Big Red Tiquila - Rick Riordan by Rick Riordan Read Free Book Online

"Is that the way all you
slick entertainment writers answer the phone, or do you just have
trouble with words over one syllable?"
    It took him three beats to place the voice.
    "Navarre, do the words ‘piss off’ mean
anything to you?"
    “ Not when you hear them as often as I do."
    “ Hang on," he said.
    He covered the phone for a second and yelled at
someone in his office.
    "Okay," he said. "So where the flying
fuck have you been the last decade or so?"
    Carlon and I had been in high school together, then
had worked for the A & M newspaper in college. He’d layed the
star journalist while I, one of the very few human beings ever to
major in both English and physical education, had written a sports
editorial column. Young and stupid, we drank to excess and terrorized
the cows of Brian, Texas, by pushing them down hills while they slept
with their legs locked. After I moved out to California my sophomore
year we had eventually lost touch.
    "Believe it or not," I said, "I’m
back here seeing Lillian."
    Carlon whistled. "Sandy over at the society page
is going to love that. She’s been getting a lot of mileage out of
Lillian and ole Dan the Man Sheff lately."
    "You put my picture on the same page as the
debutantes and I’ll rip your nuts off."
    "I love you too," he said. "So why the
warm and friendly call, if not to fill me in on your romance?"
    "Tell me about the newspaper morgue. I’m
looking for information on my father’s murder and the
investigation. "
    “ Mm. That was what, ’84?"
    He asked someone behind him a question I couldn’t
catch.
    “ Yeah," he told me, “anything before 1988 is
still on microfiche. After that we joined the computer age. Public
access, but it would be a lot faster if I got one of the mole people
down in Archives to round it up for you."
    "That would be great, Carlon."
    "So you owe me. What else is new? Now tell me
why you’re digging up family history, Navarre. I thought you wanted
nothing to do with that."
    The tone of his voice told me the question was more
professional than personal.
    "Ten years makes a difference," I said.
"Especially if I’m back here to stay."
    "You got something new on the case?"
    "Nothing that would work for the entertainment
section."
    "I’m serious, Tres. You got anything on the
case, I’d like to know."
    "This from a man whose biggest scoop in college
was a breakthrough in onion-growing technology?
    "Some friend," Carlon said, and hung up.
    I tried Lillian’s studio and got Beau Karnau
instead. At first he pretended not to remember me. Finally he
admitted that Lillian was not in.
    “ When do you expect her?" I asked.
    “ Day after tomorrow."
    I was silent for a moment. “I don’t think I got
that."
    “ Yes you did, " Beau said. I pictured him
smirking—it wasn’t a pretty image. "She went on a buying
trip to Laredo, left a message on the studio machine this morning. I
might add it’s the least she can do after stabbing me in the back
like she’s doing."
    “ Yeah, you might add that, mightn’t you?"
    “ The least she can do. Drops everything in my lap,
thinks she can actually make a living—"
    He had more to say but I put the receiver down on the
ironing board. He might be talking to himself for hours before he
figured out I was no longer there. When my mind started aching this
bad I knew it was time to abuse my body instead. I put on running
shorts and a Bay to Breakers T-shirt, then headed down New Braunfels
toward the Botanical Center. The really hot part of the day was yet
to come, but after two miles I was drenched in sweat. I found a
little stand that sold coconut paletas and bought one, letting the icy chunks of fruit slide down my throat
as I sat in the shade of a pecan tree near the entrance to Fort Sam
Houston. I stared across at the army base, wondering if Bob Langston
was in there somewhere, laughing about a prank call he’d made to me
last night. I hoped that was the case.
    When I got back to Queen Anne the phone was dead