Jon Talton - South Phoenix Rules

“I don’t have any more time.”

“Come with me to Casa Grande. This is an interesting case.”

“May I ask a question?”

He nodded.

“Is that Five-Seven licensed or registered?”

“Yes.” He watched me evenly, which meant nothing with him. His dark eyes were angry, then alarmed.

I said, “That’s too bad.” I pulled it out and handed it back to him, no one noticing. I added the extra magazines of ammo to the tabletop, right by the ketchup and then I stood.

“Don’t.” That was all he said.

I started to leave. But I turned around and took the credentials, then walked out.

For the next two days I had lunches that I couldn’t afford at the Phoenician. The lush surroundings and spectacular view eluded me. I hated these people, the sharpies and phonies and wealthy vagrants that had ruined my city, that cared nothing for it except as a place to use up and throw away. The resort had been built by one of the archetypes: Charlie Keating. At least Harley Talbott had been home-grown trash.

No, I was there looking for the server who had called Lee such a charmer. If I was lucky, maybe I could charm her, even as I wondered if I was capable of a smile. She was off the first day, and I didn’t even know her name. But she was my only potential link to him.

The second day was better.

She was not only working, but I was seated in her section without asking. I had trimmed up my beard and was wearing my best suit with a burgundy Canali tie.

“It’s Mr. Lee’s friend,” she said, standing over me with a grin but no order book, this being a classy joint where the servers were expected to handle things from memory. “Where’s your colleague?” Meaning Robin. I just let my internal bleeding go and smiled at her.

“He certainly likes you.”

She raised her eyebrows and bobbed her head ironically.

I pushed a little deeper. “It looked like he’d been a regular for years.”

“Oh, no,” she said. “He’s only been coming here for a few months. But he just has that way about him.”

I agreed that he did and ordered lunch. That way about him: the harmless old guy, quick with a compliment and always wanting to know about her. As I waited for the food, I tried to figure out a shrewd way forward and kept coming up dry. Kept falling down into the places I was trying very hard to lay a thick concrete slab over just so I could move into the next sixty seconds of my life. I watched her graceful walk back toward the kitchen and wondered about her stake in this place. She was too old to be a high-school girl, and probably wasn’t in college, either. If she were trolling for rich men the better job would be working the counters at Nordstrom in Scottsdale. Maybe she was a professional server in this tourist economy. Maybe she was an ATF agent.

Judson Lee. Attorney at law. Except that a call to a friend at Snell & Wilmer that morning taught me a few things. This veteran lawyer at the city’s most prestigious firm had never heard of Lee. Nor was he listed in the Martindale-Hubbell directory going back more than twenty years. Just a charming old killer who had played me like a green rookie.

When it came time to pay the bill, I saw the server’s name-Lisa-and told her it was beautiful. She smiled at me, but I was a few decades shy of being able to come off as the harmless old guy and my flirting skills were rusty. Oh, I wished that I still had my badge, which made it easy to ask questions, especially of citizens who want to do the right thing.

“Well, you tell Mr. Lee I said hello when you see him,” she said. “I don’t see him anymore.”

“He’s a busy man, Lisa. I’m sure he’ll be in soon with another group of friends.”

“Oh, you were special,” she said. “He almost always dined alone.” She paused, decided my Canali tie made me trustworthy, and went on. “I get the sense he’s kind of lonely. Once he had a woman guest, but she seemed uncomfortable here, if you know what I mean.”

“I do. Was this her?” I opened up the composite police sketch and slid it over so she could get a good look.

“Yes.” Her voice was faint. “Am I in trouble?”

It was interesting to live in such an insecure-feeling America, where a man in a suit in possession of a piece of paper with official Phoenix Police logos on it had instant credibility. I asked her if she knew where I could find Judson Lee. Her eyes processed a response: Go get the manager? Say nothing? Risk losing my job if I don’t cooperate?

“I swear, I don’t know.” She bit her lip, eyes heavily lidded. “I will tell you that he told me a story once. Kind of creeped me out, you know? How he had visited a strip club the night before. ‘Gentleman’s club,’ he called it, but it was clear what he meant. Said he went there all the time. And he had to tell me the name, the Stuffed Beaver. Ick.”

I folded up the composite and put it away, thanked Lisa, and signed the receipt. I gave her a big tip.

The Stuffed Beaver. It was the same place on Indian School Road where Barney the gun dealer had lost his glass eye in the stripper’s stomach. At home, I drew a line from Judson Lee to the new box, the strip club, and another line that connected to Barney.

The Stuffed Beaver sat in a building facing north on Indian School Road a little before 24th Street. It had been built recently as a Washington Mutual office, a typical ugly freestanding structure, then shut down by the mortgage bust and remodeled as a strip club. The name was proclaimed with a blazing blue-and-red sign, accompanied by a smiling cartoon creature that took up the entire street-facing facade. I wondered how it got past the city code. In smaller letters: “18 to cum, 21 to swallow.” Wednesday was amateur’s night. This was not amateur’s night. The parking lot sat on the west side and extended behind the structure. Entry was through the back. That made surveillance problematic.

I couldn’t go inside and hang around-both Barney and Lee knew me. While the parking lot was spacious, a man sitting alone in a car for hours might attract the attention of club security. Fortunately for me, the biggest beneficiary of Phoenix’s bust was an outfit named “Available.” Its signs were everywhere, including on the vacated older building directly west of the club. Behind it were five covered parking places with a direct view of the parking lot. I backed into one and waited.

My days were monsters, shooting me full of panic attacks that were only alleviated by trips to the shooting range. The nights saved me. The darkness covered me and made the city look less hideous, made me less aware of all that had been lost, the losses I carried around inside and ones that never occurred to the people who moved into a new “master planned community” on the fringes, only wanting the sunshine and cheap housing. Fewer were coming now. I had seen a story in the newspaper a few months ago that population growth might have even reversed. For seven decades, all Phoenix had to do was build houses and people came. Now the reliable old growth machine was flat busted. The “available” signs proliferated everywhere. The promising downtown condo towers were in foreclosure. The million-dollar faux Victorian condos on Central Avenue near my house were unfinished. Subdivisions rotted and were stripped of their building materials from Maricopa to Surprise.

For three nights I sat in my covered parking space, watching the men come and go. I had never understood the appeal: for me, sex was not a spectator sport. I saw the otherwise unremarkable young women walk through the parking lot wearing normal street clothes, carrying gym bags, heading to another night of work. Which one was named Destiny? I slowly worked my way through Lindsey’s blue pack of Gauloises Blondes, trying not to see Robin’s face hovering before my eyes. The club was open twenty-four hours, beyond my ability to cover. Considering the Jesus Is Lord Pawn Shop closed at six p.m., I decided to watch from six-thirty to eleven.