Arizona Dreams (David Mapstone Mystery 4)

“I hear the manuscript of the book is finished,” Lindsey said, rubbing my shoulder with a free hand. “And the title is, History Shamus?”

“I’m going to let the sheriff decide,” I said. “When he finishes reading it, and micromanaging.”

Robin said, “I think you ought to call it just that: ‘History Shamus.’”

Peralta grimaced and took a pull on his Gibson. “All right,” he said. “Let’s do it.” He looked at Robin with mock sternness. “And you, whatever your name is, you could have ended up in a shitload of trouble…”

“It’s Robin Bryson,” she said in mock indignation. “That was my dad’s name. Lindsey Faith can vouch for it. The other name, well, I was married for a year. It didn’t work out. That’s a story for another time.”

“We have time to listen,” Lindsey said, giving an ironic smile. “Anyway, I’m glad you’re going to rent the garage apartment here, even if you’re a pain in the butt sometimes. Your escape from the jaws of the criminal justice system certainly ruined Kate Vare’s day. Why doesn’t Kate like you, Dave?”

“I’m getting hungry,” I said.

“Patience,” the sheriff intoned. “Mexican food is serious business.” He was chopping vegetables, looming over the cutting board like a fairytale giant.

Lindsey said, “I’m just amazed that Jared Malkin thought he could get away with it. The water fraud would have been discovered sooner or later.”

“Probably,” Peralta said, wielding a kitchen knife. “But the idea was never to build Arizona Dreams. It was to cash in on the housing mania. Anybody building housing here can get money. All Malkin had to do was convince investors he had land with a hundred-year supply of water. He scammed some of the biggest banks and real estate investment trusts in the country, and some of the biggest homebuilders. He didn’t care. By the time the roof fell in, he’d be long gone. At least that’s what he hoped.”

Peralta was transferring the shredded beef into Lindsey’s largest All-Clad saucepan. I tried to grab a piece, but he threatened me with the knife in a very convincing manner. He handed a piece to Robin, then Lindsey.

“To die for,” Robin pronounced.

Luckily, it hadn’t come to that. Things were getting back to normal in Maricopa County. It was the usual run of summer mayhem: dead immigrants in the desert, suburban bank robberies, meth lab busts, and children drowning in green swimming pools. Enough villainy and heartbreak for any place. Things were getting back to normal on Cypress Street, too. I sat back and watched the scene in our kitchen. There were ghosts, of course: Grandmother preparing bacon for breakfast; Grandfather reading his newspaper, and a boy who grew into me. We Americans have become so disconnected from our dead. I would have been no different if I hadn’t come back home.

Now, Peralta was being his lordly self. He was one of two people left in my life who had actually known Grandmother and Grandfather. Sharon Peralta was the other. I would never stop missing Sharon, but she had moved on and was happy. How could I deny her that? Friends come and go, and if you’re lucky you can hang on, even at a distance. The next time Lindsey and I visited San Francisco, we could count on seeing Sharon, and a friendship universe would be even wider. I still didn’t know if I could view Robin as a friend. But she was here and she was making a heroic effort to tamp down her drama queen moods.

She took Lindsey and me out to Paradise Valley last week, where we met her wealthy employer. So at least part of her story was real. I watched her cock her head and saw some of Lindsey in her. Somehow, it mattered to Lindsey to keep this sisterly connection, with all its flaws and raw nerve endings. I saw Lindsey watching me, then Robin, and her expression was unreadable. When I took the two of them out, Lindsey would rib me about “my harem.” In bed, she would quip about being territorial. Irony and humor were her defenses. She gently rebuffed my efforts to talk about those weeks when she was away. And no part of me wanted to admit that for a few inebriated minutes one night I had been tempted by Robin. I had my own questions and insecurities, too. If Lindsey had been a teenage mother, would I love her any less? But if it were a secret that excluded me, one I didn’t intend to probe, then would it be an itch I couldn’t scratch? All this would take time. Sinatra sang “I’ve Got You Under My Skin.”

“Mapstone,” Peralta said, “what the hell are you doing?”

“Drinking and fiddling.”

“What is that?”

I held out the wooden carving in my hand. “It’s one of Lindsey’s matruska dolls. There’s a smaller doll inside this one, see, and a smaller one inside that, and so on.” I disassembled it for him. “It’s like the Arizona Dreams scam. A double-cross concealed inside a double-cross…”

Lindsey said, “Makes me wonder if we found all of them.”

“Well quit being a liberal academic parasite,” Peralta said. “Get the tortillas out of the oven. We’re ready to start serving.”

Later, we sat in the living room and talked more about the case. Peralta puffed happily on a Cuban Cohiba, sharing it with Robin. She lolled against him, and he didn’t complain. He said, “It would be nice to think this would make the entire state take a deep breath and slow down and stop being so greedy.” He watched a plume of blue smoke rise in the high ceiling. “But it won’t.”

“Someday soon the real estate bubble will burst,” I said.

He contemplated the cigar. “Maybe that will be for the best.”

Epilogue

In December, the healing rains came. It rained so many days that people started to say the drought was over. The experts assured them that it wasn’t, but that didn’t stop talk of dropping conservation measures—even of revising the groundwater act. Lindsey and I talked about this as we drove out to Paradise Valley to a private art show. It was curated by Robin, and her billionaire had invited a hundred or so of his closest friends. Parking was no problem: valets were waiting to take my keys and escort Lindsey inside under an umbrella. She still looked great in a little black dress, and her hair glistened darkly. The weather was cool enough for me to wear a suit and one of the Ben Silver ties Lindsey had given me for my birthday. Under the portico, she took my arm and we went in to meet the swells.

Aside from the collections of Social Realism paintings, Depression-era posters, and photography, and several Frida Kahlos, everyone was talking about the wine cellar. It was bored deep into the side of Mummy Mountain. By the time I got to it, however, I was alone. The rain had stopped and the other guests were out on the vast terrace, admiring the negative-edge pool and the views of the billion city lights. Lindsey and Robin were talking to the billionaire in his study. I carried my martini and went into the mountain. It was a grand affair, with a fifteen-foot ceiling and more bottles than the wine department at the Central Avenue A.J.’s, carefully stored and catalogued. It was like a NORAD bunker for wine, guaranteeing it would survive apocalypse. The rough edges of rock were prominent on all sides. I was running a finger along a sharp granite edge when someone called my name.

“Isn’t this delightful,” said Bobby Hamid. I turned to see him leaning casually against a stainless steel and glass refrigerator. “I want one.”

“I would have suspected you already had one.”

He toasted me with a glass of wine, the liquid glowing like blood in the tasteful lighting. In his black suit, black shirt and shimmering dark blue tie, he looked like he had just stepped out of a Hugo Boss advertisement.