South Phoenix Rules

by Jon Talton

  On the first night, I got a call back from Nick DeSimone, the Scottsdale chef. He told me things that didn’t surprise me. He had never heard of Judson Lee. He had no roots in Phoenix and both his grandfathers had died peacefully in Chicago. I thanked him, hung up, and for the thousandth time cursed my naiveté.

  All that time Barney never appeared, but after ten on the third night a familiar cream Caddy zipped into the back lot and parked in a handicapped space. Judson Lee got out and strode inside. Following him, quick-stepping to keep up, was a tall Anglo man, young, muscled, military haircut. He had a hawk’s nose, as if begging for a pair of glasses, but there were no glasses. He was long-limbed and wide-hipped. The night was warm but he wore an oversized black windbreaker, just the kind of garment that might conceal a firearm.

  I sat up straight in the car seat, a blend of rage and fear sending prickly signals through my legs. I unconsciously touched the butt of the Colt Python on my belt and ran my hand over the towel that covered the TEK 9, taken from the gang member who had been sitting on my street, resting on the passenger’s seat. Its thirty-two-round magazine was full of nine-millimeter ammunition. I cursed Judson Lee aloud, my voice a strange companion in the silence of the dark parking nook. Another ten minutes passed before a Dodge Ram truck glided into the lot and Barney got out.

  After six hours that the clock said were forty-five minutes, the three men came out again. Judson Lee and Barney talked animatedly, the slightly built lawyer gesticulating, Barney nodding and nodding. They seemed like an unlikely pair. Then Lee walked to his Caddy, turned to say one more thing to Barney, and got in the car. The man who looked unmistakably like a bodyguard drove. I started the Prelude and slowly slipped down the driveway with the lights off. When the Cadillac turned east on Indian School, I followed, letting a car get between us, maintaining a quarter-mile distance.

  This was the point where the old David, so valued by everyone in my life for good judgment, would have called the police. Called Peralta. But the idea never occurred to me. The prickliness was gone from my legs. I felt comfortably frosty.

  They turned south on Thirty-second Street and accelerated to fifty. The speed limit was thirty-five, but nobody in Phoenix paid attention to such niceties, so I was able to keep up and still blend in with the moderate traffic. That’s what I told myself.

  Much of this had been groves when I was little—Phoenicians drove out the two-lane roads and bought oranges and grapefruits from little stands—then it had been remade into middle-class, single-family ranch houses. Now it was going down, miles and miles. The well-off Anglos called it the “Sonoran Biltmore” and laughed. To me it was a haunted landscape.

  The Caddy made the light at Osborn. Then it turned hard red. I cursed, made a quick right, a U-turn that barely missed an oncoming Chevy, then swung south again on 32nd and soon caught up, a safe quarter mile between me and Lee’s taillights.

  They caught the Red Mountain Freeway and sped east, all the way across the Salt River, past downtown Tempe with its new, derelict forty-story condo tower and the In-N-Out Burger at Rural Road, then swung south onto the Price Freeway, running fast now that the four-hour rush hour was over. Of course, this, too, had once been wide-open agricultural land. Most of it was built up in the years I was away from Phoenix and I barely knew it now. Knowing it didn’t take genius: wide avenues every mile lined by the entrances to newer subdivisions of curvilinear streets and houses with tile roofs. Shopping strips anchored by a Fry’s or Safeway sat on the major corners, along with huge gas stations. There were far fewer payday loan stores. The tableaux passed with numbing regularity. Better-off white families, the better-funded schools; the Intel semiconductor plants that provided a dash of diversity in the region’s economy. Totally car-dependent. Except for the proliferation of brand-new Mormon and evangelical churches, this land was Maryvale half a century ago and didn’t know it. I wondered how many of the husbands of the East Valley had stopped at a strip club on the way home.

  I was four cars behind them at the red light for Chandler Boulevard when the feeling first bobbed against me. I set it aside when the light changed. Couldn’t lose them now; wishing I could get close enough to make out the license tag. We whipped across the overpass and drove east again. Then the Caddy signaled left and entered a subdivision. I slowed down and waited, then followed them in with my lights off. The place was damnably well-lit, but I risked it, staying with the red tail-lights as they went straight, made a gentle curve, then a hard right turn onto another street. I approached the street at five miles per hour, nosing just enough beyond the edge of a house to see a large garage door opening in the middle of the block and the Cadillac disappear inside. The door came down.

  It was a pleasant block, if suburbia was your thing. Yet it had all the charm of an empty cereal box. Newer houses were jammed together with postage-stamp lawns, wide driveways, three-car garages, and walled-in back yards. The entrances were small because the developer expected people to come and go through the garages. Those varied little more than the two or three styles of stucco tract houses, all painted to a palette ruthlessly enforced by the homeowners association. This was a place where people were supposed to blend in. If I had looked away for a second, I couldn’t have recalled which house they had entered. But I didn’t lose that second. I turned on the headlights and drove by at a normal speed, noting the address. Lights were on inside. No other vehicles were visible on the street.

  But the feeling was still there: that cop’s sixth sense that I was proud to have acquired despite my itinerant law-enforcement career. It was the awareness of being followed.

  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.”