Double Wide

by Leo W. Banks

  “I know a bigwig at Arizona Feeds,” I said. “I’ll get you a brand-new hat. How’s that?”

  “For real? Man, that pleases my heart.”

  Looking for human remains was a grim business, and nothing came of it. That was the way the whole case was going. Rolando’s hand was gone, Angel was gone, and when we got back to Double Wide and I called Roxy for a morning update, she still had nothing to report on Roscoe Rincon.

  This was my day to visit Sam and after that, I had a meeting with Micah Alan Gabriel. Before Roxy and I finished up, she said her time at Skin had produced a lead, and she wanted me to meet her there on the way home from the jail. We set a time.

  I ate lunch, tuna on toast with an apple and lemonade, and I could barely finish. I lit a cigar and stepped outside with Chico bouncing at my heels.

  My mind kept circling through the case and stopping on Detective Benny Diaz.

  With Rolando’s hand in my freezer, I had good reason to keep him at bay. But why now? Rolando’s hand was gone, and with Angel talking, I knew who killed Carlos Alvarez and probably Rolando. If I brought Diaz in on the Alvarez murder, he might turn up something on Rolando’s whereabouts.

  I called him and got his message. “I’ve got a name for you. Roscoe Rincon. He killed Carlos Alvarez. Call me back.”

  My cigar was still burning when George Jones sang “He Stopped Loving Her Today.” Diaz didn’t bother with hello. “I looked up this Rincon. He’s in the system. How do you know he killed Alvarez?”

  “I’ll give you the information, but I can’t tell you my informant’s name. It has to be confidential.” The odds told me that Angel was likely dead. But if he turned up alive, I didn’t want him and Diaz connecting in any way. I couldn’t trust the kid to keep his mouth shut about the hand.

  “Fine. Everybody has confidential informants these days.” He cleared his throat. “Let’s see. Rincon’s with the Sinaloa Cartel. On the heroin side, a serious player. Thirty-one years of age, five foot six, two hundred and twenty-five pounds. Born, Culiacan, Sinaloa, Mexico.”

  He read the information in rote tones, sipping a drink between starts.

  “Arrested multiple times. A DUI, two ag assaults in Phoenix. Sat for eight months on the first one, four years on the second. The guy’s painted like a peacock. Tats on his neck and arms. He’s got these weird eyes. Like a cat’s.”

  “Color?”

  “It says here brown, but there’s a note about them maybe being red. I’m not sure what that means. Nickname Rojo.”

  “Send me the booking mug.” I knew it was Rincon, but I wanted to see his face.

  “It’s law enforcement sensitive, Whip.”

  “Don’t bust on me, Detective. You wouldn’t have the name at all if I hadn’t told you.”

  “Okay, but only because of your father. By the way, I need to talk to you about that. Hang on.” For a full minute, I listened to rustling sounds, Diaz breathing, items being moved around. “By the way, did I ever tell you that your dad tried to convince me to get a PhD instead of going to the academy?”

  “Sounds like him.”

  “He almost had me. It’s hard to say no to your dad.”

  Another silence. Diaz hummed a number from the musical La La Land. Something tells me he would’ve been well suited to Shakespeare work.

  I heard computer keys clicking and then: “There you go, Whip. Mug’s on the way.”

  A few seconds later, my phone chirped. The sound made my nerves sizzle as I remembered that night on Paradise Mountain. Even under the glare of the photographer’s light, Rincon’s face was dark and bleak. There was no mercy in that face, only a savage glare in those strange eyes.

  “Whip, are you there?”

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m here. You were going to say something about Sam?”

  “Get yourself another lawyer,” Diaz said. “That fellow you hired isn’t up to the job, Micah Alan Gabriel. Cops know the best defense lawyers, and Gabriel’s not one of them. He used to be a trip-and-fall guy and decided he wanted to be a top-notch defense attorney.”

  “You’re trying to help me out now?”

  “Like I said, your father was special to me.”

  FIFTY-THREE

  I left for Phoenix at nine o’clock in the morning. The Gelmans wanted Opal to sketch for them for a few days, so I dropped her at the Arizona Inn and got to the jail at eleven o’clock. They brought me into the same depressing room, and I talked to Sam across the same depressing table.

  He was restless—kept looking over his shoulder at the guard and rubbing his calves—and when I asked how he was doing, he wouldn’t answer.

  “They’re watching me, Prospero.”

  “Who’s watching you?”

  “The guards.”

  “This is a jail, Sam.”

  He sat forward, hunched and whispering: “They’ve taken everything away from me. My toothbrush.” His eyes rounded in outrage. “My books! I’ve never lived without books! Prospero, I’m half a man!”

  “That’s crap. I’ll talk to somebody.”

  Sam ran his finger back and forth under his nose, and dried it on his pant leg. He rubbed his calves again and turned and eyeballed the guard and wiped his running nose again.

  “Sam, Sam, look at me. How many no-hitters did I throw? Do you remember?”

  He once told me that watching me play ball as a kid was the happiest time of his life. He liked talking about it, liked the warm memories of those nights at the ballpark. I thought if I could tap into that feeling, it might bring him back, if only for a moment.

  “Sam! Sam! Don’t you remember?”

  He stared right through me.

  “Do you still have all my game balls at home? In your sock drawer? The coach signed every one of them. Remember that, Sam?”

  His eyes were frozen and impenetrable, and I knew why. Rubbing his calves and the runny nose were symptoms of withdrawal. They’d blocked his access to heroin and that was good, but taking away his books was like depriving him of oxygen.

  The meeting was short. I was the one who cut it off. I couldn’t stand what I was seeing, this man who’d been so engaged and lively reduced to a semihuman emptiness in an orange jumpsuit.

  On the way out, I said to the guard, “Why’d you people take away his books?”

  The guard looked startled. “They do different things around here. You want I should ask somebody?”

  I decided to take the matter up with Gabriel and found him at Nora’s, a breakfast and lunch spot around the corner from the jail. The floor was uneven, the linoleum rotting. He sat with his chair against the wall. I was surprised that my legs carried me over to him. I wanted to see him as much as I wanted to set foot in that jail again.

  He didn’t get up, didn’t shake hands. He wore a blue checked shirt. Under the table, I saw a white linen pant leg and one shoe, a suede loafer.

  “I’m getting the chicken-fried steak,” he said. “I highly recommend it.” He had a superior attitude. He was slumming and wanted to make sure I knew it.

  He ordered the chicken-fried steak. I got the same and couldn’t eat. The waitress had cherry-red lipstick and called us “boys.” Her nametag said Bree. She had a swaying walk that used every part of her body and very much interested Gabriel. His eyes tracked her around the room. She wasn’t particularly attractive, but waitresses don’t need to be.

  “I just came from Sam,” I said. “He needs his books back. The withdrawal’s killing him.”

  “I know. I’m monitoring it.”

  “Monitoring it? What about treatment? You asked the court about getting him treatment.”

  “I’m expecting a ruling any day. These things take time, Stark.”

  That felt like a brushoff, and I considered firing him right there. He wouldn’t have cared, and that was the main reason I didn’t. He showed a confidence I hadn’t seen before, and I liked that.

  “You’re going to win this thing, right?” I said.

  “I never predict juries,
but I like the way this sets up.”

  “You still can’t find the murder weapon?”

  “Gone.” Gabriel was leaning forward holding the chicken-fried steak with two hands, chewing. “If my guy can’t find it, it’s gone. Forget the knife. My strategy is one juror.”

  The ceiling fan over our table hung loose in its housing, turning with a rhythmic fahtink-wump, fahtink-wump, fahtink-wump. Gabriel saw me looking at it and said, “That thing comes down, it’s a hell of a tort,” and laughed out of the side of his mouth.

  Bree caught the exchange. It reminded her she was hot. She stuck out her bottom lip and blew the bangs off her forehead.

  With his eyes set on her, Gabriel wiped his mouth with a napkin and said, “There’s not one shred of evidence proving that Sam Houston Stark committed that violent act. If he murdered her in that apartment, his blood, his DNA, would be everywhere in there. You know what police found? A couple fingerprints. Nothing more.”

  Hunched forward, still staring at Bree: “But there was a second blood type found in the apartment. Whose was it? I’ll tell you whose, the killer’s.” He slurped his drink through the straw and held up a lone finger. “One juror. That’s my strategy.”

  It sounded like Gabriel had worked on his closing. I didn’t know much about the law, but his legal reasoning made sense to me.

  “Okay, let’s do this,” I said.

  “I have a good feeling.” He eyed my chicken-fried steak. “Are you going to eat that?” He held up his glass and shook the ice. “More Coke, Bree, darling?”

  FIFTY-FOUR

  Back in town, I stopped at the Arizona Feeds store off Interstate 10 and picked up a new hat for Cash. It was green with a white square on the front, with the word “Arizona” in the square and “Feeds” in green. Spiffy, with that out-of-the box smell.

  I met Roxy at Skin at 3:50 p.m., ten minutes early. She was parked back from the front door between two other cars. I pulled up next to her and got into the Audi. She looked awful and knew it. Hangover.

  I said, “You look radiant today.”

  She gave me a sneering look. She pointed out the windshield toward the club. “I want you to get a look at somebody. Name is Mace Finch. His shift starts at four.”

  “What’s he do?”

  “You might say he’s in human resources.”

  “Bouncer?”

  “Correct. He keeps the drunks off the girls.”

  A red Jeep Cherokee rolled into the lot and parked outside Skin. A man stepped out and Roxy pointed. “He’s early.”

  The man probably stood six foot five. He had a crew cut, a drill instructor’s block face, a bandage on his left bicep, and legs from the elephant enclosure. He yawned, closed the Cherokee door with his knee, and walked with his head down into the club. Definitely on his way to work.

  “Recognize him?” Roxy said.

  “Should I?”

  “See the bandage on his arm? He’s got scars on his neck too. I’m thinking this is the guy you maliciously attacked with one of our protected native plants.”

  “It was clever. MacGyver did stuff like that.”

  “Great show. Great show.”

  We sat quietly, staring out the windshield at Skin’s front door.

  Roxy said, “After you jabbed Finch in the neck at Melody’s, he went to Double Wide and got himself shot by your inscrutable sidekick, Cashmere Miller. What do you think—same guy?”

  “I can’t tell. Happened fast.”

  A car arrived, and two girls hopped out and went inside the club. They had ponytails and wore sneakers and sweatpants and carried gear bags. Dancers.

  “Tamara and Lily,” Roxy said. “I’ve been spending time here, keeping my eyes open. I hope Lily’s mom’s out of the hospital.”

  I looked over at Roxy. She shrugged. “What? It’s hard to go to work without a sitter.”

  She surprised me again. Maybe there was a human heart beating in there after all.

  I said, “Let’s go inside and have a look at this guy. It might jog my memory.”

  “That’s the thing—it’s tricky. It’s dark in there, and you’d have to get real close. You might not remember him, but he’ll remember you. How he reacts will answer the question, but how he reacts also might require police protection.”

  “You mean if he wants to beat the crap out of me?”

  “Like I said, tricky.”

  The afternoon shadows crawled across the parking lot. The day was ending, but the heat still rose off the hot top in violent waves. We sat thinking things over as the Audi’s air conditioner blew a gale.

  After a moment, Skin’s front door opened, and Mace Finch walked out with a man trailing him.

  “Wait a minute,” Roxy said. “What have we here?”

  The second man was Ed Bolt. I asked Roxy if she’d seen Bolt at Skin before. She hadn’t.

  I said, “First we find out Mayflower’s connected to the smugglers on Paradise Mountain, and now we learn he’s connected to Skin too. What does it mean?”

  “Don’t know.” Seconds later: “Money laundering?”

  “Did you find out who owns this place?”

  “It’s under a corporate shell to hide the real owner. The name is 56 Enterprises.”

  I smacked the dashboard in excitement. “That’s Mayflower. Mayflower owns this place.”

  “How do you figure?”

  “Joe DiMaggio. Mayflower’s a DiMaggio freak. His fifty-six-game hitting streak is the longest in major league history.”

  Roxy nodded. “Not bad, Phenom. I might have to rethink my opinion of you as a detective.”

  FIFTY-FIVE

  Finch and Bolt drove off in the red Cherokee, and we followed. They headed north on Kino Boulevard through the center of town, past the sprawling red-brick sameness of the university. We made our way to Oracle Road and north on Oracle past the strip-mall glitter.

  The late-day traffic was thick, which should make it easier to run a tail—unless the subject gets through an intersection and you get the red light. That changes the game.

  Roxy stayed two cars back as we neared the Tucson Mall. But at times we got caught in the flow, moved to where we didn’t want to be, and landed right on the Cherokee’s bumper. That’s another problem.

  “You’re making me nervous,” I said. “Do you even know how to tail people?”

  At a red light, with the Cherokee right in front of us, I put Cash’s hat on and lowered it to shield my face. “Fall back a few cars, will you.”

  Roxy looked over at me. “That’s the stupidest hat ever. Arizona Feeds?”

  “They’re running a special on goose pellets.”

  We began the climb into the foothills. Finch was really pushing it, jumping in and out of lanes to get ahead. Roxy stayed with him until she got caught behind a furniture truck struggling to make the grade. By then, the Cherokee was well ahead of the truck and zipping out of sight.

  “Hop around him,” I said. “Come on—go around.”

  “Take it easy, will you? Finch isn’t going anywhere.”

  “You have no idea what you’re doing. Go around him.”

  “Jesus Christ!” Roxy zipped into the right lane and was blocked again, this time by a passenger van with disabled plates. She gave a hearty laugh. “See those plates? Those plates aren’t going anywhere.”

  “Hit the horn. He’ll speed up.”

  “Disabled plates slow down when you beep. He’s already had the big one and ain’t gonna chance another.”

  A car pulled up behind the moving truck and boxed us.

  “We’re losing him!” I said. “You don’t know what you’re doing!”

  “Hey, I’ve followed more men in my dating life than most cops do in a career. Watch and see how this is done.”

  She jerked the wheel left, shooting the Audi into the space between the truck and the van. It was a video game move. She might’ve had enough room left over to fit a dollar bill front and back. Gunning it, she roared ahead and cut off tw
o more cars to bring us within sight of the Cherokee again.

  We stayed on him north of the city. It wasn’t hard to figure out that Finch was going to Izzy Bonheimer’s ranch. I’d been to Aunt Izzy’s twice, once already that day, and wasn’t followed either time.

  How’d Bolt find out about her?

  Easy. He visited Annie Patterson again and wasn’t polite this time. He probably threatened her, saying he wasn’t going to leave until she gave him something. She told him of my visit and about Melody’s mentor, the famous chemist living in the remote mountains at Blue Lonesome Ranch.

  I told Roxy what we were driving into and she suggested calling the Pinal County Sheriff to have a deputy meet us there, which I did. I wished I had my Glock. On a hunch, I opened Roxy’s glove box and found a Colt .380 Mustang with a pink grip.

  “How’d I know you’d have a piece in your glove?” I said.

  “This is Arizona. It’s required by law.”

  The Audi banged and bottomed through the forest. A hundred yards short of the ranch house, with the road worsening and the car sounding like it was on its last axle, Roxy had had enough and pulled over.

  I handed her the Colt. She ejected the clip to make sure it was loaded and expertly palmed it back in as two gunshots sounded up ahead, shattering the mountain quiet.

  We jumped out and ran toward the house.

  FIFTY-SIX

  We hadn’t gone far when Ed Bolt turned a bend in the road and ran toward us on his cartoon legs. He had to have seen me, but he didn’t slow down or alter his course in the slightest. At the last second, I stepped aside and landed a hard left on the point of his chin and knocked him down.

  But Bolt could take a punch. He was almost on his feet again as the momentum of my shoulders spun me all the way around, and on the return pass, I rammed my elbow into his nose.

  He went down a second time, the back of his head banging against the ground. He shook his head to shoo away the hornets, but that forced blood from his nostrils. He rolled onto his side, choking and spitting.