by Jon Talton
I let the blind fall and turned back toward him. “The cartel could afford it.” I told him about the car, which was not issued by the V.A.
He looked up. “Mapstone, you see Zetas and Sinaloa in your sleep.” His tone softened subtly. “Which is understandable, after what you went through.”
Yes, I was jumpy. But I saw other things in my sleep.
“I can guarantee you that Chapo Guzman doesn’t even know who you are,” Peralta went on. Chapo was the boss of the Sinaloa federation. And maybe he didn’t. But his lieutenants did.
“Did you catch the tat?” I asked.
He nodded and went back to writing. “Everybody has tattoos now.”
“Do you?”
“Maybe.” No smile. This passed for raucous Mike Peralta humor. I didn’t laugh.
“We shouldn’t take this case.”
“Why not?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” I prowled around the small room, absently slid out a file drawer, closed it. “He paid in cash.”
Peralta opened the envelope and counted. He peeled off five grand and held it out to me. The bills looked as if they had come out of the U.S. Bureau of Engraving that morning. I made no move to retrieve them. Someday soon I would need to set up an accounting and tax system in the computer if we were actually going to have a PI business.
Peralta gently tapped the Ben Franklins. “Paying clients are nice.”
“Cash,” I persisted. “Who pays in cash? A criminal.”
“That’s why you’re going to run a background check.”
This was a man who until recently had bossed around hundreds of deputies and civilian employees. Now only I was available. I made no move to pick up the phone. “He says his last name is Smith. Smith? Right.”
“Some people are actually named Smith.” He left my share of the retainer on his desk and slid the envelope containing the remainder into his suit-coat pocket.
“And his sister has a different last name?”
“Families are complicated nowadays. Lindsey and Robin had different last names.”
Bile started up my windpipe. Lindsey and Robin. I wanted to curse him. I bit my tongue, literally. It worked. I gained deeper knowledge about the provenance of a clichéd expression. And I said nothing.
Peralta, typically, bulled ahead. “How is Lindsey?”
“Fine.” How the hell should I know? She’s only my wife, a continent away physically and even further in the geography of the heart.
“When did you talk to her last?”
I told him I called her on Sunday. I called her every Sunday, timing it so I would catch her around noon in D.C.
“She’ll get tired of Washington and Homeland Security,” he said. “It’s a temporary gig, right?”
“I guess.”
It was a temporary position that seemed to have no end.
“When she’s ready to come home, we could use her here.”
I said nothing. Yes, she was the best at cyber crimes. That was the job she did for Peralta when he was sheriff. But the last place my wife wanted to be was back in Phoenix.
I started coughing again. Three wildfires were burning in the forests north and northeast of the city. The previous year had been the worst wildfire season on record and we were off to an ambitious start now. It was the new normal. Yesterday the smoke had combined with the usual smog to obscure the mountains. Somebody flying into Sky Harbor would never know why this was called the Valley of the Sun. The gunk was sending people with asthma to emergency rooms and making me cough. Quite an irony for a place that once claimed clean, dry air that had made it a haven for people with lung ailments.
But that was the least of the reasons why Lindsey didn’t want to be here.
Sitting back down, I said again, “We shouldn’t take this case.”
Peralta’s obsidian eyes darkened further. “Why?”
“Felix the Cat in his fifteen-hundred-dollar suit, paying you in hundred-dollar bills. He’s hiding something. Maybe Zisman had a mistress or not. Maybe Felix is using us for some vendetta against Zisman. The guy’s pretty clean from what I remember. He actually came back home to Arizona after making it big and has tried to help out poor kids. Now here’s some dude in an expensive suit who wants us to play morals police.”
“He only asked us to investigate a suspicious death,” he said. “Remember, Felix bridled when you implied Grace was involved with this Zisman.”
That was true. Why was I fighting against taking this case?
Peralta swept his arm wide. “Half the bigs in Phoenix stash their mistresses in San Diego condos. Big deal. But we have our first paying client. Have a sense of celebration, Mapstone. This might not lead anywhere. It probably won’t. If not, we’ll refund most of his money. Bringing the family comfort and closure is a big thing. We can get out of town for a few days, go to a nice, cool place.”
I was still about to gasp from Mike Peralta using the word closure. I managed, “You go. I’ll hold down the fort. Who knows, we might get another client.”
“You’re coming with me. You know San Diego.”
“It’s changed a lot since I lived there.”
“Well, you used to live there.”
I tried not saying anything.
“You won’t see Patty.”
I could feel my cheeks warming. “This has nothing to do with Patty.”
“I know you,” he said.
Yes, he did. He had known me as a young deputy he trained. And then all the years I was away teaching, finally ending up in San Diego. And he had known me when I was married to Patty in San Diego. One marriage dead. Another on life support.
“It’s been a long time, Mapstone. She probably doesn’t even live there any more.”
I stared at the wall. Patty would never part with that house in La Jolla.
The room was still. Only the sound of intermittent traffic on Grand Avenue penetrated the walls. Then a short train rumbled past and the sun started coming through the blinds. Peralta pretended to ignore me.
“Fine. I’ll go. Fuck you.”
The gunfire put me on the floor.
It was a loud and mechanical sound. One long burst, chucka-chucka-chucka-chucka-chucka. Then two short bursts. I pulled out my heavy Colt Python .357 magnum with a four-inch barrel, rolled away from the door, assumed a firing position, and waited for the shooter to break in. He would be looking at his eye level. I would be below him and put three rounds into his torso before he could take his next breath.
An engine revved and tires screamed against pavement. Then all I heard was silence. The eighty-year-old glass of the windows was untouched. The front door was secure. I wasn’t sweating anymore. The ancient linoleum floor was cool. It smelled of old wax and fresh dust.
When I glanced back, Peralta was emerging from the Danger Room. In his hands was the intimidating black form of a Remington 870 Wingmaster shotgun, extended tube magazine, ghost sights.
He racked in a round of double-ought buckshot, producing the international sound of Kiss Your Ass Goodbye.
“That was an AK-47,” he said.
“How do you know?”
“Because I was shot at enough by AKs in Vietnam that I’d never forget the sound.”
I stood and moved along the wall toward the door.
“Mapstone.”
I turned.
“Let’s go out the back door.”
4
We stood away from the jamb as Peralta opened the back door. Nobody poured AK rounds through. He tossed a black duffel bag out to draw fire. Nothing. He nodded and I knew what to do.
I stepped outside into the oven and ran along the southeast wall while Peralta went around the other side. It was like the academy so many years ago. The carport was on my side and gave me cover to slide between the cars unseen from Grand Avenue. Fel
ix’s Benz was stopped in the closest traffic lane. Nobody else was around. Across the median, a small car zipped by going toward downtown without changing its speed. No traffic was headed in the other direction.
Both hands on the Python, I swept the parking lot and made a slow trot toward the Benz. The sun was in my eyes and the scrunchy pavement was loud under my shoes. Peralta was coming from the other edge of the building in an infantryman’s crouch, moving quickly and with a grace that belied his big frame. We reached the car at the same time.
Felix the Cat was very dead.
His face was gone. The nice suit was plastered in blood and bone fragments. More blood, brains, and miscellaneous gore were sprayed across the seat and interior of the car. One bubble of tissue had fallen halfway out of his skull and it took me a few seconds to realize that beneath the blood was an eyeball. His left hand still clutched the cell phone I had seen him holding while he talked in our parking lot. In the passenger seat lay the silver bulk of a Desert Eagle, a nasty semiautomatic pistol. It had done Felix no good. His right hand was in his lap. He had never even been able to reach for the gun. Maybe he had it on the seat when he was still in our parking lot. Or maybe he pulled it out when the other car came beside him.
There was something else: the shooter had been so close and so skilled that no shell casings scattered on the pavement. Not one. I had counted at least nine shots.
I did one more look-around and holstered the .357. Whoever had done the shooting was good. Felix had pulled out onto Grand Avenue when they caught him. His driver-side window was still down; no glass shards were to be found. And only one round had penetrated the fine paint job of the car door. The others went right to target.
I turned to Peralta and asked if he had any evidence gloves.
“I want to see that cell phone and the last number he called.”
He shook his head. “Give me your gun.”
“What?”
He held out his hand.
I hesitated, and then I slipped off my holster and handed it to him. One, two, three cars sped by.
“I’m going back inside,” he said. “You’re going to call 911 and sit on the curb. We’re not the law any more.”
I dialed as he trotted back to our office. The excitement over, my body resumed sweating.
In the distance, I heard sirens.
5
It was ten p.m. when the Phoenix cops finally cut us loose. Out on Grand, it had been a full response: half a dozen marked cruisers, chopper, news helicopters, Phoenix Fire paramedics, crime scene, and the avenue blocked for hours. Back in the air conditioning of the office, two young detectives had interviewed us. Peralta was cagey. No, he outright lied. Nobody could tell when Peralta was lying, certainly not this pair. He had come back outside and taken control of the narrative and of me.
Here’s the way he told it: we were waiting in the office for a potential client when we heard the shots and went out to find the Benz and the dead body. That was when we called the police. Had this potential client given a name? No, Peralta said. It was a man and he didn’t give his name. Peralta didn’t think to ask for it. We were here and he told him to come on by. Were the detectives thinking this was the man?
They didn’t say. They did ask if we knew a subject named Derek Zimmerman.
“Is that the D.B.?” Peralta gave them his best command stare and they responded.
“Maybe, Sheriff.”
“Never heard of him. Have you, Mapstone?”
No. I hated him. Why was he lying? I felt all this, forgetting that I had wanted to muck with the investigation by reading the recent calls on our late client’s cell phone.
“How about Felix Smith? James Henry Patterson?”
“Who are they?” Peralta asked.
“We’re only starting our investigation,” one detective offered. “But you might be glad you didn’t get this case. The guy was carrying multiple driver’s licenses.”
I thought about the Desert Eagle on his passenger seat.
They left their cards. If we remembered anything else, please call us at this number…I had done the routine a hundred times myself, when I was on the other side of the badge. Then they left.
“Why did you do that?” I whispered it, as if the detectives were listening at the door.
“I want a trip to San Diego.”
“Our client is dead.”
“Exactly.”
Afterward, I drove east a few blocks on Encanto Boulevard and was enveloped in the trees and grass of the park and the historic districts. The temperature dropped ten degrees. This was a good thing considering that the air conditioning in Lindsey’s old Honda Prelude had seen better days. On the north edge of Palmcroft, I sat through the long wait at the Seventh Avenue light, brooding over what had happened. Then I crossed into Willo, past the old fire station, and headed home. A right on Fifth Avenue and a left on Cypress. The street was quiet and most of the houses were dark. Normal people had gone to bed. My house was dark and not inviting. I vowed again to get some lights on timers and drove on.
At the Sonic on McDowell, I ate a foot-long Coney dog and drank a medium Diet Cherry Coke. The bright lights and blaring bubblegum music gave a false sense of protection. The condition of the car gave me no choice but to turn off the engine and open the windows. The climate could thank me later.
An AK-47 was a crappy assassination weapon, so Peralta told me after the cops left. In all but the most expert of hands, it had a tendency to ride up and have bad accuracy. On the other hand, who could miss at that range? Smith/Zimmerman/Patterson had pulled onto Grand and another car came alongside. Did he recognize the car and stop to talk to its occupants? Did the encounter have something to do with the phone call I had seen him making?
Peralta didn’t offer any theories. He did say, “Somebody who uses an AK that way, it’s his preferred weapon. He likes it.”
I ate the wonderful crunchy Sonic ice, marinated in cherry, and took a little comfort that I was the only car in the place. A little comfort.
Oh, I wished Lindsey would call and ask, “How are you, Dave?” and being Lindsey she would know from my voice that I was not fine, nowhere near it, not even in the same state as fine. But my cell phone was silent.
There was nothing to do but go back to the house, which I did after driving around the block four times.
The 1924 Spanish Colonial on Cypress was lovely and forlorn. The old locks and new alarm system were fine, but I still swept through the rooms with my revolver out. The floor-to-ceiling bookshelves that ran the length of the stairway looked at me indifferently. More bookshelves lined the study, books accumulated by my grandparents, by me alone, by Lindsey and me.
Except for the few years I was away, I had lived in this house all my life, and my grandparents before me. Yet the walls silently said, “You are only passing through here. We will remain.” The walls didn’t care about the tragedies this house had endured.
In the kitchen, I pulled the Beefeater out of the freezer and stirred a martini, the perfect chaser to diet cherry Coke. The only thing I had done to the house lately was to put up new curtains that completely hid the back yard from view when one was standing at the sink. They still did provide privacy, but I couldn’t avoid pushing them against the glass as an extra measure of safety.
I have stopped turning on the lights. I have stopped listening to jazz. I have stopped reading books. The outside world holds no appeal, either. I’ve made myself go to several movies at the AMC downtown at Arizona Center, but I left each one after a few minutes. I couldn’t stand any of it. So I sat in silence in the living room, sipping the cold gin, staring out at the street, trying to keep my mind locked down. At least the neighbors had stopped their well-meaning water torture of relentless expressions of sympathy over Robin’s death and inquiries about when Lindsey is coming home.
I went to the bedroom and
stripped down without turning on any lights. I lay down on Lindsey’s side of the bed. It turned into Robin’s side, too, bastard that I am. Over on the bedside table sat John Lewis Gaddis’ biography of George F. Kennan. I felt all of Kennan’s emotional shakiness and had none of his brilliance. My “long telegram” would not be about the Soviet Union but about my own union that was breaking up, if not hopelessly broken. I picked it up and tried to read. Nothing caught the gears of my brain. It wasn’t Gaddis’ fault. So I tried to sleep. Peralta would be here at seven, packed for San Diego.
Too soon, I found myself on a Central Avenue bus. No, it was an airliner. I didn’t recognize anyone around me. But I dropped my cell phone on the floor and it slid backwards. What if Lindsey suddenly called? I got on my knees and found the phone two rows back.
Then I was out on the street. The sidewalk was broken and I had to watch my step. New buildings were going up and others were being restored. Bright paint was being applied. The city had never looked better, with a huge downtown skyline against majestic, snowcapped mountains. I would have to stop criticizing it.
A door was open and I walked in. Instantly, I was in my former office at the old courthouse. The big room was nearly empty and I felt sad, until I saw Robin sitting at the desk. She looked up and gave me that roguish smile. She stood and I took her in my arms, brushing back the long, tousled blond hair and covering her with kisses, sobbing and holding her while she laughed and we talked over each other. She put a finger over my mouth and I was silent, listening to her tell me… Tell me…
Then she was gone.
I was in a hallway painted blood red, looking for Robin. I walked for what seemed twenty-five paces, trying locked doors, and then turned into a narrower passage. I was completely alone. In my pocket, where my cell should have been, was only a wallet. I pulled it out again and it was a pack of Gauloises, the brand of cigarettes Lindsey smoked.
My gut was in full panic gear now but I kept walking, finding new hallways, each one smaller than the one that came before it, turning and turning. Where was I? It seemed as if I was going in circles. There was nobody to ask for directions. My cell phone was gone and my legs moved only with ever-greater effort. I kept going. Behind me was only darkness. Then I could barely make it through the hall; it was so narrow I turned sideways to make it into the next section. Finally, the walls tapered together in a “V” and I was at the end.
