Part 8 (2/2)

”You,” I said. ”Of course, great if Sharon joins us. I love Sharon. Why would she want to work with us?”

”We need her expertise. She's been consulting for San Francisco PD, you know.”

I didn't. I knew she had moved there to be closer to their grown daughters. She had stopped her popular radio show and quit writing the best-selling self-help books that had made her a wealthy woman.

”So you don't mind?”

”Of course not.”

”We can put Lindsey on the payroll when she comes back, too.”

That should have made me smile. We had no payroll besides the ten grand from Client No. 1 and Tim Lewis' five hundred. Outside of business cards, our practice was only getting started. But I didn't smile or answer directly. Lindsey wasn't coming back, except to get her things and move away permanently to be with her lover or lovers to come.

”Are you and Sharon getting back together?”

He evaded.

”Now I want you to think about this, Mapstone. Every police agency in Southern California is looking for that baby. It's a big deal and we're going to get in the way. The feds are investigating the explosion, who got his hands on a Claymore, and if we get in their way, we could compromise an undercover operation.”

”We have other strands we can follow,” I said. ”Grace's friend and parents. Her list of johns. Tim's parents. Larry Zisman.”

He nodded. ”But we're going to make enemies if we get on the wrong side of law enforcement. We might get prosecuted. Are you sure you want to stay on this case?”

I was momentarily confused, recalling his insistence that we couldn't allow our clients to be killed. But it didn't last long. ”I do.”

”Why?”

I repeated his rationale back to him. Then, ”I remember our names painted in blood on the apartment wall. Whoever set that Claymore was counting on me coming back. They watched me go into the apartment and get well inside it before they set it off. So we've made enemies whether we want them or not. Then there's the little matter of withholding evidence. You didn't tell the Phoenix cops about our client. I didn't tell the San Diego cops about Grace's business, or about the flash drive.”

”You gave them the pimp.”

”Sure, but only that he was a guy threatening Tim when I showed up. I told them that's all I knew. Seems to me, if we're not pro-active, the bad guys will come to us, and if we don't solve the case, the good guys could come to us, too, and not in a good way.”

He sighed. ”I guess my point is, that I can take this one, if you want to bow out.”

Now he hurt my feelings. It was that petty and selfish on my part.

I said, ”No way.”

”Are you sure you want to do this?”

I told him that I was sure.

He strode over to his desk and picked up his hat.

”Then bring your breakfast and saddle up.” He pointed to my desk. ”You might want to leave your fancy headgear here.”

17.

Up Grand Avenue, we had a fast ride cutting northwest through the checkerboard street grid of Phoenix and Glendale.

”So where are we going?”

”To see a guy I know,” Peralta said.

”A guy you know?”

He nodded. It was going to be that kind of day.

”I want to talk to Larry Zip,” I said.

”Not yet. Read the report. Then I want us to strategize before we interview him.”

With that, he fell into his customary silence. What he was feeling from the contradictory events of the past few days, I wouldn't hazard a guess. Peralta's emotions were a deep ocean trench where leviathans stirred.

I distracted myself with the ritual obligation of memory.

I remembered when produce sheds and the remains of icing platforms for refrigerator railcars lined the Santa Fe railroad that ran parallel to the highway. I remembered pa.s.senger trains. Farm fields separated Phoenix from what was then the little town of Glendale. In grade school, we rode the train to the Glendale station. I even recalled one or two dilapidated farmhouses sitting right across the tracks.

Now it had all been filled in. Although the railroad was still there, the area around it mostly consisted of tilt-up warehouses, along with anonymous low-slung buildings, most with for-lease signs, and a gigantic Home Depot. Pa.s.senger trains were long gone. So, too, was the agricultural bounty that the Salt River Valley growers sent back east by rail. The children and grandchildren of the farmers who owned this land were living in places like San Diego thanks to the profits made selling it for development.

The road soon clogged up and stayed that way for miles. Much of Grand Avenue in the city of Phoenix had been turned into flyovers, back when the planners, such as were allowed here, thought about turning it into a freeway to Las Vegas. Like so many Phoenix dreams, this one didn't work out.

As a result, when we reached the ”boomburbs” of Peoria, Sun City, Sun City West, and Surprise-yes, that's the town's name-Grand hit a six-point intersection at least every mile and other stoplights in between. And nearly every light was red. Traffic was miserable. The built landscape was new, cheap, and monotonous-made to speed by in an automobile. Smog smudged the views of the mountains.

Most of these had once been little hamlets on the railroad, but now they were home to hundreds of thousands populating the subdivisions that had been smeared across the broad basin that spread out from the actual Salt River Valley toward the White Tank Mountains and was labeled, incorrectly, ”the West Valley.” They came from the suburban Midwest or inland California and most thought life couldn't be better.

The metropolitan blob was slowly working its way northwest to Wickenburg, a combination quaint former mining town and home to celebrity rehab centers. I loved Wickenburg. It was authentic and charming, everything suburban Phoenix wasn't. As a young deputy, when I was working my way through my bachelor's and master's degrees, I had worked a patrol beat out here. The state had about four-and-a-half million fewer people and the land was empty, majestic, and mysterious. Wickenburg and the other little desert towns huddled to themselves. A lone deputy had many square miles to cover, usually alone, and traffic stops were always risky. So were family fights, where a husband and wife that had been trying to kill each other a few moments before were suddenly united in trying to kill you.

But we weren't going as far as Wickenburg today. Peralta turned left into the shabby little desert village of Wittman and drove west. After five miles or so and several turns, the last remnants of settlement were gone, the roads turned to dirt, and we were surrounded by desert. The smog hadn't reached this far north today, so the Vulture Mountains stood out starkly ahead. Go far enough and you'd find the fabled and long-ago played-out Vulture gold mine and who knows what else hiding in the desert. We bounced over the bed of the meandering Ha.s.sayampa River, dry this time of year. As a Boy Scout, I had learned the legend that if a person took a drink from the Ha.s.sayampa, he would never tell the truth again.

Immediately ahead, the country turned hilly and rugged, good terrain for saguaros. I was glad I brought two frozen bottles of water. But even in the air-conditioned truck cab, they were already half melted. It was only ninety-eight degrees outside. Inside my body, I was sore everywhere from my dive out of the apartment. Even my face hurt.

The bare impersonation of a trail appeared on the right and Peralta took it. Another mile and we reached a rusted metal gate. Peralta honked six times: three short, three long.

”Get down in the seat,” he commanded.

”What?”

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