“Both of us were in ‘Nam.”
Mr. Scott paused for a moment, apparently in thought. He said, “Funny thing about that war, the way some of us came back okay, others were never the same. I saw some combat with my outfit, but not to the extent he did. Randy was with the 101st, and those boys were always into something. He fought in three major battles, God only knows how much unsanctioned action he saw. That’s the way it was over there.”
“So, he was Airborne?”
“Yes, he was,” James Scott said, “a sniper. He doesn’t talk much about his time overseas, never has. Can I ask what this is about? I’ve answered a lot of questions for you gentlemen. I don’t mind helping out, but it’d be nice to have an idea what’s going on, know what kind of trouble he’s in or if he’s okay. I also like to know what this has to do with me, and why I’m locked up.”
“We had a bit of a problem out there at your place,” Floyd said, “that might have involved your brother. Is he a big fella, kind of sloppy, out of shape?”
James frowned for a second and glanced in my direction. He turned back to Floyd, leaned forward and said, “He’s been a pretty bad drunk over the past few years. Probably doesn’t help his depression much, and to your question, it hasn’t been good for his overall health either.”
“So, yeah, he’s a big guy?”
“I would say yes, he is overweight.”
Floyd nodded. “What does he do for a living?”
“Last I knew, he was driving a tow truck. That and he receives a disability check from the government.”
“Who’s he drive for?”
“He was driving for a company in Inglewood, or Compton, one of those neighborhoods down there. He complained quite a bit about having to work around blacks and Mexicans, to be real honest with you.”
Floyd sat silent for a moment, then looked at me and nodded. It was my cue to jump in if I had any questions.
“Sir,” I said, coming away from the wall, lingering near the table now, “have you had anything stolen, your wallet or anything? Maybe lost your credit cards?”
“Someone broke into our house the first time we came out here to Phoenix. We’d been gone a couple of weeks and went back to a ransacked mess. They got in through the back door. Broke the glass, and reached through to unlock the bolt. Since then, we’ve had Randy keeping an eye on the place. He stays there off and on and takes care of things for us, or at least that’s what we hope.”
I pulled out a chair and sat next to Floyd.
“What was taken?”
“A pistol, some jewelry . . .”
“What about anything with your identity, or maybe credit cards?”
“Not that I know of,” he said.
I paused in thought. “You haven’t had any problems with your credit, noticed anything unusual in your statements?”
“No, nothing I know of. Is Randy using my credit cards?”
“I don’t think so,” I replied. “Does he have access to any?”
“He collects my mail and forwards it here. I guess he could have access to the statements, maybe new cards. He could call and have them activated, I suppose. That would surprise me though. Randy isn’t like that.”
I thought about the credit card used by Donna Edwards and her boyfriend, Gilbert, at the hotel in Texas. Then I wondered about the burglary of James Scott’s home, thinking of how some of Donna’s friends—Gilbert Regalado and the dude in the Tahoe, to name a couple—seem like the breaking and entering type, especially if they knew for sure a house sat vacant, the owners out of town. The conversation with Donna replayed in my head, her telling me about Mrs. Scott, how she’d see her in the mornings. Maybe she noticed Mrs. Scott’s absence, or newspapers collecting in the driveway.
I asked, “What do you know about the young lady who lives across the street from your place there in Downey?”
“Donna?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said, a bit surprised by his response. “Do you know her?”
“Sure, we know her. The wife knows her better than I do. I’m not too fond of the amount of company she has, in and out all hours of the day and night. But other than that, she seems to be a real nice girl.”
“Does your brother know her, as far as you know?”
“I wouldn’t think so. Even if he’s seen her since he’s stayed there at my place, I wouldn’t think he’d know her. He isn’t real sociable, and again, he seems to have a chip on his shoulder about minorities.”
Floyd chimed in, “I believe you are right about that.”
“You guys have met him?” he asked, glancing at Floyd but directing his question to me.
“Briefly,” I said. “Did Donna know you and the wife were out of town?”
“She picked up the mail and newspapers for us the first time we came out here to Phoenix. The wife had thought it’d be a good idea, and thought her trustworthy. I was a little concerned, honestly, not so much because of Donna, but the company she keeps. When we went back home and discovered the break-in, I decided to have my brother take care of the place the next time we left. My wife wasn’t crazy about that idea, but we didn’t have other options.
“With all due respect, Detective, I really would like to know what’s going on here. I’ve been arrested and held, and I have no idea what any of this is about. Now they tell me I have an extradition hearing, something about whether or not I’ll go to California to face charges? This’s crazy, and I haven’t even had a phone call.”
“Mr. Scott, we’ll see to it all of this is sorted out as soon as we finish with this interview. You’ll be released, and I can assure you there won’t be any charges.”
He nodded.
“So how long have you been here in Phoenix this time, Mr. Scott?” I asked.
“Couple of weeks, maybe more.”
“I assume you can prove that? Dinner receipts, hotel, gas? Someone who can vouch for you being here?”
“My wife, her mother . . . I’m sure we have some receipts.”
“Okay, good. So I think that wraps it up for us, sir, but we’re going to need your help.”
“With what?”
“Finding your brother.”
“What did he do?”
“We think he tried to kill me and my partner,” I said. “Someone shot up our car with a high-powered rifle, turned your nice little neighborhood into a Mogadishu with streetlights.”
“You two?” he asked, glancing at me and then Floyd.
“Yep,” Floyd said, “right there in front of your house. Had us pinned down for a while.”
He took a deep breath, paused, and let it out with a sigh. Then he grinned. “Either you got the wrong man, or he didn’t have any intention of hurting you. Neither of you would be here talking to me if he wanted you dead.”
“That sure was a relief,” Floyd said, steering the rental out of the jail parking lot and onto a crowded Arizona street, “knowing if he wanted us dead, we’d be dead. Army Ranger, sniper. One shot, one kill, blah, blah, blah. Jesus.”
“Hundred and first.”
“Ranger, hundred and first, whatever. Who’re you calling?”
I closed my cell phone and slid it into my pocket. “I was trying to get ahold of Val.”
“Not home?”
“Guess not.”
“Try her cell?”
“Went to voicemail,” I said. “So you think it’s true, what he said about Elmer, he would’ve killed us if he was trying?”
Floyd shook his head. “I don’t know, Dickie. Shooting is like fighting, running, drinking beer, whatever. You don’t do it for a while, you lose your edge. He may have been a badass in ‘Nam, but that was a long time ago. You’ve seen him.”
“Yeah, good point. None of this makes any sense though. By the way, do you still have someone sitting on your house, watching out for the family?”
“Around the clock. Two Metro dicks in a slick parked out front, right in my driveway.”
“Like no one knows they’re cops?�
�
“Right,” Floyd said. “But at least someone’s there. That’s all I care about at this point. It’s a deterrent, if nothing else.”
I thought about Valerie, the possibility of another marriage falling victim to the job as we drove across the desert-turned-city. Thinking about things at home when Floyd interrupted the silence, no doubt knowing I had a lot on my mind, probably knowing exactly what it was.
He said, “You all right, partner?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Just thinking.”
“You guys will be fine, trust me.”
I looked over at my new marriage counselor. The guy had it all figured out, everything from hormonal imbalances to Tupperware parties. What else did you need to know?
He glanced over, grinned, and repeated, “Trust me.”
He probably had a point, it would most likely work out. Why dwell on it at this point? Nothing could be done until I went home, and until then, Floyd and I had a lot on our plate.
First, we needed to find Fudd, Mr. Randall Scott, the Army sniper. Find him and get some answers about that shootout, about Floyd’s car, about a lot of things that didn’t make sense. Little things like how the people across the street were dealing dope, and now two of them have ended up dead, our boy Fudd the prime suspect at this point.
“What’re we going to do about finding Fudd?” I asked.
“You come up with anything?”
“Not yet, you?”
“I actually had a thought,” he said. “Let’s find the tow company he’s working for, see if we can get our hands on him there. What if he isn’t the one who shot at us? That’s something we need to know in a hurry. If he is, we’ll probably know as soon as he sees us coming. If he isn’t, we need to rethink all of this. If he no longer works there, maybe we can talk to someone there who knows more about him, where he might be.”
“Who else could it have been, if it wasn’t Fudd?” I asked. “I mean, there’s no doubt it came from his house, right? And it’s probably no coincidence he’s nowhere to be found ever since.”
“No doubt about it.”
“You saw the same thing as me, right? Muzzle flashes from the windows?”
“Yeah, I saw it. The thing is, maybe it was someone else in there. Gilbert? The dude in the Tahoe? One of Donna’s other boyfriends? It’s not like they haven’t been in that house before. You know they’re the ones who ripped off James, the first time he left town. I’d bet on that. How else are they using James Scott’s credit cards?”
“What’s the motive? Why the hell would any of them be shooting at us?”
He thought about that for a moment. “Frame Fudd, maybe? Get his dumb ass out of the neighborhood? Remember how he always watched them, kept an eye on them? Well, if you’re dealing dope, you don’t want some asshole redneck putting the heat on you.”
“Maybe,” I said, seeing the possibility.
“Or to distract us on the murder,” Floyd said, “which has certainly worked wonders. Shit, we’ve been all over the board on this one, not to mention the country. Haven’t gotten any closer to figuring out who whacked our little Susie, or her buddy. Been too busy chasing our tails in circles.”
“True,” I said. Then after thinking about it, I asked, “How’s that work with your car being stolen from your house?”
“Got me, Dickie. We’re still missing something, I’ll give you that. What we need to do is expand our thinking on this, get creative. Start with finding Elmer Fudd. Why don’t you give Dwight a call, see what’s up with Donna?”
“Sounds like a plan.”
Then he looked over, studied me for a moment longer than maybe he should have while driving, and shifted his eyes back to the road. The look on his face told me he had something cooking up there, in spite of his eyes being hidden behind dark glasses. Something cooking when Floyd was in the kitchen could be disastrous.
“What the hell are you thinking, asshole?”
“You don’t think there’s a chance . . . that maybe . . . Ah, never mind.”
“Let’s hear it,” I said. “It’s not often you have a thought that isn’t related to sex.”
“I was just thinking—”
“Yeah?”
“Well, it occurs to me, we took for granted my car was totally burned up when you started that fight with Charlie Wright. We never actually went to look at it, checked to see if anything could be salvaged.”
“Yeah?”
“A lot of my personal shit was in that car, including stuff with my address, I’m sure.”
“What’s your point?”
“Well, we never could figure how Elmer Fudd could have known where I live, right?”
I just looked at him.
Floyd continued, “What if he works for the company that towed my car? Remember, his brother says he works in Inglewood, or Compton.”
“It’s a long shot,” I said, “but you might be onto something.”
“Maybe, maybe not. Let’s call Dwight.”
24
AND A COSMOPOLITAN for my nineteen-year-old friend,” Floyd said to the back of a bartender who stood collecting beer into a frozen mug from the tap. We sat passing the time in an airport bar, checked in and ready for our return flight to Los Angeles.
He glanced back at Floyd as he replaced one mug with another, the tap still open, beer cascading over the top and down the side of the first mug and into a tray.
Floyd nodded toward the blonde sitting a few stools away and continued: “Or whatever it is she’s drinking.”
The young lady, sipping something pink from a martini glass, proffered a smile with a simple, yet meaningful, “No, thank you.”
Floyd turned toward me and grumbled, “Just trying to be neighborly.”
“So, two Coors Lights, eleven dollars,” the bartender said, setting the mugs in front of us, his contempt for the two of us, or at least Floyd, not disguised.
Floyd didn’t disappoint him. “Jesus, eleven dollars?”
The portly man stood, watching, waiting, his robust forearms protruding from white sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He leaned into his thick hands gripping that side of the bar, his wiry brows shading skeptical, brown eyes.
I pulled a twenty from my wallet and slid it toward the business side of the bar. “Thank you, partner, we sure appreciate it.”
He swept the bill from the bar top and turned to the register behind him after a quick frown toward my partner.
I nudged Floyd. “Lighten up, man.”
Floyd, taking a swig from the frosty mug, “What?”
“You’re doing that thing you do.”
“What thing?” he asked, looking at me incredulously.
The blonde stood, slid a half-empty glass toward the bartender, and said, “Thanks, Troy.” Then she walked away, running a hand across the back of her navy-blue skirt, deflecting the wrinkles but not the stares.
Troy, the bartender, picked up her glass and swept the surface of the bar with a towel that appeared from nowhere, the motion fluid and practiced. “See ya, Tina,” he said, glancing back to catch the two of us watching her walk away. Then he moved to the far end of the bar, picked up a remote control, and began surfing through the channels of a television that protruded from the wall above him. He settled on a sports channel with two broadcasters, one black and one white, the two of them out of place in suits with their thick necks and flat noses, scar tissue accentuating oversized faces.
“What’d I do?” Floyd asked, his attention coming back to me.
“Two things: one, you pissed off our bartender. I’ve always asked that you not do that. Bartenders and lawyers, we don’t piss them off if they’re working for us.”
“I don’t know what that big asshole’s problem is anyway, unless that’s his daughter or something. You suppose that was his daughter?”
“She’s probably an airport employee, I’d guess, since she obviously knows the bartender and wasn’t carrying anything other than a purse. When’s the last time you saw anyo
ne travel without a carry-on? Second thing, Troy probably thinks you’re a pervert—a cocky one at that. Three—”
“You said two things.”
“—he looks like the type who doesn’t mind a good scrap.”
“Yeah, well, I’m his huckleberry there. And why the hell would he think I’m a cocky pervert? You should be ashamed, Dickie, for the insinuation.”
“Who knows why anyone would ever find you cocky or think you’re a pervert. It’s beyond me.”
“I was just being funny,” Floyd said, “offering to buy a cosmopolitan for a nineteen-year-old. You don’t see the humor in that?”
“The hell’s a cosmopolitan?”
“Technically, it’s a martini, sort of a yuppie version though. Not like the James Bond martinis that taste like turpentine. These have all those foo-foo flavors, the ones chicks like. That’s what she was drinking, I think, and she looked like she was about nineteen, so—”
“And you decided she was your friend.”
“I’m a friendly guy, Dickie. You know that.”
“I doubt Troy is,” I said. “You’ll be lucky if he doesn’t bash you over the head with an empty mug, the looks he gave you.”
“I’d run circles on that fat bastard, Dickie. Come on, this place sucks. You wanna go back to that restaurant, get a burger? We’ve got an hour before they board us.”
“Sure,” I said, “let’s finish these beers.”
“James Scott is clear, no doubt about that,” I said as a waitress collected our menus and walked away with our orders in her head. “What remains to be seen is what, if anything, his brother, Randy has to do with any of this.”
“You mean other than trying to kill us, right?”
I thought about it for a second. “Other than that.”
“You’re not buying into that one shot, one kill bullshit, are you?”
“You don’t think there’s any validity to it?” I asked. “I mean, he’s a combat sniper.”
“Thirty years ago,” Floyd said. “The guy might not be able to see across the street now. Name me one other person who would’ve been up there shooting at us.”
“Maybe you’re right,” I said, “I just have a hard time putting this all together, Fudd, Donna and company, the shooting . . . There’s a lot that doesn’t make sense.”
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