Jon Talton: South Phoenix Rules

Why? What was his role in the beheading of Jax Delgado? The answer ate at my insides all along the length of Baseline Road, as I passed the cheap, fake Tuscan-Spanish architecture of apartments and subdivisions, profaning the land that once held the Japanese gardens whose images so enchanted Robin. He wanted to get close to Robin. Maybe he had wanted to see how effective our defenses were. Maybe…I didn’t know.

I had let this happen.

Beyond that, it was all little things. Holden wanted to kill us that night, but Moretti had held him back? Why? Had Tom Holden been the long-rifle shooter who had taken down La Fam as we watched stupefied? What was the Bug’s angle in that killing? I cursed so long, loud, and profanely that I fogged the inside of my sunglasses.

The drive gave me time to assess new information about me. The packets of wet wipes Lindsey kept in the glove box did an adequate job of cleaning the blood off the inside of the car and my hands. But I had seen my own capacity back there with Jonathan Zachary Grady, middle-class teen drug dealer. I had enjoyed it, this darkness that had been growing in me suddenly let out into the sunlight. I kept wiping my hands long after the little cloths were dry, kept wiping them until my skin was raw.

On Central, I turned north, crossed the canal, passed Sue’s Fashions, and took in the brown cloud hovering over the skyline. In the historic districts, everything was blooming and lovely. This was the garden city of my youth, the green oasis, what was left of it anyway. It was lost on me. I was almost home when the cell rang. It was Peralta. This time I picked up.

“How’s Casa Grande?”

“Why aren’t you answering your phone?”

“I’ve needed quiet time.”

“You’re a really crappy liar. I heard about the gunfire at your house. You need to get out of there. Come see me and gun-up.”

“No.”

The line was silent for several seconds. “Do you still have the wallet you took off the banger watching your house?”

I hesitated.

“Because he’s a DEA agent,” Peralta said.

It was eighty-five outside but I felt chill.

He continued, “Don’t start on me. I just found out myself. So don’t fuck this up. Bring me the wallet and the TEK-9.”

“I don’t have a…”

“Crappy liar, Mapstone. I need the gun back before Amy Preston sends me to Guantánamo or you murder somebody with it.”

“Fine. Fuck you. What was a DEA agent doing watching our house before I ever got in the middle of their investigation?”

He had already hung up. That answer, of course, was obvious: their man, Jax Delgado, had been killed and his head sent to the Spanish revival house on Cypress Street.

The next call came two hours later.

“Mapstone, it’s Demetrius. Thanks for your help back there. You have good moves. I hope you got the misguided lad home safely.”

“Where are you?”

“Sorry, my man, but I just crossed the state line. Ditch pig will be safely in jail in Bakersfield when you need him, and I’ll be thirty-thousand-dollars closer to paying my daughter’s tuition at UCLA.”

I just let the microwaves carry silence until he said my name again.

“Did you make him do the phone call?”

“He did it just the way you wanted. Sorry about the rest, but California called.”

I put up a fuss, made it a good one. But I was satisfied. Demetrius Smith had not let me down.

Now I sat in the living room and looked around the house. “Just get me to the night.” I said it over and over, as if it would stop the tachycardia that was overwhelming me. The only thing that helped for a few moments was to lie in bed, where the sheets still had Robin’s scent.

The address the high-school kid gave me went to an old, single-story row of apartments on 15th Avenue north of Missouri. This part of the city had developed slowly, the cursed subdivisions creeping in on the acreages and farms. Some properties still had horse privileges in the zoning code. But I was not going to horse country. The apartment was in the middle, behind a fading white door that had no peephole in it. There was no back exit and the lights were on. It was full dark.

I walked through the smell of citrus blossoms that only fed my blood lust and gave the hollow-sounding door three knocks.

“Who is it?” A female voice.

“FedEx.”

The door cracked and I pushed through, raising the barrel of the Python to her face.

“Oh, shit!”

She turned to run and I grabbed her by her hair, smashed her into the wall, and dragged her inside, kicking the door shut behind me.

“Who else is in the apartment?”

“Nobody”

I told her we’d double check. With her hair pulled painfully and the big Colt against her back, I made her do a walk-through, to the bedroom, the bathroom, the closet. Then I pushed her back into the living room and threw her to the floor.

It was the same woman: thin, pallid face, long dark hair, wearing dark shorts and a teal top. In the light, she looked about five feet tall. She stared up at me with terror. In the light, her face was prematurely crisscrossed with lines and her skin carried the unhealthy pallor of an addict. I sat in a chair and kept the gun on her.

“Why?”

“Oh, mister, please, I’m begging…”

“I’m going to ask again.” My voice was quiet, unfamiliar. “Why?”

“He said he’d pay me, okay? My old man’s in jail and I was trying to get him out.”

“How did you find him?”

“He found me, I swear to god.”

“Who found you?”

“Mister Lee!”

So he had played the same game. She didn’t know who he was or where he lived. She might have been the woman who had lunched with him at the Phoenician, who, recounted the server Lisa, felt out of place.

“My old man had done some work for him before. When Mister Lee called here I was desperate to raise that bail money. There was nothing I could do and I asked for his help. He said I had to do this.”

“Why?”

“He said you’d shot and killed his son, that both of you were drug dealers, and he wanted justice.”

“Why didn’t you shoot me?”

She stared at the wall. “The gun jammed.”

“Where is it?”

“Under the sofa cushion. He said he’d pick it up. But that kid who brought the money wouldn’t take it.”

I told her to get the gun, hold it by the barrel, and put it on the coffee table. She pulled up a black.22 semi-auto with a silencer attached to the barrel and set it next to a stack of “Real Simple” magazines. I ordered her to lie back down on the floor.

“Did you bail out your husband?”

She shook her head.

“Where’s the goddamned money!”

Her eyes grew wide. She pointed to a black satchel sitting against the giant flat-screen television set.

“You didn’t smoke it?”

“No, no! I’ve been thinking about leaving, starting over. Donnie beat me anyway, so I thought, maybe this was my shot. Let him stay in jail.” She held bony hands against her face. “I know I did a bad thing. I know I did wrong. All I ever did before was turn a few tricks. I was in jail for that but nothing else. I swear to god, mister. I wasn’t raised…”

She suddenly stopped talking when I held up my hand.

“Do you have a dishrag?”

I had to repeat myself.

She nodded and pointed to the kitchen. It was wet and draped over the 1960s-era faucet. I picked it up and tossed it to her.

“Put it in your mouth.”

She hesitated until I cocked the Python. The move is not necessary in a double-action revolver, but the sound gets attention. “Please, Mister…” I aimed. She started to eat the dirty rag, tears running down her cheeks. She lay on the floor, raised on her elbows, staring at the madman over her. I replayed that night in the back yard, Robin hit and falling. I felt shrapnel rubbing up against my heart.