Jon Talton - The Night Detectives

“Tiger Woods spent something like four million bucks a year on prostitutes.”

“Your mind is an amazing thing,” I said, repeating a phrase he usually applied to me. Having my brain rocked like a Jell-O salad had addled my mind at the moment.

His big shoulders shrugged. “What can I say? I’m a golfer.”

“Do you spend four million…? Never mind.” I really did not want to know.

Even in my driest spell, in my twenties when young women weren’t drawn to a guy who read books and talked about history, I didn’t contemplate going to a prostitute.

“Sharon could tell you the psychology,” he said. “With a young woman and older man, it’s called the Lolita Complex, I think. Some men are drawn specifically to prostitutes. Rich men want the privacy that the right prostitute can provide. Most of these guys are married, remember, and they don’t want their wives to divorce them and take half of their wealth in a community property state. Politicians are willing to take the risk. A prostitute never says no, never has a headache, and she’ll do kinky stuff the missus might not do.”

“And it’s a huge human trafficking problem.”

“That, too.”

Back in El Centro and the heat, we went through the Wendy’s drive-thru and pulled to an empty part of the parking lot to eat.

“So,” Peralta said, “what didn’t you tell the police?”

He had parked the truck so we could see anybody coming into the lot and escape through two different driveways. His caution was good.

“Fuck!”

My concussed brain coughed up something essential.

“I forgot the flash drive. I forgot to give them the flash drive.”

Peralta was silent.

“I’ve got to get it to them.”

“Anything else?”

Yes, there was. I unpacked another chamber of my addled brain and told him about the writing on the wall: our names written in blood. Of course this critical piece of evidence didn’t survive the blast.

He paused mid-bite. “How would the suspect know about us?”

“I gave Tim our card.”

Peralta was silent and it was a long time, for him at least, before he resumed eating. About fifty seconds.

Many things about this case were unknown, but one was becoming clearer. The killers weren’t only after our clients. They might be after us. I stroked the ugly little rifle beside me, glad that Peralta was into this kind of heavy metal.

“What should I do about the flash drive?”

“Keep it,” he said. “Let’s see who’s on it.”

We finished our meal and stopped at a truck stop, where I bought a cheap cell phone to get me by until I could order an iPhone. Then we returned to the Interstate, one of America’s great accomplishments of the past century. Today the nation refused to do great things but that didn’t keep people from crowing about our “exceptionalism.” I had bigger problems than the fate of nations, but I let Peralta mind the rearview mirror.

Who knew how many killers roamed the anonymous Interstates of America tonight? How many truck-stop prostitutes would disappear tonight, meeting terrifying deaths, mourned by none? Except for the infrequent tractor-trailer rig, I-8 was mostly empty and carbon dark, as though the moonless night was trying to steal the beams our headlights threw ahead. Above was a vault of stars that most urban humans rarely saw in person. In my grandparents’ generation, it had merely been the night sky. Against it, my problems seemed very small. We were only here for nanoseconds of cosmic time. Inside the cab of Peralta’s super-truck, there was no song of the wind or moan of the engine, no sense that our onrushing feet rested only a few inches above the pitiless land.

Back in Phoenix, our office was in what passed for perfect shape. Every tube on the neon sign out front was operating flawlessly. The house on Cypress appeared safe, too. Even the air was better, the smoke from the forest fires clearing out while we were gone. Nobody had left a message on the answering machine. A neighbor had neatly stacked the newspapers beside the front step. Only the New York Times was on my daily routine now.

I couldn’t stand to read the Arizona Republic any more, the stories about the antics of the new sheriff and the other buffoons that had taken over state politics. I didn’t like the way the writers referred to the place as “the Valley,” using the touristy Valley of the Sun, not even the geographic Salt River Valley. Here we had one of the most magical city names in the world: Phoenix. And yet the suburbanites insisted on “the Valley.” Silicon Valley? The Red River Valley? Shenandoah Valley? And these were the same people who moved from suburban Chicago but said they were “from Chicago.” It drove me nuts. The local papers went straight to recycling.

Then I unpacked the flash drive and plugged it into my Mac laptop to see Grace tease me again. The ghost in the machine.

Lindsey could get into the drive but Lindsey was gone.

In the living room, I laid it behind a volume of Will and Ariel Durant’s The Story of Civilization on the top bookshelf by the staircase. It wouldn’t survive an extensive search of the house, but this dusty spot would do for now.

In a few months, I had gone from a deputy sheriff with a clean record to a civilian, a “private dick,” as Robin teased me with her delightful lascivious smile, concealing evidence. The top of the book held a sheen of dust. I didn’t blow it off. This had been part of my grandparents’ library passed on to me. When I was gone, it would be broken up in an estate sale or tossed in the dump.

After lying awake a long time, I slept badly with two guns to keep me company. Many dreams interrupted my sleep but the details were gone after I opened my eyes. If Tim and Grace had shown up as new dramatis personae, I couldn’t recall. Robin was there. I couldn’t remember what she said. I got up in the night to check the Amber alert and the San Diego media Web sites several times. Nothing was new.

By half past seven Sunday morning, a hitherto ungodly hour for me, I opened the automatic gate and pulled into the office, then shut it behind me. The high temperature was only supposed to be in the nineties today, the old normal for May when the dry heat was bearable and even pleasant in the shade. At this hour, the air was cool. No bad guys were waiting inside, merely a stale odor and the same old furniture. I dropped my briefcase on the floor and my Panama hat on my desk, crown down, and flopped onto the sofa to drink my mocha and eat a bagel. Remembering Sharon’s reaction to my gaunt appearance, I tried to make a commitment to eating more regularly.

Peralta arrived fifteen minutes later wearing a Stetson and jeans. He peered at me over his sunglasses, surprised that I had beaten him into work.

“How ya feeling?” He tossed the cowboy hat on his desk, letting it fall where it landed.

I told him San Diego had been a blast. He didn’t smile, disappearing into the Danger Room to either bring out more weapons or admire his prizes or whatever he did in there. How was I? I hurt like hell and the tension inside me was thrumming like a tuning fork. Otherwise, I was great.

When he returned, he leaned against the doorjamb, all six-feet-five of him. Maybe half of a supermodel could have squeezed through the remaining space.

“I’d like to bring Sharon into our practice. Is that all right with you? What the hell are you smiling at?”

That last part was more like it. I wasn’t accustomed to Peralta being solicitous of my opinion. In the old days, he barked orders and made demands, alternating between the “good” Peralta who was a natural leader and inspiring peace officer, and the “bad” Peralta, who could be manipulative, micromanaging, and Vesuvius when he didn’t get what he wanted.