Big Red Tiquila - Rick Riordan Read Online Free PDF Page A

wall. She was pressing her fingertips against her temples
and glaring at a man who looked nothing at all like the Beau Karnau I
remembered.
    What I remembered from the few times Beau had
condescended to shake my hand a decade ago was a short, burly
brunette with a crew cut, black clothes, and a face smoothed over
with acne scar tissue and smugness. Now in his late fifties, Karnau
looked more like one of the Seven Dwarfs. He sported a potbelly, a
scraggly gray beard, a receding hairline, and a braided ponytail.
He’d traded in the black clothes for a gaudy silk shirt, boots, and
jeans. His forehead was almost purple with anger.
    “ God damn it," he shouted. "You can’t."
    Lillian saw me, told me with a shake of her head that
she wasn’t in danger, then "Jesus Christ, Beau! You’re going
to kill somebody with your tantrums."
    “ Tantrums my ass," he said. "You will not
do this to me again, Lillian."
    He crossed his arms, huffed, then seemed to notice me
for the first time. judging by his sour face he must not have been
impressed by my rugged manliness. "This must be Mr. Wonderful,"
he said.
    "Dr. Wonderful," I corrected. "Ph.D.,
Berkeley, ’91."
    “ Har-de-har. "
    How can you fight against lines like "har-de-har"?
I looked back at Lillian.
    "Beau," she said slowly, staring down at
her desk, "can we please talk about this later?"
    Karnau shifted his weight from foot to foot,
obviously thinking of the most withering comment he could  make.
Finally he decided to make a grand silent exit. Arms still crossed,
he stormed past me to the front door, slamming it shut behind him.
    When Lillian’s facial expression told me she had
depressurized I came over to the desk. I waited.
    "Sorry," she said. “That, of course, was
Beau."
    "Your great inspiration," I remembered.
“Your biggest fan. Your ticket to—"
    She cut me off with a look. "Things change."
    "Mm. My finely honed deductive skills tell me he
was slightly miffed at you."
    She sat on the edge of her desk and made a dismissive
gesture. “He’s been getting like that over a lot of things."
    “ You want to say what?"
    She gave me a tired smile. “Nothing. I mean I
didn’t want to get you involved in this yet. It’s just—I’ve
decided to pull out of the business. I want to do my own work
full-time, without Beau. I’m getting tired of selling to
vacationing Midwesterners."
    "It’s about time."
    She took my hand. "I figured the time was right,
after we talked last night. Time to get back on track in a lot of
ways. "
    I came closer. After a few minutes Lillian’s mood
had improved enough for her to give me a tour of the gallery.
    They specialized, she told me, in “Border Morbid."
    The main room was devoted to ceramic Day of the Dead
sculptures by artists from Laredo and Piedras Negras. There were
skeletons playing guitar, skeletons making love, mother skeletons
nursing baby skeletons in cribs. Every scene was thickly glazed in
primary colors, hideous and comical.
    "I’ve been saving this one for you, Tres,"
Lillian said.
    The statuette was tucked away on a corner podium--a
dead man’s road trip. The skeletal driver had his arm around his
skeletal girlfriend. They were both grinning of course, holding up
miniature tequila bottles as they careened along in a bright orange
car that looked suspiciously like my Volkswagen.
    "Lovely," I said. "So this is the way
you remember our road trips?"
    Lillian stared at it without replying, a little sad.
Then she smiled at me.
    “ Take it," she said. "A housewarming
gift. At least this car won’t break down on you."
    “ We are not amused, " I grumbled.
    I let her wrap it up in tissue paper for me anyway.
If nothing else it would be good for scaring the bejesus out of
Robert Johnson.
    Beau came back with a salad-in-a-box forty-five
minutes later. He had gone from inflamed to smoldering, but still
said very little. He just nodded when Lillian said she was leaving
early.
    When we got back to Lillian’s house that afternoon
a