The Last King of Texas - Rick Riordan Read Online Free PDF Page A

flats.
    "This is your idea of a thank-you for the nice
job?" she demanded. "You get yourself detonated?"
    "I'm ungrateful, I know."
    She made a sideways slap at the air, a gesture of
annoyance she does so often I'd learned not to sit next to her in
restaurant booths. "You're lucky UTSA is  keeping us on."
    "Totally ungrateful," I agreed. "You
arrange a teaching position for me without my knowledge, let me win
you an investigative contract with the University, and I don't even
say kharis soi."
    Erainya frowned. "What is that — Bible Greek?"
    "Only kind I know. I'm a medievalist, remember?"
    "The modern phrase for 'thank you' is
ephkharisto, honey. Good one to learn, seeing as I keep doing you
favors."
    She reached toward her spiral files, used her fingers
as a dowsing rod, then pinched out the exact slip of paper she
wanted. She handed me a printout of classes — medieval graduate
course Lit 4963, Chaucer undergraduate seminar Lit 3213, one section
of freshman English.
    "Three classes," Erainya said. "Wednesday
and Friday afternoons. You're a visiting assistant professor, six
thousand for the rest of the semester allocated from the dean's
discretionary fund. I don't call that bad."
    "What's your commission?"
    She sighed. "Look, honey, I knew you had some
hard feelings when you had to turn down the teaching position last
fall."
    "Completing the license was my decision,
Erainya."
    "Sure, honey. The right decision. I'm just
saying — this opportunity came up—"
    "A man getting shot to death."
    "—and I figured it was perfect. You get to
teach some classes, keep working for me. They offer you a contract
next fall, you'll get full benefits and thirty K a year. Plus what
you make for me."
    I drummed my fingers, let my eyes weave across the
clutter of Erainya's desk.
    "You're going to send me to boarding school if I
say no?"
    It took her a second to remember the brochures.
"They're not boarding."
    "Private school for Jem?"
    She scowled, began gathering up the brochures. "I
want the best."
    "These places have scholarships?"
    "Stop changing the subject."
    "Most people still do public, Erainya. Kids turn
out fine."
    "You're telling me Jem is most kids?"
    I looked back at Jem, who was now trying to explain
to Kelly Arguello how the gears for his Tinkertoy motion machine
worked.
    "All right," I admitted. "He's
exceptional. Still—"
    "You worry about your college classes. Let me
worry about kindergarten."
    "And the Brandon case?"
    "Let George take care of that."
    "SAPD give you anything?"
    "I just told you — wait a—"
    I leaned toward the morass of papers on her desk and
did my own dowsing job, plucked a phone message slip that was
sticking out of a stack of reports. "Put that back,"
Erainya demanded.
    I read the message. "Ozzie Gerson. Deputy Ozzie
Gerson?"
    "I'm not talking to you."
    "Ozzie's about as low in the sheriffs department
as you can get without crawling under one of their patrol cars.
You're asking him for information. On a city homicide case, no less."
    Erainya tapped her fingers. "Look, honey, I know
you."
    "Meaning what, exactly?"
    "Meaning if I tell you details, you're going to
decide it's your case. You're going to go poking around when what I
really need for you to do is stay safe and make UTSA happy."
    "Is this connected with that thing a few years
ago?"
    "That thing."
    "Yeah. You know. That other guy named Brandon.
Pow, pow."
    Erainya folded her arms. Her black hair stuck out
wiry free-style, not unlike Medusa's. "Just do your teaching,
honey. Give George a week and he'll have a full report for UTSA. You
got an advanced degree. You can read it."
    "Gosh, thanks."
    "And what I said about the sheriffs department —
just because Ozzie's a mutual friend, don't get any bright ideas."
    "You know I'll ask him."
    "Let me pretend, honey. For my pride, all
right?"
    "Anything else?"
    Erainya picked up the private school brochures again.
She shuffled through them, contemplating each, then carefully dealt
out three in