by Jon Talton
But now it was my turn to ask a question.
“You still know more about this case than you’ve told me. You knew more about it than I did the day we found the body in the pool.”
“I knew everything because of you.” He smiled.
“Now I know you’re lying.” I didn’t smile.
“What does it matter, Mapstone? We got the bad guys, and the bad girl, and everybody gets to go home safe tonight. It’s been a good day for law enforcement.”
“Except that my grandfather’s name is on that coroner’s jury report, on John Pilgrim. What the hell is really going on?”
Peralta looked longingly at his empty glass.
“There’s a guy I knew,” he said, his deep voice nearly a whisper. “He served in the Marines in World War II. But when he came home, he was still a young guy, hot-blooded. And Phoenix wanted to make sure Mexican-Americans were in their place. If they had won a Silver Star, then that was doubly true. So this guy liked to go out on the town. He could mix it up, and he didn’t take shit from the Anglos, either. So that’s the story, OK? I just wanted to make sure he wasn’t involved…”
Now it was my turn to slap the table. “Come on, Mike! What kind of story are you telling me? Some guy you knew?” I had never seen him look so surprised.
“All right,” he said. “This guy, who came back from the war, had a sister. One day she was walking by a bar downtown. Not far from here. It was a sleazy dive called the Pla-Mor Tap Room. She’s a pretty Latina, seventeen years old. One of the Anglos comes out and follows her. He’s trying to put moves on her, but he’s so drunk he can barely function. But she was scared to death. And when her brother finds out, he goes to the Pla-Mor Tap Room. When the Anglo walks out, he takes him into the alley and beats the crap out of him. He didn’t know the Anglo was an FBI agent. And a couple days later, the FBI agent disappears. I’ll never know why this guy wasn’t a suspect. So anyway, I knew the guy, and I knew the story. He turned out OK, really OK, in fact. But…”
Lindsey said, “You’re talking about your father, aren’t you?”
Peralta was very still. Finally he said, “You both did good.”
***
Sometime around midnight, with Lindsey sleeping beside me, I lay in our bed and listened to the old house around us, and beyond that, the sounds of the misbegotten big city. On the bedside table, my badge gleamed in the ambient light. Peralta refused to believe I would even consider the job in Portland. He said he knew me too well. Lindsey, who knew me best of all, reached her hand across me and sighed happily.
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