Cartwright returned from the kitchen with bottles of Modelo Especial and we sat.
“What brings you out to my humble outpost, Sheriff?”
“One guy shot and killed earlier in the week with an AK-47.” Peralta took a swig and a puff. “Then my partner here almost bought it with a Claymore.”
Cartwright made a tisk-tisk-tisk kind of sound. “Walk down memory lane, eh? Did you tell him about the way we used Claymores to ambush the slants back in the day?”
Peralta nodded. “Whoever did the shooting with the Kalashnikov was damned good. Pumped ten rounds into the victim sitting in a car. The shooter was in another car. Only one shot failed to hit the target. And this was daylight, right on Grand Avenue down in town.”
“Sounds interesting.”
Peralta waited.
Cartwright sighed. “I’m retired, Sheriff.”
“Bullshit. You know things. You know more than me when it comes to assholes seeking illegal weapons.”
“Is there such a thing as an illegal weapon in Arizona anymore?”
“If there is, you’re selling it,” Peralta said.
So he was an arms dealer.
“Not true,” Cartwright said. “Drive back to Wittman or Circle City or Mesa for that matter and you’ll find guys who can fix you up with anything you want.”
Peralta sat back, wreathed in cigar smoke, his expression losing its amiability.
He said quietly, “They can’t fix you up with a Claymore.”
Cartwright spoke softly, too. “I’m not a rat. Never have been.”
Peralta had handled the tribulations of the past several months better than me. Of course, some of them hadn’t affected him quite so personally. Still, I was the one who seemed angrier about his loss of the election and the ugly, racist campaign that preceded it. He had turned philosophical and, if such a word could be applied to him, mellow.
But watching his face now, I could see the flickering of the old anger and impatience. Cartwright spotted the launch signal, too, and knew it wasn’t a glitch. Still, he tried to escape.
“You know I’m not in the game anymore. Give an old man a break. I’m tired now. I need to rest.”
“You were up to your ears in Fast and Furious,” Peralta said, referring to the federal operation meant to disrupt the flow of guns to Mexico that had gone horribly wrong. It had cost the U.S. Attorney his job, brought hearings in Congress, and even become an issue in the presidential campaign.
“My part worked.” Cartwright glared back at him.
The two dark stone faces faced off. Cartwright’s was cut with gullies in geometric precision, while Peralta’s aging congregated around the crow’s feet beside his eyes. His hair was still naturally jet black. He was actually better looking than he’d been at thirty-five. He wore distinguished well.
Neither seemed willing to give. I tried to imagine them as young infantrymen, fighting for a country with a poor record of treatment for Apaches or Mexican-Americans and yet there they were, brothers in arms, in Southeast Asia. That bond showed in their expressions, too.
Finally, Cartwright stood and walked slowly at first, as if his hip hurt. Then he strode out of the room. In five minutes, I heard his tread and something landed in my lap. It wasn’t as heavy as I imagined.
“Your boy’s pretty cool,” Cartwright said.
Peralta watched me. I can’t tell you why I didn’t make the jump of the startled or run screaming from the house once I saw he had dropped a Claymore on me. Instead, I carefully studied it: “FRONT TOWARD ENEMY” the same as the one in Tim and Grace’s apartment, two sets of extendable legs, and a small housing on top where wires, or another kind of detonation mechanism, could go.
Cartwright eased himself into a chair across from me. “You’re lucky to be alive, son.”
He hefted an AK-47 in his hands. “Mikhail Kalashnikov’s baby. Cheap to make, easy to use. One of the first true, mass-produced assault rifles. Seventy-five million of ’em all around the world.” He quickly field stripped it and put it back together, his pudgy fingers working expertly. Anybody who watched television had seen AKs in the hands of freedom fighters or terrorists, take your pick.
“How do you know your guy was killed with an AK? Was the weapon recovered?”
“No,” Peralta said. “I heard it.”
Cartwright nodded. He understood.
“Anybody can buy an AK. You know that. Using it with such precision is another matter. And why would you want to? There’s too many good, modern weapons available. Maybe your suspect has a thing for the gun? Maybe it’s his bad-ass signature. You should run that through ViCAP.” The FBI’s violent criminal database. “It’s probably not some disgruntled ‘Nam vet. We’re getting too damned old. But the older we get, the tougher we were.”
He chuckled. Peralta didn’t.
I was half-listening to the ordnance talk. The Claymore sat a few millimeters from my genitals. I kept looking at the instructions stamped on the front. Such a funny thing. So you don’t forget and aim it wrong. I shouldn’t even be here right now. Why did I get over that apartment railing and into the pool with only seconds to spare, when Robin hadn’t been safe in our back yard? Contingency was the god damndest thing. Robin would have made the better mark on the world if she had lived and I had died.
Peralta tapped an inch of ash into an amber glass ashtray. “I’ve thought about all that, Ed. Quit stalling.”
“The Claymore is a different matter entirely.” He cocked his head. “Is this connected to the explosion in San Diego on Friday night?”
So much for being cut off from the world.
Peralta said, “You know it is, so quit playing games.”
To me, he said, “How far did you get into that apartment before you realized you were in the danger zone?”
I told him.
He let out a long whistle.
“So you see,” Peralta said, “This is personal and it might get a hell of a lot more personal.”
Cartwright set the rifle in his lap.
“Do you know how far my ass is already in a sling even by talking to you?” he said. “Even by you being here?”
“I don’t care.” Peralta swiveled his head.
“So give me something to work with?” Cartwright folded his hands over the assault rifle. “Who was killed with the AK?”
“Anglo, thirty-five or so,” Peralta said and went on to describe our first client including the expensive prosthetic leg and the multiple names and identifications.
“Nobody I know,” Cartwright said.
I said, “He had yellow eyes. Very well dressed. And he had a silver Desert Eagle on his passenger seat when he was killed.”
Cartwright shook his head slowly, but I caught the involuntary tic of his left eye.
“Didn’t do him much good,” he said. “You’re probably lucky he got killed when you weren’t in the line of fire. One less dirtbag in the world and the kid here survived. What’s not to like? Now I need to take a nap.”
Suddenly, a fury rose in me. Tim Lewis’ face hovered in my mind. And the baby I had held in my arms.
Cartwright asked me what I was doing.
“How do you set this thing off?” I was fiddling with the Claymore.
“You can’t.” He smiled at me like I was an idiot. “It’s disarmed.”
That did it. I threw the Claymore straight at his face. When he reached to catch it, I was up, crossed the eight feet separating us, and picked up the AK-47 from his lap.
“What the…” He let the dummy Claymore fall. It clattered on the wood floor. Next he reached for the pistol on his belt.
I chambered a round in the AK-47, although I didn’t aim it at him. Yet.
Peralta said, “I wouldn’t move, Ed. Mapstone here had a run-in with Los Zetas where they tried to put a hand grenade in his mouth, so he’s PTSD’d to the moon.”
Through his teeth, Cartwright said, “Why is he alive then?”
Peralta spoke softly. “That’s why I wouldn’t move.”
He spoke quietly, “How do you even know how to work that thing, kid?”