Arizona Dreams

by Jon Talton

  “I hear the manuscript of the book is finished,” Lindsey said, rubbing my shoulder with a free hand. “And the title is, History Shamus?”

  “I’m going to let the sheriff decide,” I said. “When he finishes reading it, and micromanaging.”

  Robin said, “I think you ought to call it just that: ‘History Shamus.’”

  Peralta grimaced and took a pull on his Gibson. “All right,” he said. “Let’s do it.” He looked at Robin with mock sternness. “And you, whatever your name is, you could have ended up in a shitload of trouble…”

  “It’s Robin Bryson,” she said in mock indignation. “That was my dad’s name. Lindsey Faith can vouch for it. The other name, well, I was married for a year. It didn’t work out. That’s a story for another time.”

  “We have time to listen,” Lindsey said, giving an ironic smile. “Anyway, I’m glad you’re going to rent the garage apartment here, even if you’re a pain in the butt sometimes. Your escape from the jaws of the criminal justice system certainly ruined Kate Vare’s day. Why doesn’t Kate like you, Dave?”

  “I’m getting hungry,” I said.

  “Patience,” the sheriff intoned. “Mexican food is serious business.” He was chopping vegetables, looming over the cutting board like a fairytale giant.

  Lindsey said, “I’m just amazed that Jared Malkin thought he could get away with it. The water fraud would have been discovered sooner or later.”

  “Probably,” Peralta said, wielding a kitchen knife. “But the idea was never to build Arizona Dreams. It was to cash in on the housing mania. Anybody building housing here can get money. All Malkin had to do was convince investors he had land with a hundred-year supply of water. He scammed some of the biggest banks and real estate investment trusts in the country, and some of the biggest homebuilders. He didn’t care. By the time the roof fell in, he’d be long gone. At least that’s what he hoped.”

  Peralta was transferring the shredded beef into Lindsey’s largest All-Clad saucepan. I tried to grab a piece, but he threatened me with the knife in a very convincing manner. He handed a piece to Robin, then Lindsey.

  “To die for,” Robin pronounced.

  Luckily, it hadn’t come to that. Things were getting back to normal in Maricopa County. It was the usual run of summer mayhem: dead immigrants in the desert, suburban bank robberies, meth lab busts, and children drowning in green swimming pools. Enough villainy and heartbreak for any place. Things were getting back to normal on Cypress Street, too. I sat back and watched the scene in our kitchen. There were ghosts, of course: Grandmother preparing bacon for breakfast; Grandfather reading his newspaper, and a boy who grew into me. We Americans have become so disconnected from our dead. I would have been no different if I hadn’t come back home.

  Now, Peralta was being his lordly self. He was one of two people left in my life who had actually known Grandmother and Grandfather. Sharon Peralta was the other. I would never stop missing Sharon, but she had moved on and was happy. How could I deny her that? Friends come and go, and if you’re lucky you can hang on, even at a distance. The next time Lindsey and I visited San Francisco, we could count on seeing Sharon, and a friendship universe would be even wider. I still didn’t know if I could view Robin as a friend. But she was here and she was making a heroic effort to tamp down her drama queen moods.

  She took Lindsey and me out to Paradise Valley last week, where we met her wealthy employer. So at least part of her story was real. I watched her cock her head and saw some of Lindsey in her. Somehow, it mattered to Lindsey to keep this sisterly connection, with all its flaws and raw nerve endings. I saw Lindsey watching me, then Robin, and her expression was unreadable. When I took the two of them out, Lindsey would rib me about “my harem.” In bed, she would quip about being territorial. Irony and humor were her defenses. She gently rebuffed my efforts to talk about those weeks when she was away. And no part of me wanted to admit that for a few inebriated minutes one night I had been tempted by Robin. I had my own questions and insecurities, too. If Lindsey had been a teenage mother, would I love her any less? But if it were a secret that excluded me, one I didn’t intend to probe, then would it be an itch I couldn’t scratch? All this would take time. Sinatra sang “I’ve Got You Under My Skin.”

  “Mapstone,” Peralta said, “what the hell are you doing?”

  “Drinking and fiddling.”

  “What is that?”

  I held out the wooden carving in my hand. “It’s one of Lindsey’s matruska dolls. There’s a smaller doll inside this one, see, and a smaller one inside that, and so on.” I disassembled it for him. “It’s like the Arizona Dreams scam. A double-cross concealed inside a double-cross…”

  Lindsey said, “Makes me wonder if we found all of them.”

  “Well quit being a liberal academic parasite,” Peralta said. “Get the tortillas out of the oven. We’re ready to start serving.”

  Later, we sat in the living room and talked more about the case. Peralta puffed happily on a Cuban Cohiba, sharing it with Robin. She lolled against him, and he didn’t complain. He said, “It would be nice to think this would make the entire state take a deep breath and slow down and stop being so greedy.” He watched a plume of blue smoke rise in the high ceiling. “But it won’t.”

  “Someday soon the real estate bubble will burst,” I said.

  He contemplated the cigar. “Maybe that will be for the best.”

  Epilogue

  In December, the healing rains came. It rained so many days that people started to say the drought was over. The experts assured them that it wasn’t, but that didn’t stop talk of dropping conservation measures—even of revising the groundwater act. Lindsey and I talked about this as we drove out to Paradise Valley to a private art show. It was curated by Robin, and her billionaire had invited a hundred or so of his closest friends. Parking was no problem: valets were waiting to take my keys and escort Lindsey inside under an umbrella. She still looked great in a little black dress, and her hair glistened darkly. The weather was cool enough for me to wear a suit and one of the Ben Silver ties Lindsey had given me for my birthday. Under the portico, she took my arm and we went in to meet the swells.

  Aside from the collections of Social Realism paintings, Depression-era posters, and photography, and several Frida Kahlos, everyone was talking about the wine cellar. It was bored deep into the side of Mummy Mountain. By the time I got to it, however, I was alone. The rain had stopped and the other guests were out on the vast terrace, admiring the negative-edge pool and the views of the billion city lights. Lindsey and Robin were talking to the billionaire in his study. I carried my martini and went into the mountain. It was a grand affair, with a fifteen-foot ceiling and more bottles than the wine department at the Central Avenue A.J.’s, carefully stored and catalogued. It was like a NORAD bunker for wine, guaranteeing it would survive apocalypse. The rough edges of rock were prominent on all sides. I was running a finger along a sharp granite edge when someone called my name.

  “Isn’t this delightful,” said Bobby Hamid. I turned to see him leaning casually against a stainless steel and glass refrigerator. “I want one.”

  “I would have suspected you already had one.”

  He toasted me with a glass of wine, the liquid glowing like blood in the tasteful lighting. In his black suit, black shirt and shimmering dark blue tie, he looked like he had just stepped out of a Hugo Boss advertisement.

  “I hope the holidays are good for you and Miss Lindsey,” he said. “And the charming Miss Robin.”

  “You’re lucky the sheriff hasn’t arrived yet,” I said.

  He made his clucking sound. “I have no fear of the sheriff,” he said. “Although not all our elected officials are so trustworthy. That unfortunate Tom Earley comes to mind, and his Lady Macbeth, Dana.”

  “I suppose.”

  “You are quite the hero,” he went on, “bringing them to justice. You know, Dr. Mapstone, it surprises me that you would prefer a martini to fin
e wine.”

  “It’s just a character flaw,” I said, wanting to sidle toward the door.

  “So much history in wine,” he said, taking a dainty sip. “Ancient Persia was renowned for its wine, you know. And this collection! For the gods!”

  He walked closer. “You and I, we have so many connections. I do savor them, rather like I savor this 1984 cabernet.”

  “I try not to dwell on them.”

  “David,” he said. “I wanted to thank you. For Arizona Dreams.”

  I put the glass down as slowly as if it were nitroglycerine. “What are you talking about?”

  “It will be in the papers tomorrow,” he said. “I made an offer to the creditors, and it’s been approved by the bankruptcy court. Nobody has an interest in this being dragged on forever, not the least some very prominent Arizonans who were involved as investors. Some of them are out there on the terrace tonight. You remember how I said things just seem to happen in Phoenix, and nobody ever knows quite why.”

  “There’s no water, Bobby,” I said. “It’s worthless desert.”

  “That may be, Dr. Mapstone,” he said. “But it may not always be. Mr. Malkin was a con man, a—what is that fabulous term?—a grifter. But he also knew the way Arizona works. So I can be patient, and the creditors can get at least a few pennies on the dollar. And someday, when the time is right, the water rules will be changed and who knows how valuable the land will be?”

  “I didn’t realize you were into land speculation, Bobby.”

  “It’s just a little subsidiary of my interests,” he said, his eyes glittering. “The headquarters is actually at my office in Malibu. I call it Tonopah Trinity LLC.”

  Suddenly I felt as if half of each lung had collapsed.

  “You.” It was all I could say.

  He smiled, his perfect dental work surreally white against his swarthy skin.

  “You bought the Bell property.”

  “They were unfortunately behind in their taxes,” he said. “I paid them, and acquired the parcel.”

  “And this mysterious sugar daddy in Malibu that Jared Malkin kept talking about…”

  “Do you know he was once a star of pornographic cinema?” Bobby said.

  I shook my head. “You. I should have known. With a body count like this, I should have known.”

  The smile disappeared. “I killed no one,” he said. “I let them do that for me. I think Dana would have eventually killed her lover Jared. A nasty little woman, if I may say. Adam Perez was a useful strong arm with a taste for sadism.”

  “Bobby Hamid’s game,” I said. “And we’re all just players. The kid in the school bus was a player, too, right? I should have known that beating was the signature Bobby Hamid treatment.”

  “Now, Dr. Mapstone, let’s not be rash.”

  “Rash?” Now I closed the distance between us. I wasn’t shouting, but my voice sounded foreign to me. “Rash?”

  “Don’t forget that I saved your life, David.” He stared at me with eyes that were as black and dead as obsidian.

  “That doesn’t matter,” I said. “You don’t have a checking account with me. You’re just a killer. And someday…”

  “Are you threatening me, Dr. Mapstone?”

  “Yeah.” I pushed past him.

  “Dr. Mapstone,” he said sharply. I turned at the door and faced him.

  “You misjudge me,” he said, swirling the red liquid in his glass. “I don’t intend to build houses on the Bell land.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Do you know what’s under the Bell land? The aquifer is actually quite deep, and before you get to it, you will find one of the most magnificent living caves in the world. It will put Kartchner Caverns to shame. This is the truth, David. The Bell brothers found it, and told no one. I…well, I came upon this information, and hired someone discreet to confirm the cavern’s existence. When it’s fully explored, it will be a wonder of the world.”

  “There’s just one problem with your role,” I said. “You’re a killer.”

  “I will give it to the state,” he said. “I won’t sell it. I will give it. All I ask is some recognition. Bobby Hamid Caverns State Park. I like that. Of course, I would keep the rights to the aquifer. In any event, my children can walk with their heads high. My family will be recognized as they should be. Make no little plans, Dr. Mapstone. They have no magic to stir men’s souls. Daniel Burnham said that.”

  I said, “You’re still a killer.”

  He looked at me for a long time, and finally gave a tiny smile. Then the wine glass shattered in his hand.

  The city keeps growing. The temperature has gone up ten degrees in my lifetime. The citrus groves and flower fields that once helped cool the evenings have fallen to subdivisions and parking lots and freeways. Centuries-old saguaro forests have been bulldozed. It takes ten years for a saguaro to grow one inch. Hohokam ruins are violated to build Wal-Marts. Every inch of private land in central Arizona has been platted for development. The economy is real estate and newcomers, growing on the backs of underpaid workers, including hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants with no chance to join the mainstream. They’re down there in the city lights that make such a view for the wealthy on their mountainsides. My city is beautiful at night. My haunted, wounded metropolis. In the light of day, the air is dirty and the politics are extreme and mammon is god. It breaks the hearts of people who care about it. But 120,000 new people come every year, and most of them just want cheap housing and hot weather. And the sharpies and hustlers and land boys are convinced this big casino will never, never stop paying out the winnings. The city keeps growing, but it stopped being my city long ago. It’s my hometown, but it’s not home anymore. I just work here.

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  Phoenix, Arizona in August. It’s 114 degrees in the shade but its going to get even hotter for cold case investigator David Mapstone when he starts investigating a drug cartel execution.

  Prologue

  The August heat in Phoenix has a color. It is not red or orange or any searing hue that could be imagined by you or me or Dante, even though this earthly inferno clocked in that day at one hundred fourteen degrees, the reading on a thermometer safely in the shade at Sky Harbor International Airport and the temperature reported across the radio by announcers sitting in air-conditioned studios. On the pavement, under the midday sun in a city where we all longed for the night, a ground temperature sensor would show one hundred forty degrees, and the cloudless sky was the color of bleached concrete.

  It had been a dreadful summer, another record-breaker, and that was before one of the two gasoline pipelines that feeds the autopia that is America’s fifth most populous city ruptured. The fireball that consumed the errant backhoe and its operator was only the start of the trouble. Gas stations ran dry. People started classic hoarding behavior, topping off their tanks any time they saw a station with supplies. It made the shortages worse. The newspaper carried stories about price gouging. It reminded me of an article I had read, saying that MI5, Britain’s security agency, has a maxim that society is “four meals away from anarchy.” This was especially true in a city so dependent on driving, so isolated, so based on complex systems in such an unnatural place to sustain four million people. A vibe of barely contained panic could be felt.

  By the second week of the interruption, people followed tanker trucks, hoping they carried a full load and were on their way to a filling station. The county was stockpiling gasoline for uniformed units. Guys like me, we had our county credit cards. We had to do the best we could—with the rule that we had to return the vehicle on full. I wish the deputy who drove the car before me had been so mindful of the regs. The fuel gauge of my unmarked Ford Crown Victoria showed an eighth of a tank.

  That day I seemed lucky as I drove out of Maryvale on Thomas Road, headed downtown. Half a block ahead, I saw a long tanker turn left into a gas station. I pulled in behind the truck, landing third i
n line for one set of pumps, although not close enough to get the shade of the overhang. The plastic bottle of water that had been frozen at nine a.m.—Lindsey and I kept a dozen in the freezer along with the gin during the summer months—was now completely thawed, yet was still cool. I took a last swig.

  It was a typical corner station and mini-mart, a squared-off building along a wide avenue of other homely boxes. Twelve lanes crossed the intersection. Two other corners had abandoned gas stations, their remains fenced in. The fourth corner held a check-cashing outlet. Campaign signs clustered on each corner, including one of the wide Peralta Sheriff signs he had been using every election. Peralta was in white, along with a white star, against a blue and red field. Next to it was a sign for his primary opponent, with the subtitle: Stop illegal immigration! The primary would come and go, but the immigrants would come, no matter the condition of the economy. How many had died in the desert this year? Last count: one hundred twenty. None of the Anglos in Phoenix took notice.

  At the gas station, the cars quickly lined up, then spilled out onto Thomas. Horns honked. Nobody ever used to honk in Phoenix.

  A white Dodge van edged up behind me. Inside were a pretty Anglo mom and a little girl with curly hair. They were in the wrong part of town, but, hey, I was a cop. They’d be safe. My gaze lingered in the rearview mirror and I smiled.

  It took away the nastiness of the morning, where I had backed up a uniformed deputy as we evicted a family from their home. The scruffy lawn ended up littered with furniture, clothes, and brightly colored children’s toys as we looked on. It’s not my job. I was officially the historian of the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, but I’m also a sworn deputy. Everybody’s work had changed since the real-estate crash sent the local economy into a depression. Anyone could have seen it coming, anyone except the majority of Phoenicians who made their living off the growth machine. A columnist in the Arizona Republic repeatedly warned it was unsustainable; he was pushed out of a job. Even law enforcement was a victim of the worst government budget cuts in the state’s history. So Peralta made me work uniformed shifts, serve warrants, and now throw a family out of its house. My pile of cold cases grew higher. “They can wait,” he said.