got to tell you something, Michael. Okay?"
Michael shuffled.
"I want you to take care of your mom, little man. You hear me?"
Michael milked his red-and-blue tie.
"You hear me, Michael? Will you promise me that? That's a real important job."
"Okay."
"She gets scared, you're the man to protect her. You hear me?"
Michael nodded.
"How about a 'yes, sir.'"
"Yes, sir."
"All right, then."
Zeta gestured toward the visitors' exit. "Good-bye, Michael. Adios, Sandra."
Ines started to say something, then stopped herself. Closure was a bull's-eye she could've easily overshot. She nodded to Zeta Sanchez, then looked at me.
"I'll be there," I promised. "Go on."
She looked like she wanted to protest that, but her desire to get Michael out of the room was stronger. She held out her arms to reclaim her son. She took Michael's hand and led him toward the exit.
Zeta watched her go. "Shorter than she remembers," he murmured. "Chingate."
Sanchez wore the same expression I'd seen once on a lion on Wild Kingdom — right after the tranquilizer dart hit, the beast stumbling around in irritated bewilderment on the savannah, just before Marlin Perkins said it was safe to approach and the sleepy lion mauled the hell out of Jim or Bob or whatever the hell the assistant's name was. Marlin had had to cut to a Mutual of Omaha commercial pretty quick after that segment.
I said, "If word gets around you let her go—"
Zeta raised a cautionary finger. "My call. You remember that."
"You think Ines knows why you really came back to San Antonio? She wasn't the only piece of your past you needed closure on."
His eyes were getting sleepier and angrier by the second. "Go home, Professor."
"Your mother worked for Jeremiah Brandon until just after you were born. Jeremiah kept track of you as you grew up. Have you ever known for sure who your father was?"
Zeta didn't answer.
I strove to see some resemblance between Zeta Sanchez and the old photos of Jeremiah Brandon. I didn't see any.
"For what it's worth," I said, "you're more like him than Aaron or Del. You're the one who inherited his character."
I could tell that my words were no consolation. They simply sank in, probably joining the army of similar thoughts that Zeta had been amassing most of his life and still hesitated to put into the battlefield.
"You did something good today," I said. "Thank you."
Zeta stood. "I didn't do nothing, Professor. I'll be out of here sooner than you think. You wait until then before you decide to thank me."
Then he walked to the exit and disappeared back into the county jail.
I tried to convince myself that he'd needed to say those parting words to save face, that we'd come to a resolution despite that. I sat there listening to the crying babies and the fat woman grouse about her electric bill. But I kept watching the door Zeta had gone through, just to make sure it stayed closed.
FIFTY-TWO
Woodlawn Lake cuts a green, quarter-mile U through the near West Side. The area had been affluent once. When my father was a kid back in the 1940s, the water had been pristine, the circular Casting Pond stocked with fish for children to catch. Dad once told me he'd beaten his friends in a rowing race around the lake's miniature red and white lighthouse, an idea I found incredulous, given Dad's massive beer gut in his later years. Neighborhood families had held their debutante parties and upscale Christmas posadas at the now boarded-up community center. My father and mother had gone to their first dance there.
Now the palm trees dotting the shore were dying. The Casting Pond was choked with watercress and cattails and old shoes. Most of the Spanish villas and Southern plantation homes fronting the water had long ago been divided into apartment blocks, their lawns gone to crabgrass and wild pyracantha.
Still, in the fresh light on a late spring morning, the place glowed with a kind of faded dignity.
Along the shore, joggers did their routes. Preschool-aged children toddled after the flocks of grebes and geese. The smell of roasted buttered corn filled the air from vendors' wagons.
We parked across from the old docks, in front of Ines and Michael's new apartment.
It didn't look like much — a two-story brownstone cube with white-framed windows and a briar patch of TV aerials on the roof. The first time I'd seen it, I'd been reminded of those buildings in atomic bomb test films, a few seconds before annihilation. I hadn't shared that observation with Ines.
On the doorstep, we found a wicker basket full of food, heavily cocooned in Saran Wrap. Ines' name was on the tag. Erainya's handwriting.
"Greek leftovers," I pronounced.
Ines hefted the new addition to her larder. "But she brought us a basket this big yesterday. We haven't even started—"
"Erainya is relentless," I warned her. "Now that you're on her list, she won't stop until your breath permanently smells like gyros."
I followed Ines and Michael upstairs to number five. Across the hallway, their neighbor's door was cracked open just enough to let out the sound of Spanish soap opera and the smell of cooking beans.
Ines unlocked the door to number five and Michael pushed through immediately, tugging at his tie as he disappeared around the corner. Ines leaned against the doorway. She hugged the basket of food to her stomach and closed her eyes. Pain tightened in her face. I got the uncomfortable impression that she was passing through a labor contraction. Congratulations, sir. It's a dolma platter.
Finally she murmured, "I don't know what to do."
"Buy some fresh yogurt. A couple of bottles of ouzo."
She smiled wanly. "You know what I mean. I don't trust myself to stop moving. I'm afraid I'll fall apart."
"The worst is over."
She opened her eyes and looked straight through me, as if calculating the distance to the horizon. "Is it?"
She didn't sound like she expected an answer. That was just as well.
"You want me to stay for a while?" I asked.
She shook her head. "You don't have to."
"I could keep Michael company, if you want to take a nap or something. You look like you could use one."
She moistened her lips, tasting the idea, then asked almost timidly, "A hot shower?"
"A hot shower," I agreed. "Followed by several million calories of spanakopita. Just what Hippocrates ordered."
She laughed despite her weariness.
After Ines had disappeared into the bathroom, I unpacked Erainya's Greek food plates, put them with their brethren in the refrigerator, then walked over to the living-room windows.
The apartment was saved by its view — three wide picture windows looking out over Woodlawn Lake, just above the fronds of the palm trees. You could see the Y-shaped piers below, the lighthouse, the jogging trails, clusters of waterfowl, sunlight turning the water to hammered silver. On the eastern horizon, rising above the live oaks, the yellow-capped spires of Our Lady of the Mount gleamed. I could just make out the tiny iron Jesus who stared down at the Poco Mas Cantina.
I turned to the apartment's interior. Not as promising. The living-room wallpaper was blistered pink, the ceiling water-stained and fixed with a tiny glass chandelier. There were heaps of moving boxes everywhere. Despite Ines' cleaning efforts, the carpet still smelled faintly of cat urine.
On the right, master bedroom and bathroom. On the left was the kitchen, and the short hall that led to Michael's room. His father's silk tie was lying in a melted P on the floor just outside Michael's doorway.
I thought about it for a good three minutes. Then I walked over and peeked in. No sheet cave. Michael's bed consisted of a stripped mattress and a sleeping bag. The walls were bare except for a little window that looked out on the trunk of a palm tree. Moving boxes were crammed into the tiny closet.
Michael sat cross-legged on the turquoise carpet, cutting out ads from a magazine.
He was still in his button-down and slacks but he'd pulled off his dress shoes and socks. His pale, bare feet were splotchy with chigger bites. He seemed completely focused on the toy advertisement he was cutting out.
When I'd visited the night before, Jem had come with me, bringing his PlayStation unit and a spare TV for Michael to borrow. Erainya had insisted. Poor paidi needs to learn these things. Donkey Kong as a life skill. Jem had done most of the playing last night himself, and the television was still on. As near as I could tell it was the same game. The basketball-dribbling dinosaur was doing continuous, pointless flips, waiting for someone to give it directions. Michael ignored it.
I rapped on the door. "Can I come in?"
Jem's PlayStation game kept cranking out the carnival music. I walked inside, sat down on the carpet, pressed escape on the gameset. It told me to enter my name. I was one of the high scorers. I punched in T-R-E-S, then shut off the TV. Michael finished cutting out the picture. It was an advertisement for a G.I. Joe. He looked at it for a second, then added it to a stack of cutouts next to him. "Hey, kiddo," I said. "You doing okay?"
"Uh-hmm."