Rick Riordan - The widower’s two step

It was possible that a woman might've lived here once, but you couldn't've proved it.

I tried to get up.

I tried again.

When I finally succeeded I realized where all the fluid in my body had drained to. I looked around for the rest room.

It was a tiny closet behind a shower curtain. Everything was close together. The sink overlapped the toilet tank and the shower drained directly into the tile floor so you could, conceivably, use the toilet and take a shower and brush your teeth all at the same time.

I only tried option number one.

It wasn't until I rummaged in the medicine cabinet, hoping for aspirin, that I found some reminder of the woman who had once lived here-orange prescription bottles, at least ten of them, all typed faintly with the name Maria Daniels. Insulin A. Prenatal vitamin supplements. Glucophage. Several other names I hadn't ever heard of. Some were open, as if she'd just taken her prescription this morning. As if nothing had been touched in the cabinet in two years. In the corner, behind the container of white Glucophage tablets, was a baby teether still in its plastic wrapper.

I picked it up. Little glittery shapes-diamonds, squares, stars-floated through the liquid inside the plastic ring, sluggish and sterile.

Behind me Brent Daniels said, "You're up."

I closed the cabinet.

When I turned Brent was trying his best not to notice what I'd been doing. He fingered the edge of the shower curtain.

His hair had dried, and his face was cleanshaven. Except for the eyes, he didn't look like a man who'd been drinking as heavily as I had.

"Miranda called," he told me. "Said Milo was going to be mixing for the rest of the afternoon and did I want to pick her up early. I could, or-? "

"I'll drive up."

Brent nodded, like it was bad news he'd been expecting. He gestured behind him with his chin. I followed him out into the apartment, which was just big enough for the two of us.

Brent opened a cabinet above the little refrigerator and retrieved a bag of flour tortillas and a can of refried beans.

"Hungry?"

My stomach did a slow roll. I shook my head no.

Brent shrugged and cranked up the hot pad. I stared at the picture that was taped inside the pantry door-a black and white of a woman with short brunette hair, a slightly moonish face, an almost uncontainable smile, like she was being tickled.

"That Maria?"

Brent tensed, looked around to see what I was talking about. When he realized I meant the picture he relaxed.

"No. My mother."

"You were how old?"

He knew what I meant. "Almost twenty." Then, like it was something he was obliged to add, something he'd been corrected on many times, "Miranda was only six."

Brent threw a tortilla directly on the hot pad. He watched as it began to puff up and bubble. The tortilla was probably old and flat but after a minute on the grill it would taste almost as good as fresh. The only correct way to heat a tortilla.

"Willis might not be too happy with you driving to pick Miranda up," he speculated.

"But you don't mind."

He flipped the tortilla. One of the air bubbles had cracked open and the edges had blackened.

"Maybe I will take some," I decided.

Brent made no comment, but got another tortilla out of the bag.

"I don't mind," he finally agreed. "Dad…" He trailed off.

"He's got an unpredictable temper, doesn't he?"

Brent was staring at the picture of his mother.

" 'Billy Senorita,' " I said. "The only song Miranda wrote herself-it was about your parents."

Brent stirred up the refried beans. "The fights weren't as bad as that."

" But scary to a sixyearold."

Brent stared at me. He let a little anger burn through the dead ash. "You want to think about something- think how Willis feels, hearing that song every night. Put him in his place, all right. Worked like a charm."

I did what Brent said. I thought about it.

Brent added a little pepper and a little butter and salt to the beans. When they were smoking he spread them on the flour tortillas, folded them, and handed one to me. We sat and ate.

I stared out the side window into the tractor shed. An enormous orange cat was sleeping on the seat of the rusty John Deere. A couple of doves were in the rafters above. My gaze shifted over to the ceiling above me.

"What's up there?" I asked.

"Attic now. Used to be the sewing room."

"Sewing?"

Brent looked at me, a little resentful that he had to say anything else. "Maria."

I turned my attention back to my bean roll.

"I want to tell you something," I decided.

Brent waited, not concerned one way or the other.

Maybe it was his passivity that made me want to talk. Maybe the midday whiskey hangover. Maybe it was just easier than telling his sister. Whatever it was, I told Brent Daniels pretty much the whole story-about Sheckly's bootlegging, about Jean Kraus, about how people that were in a position to give information on Sheckly's business were disappearing, either by choice or not.

Brent listened quietly, eating his bean roll. Nothing seemed to shock him.

When I was done he said, "You don't want to go telling Miranda all this. It'll kill her right now. Wait for her to finish her tape."

"Miranda may be in danger. You too, for that matter.

What was Jean Kraus arguing with you about-that night at the party?"

Brent smirked. "Jean, he'll argue about anything. That don't mean he's going to kill me and my family."

"I hope you're right. I hope Les doesn't bring you folks the kind of luck he brought Julie Kearnes. Or Alex Blanceagle."

Brent's eyes started collecting shadows again. "Miranda doesn't need this."

"But you're not concerned. You don't worry about Les making problems for you."

Brent shook his head slowly.

He was a hard person to judge. There could've been a lie there. Or maybe not. The weathered face and the years of hardness covered up just about everything.

"Tough for me to let somebody in here," he said finally. He stared off at the rough red walls of the apartment.

I sat there for another few seconds before I realized he'd just told me to leave.

By the time I picked up Miranda at Silo Studios, another promised cold front had edged its way south and stalled, pressing humid air and gray clouds over Austin like a sweaty electric blanket.

The folks seventy miles north in Waco were probably cool and comfortable. Then again, they were in Waco.

Milo Chavez was too busy to speak to me. He and one of the engineers were glued to the sound board, listening in awe to the new vocal tracks Miranda had laid down over the last two mornings.

"Fifteen takes," Milo mumbled to me. "Fifteen goddamn takes of 'Billy's Senorita' and she blew it away in one try this morning. My God, Navarre, losing that first demo tape was the best thing that ever happened to us."

He laid his hand on the little BOSE speaker like he was consecrating it.

Chavez agreed to let me take Miranda back to S.A. early as long as I got her to her appearance tonight on time. Miranda said she was starving. She suggested lunch on the way back to town. I had a conscience attack and called my brother Garrett to see if he could join us. Unfortunately he could.

When we got to the Texicali Grille we found Garrett at an outside table. He'd pulled his wheelchair under one of the metal umbrellas and Dickhead the parrot was waddling stiffly back and forth on his shoulder. Danny Young, the owner of the Texicali, was sitting backward in the chair across the table.

Danny was a family friend, connected to the Navarres through a network of South Texas kin and nearkin that I never could quite remember.

Many years back Danny had moved his restaurant business from Kingsville to Austin and decided to grant himself an honorary double degree in alternative politics and burgerflipping. He announced that the half of Austin below the Colorado River must secede from the growing yuppiness of the north, so he hoisted a green XXXL Tshirt up the flagpole at the Texicali and started calling himself the Mayor of South Austin. I think Danny's political platform said something about flip flops and salsa and Mexican beer. I'd told him he could annex San Antonio anytime he wanted.