South Phoenix Rules (David Mapstone Mystery 6)

haven’t even read me my rights. I’m a juvenile. My dad’s gonna sue the county for a hundred million dollars…”

I moved my hand and he shut up. “I can drive an hour and there’s a hell of a lot of desert where they’ll never find your body. And if they do, they’ll just think you’re another illegal who died coming norte. The animals out there eat everything but your bones. You’ll be just another wetback buried in an unmarked county grave.” My voice wasn’t hard; more of a reverie, which sounded scarier, even to me.

He was crying hard by this time. “What do you want?”

“Why did you follow us that night, outside the Sonic on McDowell?”

“Mr. Moretti wanted us to cruise by your house at night, just check on things. We saw you leave. So we waited near the Sonic. Tom wanted to do you both. Not, me, dog, I was scared, honest to god, I didn’t want to be involved in a killing. But two of the older guys had guns, too.”

“What stopped you?”

“Mr. Moretti. Tom called him and he said to chill.”

“Where does the black tar come from?”

“Tom said the Sinaloa cartel.”

“Oh, bullshit. Washed-up Chicago gangster and some teenagers who can’t get dates running heroin for the Sinaloa cartel…”

“Real shit, dude! The demand is unbelievable. I’m making so fucking much money and that’s just me. All I have to do is make some deliveries every week. Why should the fucking spics make all the money? Mr. Moretti’s a legend and a real American.”

I could have told him that Italians had once been held in the contempt now shown Hispanic immigrants, but what was the point? I asked him what Moretti supplied to the cartel in return?

“Money, lots of money.” He puffed up his chest. “And guns. I’ve never seen so goddamned many guns.”

“Where does he get them?”

“They don’t tell me. Really, I swear to god.”

I pulled out the image of the hit woman and held it in front of his rapidly swelling face.

“Who is this?”

“Sabrina.”

He said it too easily to be dissembling. I wanted her last name.

“I think it’s Cobb. Talk about a skank.”

“What’s her connection to Moretti?”

He said he didn’t know.

“Then how do you know her?”

“I took a package to her, okay?”

“Heroin?”

“She’d a rather had that,” said this straight-A product of what passed for the well-funded suburban schools. “But it wasn’t.” He tried to smile but it hurt too much. “I checked it, ’cause my ass would have been on the line, you know? It was ten thousand dollars. Hundreds and twenties. I made her count it, too, so she couldn’t say I’d stolen anything.”

I reached into the back and pulled out my old metal clipboard, which I’d carried as a uniformed deputy and had to dig out again when Peralta put everybody on standby for uniform duty because of budget cuts. Pulling his driver’s license out of his wallet, I started writing up an incident report. It was mostly for show. The kid’s name was Jonathan Zachary Grady. I wrote down his name, date of birth, address. He kept sniffling and suppressing his bawling.

“You’re in a shitload of trouble, Jonathan.”

“They call me Zack.”

“I don’t give a fuck. Are you following me?”