The Devil Went Down to Austin

Gravel crunched underfoot as we walked toward the water. I watched the restaurant for signs of movement.

Two different planks led from shore. Beer bottles floated in the scummy water between.

Maia drew her Sig Sauer and gestured that she would take the left plank. Matthew and I took the right.

I stepped across the gangplank, pushed on the heavy wooden door. The sign NO ONE

UNDER 18 ADMITTED crinkled under my palm.

A dove flitted out of the exposed rafters and I nearly shot at it.

Matthew and I made our way through a barroom that smelled like lemon ammonia and dried whiskey. I brought out my pencil flashlight and shone it into dark corners—a plastic spoon, a napkin, a forgotten handbag. It was so quiet we could hear the lake gurgle and plunk against the aluminium pontoon floats beneath the floor.

I thought, just for a moment, that I heard a man's voice—a murmured question.

I stopped Pena. We listened.

Nothing.

We rendezvoused with Maia in the main dining room—a forest of upsidedown chairs stacked on tables. The deck doors were open, letting in the smell of the water and the entire panorama of the lake.

Mansfield Dam rose up immediately on the left—an enormous slab of charcoal.

Pena started to whisper, "This was a waste—"

And then someone else spoke, directly in front of us. There was a human form out on the deck.

Pena and I moved toward it, Maia a few steps behind, bringing up the rear.

The man glistened—the glint of wet suit material. Victor Lopez was sitting on the railing of the deck.

"Vic?" I called.

We were at the open doorway now, Lopez only ten feet away.

As my eyes adjusted, I noticed his gear—the air tank, the regulator, the mask around his neck. He wore two weight belts that were solid with squares of lead, another two belts crossing his chest like bandoliers. No BC to counteract the lead. No fins.

If Lopez went over the side like that, he would sink fast and have a hell of a time coming back up. He was also holding a gun at his thigh—not a service pistol.

Something smaller. An oldstyle Raven from back in the 1980s. A .380 automatic.

Lopez was staring out over the water, as if in a reverie.

I glanced back at Maia, who shook her head slightly—I don't know.

Then Vic mumbled something. "Here. Right here, I think."

"Lopez?" I called.

He looked over, said nothing.

There was more scuba equipment at his feet—another air tank, fastened to a BC. On a nearby table was a mask. Next to that, a computer disk.

I shone my pencil flashlight in Lopez's face.

His pupils stayed fully dilated. His expression didn't change— as if there were no circulation in his face.

"Is this—" he droned. "Is this . . . okay?"

"We should leave," Pena murmured. "Now."

Then the deck boards creaked behind us. I spun.

A second figure had separated from the darkness right next to Maia. The only thing that wasn't pure black was the gun. It was pressed against Maia's temple.

"Yes," said the voice I didn't recognize at all. "That's fine, Vic. Put your mask on."

Metal thudded against wood—Maia's gun dropping.

"That's good, dear heart," the voice crooned, the face still in the shadows. "Now your friend's—gun and the flashlight in the water, please."

Maia said, "Don't, Tres."

"Ah," the voice said. "But Tres can't shoot, can he? He doesn't trust his aim. He doesn't trust guns. And certainly, he knows I'll kill you if he doesn't cooperate."

Next to me, Pena stayed still.

I tossed my gun and flashlight over the railing, heard two tiny plooshes in the water.

The figure stepped forward, pushing Maia ahead.

A black baseball cap. A wet suit. A face painted black, eyes intense as a raptor's. The gun slid down, pressed tightly into Maia's jugular vein.

"My hero." Dwight Hayes gave me a pleasant smile. "Thanks for coming, Tres."

CHAPTER 41

"You son of a bitch," Pena said.

"You don't know how appropriate your comment is, Matthew." Dwight's wrist rested on Maia's shoulder. The neoprene of the wet suit was soaking the top of her shirt. He moved his free hand around her waist, spreading his fingers caressingly across her abdomen.

"You smell good," Dwight told her. "I've never been close enough—except for your apartment, looking through your things. I'm glad you decided to pursue us, Maia."

She swallowed. Her throat muscles pushed against Dwight's gun and made it look like she was nodding.

I watched her fingers, waited for our old sign—a threefinger countdown, which would mean she was about to risk a move.

"All right, Victor," Dwight said.

Lopez had raised his gun. He was pointing it at Dwight Hayes, but his arm was bent, the gun turned sideways, as if some invisible armwrestling opponent was forcing his hand back at the wrong angle.

"You won't need that," Dwight assured Lopez. His voice was calm, deep. "Don't you remember?"

"You're drugged, Lopez," I said. "Fight it. Shoot the bastard."

Lopez's arm trembled. His chest had begun to cave in like an old man's under the weight and heat of the scuba gear.

"Don't remember," he mumbled.

"The little boy," Dwight told him. "The little Asian child. He was right under the deck, wasn't he?"

"The boy."

"Right about where you're sitting."

Pena said, "Jesus Christ, Dwight."

Pena started to move forward, but Dwight pressed the gun into Maia's throat, made her gag. "Tsk, tsk, old friend. First things first."

Lopez mumbled, "Right here."

"Good," Dwight said, nodding pleasantly. "What should you do?"

"Search."

"That's an excellent idea. You can leave the gun, I think. Your prints are on it now. That should be sufficient."

Lopez's hand lowered. The Raven clunked on the floor. "I can't— No."

"You need your mask on," Dwight suggested. "And you'll have to keep looking. Even if it gets cold, even if you can't get out, you can't leave a little boy alone down there.

Can't let that happen again."

Dwight's voice had taken on a cadence that wasn't quite human— more like a drum, hit by a small, angry windup machine. "You'll just need to keep searching, Vic. That little boy is down there somewhere. Drowning in the dark."

Lopez fumbled with his mask.

"No, Vic," I said.

But I was just part of the nightmare. His heart must have been slowing, his mind turning to thick sap, flowing over Dwight's words, hardening wherever they stuck.

He bit the regulator's mouthpiece, groping for a pressure gauge.

"Oh, there isn't one, Victor," Dwight reassured him. "Time is the diver's enemy. This dive, you won't have any limits. No charts. Just your task. Now over you go—it'll feel so good to get into the cold water, won't it?"

Lopez had trouble getting his leg over the railing. He slid off awkwardly, his tank hitting the rail as he fell, and then he was gone.

The sound in my ears compressed into a roar. I looked at Dwight. "How much time, you sick fuck?"

He cocked his head. "Air consumption is unpredictable when their metabolism slows down. It's a race, really, whether his heart fails from the drugs before the air gives out."

Next to me, Pena made his hands into fists. "You killed her. You drugged Adrienne. You followed us—waited for me to leave. You goddamn—"

Dwight made shhshhshh sounds, the way you would for a restless infant. "Adrienne was getting too close to you, Matthew. She was softening you. I couldn't allow that.

You made too good of a shadow to stand in, allowed me to get away with so much. I couldn't give up all the years I'd cultivated you."

"You pointed Pena toward Techsan," I said. "You made the pact with Ruby, killed her when she started having regrets. It was all"' your idea—you intended to destroy Jimmy."

He rubbed his hand across Maia's belly. "Lopez needs help. I'll tell you what, Maia—there's my equipment. I'll let you go in. Only you."

If it was possible for Maia to look any more tense than she already did, with a gun at her throat, Dwight's comment did the trick.

"It's only about twenty feet there," Dwight told her. "Pitch black. And of course, you'd have to feel around—not knowing when you'll touch human flesh, and if he'll still be alive when you do. What do you say, honey? It would be worth it, letting you save Lopez's life, just to see you face that."

Pena said, "I'll destroy you."

Dwight raised his eyebrows. "Don't lose your only admirable quality now, Matthew.

You've got to be strong. You've got to cut those ties, stand alone. That's what you always wanted. That was why I visited your parents that Christmas. I granted your wish."

Pena was deadly still for half a second, and then, foolishly, he charged. It might have been an opportunity, but before I could even think of using it, Dwight fired.

The bullet caught Pena in the gut. He contracted like he was catching a football, slammed down on his knees.

After the shot, the silence was intense.

"I've learned a lot of lessons from you, Matthew," Dwight told him. "I was hoping to spare you. But it's only right you're here to help me end this."

Matthew hugged his middle, made small sounds of pain.

A sheen of sweat had formed on Dwight's blackened face, but I got the feeling it had nothing to do with the insulation of the wet suit. Dwight Hayes was overheating from the inside.

"You remember, Matthew? How many times we lay awake at night in the dorm room talking, that first semester? Don't you remember when you gave me the idea? You told me about changing your name, how you wished your parents were dead for ignoring you all those years? You were my inspiration."

"No," Pena managed.

There was a wet stain on the wood, blood spreading around his knees.

"Oh, yes, you were," Dwight insisted. "You gave me the courage to live. You gave me a purpose."

I met Maia's eyes, saw what she was thinking. Distract him.

"You're Jimmy's brother," I told him. "Clara and Ewin's son."

Dwight's smile became disdainful. "You don't see the resemblance, Tres? Don't worry—the disk there on the table, I take the blame for it all. When they find your bodies, they'll understand. All the roots will be pulled—all the pieces of my family, Jimmy's family, will be gone. I'm sorry Garrett couldn't be here, but he'll have enough charges against him to destroy him. After tonight, Clara's younger son can rest in peace."

The way he spoke of himself in the third person chilled me even more than his threat.

"Kill him, Tres," Pena moaned. "You have to kill him."

Maia's first finger went down.

I'd have to tackle him. But the way Dwight shot, the speed with which he moved—I was pretty sure Maia and I were both going to die.

Maia's second finger went down.

A floorboard creaked in the main dining room, and a voice grumbled, "Eh! What the fucking gunshot about?"

Armand the biker. I had never been happier to hear a Cajun accent in my life.