Jon Talton - Cactus Heart

He laughed softly. “Ah, David, you do not wear the tough-cop mask with the ease Chief Peralta does.” He crossed his legs and folded manicured fingers atop one knee. “Why would I need to be a drug dealer when I can get rich legitimately in the nation’s sixth largest city? And for my pleasures, I have Indian art, beautiful women, the knowledge of good acts done for the community.” In the dimness of the room, he looked like a young Omar Sharif.

He raised an arm expansively, indicating the view out the windows. “Look at downtown coming back. A new baseball stadium, science center, nightlife. And that doesn’t even take account of my portfolio of tech stocks. My goodness, the return I get from investing here is far superior to what I hear one might receive from, say, smuggling heroin. Once you factor in the true business costs and risks, of course.” A narrow smile played across his handsome features.

I reached for the phone on my desk. He said, “It was you who found those skeletons in the old building down by the Union Station, no?”

I eased the phone back into its cradle.

“I imagine it is true what the newspaper says, that they are the famous Yarnell twins that were kidnapped in 1941. A man was caught with some of the ransom money, and with a woman, if I recall what I read. He was executed. Yet the bodies were never found.”

I reached for the phone again.

“My problem is strictly business, Dr. Mapstone. That building, the Triple A Storage warehouse. I want to buy it. I want to develop that entire area. And I nearly had a deal with the owners, then this. Now the city has the building sealed. I cannot move ahead. I am losing money every day I cannot act. Do you realize how fast downtown real estate prices are rising because of the baseball stadium?”

“I don’t care, Bobby.” I let the phone be. “And even if I did, how could I do anything?”

“You have influence with Chief Peralta, and he has influence everywhere. Do you think it is easy for me to come asking a favor from the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office?”

“Well, I’ll be happy to mention it to Peralta. Now, I really need to get some work done.”

He raised a hand deferentially. “I do not wish to waste your time. I know Chief Peralta has a lot on his mind, what with his marital troubles and all.”

He studied my face. “Oh, yes, I keep track of the people who, uh, do not wish me well in achieving my American dream. Frankly, I find his wife shrill and pedantic, at least on her radio show. Perhaps she is different in real life.” He shook his head slowly. A philosopher. “Ah, Americans and marriage, so much difficulty. American men confuse the things a wife can do with the things one needs from a mistress. And then those murders he can’t seem to solve. He has seen his reputation take a bit of a beating in the press because of that. I feel badly for our friend right now. I really do.”

“I bet.”

“Maybe your pretty, young friend-Lindsey, is it? -can help him trap this madman. She certainly made the difference on the Phaedra Riding case, did she not?”

“You claim to know a hell of a lot about sheriff’s office business,” I said, feeling a deep tension conquering my neck and shoulders.

“The Harquahala Strangler is a dangerous case, Dr. Mapstone. If I could help Chief Peralta stop these killings I surely would.”

I should have thrown him out of my office. Instead, I sat there like an idiot and let him talk. He had more than balls-there was a reckless intelligence and charisma to him that was both compelling and disarming.

“You have heard from him every bad thing about me, whether true or imagined,” Bobby Hamid went on. “But like me, Dr. Mapstone, you are an educated man, a man of the world. You know the purely evil man, like the purely good one, doesn’t exist.”

He sat back a bit in the chair and the wood creaked loudly. Then for a long time we just regarded each other across the desk, his eyes in shadows, me feeling my heart pound. Yes, Peralta had told me much of the bad about Bobby Hamid: a college student at Arizona State in the late 1970s, he stayed in this country after the fall of the Shah. He was reputed to have come from an upper-class Iranian family, but nobody knew for sure.

At first he ran a doughnut shop, but his immigrant’s success story quickly verged into owning topless bars that were notorious for prostitution and drugs. Around the mid-nineteen-eighties, he was reputed to have had a lock on the cocaine trade for half the city. Along the way, there was a trail of cruel murders of assorted informants, rivals, and narco-groupies. Yet he could never be tied to any of it-never did a day in jail, as Peralta put it. And he slowly bought himself into respectable business and civic life. He was Peralta’s obsession. I could understand why.

Finally, he said, “Tell me what you thought of the Yarnell heirs you met.”

“You know I can’t discuss a case.” The truth was, I still couldn’t get an appointment to meet Max Yarnell.

“You do know that Yarneco, the family development company, owns that warehouse.”

Well, no, I didn’t. Against the coolness of the room, I could feel sweat forming against my chest.

I said, “The records say a real estate investment trust in Baltimore owns it.”

“And Yarneco is majority owner of the REIT,” Bobby said. “Just thought you’d want to know. They own a lot of the property down there. Once they were produce warehouses. Now everybody wants the land. Even the county, to expand Chief Peralta’s jail.”

I felt a flush spreading into my cheeks, hoped the dark of the office concealed it.

Bobby said, “You are an intelligent man, David, not merely a prisoner of books and ideas like most intellectuals. Sometimes things are not as they seem. It would be worth your time to reconsider your assumptions about me, about many things.”

He stood up and bowed slightly. “Dr. Mapstone, it is always a pleasure. Do have a happy Thanksgiving.”

I wanted to have a smart-ass comeback but all I could think of was getting him out of the office.

“By the way, someone left you a present.”

“What are you talking about?”

I followed his gaze over to the court table I had set up for the Yarnell case.

“What the…”

It was a doll. An ordinary baby doll, maybe a foot tall, with a big head and a silly smile. It had a little blue bow tie and blue overalls. And a little sheriff’s star. It made my skin crawl.

“Are you mind-fucking me, Bobby?”

“Oh, the English language is wonderful, isn’t it?” he smiled, perfect teeth looking predatory in the half light. “Farsi has many wonderful words and sayings, but not like this. ‘Mind fuck.’ No, Dr. Mapstone, I am not mind-fucking you. This doll was sitting on your doorstep when I came in. No card attached. I merely brought it inside. It is from a friend with a peculiar sense of humor, perhaps?”

“Perhaps.”

“I have never liked dolls,” Bobby said. “Those dead eyes.”

Then he was gone, his footsteps echoing like gunshots down the hall.

The worst sound in the world is a ringing telephone after midnight.

“Dave.”

Lindsey. “Are you all right?”

“Did you read the fourteenth Canto without me?” she asked. We’d been reading Dante to each other, a little bit at a time in bed. I said, “I’d rather wait for you.”

“That’s why you’re my History Shamus.”

A minute passed by with nothing but the electronic buzz of the phone line.

“Are you okay, Lindsey?”

“I guess I’m not.”

I sat up in bed, awake with worry, the house silent and dark around me.

I waited for her. She said, “So how was your day?”