Part 19 (1/2)

”Oh, somebody knew or will know. But what they saw was a low-end data breach coming from the People's Republic of China.”

She opened another file: the list of Grace's clients. ”The scrambler call was made to this number. It's his private line.” Another screen showed me his face on the cover of Fortune magazine. He looked my age yet was making more money in a week than I would make in my lifetime. Why did I need three college degrees?

”He runs one of the top venture-capital funds in the country,” she said. ”He could afford this kind of security. All these executive types have protection. According to the records, he and Grace saw each other regularly for more than two years.”

I took it all in, or thought I did, amazed again at Lindsey's talents.

I stopped myself from tapping my finger on her clean computer screen. ”Then the phone was turned off for good, right there on Nimitz?”

”Not exactly. It was turned on again last Friday.”

Suddenly, the air conditioning felt too cold.

”Where is it?”

When she gave me the address, I grew colder still. Grace Hunter's cell phone was in evidence storage at the Phoenix Police Department.

She said, ”I answered all of Peralta's questions and it hasn't even been twenty-four hours.”

I let out a long breath. ”You're fast.”

She put her hand on my private parts. ”I can be.”

31.

We were at the Good Egg having breakfast four hours later. Like its neighbor Starbucks at Park Central, it was an inst.i.tution in Midtown Phoenix. Unlike Sunday, the offices inside the nearby towers were open and the restaurant was busy. The morning was cool enough to sit outside, a dry seventy-nine degrees under the umbrellas, not even hot enough to require the misters. A pleasant dry breeze was coming in from the east. Light-rail trains cruised by on Central, clanging their bells. In her round, nerd-girl sungla.s.ses, Lindsey looked like a spy.

Here we are, I thought, easy targets in a.s.sa.s.sination range. But the tracker on the Dodge Ram was far away and three Phoenix Police units were in the lot out front, the cops having coffee next door. It would take the bad guys at least a little time to break into the briefcase and even longer to figure out the flash drive.

To figure out they had been played for fools.

A pickup truck did arrive: Peralta's. He was in a suit again and gave us a tiny nod as he walked toward the breezeway and the entrance. I knew it would take time for him to get out on the front patio. He was past his period after leaving office where he didn't want to come here, didn't want to see the a.s.sortment of politicos and officials who used the Good Egg for morning meetings. He had s.h.i.+fted his morning routine over to Urban Beans on Seventh Street.

But apparently he was willing to be seen again. I looked back and, sure enough, he was working the room, shaking hands, slapping backs, everyone having a great time. Where were they when he needed them? Now they had a sheriff who was a national embarra.s.sment. He had a long conversation with Henry Sargent, who was sitting at the lunch counter. Henry was a retired honcho from Arizona Public Service.

”Lindsey!” Peralta sat down, full of morning pep. ”What have you got for me?”

She went through it as the same waitress who had served him for the past fifteen years poured coffee and went off to place his order.

I read his face: satisfied, impressed, interested, troubled, more interested. An outsider would never know this from his seemingly immobile features, ones that could elicit confessions from criminals or compromises from county supervisors-or, this being Arizona, the other way around. But after so many years, I could see the slight rise of the right eyebrow, the tightening of his mouth, and the easing of a frown which didn't mean his mind was easy. I wondered what troubled him. For me, it was the whole thing.

I asked, ”When are we going to interview Zisman?”

He acknowledged me for the first time with a glance of disdain at my Starbucks mocha. ”Not yet.”

”When?”

”Mapstone, you sound like an annoying child on a trip. 'Are we there yet?'”

”Maybe. That makes you the dad who's lost and is too stubborn to ask for directions.”

It was only me and Peralta being ourselves. Lindsey interrupted.

”Boys. I think the targets are definitely in the nest.”

She handed over her new iPad, to which she had added Google maps. Peralta studied it, and then handed it to me. Sure enough, both red dots had converged.

”They've been in this same location for several hours,” she said.

I worried that they might have discovered the trackers and discarded them at the spot on the map. But Lindsey said she had modified each to send a different signal if anyone fiddled with it.

”What time did they get there?” Peralta handed the tablet back to her.

”Around two a.m. They spent a few hours at a bar in Sunnyslope before that.”

He nodded.

The two red dots had nested less than a mile from the bar.

”Excuse me,” he said, and walked back inside the restaurant. The next time I caught sight of him, he was in the breezeway, which once held scores of shops when this was a mall. He was leaning against a pillar, his phone to his ear.

Back at the table, he took his time with breakfast. I had no choice but to do the same, even though I wanted to kick down their door an hour ago.

At last, Peralta gave instructions: take the Prelude home and park it. We would ride with him to greet the kidnappers. I hoped they were good and hung over.

As we left Park Central, he was in the cab of his truck, making another call.

Fifteen minutes later, we were northbound on Seventh Street. Lindsey rode on the jump seat of the extended cab, back with the weapons compartment where he kept his heavy metal. Aside from numbered streets to the east and avenues west, the other easy way you knew your way around Phoenix was to look at the mountains. The South Mountains showed you that direction. The Papago b.u.t.tes, McDowells, and, on a clear day, Four Peaks stood to the east. West were the White Tanks. We were driving straight toward North Mountain.

Sunnyslope was one of the few places with soul outside the old city, with a real ident.i.ty that wasn't subsumed in endless subdivisions. It was located beyond the Arizona Ca.n.a.l and outside the oasis, a desert town, a Hooverville from the Great Depression, and a place that retained its own proud, quirky ident.i.ty even after it had been annexed into Phoenix in the 1950s. The relatively few natives from there my age and older were ”Slopers” first, Phoenicians second. From my perspective, it had some interesting unsolved murders.

The place remained unique even though it had filled in with some of the same fake stucco schlock you found everywhere. A couple of its more notorious biker bars remained. You were aware of being higher than downtown, up against the bare, rocky mountains that s.h.i.+mmered in the sun. If the smog hadn't smudged the view to the South Mountains, you'd see you were at about the same elevation as Baseline Road in south Phoenix, where the j.a.panese Flower Gardens once stood. From both places, the landscape rolled down to the dry Salt River.

Peralta slowed as we approached the five-point intersection with Dunlap and Cave Creek Road. The parking lot of a shabby shopping strip looked like a used-car joint selling black Suburban vans.

”What the h.e.l.l?” I said.

”Calm down, Mapstone.”

He wheeled in and parked.

”Stay here.”