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

was amazed, maybe a little suspicious, when I
started talking to him en Espanol .
He rubbed his paddle-shaped nose, perplexed, then gave me a crooked
grin.
    “ San Francisco," he said. “You talk just
like my wife’s brothers now, Senor Tres."
    As I searched in vain for Robert Johnson’s brand of
food, Pappy told me about his seven boys and two girls. The youngest
had just had her confirmation. The oldest was in the Air Force now.
    I looked in my wallet after paying for my two small
bags of food. It was a sobering moment.
    "So what are you doing back in town, Senor
Tres?" asked Pappy.
    “ It would seem," I said, "that I’m
looking for a job."
    "Always need counter help," Pappy said,
grinning. I promised to keep it in mind.
    Back at home, I found the list of leads Maia had
given me and starred making calls. After an hour on the phone, I had
talked to a dozen voice mail services, one receptionist who couldn’t
spell my name but was free on Saturday night, and two personnel
directors who promised not to throw my résumé in the trash if I
mailed it in.
    "And you say you’re a paralegal?" the
last man on the list asked me. He had graduated from Berkeley with
Maia.
    "Not exactly."
    "Then—what is it that you do?"
    "Research, investigation, I’m bilingual,
English Ph.D., martial artist, congenial personality."
    I could hear him tapping his pencil.
    "Maia employed you for what, then—discussing
literature? Breaking arms?"
    "You’d be surprised how few people can do
both."
    "Uh-huh." His enthusiasm was not
overwhelming.
    "Do you have a Texas P.I. license, then?"
    "My work for Terrence & Goldman was more
informal than that."
    "I see—" His voice seemed to be getting
farther and farther away from the receiver.
    "Did I mention I was a bartender?"
    To prove it I started giving him the recipe for a
Pink Squirrel. By the time I got to the sugar on the rim he had hung
up.
    I was taping over the hole in my wall and pondering
my limitless job opportunities when Carlon McAffrey called from the
Express-News.
    "Shilo’s," he said. "One hour.
You’re buying."
    When I got there at one o’clock the little downtown
deli was still packed with businessmen gorging themselves on the
pastrami and rye lunch special. The air was so thick with the smell
of spiced meats you could get full just breathing it.
    Carlon waved at me from the counter. He’d put on at
least twenty pounds since I’d seen him last, but I could still
recognize him by his tie. He never wore one with fewer than twelve
colors. This one had enough pastel to repaint half the West Side.
    He smiled and pushed a thick manila envelope across
the counter toward me.
    “ When the mole people start digging they don’t
mess around. I got everything, even some copy from the Light. We
inherited most of their archival material when they went defunct."
    The first thing I pulled out was a picture of my dad,
taken the last year he had campaigned for sheriff. Those gray,
mischievous eyes stared back at me from under the rim of his Stetson.
He had an amused look on his face.
    I always wondered how anyone could see a photo like
that and willingly vote this man into public office. Dad looked like
the quintessential third-grade class clown, only older and fatter. I
could imagine him cutting off little girls’ ponytails with his
school box scissors, or throwing spitwads at the teacher’s back.
    The counter waitress came by. I decided to skip the
lunch menu and go straight for Shilo’s cheesecake, three layers
thick, any of which by itself would’ve been the best cheesecake in
the world. I ate it while I skimmed through the rest of Carlon’s
envelope.
    There were lots of headlines about my dad’s last
big project in office—a multi-department sting operation against
drug trafficker Guy White that had eventually gone down as the most
expensive failure in Bexar County law enforcement history. According
to the articles, the case against White was finally thrown out of
court on a ruling of