Rick Riordan: The Devil went down to Austin

The Carmen Miranda was parked by the stairs, which may or may not have meant Garrett was home. If ballistics had come back positive, that might've been enough for Lopez to get an arrest warrant, start the indictment process, after which things would happen fast. I ran down all the possibilities I didn't like-all the things that could've gone wrong since I'd left Garrett on Friday afternoon. I hoped he'd gotten himself a lawyer.

I parked in the shade, sat with the engine idling, and thought about what to say if Garrett were home. Just checking in. Been indicted yet? Still in debt a few million?

Want to grab a beer?

I walked up the steps of The Friends.

When I knocked at Garrett's door, a woman's muffled voice said, "Just a minute."

Even then, I didn't see it coming.

I stood there stupidly as the door opened, the woman looking down at a fistful of bills, saying, "I don't have correct change."

And then she looked up.

She was barefoot, dressed in khaki walking shorts, an army green tank top. Her skin was a rich honey colour, her hair long and glossy black.

Some vestigial gland in my body started to work, dumping a few cc's of acid into my bloodstream-just enough to make every vein burn.

"Hello, Tres," Maia Lee said. "You're not the pizza man."

She wore no makeup, no jewellery. Her eyes glowed with that internal heat which makes her a formidable enemy, or friend. If she was at all ruffled to see me again, after nearly two years, she hid it superbly.

"Okay, I'll bite," I managed. "Why are you in my brother's apartment?"

"Nice to see you, too."

"Let me rephrase that. Where the hell is Garrett?"

She stepped back, out of the doorway, motioned me inside.

I brushed past her. Acid kept coursing around my circulatory system. My hands were sweating like an adolescent's.

Nobody was in the living room, just Dickhead the parrot up on his windowledge perch.

Music was playing-Buffett's greatest hits, but set to Maia's volume level, so soft, intimate, for Garrett's place that it struck me as insulting.

I walked through the kitchen, into the bedroom. No suitcase on the bed. No unpacked Maia clothes.

Out on the shoeboxsized deck, Garrett was sitting in a patio chair, the tails of an XXL

Hawaiian shirt melting around his waist, a John Deere gimme cap shading his eyes.

Papers littered the deck around him. He had an open beer at his side, a laptop set up on a TV tray, a joint hanging off the corner of his mouth. Hunter S. Thompson does South Texas.

"I see you made your calls," I told him.

He missed a stroke on the keyboard, glared up at me. He spoke with the joint still in his mouth. "I'm busy. Wait a minute."

He went back to typing-the way Garrett always types, with a vengeance, as if the keys needed to learn their lesson.

I stepped to the railing, tried to put aside the appealing idea of throwing Garrett's laptop off the balcony.

Of course, I wouldn't have been the first to have that thought at The Friends. The alley below was littered with broken couches, smashed TVs, mounds of clothes still on hangers.

Floorboards creaked behind me.

Maia stood in the doorway, her arms crossed, pizza money still crumpled in one hand.

The sunlight through the canopy of branches made her face and shoulders look like camouflage. I resented the fact that she looked even better than I'd remembered.

She met my eyes-daring me to speak first.

"Where did we leave off?" I mused. "That's right-you were just telling me how much you hated visiting Texas."

"Garrett called me, Tres-months ago, when Matthew Pena first approached them."

"You represented Pena twice-got him off the hook twice."

She nodded. "And when Garrett asked my advice, I told him as much as I could without breaking attorneyclient privilege. I told him that under no circumstances, ever, should his company deal with Matthew Pena."

"That worked real well."

Anger flickered in her eyes. "Garrett kept me posted. When Jimmy Doebler- With what happened Thursday night, I felt responsible. I came down."

"From San Francisco."

"Yes, Tres. Modern conveniences, like airplanes, make that possible."

Her expression gave me nothing to feed on. It was calm, irritatingly professional.

"You could've at least-"

"What, Tres? Called? Garrett made it clear he did not want you involved. Frankly, I agreed with him."

Garrett kept clacking on the keyboard, pretending to ignore us.

Across the alley, on the secondstory deck of the frat house, a barechested Greek was drinking a beer. Perfect contentment-a lazy Sunday afternoon, one more party day before summer school started. I wondered if I could bean him from here with a rock.

Instead I reached down, scooped up some of the papers around Garrett's seat.

There was a list of the companies who were betatesting Techsan's security software.

Co_op. com, Austin's online health food store. Ticket Time, the local event promoter.

Four others I'd never heard of-a West Texas petroleum company, two Internet financial service groups, a boating supply retailer-no doubt Ruby McBride's contri bution to their client list. There was a list of reported security leaks, about a dozen in all, most from the petroleum company and the two financial service groups, the companies with the biggest budgets and the most to lose. One letter from the CEO of the oil company formally cancelled the contract with Techsan and warned of a suit. The letter cited three different confidential inhouse reports that had been posted anonymously to a Usenet group-a leak that could cost the company millions. There were more letters like that-horror stories from the betatesters, irate emails, threats to sue Techsan out of existence. There was also one fax to Garrett, on Matthew Pena's letterhead, dated April 1, just before all hell broke loose. The fax read, Look forward to doing business with you. -M. An Austin number was written underneath.

I stared at the M. for a long time.

Garrett finally slammed the top of the keyboard shut. He took the joint out of his mouth, smushed it against the back of the monitor.

Maia said, "I guess that means no luck."

"There's nothing else I can try from here. I need to get to the office."

"You go through a lot of laptops?" I asked.

Garrett glowered at me. "Ruby insists on a meeting tonight. She's scared-wants to sell out. I've got one afternoon to find somethingsome proof that we can isolate the problem."

"Can you trace the leaked documents?" I asked. "Figure out where they came from?"

"You don't think I've thought of that, little bro? I'd have to have permission from the betatest companies-get full access to their servers. The ones that were most affected are suing our asses. They aren't letting me anywhere near their machines."

"Can you get somebody to help you look? Ruby?" "No."

"The police?"

"Hell no."

I held up the fax from Matthew Pena. "Any more love notes lying around?"

Garrett looked at the fax like he wanted to set it on fire. "You're starting your class tomorrow. I hope that's the only reason you're here-you need a place to stay."

"But you've already got company."

Maia stared at me stonily.

Garrett set aside his computer, brushed the ashes off the cover. "She's staying at the Driskill, little bro. Don't be rude."

"Let me guess," I said. "Matthew Pena's staying there, too."

Maia raised her eyebrows. "What makes you so sure?"

"You'll crowd him. Give him no room to breathe. Try to redirect the police investigation toward him. That's your plan, isn't it?"

"You assume a lot."

"You wouldn't come down here to defend Garrett. You're an offensive player.

Something turned you against Pena. It's Pena you're after."