Luis didn’t question the guy’s story, because he could see right through it. The reason the story wasn’t more credible or better explained was because the guy was junk sick, and he wanted to go visit his dealer.
“I been asking lots of people, and they all said no. I really need to see her, man.”
“Okay,” said Luis. “I’ll take you there, but I ain’t got time to wait for you and bring you back.”
“That’s okay, that’s no problem. I just need you to take me there. Thank you.”
The drive took about five minutes. The guy clumsily tried to make conversation, and Luis went along with it. “Okay, right here,” the guy said, pointing to an apartment complex. Luis slowed down and the guy got out. “Thanks a lot, man. Really.”
“Sure,” said Luis. The guy tried to pay him for the gas, but Luis shook his head and drove away.
The neighborhood was nicknamed Gangs R Us, and the cops were going there more and more often, trying to show a presence. Luis passed a police car waiting at a corner. When the cop saw the New Mexico plates, he thought Luis might be either a visitor who’d gotten lost or a drug dealer doing some interstate networking. Either way, he fell in behind him and turned on his lights.
When Luis saw the lights, the panic rose up inside him like vomit, and he fought to control it. He knew Miguel hadn’t reported the car stolen yet, but even if it was just that he had a light out or something, the cop would ask to see a driver’s license.
Luis pulled over and turned off the engine. He watched the officer get out of the car and walk toward him. When the cop was almost to his window, Luis started the car and took off.
He turned a corner, hit the brakes, jumped out of the car, and ran. He heard the cop car approach behind him. Luis ran harder, shrieking air into his lungs, looking for cover, a place to hide. There wasn’t any.
“ Hey, asshole! Stop right now or I’ll shoot!”
Luis stopped. Raised his hands. Turned around.
The cop had gotten out of his car and was pointing a gun at him. “Lie down and put your hands behind your back.”
The concrete warm against his cheek. The handcuffs closing around his wrists.
Madison Street Jail was only a short distance from the bar where he’d spent the evening. He was booked in and finger-printed and put in a cell.
It was known as the Horseshoe, and it was like no jail Luis had ever heard of. People would be rotated from cell to cell so that they lost track of time. The cells they put him in were completely covered with men. There were men sleeping curled around the toilet that had shit dripping off the sides and piss all around the floor. Men were sleeping on top of other men. Some were using toilet rolls as pillows. They lay on the trash that was scattered everywhere from the sack lunches that were provided. The smell was like a kick in the face by a dirty foot.
No one is sure how long Luis stayed there, but it wasn’t very long.
Jeremy Ruvin should have been a cop. He loved cops, and cops loved him. Like many veteran cops, he was a legend in his own lunchtime. But Ruvin wasn’t a cop. He was a reporter.
He had spent twenty years at the Phoenix Weekly, a free sheet that was distributed throughout the city. It was part of a national chain of weekly papers, and it regarded itself as the only real news outlet in the valley. This wasn’t much of a boast; Phoenix was a city without a real newspaper. The main daily, the Arizona Republic, was almost devoid of news and existed to further the interests of the corporations that were developing the city. Its rival, the Tribune, had a publisher who openly supported the banning of reporters — including the paper’s own — from government meetings to discuss whether public money should be given to aid corporate development. A famous local swindler once observed that in Phoenix, when you try to sell people out, they take the first offer.
The Phoenix Weekly was a tabloid full of long, turgid stories that few people read. But Ruvin’s stories won Arizona Press Club awards every year, and had been doing so for as long as anyone could remember. Although his stories were as slanted as those of his peers, they were packed with lurid detail. The cops gave him access that they gave to no one else. Because, no matter what the facts might be, Ruvin would always make them look good.
This was something they needed. Phoenix was among the leaders of the country when it came to unjustified police shootings. The city had to pay out millions in lawsuits, and more were pending. But in the world of Ruvin, every cop on the force was a heroic figure who only shot or beat up unarmed civilians when it was strictly necessary. He never actually lied in print — he just stayed away from stories that might show the police department as it really was.
Ruvin had few hobbies. The only thing he cared about was his identity as a reporter, and the only people he hung out with were the cops and prosecutors he wrote about. In his mind he was famous, his world a black-and-white movie in which he wore a raincoat and fedora with a tag that read PRESS, and talked out of the side of his mouth. He imagined the raincoat and fedora so vividly that when you were in his presence you felt like you could almost see them.
When the cops realized that they had Luis, then realized that they didn’t have him anymore, the first reporter they called was Ruvin.
Ruvin and Detective Zack Blantyre had been friends for years. Blantyre had asked Ruvin to write a biography of him, and Ruvin had been sporadically working on it. Now they sat in Durant’s restaurant on Central Avenue, and Ruvin asked Blantyre what had gone down.
“We don’t know what happened,” Blantyre said.
“Zack. You find out you have a triple murderer in your jail. Then you find out he’s not in your jail anymore. And you’re telling me nobody knows what happened?”
“Okay, off the record — for now, okay...”
Ruvin nodded.
“We do know. He just walked out of there, him and four others. Somebody forgot to lock a door, and five of them just walked. We know it happened, we just don’t know how it happened.”
“No matter how I write it, you know that’s not going to look good.”
“No shit. No shit. I mean, it’s not like it’s the first time this kind of crap’s happened at the jail... but a fucking three-time killer? You know as well as I do, most of the guys in the jail are in there because they’re fucked in the head and got no money... but you get guys like this sometimes. I’ve been saying for a long time that something like this was gonna happen down there someday if they didn’t start hiring people who know which way is up.”
“He’s from New Mexico?”
“Yeah.”
“So what did he come here for?”
“How should I know, Jer? While we’re asking stuff, what did he kill three people for?”
“I’ll sit on this,” Ruvin said. “But I can’t for long.”
“I’m not asking you to. I just wanted to let you know about it first.”
“Appreciated. Look, I’m not gonna wait and eat lunch. I’ll get something on the run. I’m gonna head out to New Mexico today.”
Luis didn’t expect it to work, but when the other guys started to walk out, he simply followed them. And when nobody stopped them, they kept walking. And when they were outside on Madison Street in the sunshine, and the cops who were entering the building ignored them, they split up and kept walking.
Miguel was in his pajamas eating toast for breakfast when the cops knocked on his door. He let them in, they asked him about Luis, and he lied. Then they asked him where his car was, and he knew he was fucked. They let him get dressed before they put the handcuffs on him.