South Phoenix Rules (16 page)

24

It felt good to be back in the center city and I stopped at the taco truck on McDowell Road, in a dark parking lot a few blocks from the hospital. Even though it was nearly midnight, I had to wait in line to order two Mexican hot dogs. The music of Chalino Sanchez, or somebody who wanted to sound like him, was playing from portable speakers. The air was still and moody.

I sat in one of the lawn chairs opened on the pavement and for the first time in days actually tasted the food. A beer would have been nice, but I had to settle for a Diet Coke. They were fixed just right, cooked until the dog and bacon were one and covered in beans, tomatoes, and onions, to which I had added a few more goodies from the salsa bar. I ate the food and in my mind chewed over the meeting between Lee and Barney. Everyone was speaking Spanish but they took no notice of the Anglo in their midst. These were working people. They kept the local economy going and the whites from the Midwest hated them. I expected an immigrant sweep at any moment from the new sheriff.

Instead, a new Mercedes parked at my feet and a black cowboy climbed out.

He didn't walk to the order window. With a scraping on the asphalt, he moved a cheap chair next to mine and sat down. I was in the middle of the second dog and just let him be. The Python was in easy reach, and if he were packing, it would be in an ankle holster, so I could beat him to the draw. I didn't want any of that to happen. I just wanted to enjoy my hotdog.

“Nice evening.”

I agreed with him. The man was around my age, with a thick neck and big hands. He wore jeans, boots, Western-cut shirt, and a white Stetson. The real Old West had plenty of African-American cowboys. You just didn't see them around 21st century Phoenix.

“Now I ran your tag through NCIC and the car came back clean.”

I just wanted to live with the hot dog for one more minute. After the last swallow, I sipped the Coke and leaned back, watching the traffic. So who the hell was he? ATF? Phoenix cop? Chandler P.D., maybe, if my instinct had been right and he had been behind me for a while. No. He wasn't a local on the job. Otherwise, he'd have his badge on his belt and a firearm. Too flamboyant to be a fed. Could he be in Lee's employ and yet have access to the NCIC to check wants and warrants outstanding? I doubted it.

“So I had to ask myself,” he said. “Who would be driving this old civilian vehicle and following my person of interest?”

“I'm a Maricopa County deputy sheriff.” The lie came fluently. “Who the hell are you?”

“Then let's see a badge.”

I rolled up the messy foil wrapping and wiped my hands. “I'm too goddamned tired.”

He sighed. “Motherfucker. I get this close and the goddamned cops are trying to claim my prize.”

Bounty hunter. But who was he after?

“We cooperate with bounty hunters all the time.” Another lie. “Maybe we can work something out. Tell me why you're after the old man?”

“Old man?” The cowboy shook his head. “I'm after that felonious ditch pig who's with him most of the time.”

“The big guy. Former military?”

“Dishonorable discharge. What matters to me is that he skipped out on a two-hundred-thousand-dollar bond in Bakersfield. But I spent twenty years on the force there before I became a fugitive recovery agent.” And he obviously had buddies there still who would run my car as a favor to an ex-cop. He reached into his pants pocket and unfolded a piece of paper.

I looked at the wanted poster for Tom Holden, age thirty-two, and a face that went with Justin Lee's bodyguard. He had made bail on charge of aggravated assault.

“Bad actor,” the cowboy said. “Considered armed and dangerous.”

“How is he with a sniper's rifle?”

“Let me put it this way. He went to the Army sniper school at Fort Benning. I'm going to get something to eat.”

He walked over and ordered while I studied the sheet. Tom Holden, another box on my chart, connected to Lee. If he had been the one who killed the La Fam members…

The cowboy came back, quickly downed a Mexican hot dog, and tilted his hat back on his head. He folded his arms and stretched out his legs, boot tips pointing into the night sky.

“I want to take him back,” he said. “The problem is getting him alone. He's always with the old man. I can deal with that but it might get messy. A lot of the time he's with this crew of white boys that comes and goes from that house. Tonight I thought you were one of them, following the old coot for protection.”

I nodded and asked him if he knew the old man's identity. He shook his head. I showed him the sketch of the woman who shot Robin and he had never seen her. His eyes were on the ten percent or more of the forfeited bond that he could make if he nailed Holden.

“I can help you,” I said. “But you've got to book him into our jail.”

“No fucking way, man. I'm driving him back to California. No muss, no fuss, no extradition hearing.”

“Your subject might be wanted on a multiple homicide here.” I let that sink in before continuing. “The case is coming together. You don't want to get in the way of that. You can work it out with your bondsman, make your money.”

He wiped his mouth, sucked at his teeth, and thought about it.

“All right.”

“There's one other thing. When you get him in custody, I want you to have him make a call to the old man before he gets to jail.” I told him what Holden should say, word for word. “Can you persuade him to do that?”

He nodded. “I'm a persuasive kind of guy.”

He reached in his pocket and produced a silver business-card case, handed me a card. Demetrius Smith, fugitive recovery agent. I pulled one of my old MCSO cards out and gave it to him. “Call me on my cell when you're ready to make a move.” I wasn't really worried about him calling the landlines. With the way the county worked, it would be another three months before they were disconnected or reassigned.

***

I dreaded the house but there was finally no other place to go. The house that held so much of my past and had been our sanctuary amid all the troubles of the misbegotten city was now cursed. Why hadn't I taken Robin to Peralta's—maybe they could have tracked her there, too, but maybe not. Why didn't I get in the car with Robin and just drive. Drive east and show up in D.C. and let Lindsey deal with us. Drive west and find whatever it was that had propelled people to go west for centuries and did still. My god, the bed was huge and cursed. All around me, dark house, slamming heartbeat, the sensations of the edge of death, but no release.

Then the gunshots started and the bedroom glass shattered. I swear I could feel the bullets zipping just above the top of my body, which seemed to want to levitate up until a round found me. I slid sideways and dropped painfully off onto the floor, then took the chance of reaching up to get the Python. How many shots? I lost count at ten. A framed poster from the Willo Home Tour shattered as the far wall absorbed the bullets. I knew the next move: come through the front door. It was a shame I was on the near-side of the mattress, closest to entry to the bedroom, and with nothing to shield me. Then the shooting stopped. In the silence, I heard something hit the windowsill and clatter away. It sounded like a full can of soda.

The explosion put me flat on the floor.

I stayed there, smelling the sulfurous chemicals. I was a little dizzy and couldn't hear. The pistol stayed in my hand, my aim at the interior of the house. Then the ringing in my ears slowly receded and I heard the sirens.

25

Kate Vare had been to the hairdresser, who had given her tint an even more lurid red. It looked like the interior of an active volcano. Her temperament was similar.

“You're holding back, Mapstone. I've been doing this for twenty-five years and I can tell. And you're a lousy liar.”

“I'm the victim here.”

“Sure.”

We sat in an interrogation room of Phoenix Police Headquarters. The room smelled of urine and disinfectant. I had been taken there after the Fire Department had put out the small blaze in front of the bedroom window and a dozen police vehicles had sat along the street, lights reflecting off the houses. The responding uniforms and the initial detective team had been courteous. When Vare showed up, she ordered them to put me in handcuffs and take me out to a squad car. My rights were read to me.

“Do you want a lawyer?” Her lips suppressed a smile. Her leather portfolio was open but she hadn't made any notes on the empty yellow legal pad.

“Maybe I can use yours.” Now uncuffed, I folded my arms.

“That goddamned blog.” She muttered, then she leaned into me. “Let's go through it again. Your movements over the past twenty-four hours.” So I did, giving the same sanitized version that I had used for the past two hours.

“You're holding back. You're a lying sack of shit. Your house was shot-up with an automatic weapon and a hand-grenade almost made it through the window. That's a gang hit. It makes me wonder what you've been doing to provoke it.”

“Like the ‘gang hit' that killed Robin? How'd that theory work out for you? I never heard of La Familia using an Anglo hit woman.”

In this case, however, I wondered if she must be right. After all, I had survived the assassination of four top La Fam guys. We hadn't even been shot at. Word gets around. Now somebody was coming for me. I wished that I had the Five-Seven.

“Are you depressed, David?” Her eyes aimed toward the wall and I swear she started to tear up. “Lost your job. Your wife has left you. Your sister-in-law has been killed. Must be a lot to bear…”

I'd seen the view from the other side of the table enough times that I didn't give her so much as a blink of the eye. My facial muscles remained relaxed.

“Maybe you should get help,” Vare said. “I hear Pristiq is effective.”

It was amazing to live in our therapeutic and pharmaceutical society. How many great works of art seeking to transcend the tragic nature of life, how many majestic, melancholy personalities would have been lost to civilization if cave men had invented antidepressants and self-help books.

“Are you depressed, Kate?”

“You depress me.” Her eyes met mine and her tone was harder. “You're a wuss. Weak. You always thought you could use that Ph.D to be some kind of United Nations observer of police work instead of getting your hands dirty. You got the publicity when cases were solved but I never bought it. You never fooled me.”

Why did she hate me with such virulence? It was something I would have to answer another day. I said, “Then you know I'm telling the truth now.”

She picked up her pen and made notes for at least five minutes, covering the writing from my view with her other hand. She was probably making a grocery list; that's what I would have done. Just slow things down and make the suspect uncomfortable. Then she closed the portfolio.

“So you and Ms. Bryson were close? You were hysterical at the scene, I heard.”

I just watched her.

“Maybe you had feelings for her? Wife's left you. Why, I don't know. Not that I'm asking. Her sister's right there. Wow. What were you capable of, depressed…weak? She struck me the same way. Oh, well, acts have consequences. There's this territory called adult that not everybody can enter. Where you can throw away your vows. Lie to the police.”

I fought to keep my facial muscles neutral. “What are you doing to find out who killed Robin? She's dead because of you.”

“Don't you dare,” she said. “This is all your fault. Your stubbornness. Your stupidity.”

That was fair enough. I said nothing.

“I read her autopsy.”

All of my insides wanted to be outside. My temples throbbed concealing it. Vare watched me closely. The room vibrated silence for at least five minutes before she went on.

“You've got a concealed carry permit and a P.I license. I swear to god, Mapstone, if you're hotdogging this case, I'll do everything I can to see that you do time. Peralta can't help you. Nobody can. You're on your own.”

That was true enough, too. But I was pissed. “You're either incompetent or you're holding back, Kate. It's one or the other. Which one is it?”

Her eyes betrayed surprise.

“I guess incompetent.” Two beats later. “That, plus they're keeping you out of the loop because you'll be facing a grand jury. Ain't case management a bitch?”

She slapped her portfolio closed.

“God, I wish I had enough to hold you.” She stormed to the door and turned back. “It won't take me long to get it.” Then, to someone outside, “Cut the son-of-a-bitch loose.”

***

A sympathetic uniform gave me a ride home, where I found that a neighbor had cut a piece of plywood and placed it over the bedroom window. Aside from the eighty-year-old glass lost and the bullet holes in the bedroom wall, the main casualty of the overnight mayhem had been a mature myrtle planted years ago by Lindsey, now dead by hand grenade. The area below the window was black and some of the stucco had been blown off.

My cell rang. It was Demetrius Smith.

“How fast can you be here? I think we can get him.”

I could get there in fifteen minutes, the freeways running lighter thanks to the recession. I met him in the parking lot of a shopping center near the grandly named Chandler Crossing Estates, which was just more suburban schlock no matter the moniker. I found the Mercedes and climbed inside.

“They're in there, grocery shopping.”

“They must have good taste and lots of money.” It was an A.J.'s, the upscale food store in town. Its parent company, the last locally owned grocer in Arizona, was in bankruptcy reorganization.

I noticed he appreciated firepower: a .44 magnum Colt Anaconda with a six-inch barrel sat underneath his sport coat. It was the big brother of my Python.

“He's only got one of these kids with him. So we ought to be able to take him. But don't take anything for granted, Mapstone. He's dangerous. Hell, these young ones today are dangerous.”

And here they came, thankfully macho, grocery bags in both hands, paper not plastic. They walked toward a Kia, purple with black-tinted windows. We got out and made as if we were walking toward the store. We were one parking row away and they didn't even notice as we passed them, then we quickly cut over and came up behind them.

“Freeze.” I said it in a conversational voice, my hand on the butt of the Python but the weapon in the holster. Tom Holden turned his head, betraying high, wind-burned cheekbones and cold, light-blue eyes. He tossed a sack at me but that was the oldest move in the world, one you learn as a young deputy serving warrants. I sidestepped it, moved quickly to his side and put a foot behind his leg before I pushed him backwards. He fell hard to the pavement and expensive victuals fell all around him.

Smith stood over him with the long-barreled .44 magnum. It's a very unpleasant view for someone on the receiving end. Holden didn't move.

“Hello, Tom.” His voice carried an amiable lilt. “Susie's Bail Bonds sends her greetings.” He swiveled the barrel toward the teenager, whose face was pasty with fear between two grocery sacks. “Kid, if you even move, I'll blow your guts all over this parking lot.”

I heard a murmur behind me. A pair of elderly women was watching us. I pulled the wallet and flashed my P.I credentials. “Maricopa County sheriff's deputy. Stand back, please.” They complied. To Smith, in a lower voice, “get moving.”

“I know my job.” He already had Holden on his stomach handcuffed. Smith removed a semi-automatic from the thug's waistband, then painfully lifted him off the ground by his bound hands and marched him toward the Benz.

“Remember our deal.”

He gave a little wave.

I was using the car keys that had spilled out of Holden's hand to check the trunk. I found what I had hoped for. “I'll give this young man a ride home.” I ordered the teenager to walk to the Prelude carrying the grocery bags. It didn't look as if he was armed but you never knew.

Once he was in the passenger seat, I used an old pair of cuffs that Lindsey kept in the glove box to shackle his hands behind him, locked the door, walked around to my side, and drove. The entire operation had taken maybe three minutes.

“Where are we going?”

I ignored him and got out of the parking lot fast, then crossed the freeway into Phoenix jurisdiction, just in case the old ladies weren't so trusting of counterfeit authority. If Chandler P.D. rolled in, my move across the city limits would complicate things. The downside: I was in the Ahwatukee district, or All-White-Tukee as the cops and firefighters called it, the world's biggest cul-de-sac with only three ways in and out, all from the east.

“Am I under arrest?”

I didn't answer. He was tall and skinny with a dusting of acne on his nose, the barest stubble on his chin, and curly brown hair. Just an all-American boy.

“I'm only sixteen.”

I found another shuttered Washington Mutual branch and swung behind it. There was nothing but empty parking lot and a side view of the South Mountains over red-tile-roofs. Turning to him, I took his wallet and gave him a more complete pat-down.

“Hey, don't do that. I'm straight, so don't think I'm gonna suck your cock or anything.”

Dr. Johnson said, “Nothing so focuses a man's mind as the knowledge that he is to hang at dawn.” Lacking a rope, I had to use the tools at my disposal. My hand went gently behind his head and slammed it violently into the dashboard, which had been hardened by years of exposure to the Arizona sun. He was handcuffed and his abdominal muscles didn't even put up token resistance to the sudden forward movement.

“Ahhhhhhhhheeeeee!”

Blood came out of his nose but he otherwise looked fine except for a vague, terrible comprehension in his eyes.

Still, he put up a brave front. “Do you know who my dad is? You're out of a job, asshole.”

“I don't give a fuck.” I bounced his face into the dashboard again, harder this time, provoking another wail. Now he was bawling.

“Son,” I began, momentarily taken back by the word. I had never used it before in my life to refer to someone. “We're going to have a conversation, and you have a choice. Either answer me honestly or I'll beat the shit out of you, literally. You people wanted a tough new sheriff. Now you've got him. If you get blood on my car, I'll shoot you and plant a gun on your dead ass. See what daddy thinks about his little junior then.”

He sniffed hard and painfully.

“What's the old man's name?”

“Fuck you!” It was said more from surprise than bravado. “I'll get killed.”

I reached for his head again to continue to build rapport with the suspect.

“Okay, okay. Sal Moretti. His name's Sal Moretti.”

Something fired inside my brain. “Sal ‘the Bug' Moretti?”

“That's right, motherfucker.” He was still weepy. “Now you're gonna get yours.”

“That dashboard really likes your face.” I banged him into it again with slightly less force, but with all his pain centers running on high I might as well have thrown him off an overpass.

“Please! Arrrrrrrwwwwwwwwwwwwwwggggggg…”

“What the fuck is Sal the Bug doing in Chandler?”

“Witness relocation. But he got bored playing golf. He's a real-time gangster.”

“What a little honor student,” I said. “Now ace the test. What…is…he…doing…here?”

His wet eyes were now full of fear at having his perfect nose irrevocably vandalized. “Black tar heroin, dog. He's got a hell of a connection. We sell it around to the high schools. What the fuck? There's ten of us. He picked us all by hand. All our parents have money and they're bored shitless with their lives. They don't give a fuck what we do. Anyway, we're all straight-A students, go to church, that shit. Cops ain't gonna bother us.” He sniffed his bloody nose, making a disgusting sound. “You haven't even read me my rights. I'm a juvenile. My dad's gonna sue the county for a hundred million dollars…”

I moved my hand and he shut up. “I can drive an hour and there's a hell of a lot of desert where they'll never find your body. And if they do, they'll just think you're another illegal who died coming
norte
. The animals out there eat everything but your bones. You'll be just another wetback buried in an unmarked county grave.” My voice wasn't hard; more of a reverie, which sounded scarier, even to me.

He was crying hard by this time. “What do you want?”

“Why did you follow us that night, outside the Sonic on McDowell?”

“Mr. Moretti wanted us to cruise by your house at night, just check on things. We saw you leave. So we waited near the Sonic. Tom wanted to do you both. Not, me, dog, I was scared, honest to god, I didn't want to be involved in a killing. But two of the older guys had guns, too.”

“What stopped you?”

“Mr. Moretti. Tom called him and he said to chill.”

“Where does the black tar come from?”

“Tom said the Sinaloa cartel.”

“Oh, bullshit. Washed-up Chicago gangster and some teenagers who can't get dates running heroin for the Sinaloa cartel…”

“Real shit, dude! The demand is unbelievable. I'm making so fucking much money and that's just me. All I have to do is make some deliveries every week. Why should the fucking spics make all the money? Mr. Moretti's a legend and a real American.”