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

front of me. "If you were choosing between those,
which would you pick?"
    I frowned at the brochures. Maroon, green, blue. All
very slick. All sported pictures of venerable school facades and
happy honors students, grinning and hugging their textbooks like old
friends.
    I looked up at Erainya. "I know nothing about
schools."
    "You know Jem?"
    "I have that pleasure."
    "All right, then. I'm asking you."
    I picked up the brochures reluctantly. A weird memory
came to me from thirteen years ago, when I'd looked through brochures
for graduate schools. The forms, the spiel, the tuitions. These were
about the same. "Eighty-five hundred a year? "
    Erainya nodded. "Cheap."
    "For New York, maybe."
    "I want the best," Erainya insisted. "I'm
not asking you about the finances, honey. I'm asking you about those
three choices."
    Hesitantly, I held up the green brochure. "This
one. I've heard it's a nice place. Small. Got an arts program. It
isn't Catholic."
    "I thought you were Catholic."
    "I rest my case."
    Erainya took back the brochure. "I'll get Jem a
visiting date. He'll want you to take him."
    "Me?"
    "You don't know Jem adores you, honey? You
blind?"
    "We need to work on the kid's taste."
    "No argument." Erainya collected the
brochures. "Now get out of here and rest. You got class
tomorrow. And no poking around in George's case." "Suggestion
noted."
    Erainya shook her head sourly. She gazed at the
gilded icon of Saint Sophia hanging on the wall next to her desk and
muttered something, probably a Greek prayer to deliver the Manos clan
from wicked, disrespectful employees. As I was going out, George
Berton was fielding another call. He covered the receiver long enough
to say, "See you tonight."
    Kelly looked up from Jem's Tinkertoys. "I'll see
you Thursday."  I agreed that he would and she would.
    Then I ruffled Jem's hair and told him to keep at it
with the perpetual motion engine. I anticipated needing one.
 
 
    FIVE
    By the time I got home the painkillers had started to
wear off. The delayed shock of the morning's explosion was starting
to do funny things to my brain. As I walked up the sidewalk of 90
Queen Anne, the backward-leaning facade of the old two-story
craftsman looked even more precarious than usual. The purple
bougainvillea around the awnings seemed fluid and sinister. When I
got around the side of the building to the screen door of my in-law
apartment, I had trouble making myself touch the latch.
    Once inside, I settled onto a stool at the kitchen
counter. Robert Johnson leaped up next to me and rubbed against my
forearm. I ignored him. I was too busy trying to convince myself that
the dots on the linoleum floor were not accelerating.
    I pulled down the wall-mounted ironing board and
picked up the phone, which is installed in the alcove behind for
reasons known only to God and Southwestern Bell.
    There was a message from my mom, wondering if I was
going to make it for dinner. Another message from Maia Lee in San
Francisco, asking if I was okay. Maia apologized for being out of
town when I'd called her Sunday.
    My finger hovered over the ERASE button for a good
five seconds. I punched it.
    I called Deputy Ozzie Gerson's cell phone number and
found him working patrol on the far South Side. When I mentioned the
Brandon murder he grumbled that he'd try to stop by.
    Then I went back to the kitchen counter, snapped the
rubber band on Kelly Arguello's files, and started reading.
    Professor Aaron Brandon. Born San Antonio, 1960,
graduated Churchill High in 1977. BA. at Texas A & M, M.A. and
Ph.D. at UT Austin. First full-time teaching job: a year here in San
Antonio, non-tenure track at Our Lady of the Lake University,
1992-93. Contract not renewed for reasons unspecified. After that,
six glamorous years at UT Permian Basin, known among the region's
academics as UT "Permanent Basement." Brandon had returned
home to San Antonio last Christmas to accept the emergency opening at
UTSA. He had been killed three weeks before his