Rick Riordan: The Devil went down to Austin

A gust of wind smacked the side of the Justice Department building and reverberated across the jail roof.

"When the leaks started," I said, "you didn't suspect that was the problem?"

"The back door was buried, Tres. Nobody had the pass code except me, Jimmy, and Ruby. A saboteur would have to get help from one of us, and even then he'd have to be a technical whiz. I couldn't believe my partners would sabotage their own company.

I thought it was much more likely Pena was bribing employees at the beta test sites."

"You should've taken the thing out."

"I tried, little bro. As things got worse, I went in and pulled the original subroutine, but it was too late. The damage was done. The betatesters were pulling the program off their machines, shutting us out of their systems. I couldn't fix all the old copies of the program. I was never even sure the back door had been the problem."

"Then you should've gone to the police."

"I couldn't."

"Because?"

Garrett turned toward the hoop, dribbled twice, shot. The ball whanged high off the backboard and bounced clean away.

"Because I'd used the damn thing myself," he said. "Illegally."

He looked at me, his eyes wet green, like windshield wiper fluid.

I braced myself. "Okay. What did you do?"

"Our betatest customers-one of them was Ticket Time."

"The concert ticket company," I said. And then it hit me in face. "You're not telling me

…"

"I didn't get anything for free, little bro. I paid. I just… put my requests into their computer first. Went to the head of the line. It was a dream, with the summer season about to open up.

"You used the back door for Buffett tickets."

"Don't make it sound so goddamn trivial. I got tickets for the whole summer, almost every show-front row, centre aisle, me and Jimmy and Clyde, a couple of other buddies. Starting next week, we were going on a road trip. It seemed harmless enough. It was just that one time, little bro. Never again."

The jail guard had retrieved the ball. He called, "Hey, Navarre, you going to play on the prisoners' team this year? Guards might just win, you shoot that bad all the time."

The deputy threw from the threepoint line, made a basket.

I thought about shoving the ball down his throat.

"You didn't want to get arrested for scamming Buffett tickets," I said. "And now here you are, for murder."

Garrett looked toward the windows of the justice building.

I wanted to be furious with my brother. I wanted to strangle him. But what he'd done was so ridiculous, so damn… Garrett like, I couldn't muster much more than exasperation.

"If I do what Lopez wants," Garrett said, "if I help the High Tech Unit, chances are pretty good we won't find anything solid enough to bust Pena. On the other hand, I'll be going on record for using my own security program for personal gain. If there were any chance I'd ever work programming again, this would nail the coffin. My career would be over."

"I can't tell you what to do," I said. "Not somebody as logical as you."

The wind kicked up again, knocking me a few inches sideways. Over in the far corner of the court, the jail guard kept dribbling a steady, slow beat.

"Last day or so," Garrett said, "I've had a lot of time to think. I've been listening to Clyde and Armand talking about this place they know in the Yucatan-guy can live like a king, never go back to the States. They say they could set me up. Extradition is a joke.

I could screw all this, cut my losses, spend my days drinking cerveza by the beach."

He looked down at his hands. They were trembling slightly.

"And then I realized-I'm feeling the same way I felt that first night Ruby McBride bought me a drink at Point Lone Star, told me she had ideas for a new startup. I feel the same way I felt when Jimmy taught me to jump trains. I start thinking-I've been a sucker my entire goddamn life."

There had been times I'd longed to hear Garrett criticize himself that harshly-to admit he didn't have a realitycheck bone in his body. Now, it brought me no satisfaction.

"You believe in possibilities," I told him. "That's not all bad."

Garrett shook his head. "I keep getting punished for it."

He looked worse than I had ever seen him-the black eye, the chopped hair, the prison scrubs. But at that moment I realized I admired Garrett for the same reasons I resented him-his absolute faith in his friends, his unshakable belief that you could dream something and then go right out and do it. And he kept believing that, no matter how much the world kicked the crap out of him.

The more unsettling realization was that, just for a moment, I saw Garrett the way my dad must've seen him. For all their fights, their harsh words, their years of not speaking to each other-I suddenly understood why Dad, in the end, had left my brother everything. Garrett needed it more than I did. He was living without a net.

Garrett took hold of his armrests, bracing himself as if he were about to get up. "I spent most of my adult life hoping you didn't turn out like me, little bro. That's why I'm impatient when you try to help me. You can't get pulled into my shit. You got to do better. You got to get your own shit together."

I couldn't respond.

"You getting back together with Maia?" he asked.

"I don't know."

Garrett glowered at me, letting me know he would not accept indecision.

"You think I should help Lopez?" he asked me. "You figure he's on the level?"

"Yeah. I think you should."

He called to the guard, who tried to pass him the ball. Garrett caught it, threw it away.

"Tres- Tell Lopez it's a go."

He winked at me with his good eye, then let the guard escort him inside.

I met Lopez by the guard station. He was using their phone, and didn't seem very happy about the conversation he was having. When he saw me coming, he lowered the receiver to the cradle without saying goodbye.

"Well?" he asked.

I filled him in.

Lopez shook his head. "I guess I got to get out my old LPs, take a listen to Son of a Son of a Sailor. I must've missed something."

"That call anything important?"

Lopez glanced at the phone, as if to make sure he'd hung it up properly. "Nothing you need to worry about."

We went down the elevator, now empty. At every locked door on our way out, some unseen guard on an unseen monitor noted our approach and buzzed us through.

When we got out into the foyer, Lopez reclaimed his gun. I gave back my red lawyer's tag.

Maia Lee was waiting for us at the main entrance.

I told her what Garrett had said.

She ran a finger across the glass. "We need to see Pena, try to break the bastard. I'm not sure Garrett can survive in here long enough to help the High Tech Unit."

"Any objections?" I asked Lopez.

Lopez straightened his gun belt. He stared out the window at the convict transport vans.

"Detective?" I asked again.

Lopez reached into his back pocket and pulled out a writing pad, flipped through pages of messy notes.

"Think I might take some flowers to the hospital," he said. "Deputy Engels has a few things to tell me about W.B. Doebler. He just doesn't know it yet."

"You sure that's wise?" I asked. "You know how tight W.B. is with the sheriff. And you're still supposed to be on leave."

Lopez put away his notebook, met my eyes. His expression told me he was past the point of caring about wise choices.

"You two go on ahead," he said. "Don't worry about me."

"You'll keep in touch?"

A small, thin smile. "Navarre. Counsellor."

Then he slipped out the tinted glasses and headed for his car.

Maybe it was just the fact that I'd said too many goodbyes that had turned permanent in the course of the week-to Jimmy, to Ruby, almost to Garrett. But I had to fight back a chill as Victor Lopez pulled away-a strange premonition that I wouldn't be seeing him again.