Dry Heat (David Mapstone Mystery 3)

“Bobby, I thought Sheriff Peralta had run you out of town.”

“You know better than that.” His green-brown eyes twinkled.

“And if I were gone, what would happen to the dozens of Valley charities and non-profit organizations that I help?”

I made a half grunt. “From your venture capital profits, right?”

“Of course,” he said amiably. It was pretty much the same tone Bobby had used when I watched him put a large-caliber bullet in the kneecap of a man, then repeat the maneuver with the other leg. Unfortunately, or fortunately, that man had been trying to kill me, so Peralta had to once again lose his chance to put Bobby away forever. Yes, our history was long and uncomfortably complicated.

“So,” he said, making a point of noticing the badge and holster peeking out from beneath my cream sports coat. “Does business or pleasure bring you here tonight?”

The deputy, sitting behind the lobby desk and pretending to be concierge, made eye contact with me. I signaled nothing. I didn’t know what the hell to do. If I made a fuss, Bobby might become suspicious, and where the hell might that lead? I said, “I’m visiting a friend.”

“As am I, Dr. Mapstone,” he said. He walked over to the elevator that went up to the condos and pushed the button. “Maybe we’re visiting the same friend?”

I tried to ignore him. He said, “Isn’t this a magnificent building? A bit of Bauhaus, a touch of le Corbusier, right here in central Phoenix. I must say, I don’t care for the balconies.”

The elevator arrived with a whoosh and I let him step in first.

Then I stepped in and the door closed. I felt my palms sweating.

“Floor?” he prompted, smiling like Torquemada on the verge of uncovering a heretic.

“Seven,” I lied. I sure as hell wasn’t going to lead him to Lindsey on the eighth floor. How did I know he was visiting a friend? Whatever he was doing, the seventh floor was now his destination, too.

The machine did its work, rising slowly up the shaft.

“I was sorry to hear about that unpleasantness in Scottsdale,” he said, arms gracefully crossed, eyes watching the lights mark each floor we passed. “And that poor young deputy who died.”

“It’s a dangerous world,” I mumbled, wondering what were the signs of a person becoming a claustrophobic.

“It is, indeed,” he said. A pause, then, “I do hope Miss Lindsey is taking good care.”

I stared hard at him. He appraised me with cool predator eyes. “These Russians are very frightening, Dr. Mapstone. They have no respect for any civilized convention.”

And you would know this how? I wanted to ask it. My mouth felt like a dry lake bed. Then the elevator slid to a gentle stop and the doors opened. I held out my hand: After you. Bobby bowed and stepped out. I followed him, not knowing what the hell I was going to do. The halls were short affairs, with only four condos on each floor. Bobby stood there looking at me, an amused expression crossing his handsome features.

Inspiration. “Damn,” I said, pointing to his wine bottle. “I left my gift down in the car.” I turned back to the elevator and hit the call button, too hard.

“Dr. Mapstone,” he said, insisting on shaking hands. “Good evening.”

As I stepped in the elevator and waited for it to depart, I listened for the sound of Bobby’s knock on a door, the door opening with a cheerful greeting, maybe the sound of party laughter beyond. All I heard was the hum of the building’s hidden electronic nerve endings.

Chapter Thirteen

Eric Pham looked perturbed. The slightest wrinkle, an underlined W of skin, pulled at the middle of his smooth forehead.

“You’re sure that Kate didn’t invite you to the press briefing? She said you were busy and couldn’t make it.” He waited for a response. I kept quiet. He added, “I’m genuinely sorry if you felt excluded, Dave.”

We were all on first-name basis now. It is an aggressively casual age, more obnoxious in its way than the Victorian married couples that called each other “Mr. Smith” and “Mrs. Smith” in public. And you can’t really screw someone over without calling him by his first name. Maybe I was being unfair to the head fed. Beneath his regulation gray suit, Pham seemed pleasantly oblivious to how much his press stunt had put me in a mess with the sheriff. Would it be wise to curse out an FBI man, much less the special agent in charge? Probably not. Was it possible to do my job without a knife in the back from Kate Vare? No way. All these thoughts were fighting to get out, but I shut up and picked at my salmon Caesar salad.

We sat by the window at Kincaid’s, a medium-fancy expense-account joint on the second floor of the Collier Center downtown. Over Pham’s shoulder, I could see the bulk of Bank One Ballpark. It was Monday, and three days had passed since Peralta’s “within a week” bullshit ultimatum. I had used the time to put in requests at a dozen federal and state agencies for information on George Weed. The bureaucratic wheels grinned at me: “You want it when?” But I was not without weapons of my own. After Kate’s press conference, I leveraged some of my own media events, gathered in my short career as a curiosity, a history professor who carries a badge. Two TV stations interviewed me on the discovery of the old badge and what it might mean. Lorie Pope wrote a story for the Republic-after giving me requisite hell for failing to tell her about the badge. But she quoted me prominently and ignored Kate Vare.

If it was just a media contest, I had faltered in the first lap but then pulled ahead. But it wasn’t.

I did use the TV segments and the article to ask the public for information about George Weed: Call the Sheriff’s Office’s tip line at this 800 number. Aside from the usual psychos and conspiracy nuts, the line yielded nothing. But I did get a call from Eric Pham, promising me lunch.

Across from me, Pham ate the turkey and tomato slices from the shell of a club sandwich-“My wife is making us do the Atkins diet,” he explained-and I tried to figure out my next move. My life had too many moving parts. It seemed like madness not to gather up Lindsey and flee until the threat to her ended. Two weeks were passing and we still couldn’t go home. But what if the threat never went away? And our protector, Peralta, insisted I work on this damned Pilgrim case. Lindsey did, too, sensing I needed something more to do than nervously prowl through the rooms of a stranger’s condo. At least she had found new work, helping the feds track down terrorist bank accounts. A Secret Service type had delivered some kind of super-duper laptop computer, making Lindsey sign for it on multiple forms. So now she sat cross-legged on a big sectional sofa and spied on the secrets of banks in Zurich or Bermuda. Meanwhile, Bobby Hamid in the hallway. Coincidence or something sinister? If we told Peralta, he would send us to the middle of nowhere, maybe just send Lindsey. Too many moving parts.