Robin was sitting in the car when I got back. Her hands were covering the Chief’s Special that sat between her legs. Today she had refused the protective vest and I hadn’t argued.
“Any trouble?”
“Just sitting out in this suburban hell. Maybe that’s unfair. Somebody built this, sweated over it, maybe was proud of it. I sat here wondering if anyone could paint this as a landscape…capture the desolation. How small it all is under the sky. I wish I had the talent to paint. I don’t, so I studied the ones who did.”
“You’re not through yet,” I said.
She smiled slightly. “What now?”
“Let’s sit awhile and watch.”
“I’ve never been on a stakeout. But why are we doing this?”
“Following a clue.”
“Why not let the lady cop who hates you do it?”
I shrugged.
“Because she doesn’t give a damn. She thinks you’re hiding something, and she wants to squeeze you.” That’s why we sat here. A connection between Jax/Verdugo and the gun store might be tenuous. It might be important. I had contacts beyond Kate Vare. I couldn’t protect Robin alone. Maybe I was a fool to think I could protect her at all. They won’t drop it, the scumbag had said last night. They never do.
Robin said, “Do you believe me?”
“Yes.”
I said it with a certainty that I rationally had confidence in. It wasn’t because of the nights we had spent side-by-side. I told myself that. The silence lasted long enough for the mood to change.
“You miss the cops, David. You do. Don’t deny it.”
She smiled wide, making her face beautiful, and starting to resemble her sister. I set that thought aside and pulled across the street into the lot of another decaying set of storefronts, then parked beside some clothing-donation containers. To the south, Shaw Butte and the North Mountains were befogged in the dirty air of three million cars. When I was in high school, Bell Road had been a two-lane highway through a mix of flat desert and used-car lots. The city planners had vowed it would be the northern boundary of Phoenix for decades to come. Now it was six lanes wide and the city limits were many miles farther north. The growth machine had come and gone, a freeway paralleled it a quarter mile north, and Bell had been left seedy for much of its route from Sun City across Phoenix until it became more prosperous-looking near the Scottsdale city limits. Every place changes. I wondered why my city had to change mostly for the worse.
As cars sped by doing sixty, I told Robin about how empty it once was up here. My buddies and I launched model rockets in the empty desert a few miles to the east. “I wish I could have seen it back then,” she said. I heard Lindsey, in her former voice, saying, “Tell me a story, History Shamus,” and my heart gnawed at my breastbone.
My eyes stayed on the ugly building across the street. The gun store anchored an aging, low-slung shopping strip with a discount smoke shop as the only other tenant. Its sign was gigantic: JESUS IS LORD PAWN SHOP in five-foot black letters against a bright yellow backdrop. Beneath those: GUNS, KNIVES, AMMUNITION. The meek shall inherit the earth but not Bell Road.
We sat for an hour with the windows open, a gentle breeze blowing between us, the winter sun in our eyes. Half a dozen customers came and went, always solitary, middle-aged white men in pickup trucks or SUVs. I engaged in profiling and was not disappointed. For a place whose matchbook was found on a Hispanic banger, this was not exactly an oasis of diversity. One man carried a rifle into the store and came out empty-handed. The others carried out white plastic bags weighed down with guns or ammunition.
Finally, I spoke into the cool air. “We can’t keep doing this.”
“I know. I want lunch.”
“You know what I mean. We’re headed for trouble.”
“It feels good” She brushed back her hair and smiled at me. “I like it. You do, too. You haven’t done anything you have to feel guilty about or confess to Lindsey Faith.”
I stared into the pawnshop. It had windows tinted aluminum and bars across them. Small planes flew overhead, coming into Deer Valley Airport.
“Nothing’s going to happen unless you want it to.” Her voice was even and damnably soothing. “And if it does happen and afterwards it bothers you, that’s your hang-up.
I decided a long time ago that I don’t like to be alone, and I don’t have to be, so I won’t be. I sure as hell am not going to feel guilty.”
“Robin, you’re my sister-in-law.” I looked at her again, the sun turning her hair to a rich gold color.
“David, we have slept together. Literally. Didn’t they do that on the frontier all the time…”
“Not that way.”
“Whatever. If you have an erection that persists more than four hours, as they say in the ads.” Her smirk was brief. “Things happen between people. Chemistry, passion. Lindsey Faith is my half-sister and the truth is, your marriage is falling apart.” She put her hand firmly on mine. “Now don’t get pissed off. It’s just the truth. You’ve both been through a lot. When was the last time you made love to her? When was the last time she really wanted to make love to you?”