Arizona Dreams (David Mapstone Mystery 4)

There was a long pause.

“What are you doing on a bus, Mapstone?”

“Riding it.”

“Are you crazy? What’s your twenty?”

He was talking cop-speak. I told him my location.

“Get off now. I’ll pick you up at 24th and Van Buren. If they don’t throw you in the loony bin.”

I hit the call button just in time, and was soon standing on the curb with the diesel fumes and the shopping-cart mumbler. I was still thinking of counter-factual history: What if I hadn’t come back to Phoenix four years before? My world wouldn’t exist at the whim of Mike Peralta.

In only ten minutes a shining black Ford Expedition pulled up. Peralta was using his driver today. I got in the back with him. He filled up his side of the seat, but his attention was focused on a file in his lap.

“Who is Louis Bell?” he asked, still reading.

I was in a brain fugue for a moment, then remembered sharply.

“He’s the brother of a guy who was found dead in the desert,” I said evenly.

“Harry Bell?”

“Right.”

“You’re a very bad boy, Mapstone. Finding dead bodies when you are supposed to be working on our book.”

“Sorry,” I said, staring at the red ears of the young deputy driving. I made myself take a quiet deep breath. There was no telling how the sheriff might react to the stimulus of insubordination, incompetence, or trying to sneak something past him. Put a gun in his face or a dying child at his feet and he’s the calmest man on the planet. He has other moods, too.

“So tell me what led you to this body of Harry Bell?”

I went through it with him as we drove. I imagined the brother had somehow complained to the Sheriff’s Office. Maybe he was mad that the chain gang tracked up the property, or a deputy had been rude. Maybe he was claiming we had robbed the corpse—I’ve seen civilians make worse charges. Sometimes they’re true. So I told Peralta about the appearance of Dana What’s-her-name, reminded him in fact that he had briefly seen her the day he was leaving my office. He refused to remember. I told him about Mrs. Every Soccer Mom, with her hands in her lap and her memories of me as a teacher. About the letter from her father, with a confession to homicide and precise directions to the body.

“Where are we going?” We were now on the Red Mountain Freeway, speeding past Tempe Town Lake.

Peralta set aside his folder and looked at me. His eyes were unreadable. “You’ll see. You aren’t the only one who gets to keep secrets.”

“This wasn’t a secret,” I said. “I just didn’t think…” I let the sentence trail off.

“Go on,” he said. “You got the letter from the old man, and you went out to the desert. You find the body of this Harry Bell. Did you know him? Know his brother?”

“No and no.”

“Go on.” He opened a new file and started making notes with a gold pen.

I went on. But I was also wondering. Peralta had been a genuine friend to me over many years. Some days, though, I tired of his games, his pride in having people beholden to some transaction or obligation. I’m sure he wasn’t even aware of them, as most of us are not fully self-aware. It was worse for him. Although he was brave and charming, he was also stubborn and, on so many fronts, shut down. His curiosity didn’t extend beyond cop stuff and golf—even a younger interest in custom cars had been set aside. He didn’t read books and was proud of it. He didn’t know much beyond an encyclopedic knowledge of law enforcement, and wore that comfortably. In this, he was different from his late father, Judge Peralta, and from Sharon. They had been divorced for a year now. Without her, his worst tendencies seemed to come out. I used to think Peralta was a throwback. But now I realized that he is the American male of the new century. I admired Peralta for many things. But I wondered if I liked him.

By this time we were pulling off the Pima Freeway and entering a parking lot. It was smaller than a New England state, and full of cars. Beyond was a dun-colored building that could have been a Wal-Mart or a Best Buy. It was a big box—a big box of gambling. Going a few hundred yards east of the Scottsdale city limits made the difference. Casino Arizona was the economic prize of the Salt River Indian Reservation. We were in a sovereign nation, and also a part of suburban Phoenix. The city ended abruptly and changed to fields—the Pima and Maricopa Indians had been farming in Arizona for centuries. It was a good bet they were related to the Hohokam, the ancient people who dug the canals and settled in the valley that became Phoenix, and then disappeared. No history here, remember? Fast forward to the twenty-first century, where the sweet spot for these Indian nations is the gambling addiction of the white-eyes. Indian gaming had come to Arizona while I was living in California, and although I was vaguely aware of casinos encircling Phoenix I had never been in one. I was no prude. Gambling was one of the few vices I had passed on when going through the devil’s cafeteria line.

It was three p.m., but the parking lot was full. By the time we pulled under the portico marked for valet parking, it was clear Peralta was not thinking of an afternoon of blackjack. Several tribal police cruisers sat bumper-to-bumper, flanked by sheriff’s vehicles and unmarked sedans. I turned to Peralta. The SUV had stopped but he was getting out the door. I followed him inside, past a cordon of tribal cops.

We walked through the lobby into a vast, dimly lit space. It seemed that way, at least, after the intense sunlight outside. Light came from row upon row of slot machines packed closely together and from a discreet purple glow around the ceiling. More light identified the Pima Lounge and Starz Bar. Then the room opened into a large space under a circular ceiling. The noise was overpowering, electronic pings, blips, and gurgles, snatches of up-tempo songs that changed every few feet, nothing coherent, just a wave of unending sounds. All the sensory inputs were meant to focus on the business at hand. I recalled Grandfather’s admonition that casinos were not built by the money of the winners.

We walked quickly past the machines, which looked high tech and elaborate—not at all my memory of slots. They had names like Xanadu, S’mores, Triple-Double Diamond, and Wild Thing, and comfortable seats were attached. Few were unattended. The crowd was mostly older and badly dressed, although that description embraced much of the population of Greater Phoenix. From the slack look of their faces, they could have been working in a textile mill. Nobody looked to be having a good time. None turned to notice as we walked through, escorted by two linebacker-sized tribal cops in uniform.

Then we were alone, stepping around a row of chairs that had been set up to block off a far province of the slots empire. More tribal police stood watch. Beyond them, all I could see was a circle of men wearing plainclothes and badges on their belts. One of them broke free: Patrick Blair. He looked at me with the suppressed glee of a tattling child. Then another man came forward. He was small, with worried, hooded eyes and TV preacher hair. He wore an olive dress shirt and tie of the kind picked out by a certain kind of wife. He was a white man with a loud whisper.

“Sheriff, we need to deal with this quietly and get this out of the sight of our patrons.”