Rick Riordan - The Devil went down to Austin

The two of them started arguing. Mrs. Hayes looked ever so slightly pained. "I don't approve of those choices, but I must have it quiet for a while. I'm getting my headache again."

Chris widened his eyes, as if Mrs. Hayes' headache was a thing to be avoided.

"We'll figure it out, Mrs. H.," he promised.

Chris and Amanda herded the two littler children out of the room, leaving us only the boy with the cardboard fan. Soon the sounds of screaming and chasing were replaced by roaring ships and blasting lasers.

I sat in the chair by the window. Mrs. Hayes smiled at me from her couch, the boy with the cardboard making her hair flicker with every sweep. My scalp started to itch from the heat. I wondered how much the kid charged.

"Well," Mrs. Hayes said, starting over. "You work for Matthew's company?"

She said Matthew with lazy familiarity-two warm, fluffy syllables.

"No, ma'am," I said. "You know Mr. Pena?"

"Oh, goodness, yes. Matthew's been wonderful to my Dwight. They went to college together, you know. Would you like some iced tea?"

"Don't go to any trouble, ma'am."

"No, it's no trouble." She waved toward the kitchen. "I believe I'd like some, too."

We sat there beaming at each other for a few seconds before I realized I'd received my marching orders.

The kitchen was all Formica and particleboard, the woodgrain veneer peeling away from the cabinets in large strips. The sink was piled with dishes. A Cheerios box was overturned on the counter.

It took me a minute to find two clean glasses, then to find a pitcher in the refrigerator that held anything resembling iced tea. I opened the freezer for ice. On the bottom, swirling in mist, were little strips of notebook paper, each one with a name in cursive: Marcy, Deborah, Chris, Amanda, John, Clement. There were others in the back, stuck there so long they were grafted to the frost. I scraped away one. It said "Dwight."

The kids in the den kept eating Cheetos, happily watching space ships detonate on TV. I filled two glasses and brought my spoils back into the living room.

I gave one glass to Mrs. Hayes, then sat across from her on a wicker rocker.

The kid with the fan said, "Are you cool enough yet, Mrs. H.?"

"You keep going, Clem."

The boy switched the cardboard to his other hand.

Mrs. Hayes smiled at me. "Clem stole money from my wallet last week. Now he's paying me back."

"Really."

"They all try it when they first come here. 'Do not despise a thief, if he steal to satisfy his soul when he is hungry.' "

Clem kept fanning her, his face weary and bitter.

"Proverbs," I said.

Mrs. Hayes beamed approval. "Yes, dear. Very good."

"Clem's name is in the freezer."

"Oh, they're all in the freezer. All the ones I pray for. Children are forced to grow up too fast, nowadays. Don't you think?"

I sipped some tea. It had absorbed a residual taste of something else from the refrigerator-ham or bologna, something decidedly non kosher. I sat my glass on the end table. "These are… neighbourhood children you take care of?"

"Mostly," Mrs. Hayes said. "Their parents work late and can't afford child care. This is my ministry to them. The house was so lonely after Dwight graduated. That's what started me taking in children. It was good of Matthew to arrange for Dwight to stay here."

"Matthew did that?"

More smiling. The reward button was working fine, now.

"He called me even before he'd arranged it with Dwight. Said it seemed a shame, getting an expensive hotel room or an apartment, when Dwight could spend a few months here with me. Especially after all those years in California. Naturally, I agreed."

"Naturally. And when Dwight didn't want to impose?"

"Oh, Matthew insisted. Such a polite young man."

Above Mrs. Hayes' head, the framed portrait of Jesus had his hands clasped, his eyes heavenward. If I stayed with Mrs. Hayes all day, I imagined I'd look like that, too.

I thought about Dwight upstairs, probably in his boyhood room, Matthew Pena having a good laugh about it every night when he went to sleep in his luxury hotel. I wondered if Dwight had his head buried under a pillow right now.

"It isn't Dwight's fault," Mrs. Hayes mused. "I don't expect him to do as well as Matthew has done, but I do tell him to pay attention, learn from Matthew. Matthew is so good at what he does."

"Yes, ma'am," I agreed. "Very good."

There was a crash in the den. A boy said something too soft to interpret? a girl giggled.

Mrs. Hayes took a deep breath. "No, no, no!"

When the giggling didn't stop, Mrs. Hayes seemed to sniff the air for a scent, then called, "Marcy and John. I know that was you. You come in here this minute."

Another crash.

Mrs. Hayes sighed. Clem the fan boy started to smile, but quickly stifled it when he caught me looking at him. I gave him a wink.

"I should go," I said. "Thanks for your hospitality, ma'am."

"I'll keep you in my prayers, Tres." And then she gave me her empty bolognaflavoured tea glass to take to the kitchen on my way out.

As I left, Mrs. Hayes was still calling from her couch for the children to behave. Clem was fanning her hair into a cowlick with his piece of cardboard.

I stepped out into the cooler summer night and said a silent prayer to Our Saviour of the Sofa Painting that my name would not be going into Mrs. Hayes' freezer.

"Now tell me this wasn't worth it."

Ruby McBride set Garrett's folded wheelchair on the deck and waved her hand toward the horizon.

Garrett unclamped his arms from around my neck, transferring himself to the bench that ran around the railing. I tried not to wheeze too hard. Nothing like carrying your brother up three flights of stairs to burst your illusions of being in good shape.

Ruby's houseinprogress was a square tower, built on the slope of a hill overlooking Point Lone Star-a roughly triangular piece of land that jutted into Lake Travis.

The business part of her property was at the shoreline, about a hundred yards downhill-a wellilluminated marina, a small floating restaurant, a drivedown boat launch. She even had a warehouse for drystacking and a giant forklift with padded teeth for retrieving the boats. A glowing pier stuck into the water and Yed about ten yards out, making two rows of wet slips for yachts. There were maybe a dozen boats docked-from twentyfooters all the way up to sixtyfooters.

The lake was scored with moonlight. Lights from other palatial homes sprinkled the hills on the far shore. The Milky Way shimmered above us.

All in all, not a bad view.

"The plumbing works," Ruby announced. She waved toward a sliding glass door that led into an unfinished kitchen/breakfast area. The room was starkly lit, glowing in the night like an empty fish tank. "So if you need the john, gentlemen, please don't whiz off my balcony."

Garrett popped his wheelchair open, shoved the Velcro cushion in, then eased himself onto it. He'd taken off his tie. The untucked flaps of his dress shirt hung from the edge of the seat like elf shoes.

Ruby produced two Shiner longnecks from an ice chest and passed them to us. The light from the empty kitchen silhouetted her hair like redhot filaments.

"Hell of a step up from a houseboat." She leaned against the railing, rested her fingertips lightly on Garrett's shoulder. "Next winter I'll be able to shoot deer from here.

I swear to God, they walk right up my driveway."

"Sportsmanlike," Garrett mumbled.

She drank from her Sprite can. "It's either shoot them or wait for them to run in front of my Miata, dear heart. The gun is more humane."

We watched a meteor streak across the western sky, fade and die.

Crickets and owls were sounding off. The air smelled of pinon smoke from the dried cedar deadfall collected and burned daily in the Hill Country.