“Fine. I’ll go. Fuck you.”
The gunfire put me on the floor.
It was a loud and mechanical sound. One long burst, chucka-chucka-chucka-chucka-chucka. Then two short bursts. I pulled out my heavy Colt Python.357 magnum with a four-inch barrel, rolled away from the door, assumed a firing position, and waited for the shooter to break in. He would be looking at his eye level. I would be below him and put three rounds into his torso before he could take his next breath.
An engine revved and tires screamed against pavement. Then all I heard was silence. The eighty-year-old glass of the windows was untouched. The front door was secure. I wasn’t sweating anymore. The ancient linoleum floor was cool. It smelled of old wax and fresh dust.
When I glanced back, Peralta was emerging from the Danger Room. In his hands was the intimidating black form of a Remington 870 Wingmaster shotgun, extended tube magazine, ghost sights.
He racked in a round of double-ought buckshot, producing the international sound of Kiss Your Ass Goodbye.
“That was an AK-47,” he said.
“How do you know?”
“Because I was shot at enough by AKs in Vietnam that I’d never forget the sound.”
I stood and moved along the wall toward the door.
“Mapstone.”
I turned.
“Let’s go out the back door.”
4
We stood away from the jamb as Peralta opened the back door. Nobody poured AK rounds through. He tossed a black duffel bag out to draw fire. Nothing. He nodded and I knew what to do.
I stepped outside into the oven and ran along the southeast wall while Peralta went around the other side. It was like the academy so many years ago. The carport was on my side and gave me cover to slide between the cars unseen from Grand Avenue. Felix’s Benz was stopped in the closest traffic lane. Nobody else was around. Across the median, a small car zipped by going toward downtown without changing its speed. No traffic was headed in the other direction.
Both hands on the Python, I swept the parking lot and made a slow trot toward the Benz. The sun was in my eyes and the scrunchy pavement was loud under my shoes. Peralta was coming from the other edge of the building in an infantryman’s crouch, moving quickly and with a grace that belied his big frame. We reached the car at the same time.
Felix the Cat was very dead.
His face was gone. The nice suit was plastered in blood and bone fragments. More blood, brains, and miscellaneous gore were sprayed across the seat and interior of the car. One bubble of tissue had fallen halfway out of his skull and it took me a few seconds to realize that beneath the blood was an eyeball. His left hand still clutched the cell phone I had seen him holding while he talked in our parking lot. In the passenger seat lay the silver bulk of a Desert Eagle, a nasty semiautomatic pistol. It had done Felix no good. His right hand was in his lap. He had never even been able to reach for the gun. Maybe he had it on the seat when he was still in our parking lot. Or maybe he pulled it out when the other car came beside him.
There was something else: the shooter had been so close and so skilled that no shell casings scattered on the pavement. Not one. I had counted at least nine shots.
I did one more look-around and holstered the.357. Whoever had done the shooting was good. Felix had pulled out onto Grand Avenue when they caught him. His driver-side window was still down; no glass shards were to be found. And only one round had penetrated the fine paint job of the car door. The others went right to target.
I turned to Peralta and asked if he had any evidence gloves.
“I want to see that cell phone and the last number he called.”
He shook his head. “Give me your gun.”
“What?”
He held out his hand.
I hesitated, and then I slipped off my holster and handed it to him. One, two, three cars sped by.
“I’m going back inside,” he said. “You’re going to call 911 and sit on the curb. We’re not the law any more.”
I dialed as he trotted back to our office. The excitement over, my body resumed sweating.
In the distance, I heard sirens.
5
It was ten p.m. when the Phoenix cops finally cut us loose. Out on Grand, it had been a full response: half a dozen marked cruisers, chopper, news helicopters, Phoenix Fire paramedics, crime scene, and the avenue blocked for hours. Back in the air conditioning of the office, two young detectives had interviewed us. Peralta was cagey. No, he outright lied. Nobody could tell when Peralta was lying, certainly not this pair. He had come back outside and taken control of the narrative and of me.
Here’s the way he told it: we were waiting in the office for a potential client when we heard the shots and went out to find the Benz and the dead body. That was when we called the police. Had this potential client given a name? No, Peralta said. It was a man and he didn’t give his name. Peralta didn’t think to ask for it. We were here and he told him to come on by. Were the detectives thinking this was the man?
They didn’t say. They did ask if we knew a subject named Derek Zimmerman.
“Is that the D.B.?” Peralta gave them his best command stare and they responded.
“Maybe, Sheriff.”
“Never heard of him. Have you, Mapstone?”
No. I hated him. Why was he lying? I felt all this, forgetting that I had wanted to muck with the investigation by reading the recent calls on our late client’s cell phone.
“How about Felix Smith? James Henry Patterson?”
“Who are they?” Peralta asked.
“We’re only starting our investigation,” one detective offered. “But you might be glad you didn’t get this case. The guy was carrying multiple driver’s licenses.”
I thought about the Desert Eagle on his passenger seat.
They left their cards. If we remembered anything else, please call us at this number…I had done the routine a hundred times myself, when I was on the other side of the badge. Then they left.
“Why did you do that?” I whispered it, as if the detectives were listening at the door.
“I want a trip to San Diego.”
“Our client is dead.”
“Exactly.”
Afterward, I drove east a few blocks on Encanto Boulevard and was enveloped in the trees and grass of the park and the historic districts. The temperature dropped ten degrees. This was a good thing considering that the air conditioning in Lindsey’s old Honda Prelude had seen better days. On the north edge of Palmcroft, I sat through the long wait at the Seventh Avenue light, brooding over what had happened. Then I crossed into Willo, past the old fire station, and headed home. A right on Fifth Avenue and a left on Cypress. The street was quiet and most of the houses were dark. Normal people had gone to bed. My house was dark and not inviting. I vowed again to get some lights on timers and drove on.
At the Sonic on McDowell, I ate a foot-long Coney dog and drank a medium Diet Cherry Coke. The bright lights and blaring bubblegum music gave a false sense of protection. The condition of the car gave me no choice but to turn off the engine and open the windows. The climate could thank me later.
An AK-47 was a crappy assassination weapon, so Peralta told me after the cops left. In all but the most expert of hands, it had a tendency to ride up and have bad accuracy. On the other hand, who could miss at that range? Smith/Zimmerman/Patterson had pulled onto Grand and another car came alongside. Did he recognize the car and stop to talk to its occupants? Did the encounter have something to do with the phone call I had seen him making?
Peralta didn’t offer any theories. He did say, “Somebody who uses an AK that way, it’s his preferred weapon. He likes it.”
I ate the wonderful crunchy Sonic ice, marinated in cherry, and took a little comfort that I was the only car in the place. A little comfort.
Oh, I wished Lindsey would call and ask, “How are you, Dave?” and being Lindsey she would know from my voice that I was not fine, nowhere near it, not even in the same state as fine. But my cell phone was silent.