Rick Riordan - The widower’s two step

After hanging up, I spent a long time staring at the crepe myrtle out the kitchen window. It was a relief twenty minutes later when Erainya did her customary unsyncopated rattattat on the screendoor frame.

When I opened the door Jem laughed and just about launched a twolayer cake into my chest as he came in. Fortunately I caught the cake while it was still in one piece and raised it up, allowing Jem free rein to tackle me.

Robert Johnson mewed a complaint and disappeared into the closet. He probably remembered the last time the Manoses had come over.

Erainya stepped in and looked around my apartment. "So you're still alive. You don't call why-you forget the number?"

Jem was explaining to me about the cake. He told me that we'd have to wait until I really finished my hours to eat it but he'd made it himself with his food colouring kit and I wouldn't believe the colours inside when I opened it up. The outside was forbidding enough-lumpy gray frosting that looked like the product a cement finger painting session, the layers uneven and offcentre so the cake seemed to be leaning away from me on its plate.

"It's just about the nicest cake I've ever seen, Bubba."

Jem giggled, then went to find the cat.

In the top of the closet a shoe box moved.

Erainya was still waiting for an answer to her question. She was giving me the lookofdeath treatment, her black eyes bugging toward me and her talon fingers tap ping her forearm.

"I got ten hours left," I told her. "That's about one job. You figure we can avoid arguing that long?"

"It's twenty," she reminded me. "And I don't know, honey. You going to get yourself sidetracked again?"

"Professor Mitchell is probably wondering the same thing."

Erainya frowned. "Mitchell who?"

"I said, yes. I'm willing to finish up. You?"

Erainya thought about it, weighing the pros and cons. "I suppose the Longoria case could've gone better if I'd had a dumblooking guy for a decoy, honey. I supposed there's advantages. Maybe you got a little raw potential. Nothing amazing, you understand. And what about after the twenty hours?'"

Jem came back over with Robert Johnson hanging by his armpits from Jem's hands, Robert Johnson's toes fully extended and the tiny white V on his crotch showing and his face looking like he would die from mortification any second.

Jem looked troubled. "Where's Miranda?"

He'd just made the connection, remembered his trick ortreat partner and remembered that she had some vague association with Tres when she wasn't being Jem's Little Miss Muffett.

Erainya waited to hear an answer to both questions, hers and Jem's. She was chewing on the inside of her mouth, her lips turning sideways.

"Miranda had to go, Bubba. She's going to be a singer in Nashville. Isn't that cool?"

Jem didn't look impressed. Neither did Robert Johnson. Both turned and left. Probably going to play wet kitty/drykitty in bathroom.

"You need anything, honey?" Erainya's voice was softer now, so much so that I had to look to make sure she had really been the one speaking.

She frowned immediately. "What?"

"Nothing. And no. Thanks."

Erainya looked out the window at the afternoon in progress. Gary Hales was in the front yard, watering his sidewalk. Across the street a red Mazda Miata was just pulling up in front of the Suitez house. The Mazda was loaded so heavily with cardboard moving boxes that the trunk was halfopen, precariously fastened with a crisscross of cords. Allison SaintPierre looked across the street, trying to make sure she remembered which house was mine. Last time she was here she'd been drunk.

Erainya and I exchanged looks.

"Nashville, honey?"

"It's not that."

She did a backhand slap in the air. "Ah. I'll wrap the cake in Saran Wrap. Maybe it'll keep."

Knowing how Erainya applied Saran Wrap, I had the feeling the cake would keep several centuries.

I went outside.

Allison saw me coming and sat on the hood of the red Mazda and waited. She was holding a backpack-my backpack, the one I'd left with the maid at her Monte Vista house.

Allison was already warming up her head shake as I walked across Queen Anne Street. By the time I got to her she was going pretty well with it.

"What is this?" she demanded. She held the backpack up by one shoulder strap.

"A very old backpack," I said. "A souvenir. I figured I didn't need it anymore."

She sighed through her nose. "I mean what's in it, sweetie. You lost your mind?"

"It's Les' money," I said. "Or part of it. He forgot the stash, we found it. I figured you're right-some of it should go to you."

Allison's eyes couldn't quite get a fix on me. They were wandering around the space where I was, not really seeing. She looked sloppy today, movingtime sloppy- her hair pinned up and her Tshirt streaked with old cobwebs and her legs below her cutoffs scraped and smudged with dirt. Her face was etched with tiny white wrinkles like cracked glass.

"You're just giving me twentyfive thousand dollars," she said, incredulous.

"Twentyfour thousand three hundred," I corrected.

"I know." She'd counted. The fact that I had too made her even more incredulous. "Is this because-"

I shook my head. "It's not because of anything. I know what Les' estate looks like. I know that his name isn't going to be worth as much as you hoped. The court is going to be paying off his debts first, and I doubt there's going to be much for you. You're broke."

That didn't seem to answer her question. She knew all that already. She kept staring at me, mad now.

"So give this to the judge, like you said," she said.

"I don't know the judge. I know you."

She finally lowered the backpack. She still looked angry. "Exactly."

A car went past. Behind me Gary Hales' watering hose sprayed across the cement and droplets thudded into the grass. He must've been busy watching us. His aim was off.

"Still going back to Falfurrias?" I asked.

"You sure you want to know?"

We locked eyes. I looked away first.

"Damn you." She was shaking her head again now, trying to stay angry but with a tiny smile starting to form.

"Pardon?"

"You've got to go and keep the damn door open, don't you? You've got to give me just enough to think that maybe all men aren't complete shits. Why the fuck did you do this?"

"Think about Les," I suggested. "There's still a strong case."

She sighed.

"You were right," I told her. "About him running off, about getting away free and leaving everybody else with the mess. You were right all along."

"Big comfort."

She turned and threw the backpack in the shotgun window.

"Besides," I said, "it was twentyfive thousand."

She frowned. "What?"

"The amount-I was going to give you twentyfive thousand dollars. I scammed seven hundred. You can blame me for that."

She stared at me.

I pointed my toe in the air. "Reimbursed myself for these here boots. Paid my rent.

They cost about the same amount."

Allison cracked a smile. "I've seen your apartment. The boots were a better deal."

Then she came up and put her arms around me. Her fingers traced my skin, remembering exactly where the sword tip scar was, circling around it. She kissed me long enough for Gary Hales to water the tree, the street, the front bumper on my VW.

Long enough for me to forget how to breathe.

Then she pushed lightly away, bumped my forehead with hers.

"Come down to Falfurrias sometime," she said.

"And you'll introduce me to your four brothers?" I managed to say.

She grinned. She tweaked my ear with her fingers and it stung.

"Them you could handle, sweetie."

After the red Miata drove away I stood in the middle of Queen Anne Street until a family Land Rover drove up and tapped its horn. Excuse us.