***
The dinner crowd was gathering at Durant’s as we slid into the cool slickness of a dark red banquette. I had changed into a charcoal Brooks Brothers suit, and Lindsey was wearing a smashing little black dress. We both enjoyed dress-up, and Durant’s was only one degree separated from the very adult 1950s, when it was one of two or three restaurants in town. Now, it rode the wave of retro nostalgia and pervasive irony. No cell phones in Durant’s. The only thing that didn’t quite fit was the darkly good-looking man who awaited us. His name was Bobby Hamid.
He had already made a show of kissing Lindsey’s hand when we came in. Now he sat, perfectly tailored in a priceless gray suit, dazzling us with his smile.
“Miss Lindsey,” he said. “Now I understand Dr. Mapstone’s obsession with you all these years.”
“And I understand Sheriff Peralta’s obsession with you,” she said, smiling sweetly.
He sat back with mock horror and smiled again. “Oh, Dr. Mapstone, are American women not the most delightful creatures in the world? Full of spunk and vinegar. There are more descriptive words in Persian, but I won’t bore you.”
We ordered drinks. Bobby wanted a kir royale, and instructed the waiter meticulously on its construction. I settled for a Bombay Sapphire martini, straight up, one olive.
Bobby was full of pleasantries and solicitations, asking about Peralta, giving me best wishes at such a trying time for the Sheriff’s Office. Peralta had only spent the past fifteen years trying to put Bobby in prison forever. I had been close enough to see that Bobby’s elegance masked a cruel gangster, a man who rose from an Iranian exchange student to become one of the richest men in Phoenix. Bobby’s American dream had been paid for with drugs, prostitution, and murder. But he was undeniably charming, and not with the bad-boy musk of criminals. No, Bobby was a learned man, a cultured man. He gave to all the right local charities. Once he had saved my life.
“I don’t understand why you didn’t want to come here,” he was saying as the drinks arrived. “Durant’s is a Phoenix institution. Grown-up. Classy. Fully of history. Just like you, Professor. Or, I should say, Sheriff.”
“Well, Bobby, I guess it was a reluctance for the media to see the acting sheriff having dinner with a disreputable character like you.”
His lips maintained their curl of amusement but a flush crept into his fine cheeks. “What is the country song? ‘All my rowdy friends have settled down.’ That is why I have kept my distance as you took over as sheriff. People would not understand. But, Dr. Mapstone, you called me this afternoon, remember? You may be ashamed of me, but I know you need me.”
And he was right.
“Bobby, you used to own that place down in the riverbed, Terry’s Swedish Message Institute, right?”
Bobby sampled his kir royale. “Very nice,” he said. “Do you know the Ayatollah Khomeini spent years in Paris before coming back to ruin Persia? Me, I would have stayed in Paris…” He sipped again. “Why are you asking me this?”
Lindsey said, “He’s calculating whether various statutes of limitations have run out.”
Bobby ignored her. He leaned forward on the table and fixed me in his black eyes.
“David, you are starting to acquire some of Chief Peralta’s quirks, no? This fascination with character assassination. Combined with your fixation on the past. If I had ever owned Terry’s”-he sipped again-“that would have been many years ago. Back in the era of disco in America and revolution in my homeland.”
He reached forward quickly, and I could sense Lindsey tense her arm toward the holster concealed on her right thigh. But he only wanted bread. He broke off a piece and daintily buttered it, careful to set his knife at a precise angle on the bread plate.
“Did you see the profile of me in Fortune last month?” he asked. “They called me ‘the venture capitalist to know in Arizona.’ I thought real estate had been good to me. That was nothing until I gave these software developers a few million. Oh, the New Economy, I love it.”
I said, “Well, if you had owned Terry’s Swedish Message Institute-just hypothetically speaking-I imagine you would have run across the name ‘River Hogs.’”
The waiter reappeared and we ordered dinner. This would be an interesting expense to walk through the department’s financial services bureau. After the man went away, Bobby regarded me with something new in his eyes.
“You know, David, the essence of dramatic irony is conveyed by the play Oedipus Rex. The king searches for a truth that the audience already knows will destroy him. That kind of investigation can be quite dangerous.”
I sipped my martini. Bobby liked to talk.
“River Hogs,” he said. “I have not heard that name for many years. Not since I…” A flock of snowbirds went past on the way to a table, a flash of pink and green and laughter. Back home in New Jersey the landscape was gray and the temperature was in the 20s.
“And?” Lindsey said.
“Let me ask you a question, David,” he said. “Where have you heard this name? Why is this important to you now?”
“It’s connected to a major investigation,” I said. “You know I can’t say more.”
He sat back and nodded his head. “Of course.”
“The River Hogs,” I prompted.
“Well, David, they were your people,” he said. “The River Hogs was a gang of deputies.”