South Phoenix Rules (David Mapstone Mystery 6)

***

The norteño music came blaring out of the open door of the Los Arcos Night Club. Guitar, accordion, bass, and drums, accompanying a tenor’s fervent croon. Inside, however, the musicians were only on a sound system and business was slow. Two men in pressed jeans, neat cowboy shirts, and immaculate Stetsons sat at the bar and watched the two Anglos come in accompanying the former sheriff. Their expressions weren’t hostile; more of curiosity. At the end of the bar, Bill was smoking and drinking a Budweiser.

“That’s illegal.” Peralta indicated the cigarette, now banned in a bar or restaurant.

“So arrest me.” Bill gave a wide smile. A bartender came over and I ordered two Negra Modelos for Robin and me. Peralta wanted a Bud.

“Who is that?” Robin pointed to a ten-inch-tall porcelain statue behind the bar. It depicted a man with emphatic thick eyebrows and a black mustache, dressed in a white shirt and black scarf. A small devotional candle was burning beside it.

“Jesus Malverde,” Bill said. “He was the angel of the poor.”

“The narco saint of Sinaloa,” Peralta said.

“Don’t be disrespectful.” Bill looked at the statue and crossed himself. “He was like Robin Hood, only more. I seek his intercession.” He looked morose. “Magdalena says he’s from the devil, she won’t have his statue in the shop.”

My Robin, no hood, tried to change the subject. “Tell me about this music.”

“It’s Chalino. Chalino Sanchez. He was the greatest corrido singer. Balladeer.”

“He was a play outlaw,” Peralta said. “Real ones ambushed and killed him in Sinaloa.”

“So cynical,” Bill said. “You can’t understand this world without understanding the narcocorridos.”

“Is that what he’s singing about now?” Robin asked. “About the traffickers?”

“No. This is a love song. But it’s lost love and bitterness. He sings that he keeps the bitterness to himself. It’s the corridos pesados that are about the heavy things, drug smuggling and murder, exploitation and the poor fighting back any way they can. But it’s life, right? These are very moral songs, when you think about it.”

Peralta swigged the last of his beer. “Let’s get the details, Bill. I’m not here for the local color.”

They bent their heads close together and spoke quickly in Spanish, too fast and too low for me to understand.

***

The wide, dark avenues took us farther west. Wide, dark avenues ran through my soul. The pickup’s cab felt stifling even though the heat was off and the vent was running on low. Peralta said Bill had arranged for us to meet with the Phoenix boss of La Familia. The catch: we had to bring Robin. I didn’t like it.

“Do you want to live in fear for the rest of your life?” he asked.

Robin spoke quickly. “No.”

“Wait a damn minute,” I said, but Peralta sped on, making every green light. “Robin, I don’t think you should do this.”

She said, “I have to.”

We were just about out of Maryvale when Peralta spun the wheel and we entered the large parking lot of a shuttered big-box store. Phoenix had maybe one million square feet of empty big boxes, crushed by the recession or left behind when a retailer moved to a newer mega-store out in newer suburbia. This looked as if it had once been a Home Depot. The building was dark. The streetlights were off. The parking lot was empty. He shifted into park on the far edge of the lot and drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. Robin put her hand in mine.

The clock read 11:11 when two pairs of headlights came in from the west. The vehicles parked directly opposite us across the block of empty asphalt. Peralta clicked his high beams twice. In a second, one of the vehicles shot back two flashes.

“We’re going to walk to the middle of the lot,” Peralta said. “So are they.”

“Why?” My back was suddenly aching.

“Because. They’ll know we don’t have PD backup. And we’ll know they don’t have a shooter hidden in the back seat of one of those cars.”

“This doesn’t guarantee any of that,” I said. “They could drive up and kill us. This is crazy.”

“Maybe,” Peralta said. “It’s the rules of engagement they demanded, or no meeting. We meet on open ground so everybody can see what’s around them.”

Peralta swiveled to face Robin. “You don’t have to go through with this.”