High Country Nocturne - [38]

The music switched over to “Rockin’ Robin,” the Bobby Day version. I hadn’t heard it or thought about it in years. I was thankful that it was shut out when he closed us inside the little room, bid me have a seat, and settled behind a cheap, small desk.

The walls were unpainted Masonite and covered with old Hustler centerfolds in all their gynecological meticulousness.

“Thanks for smashing in my face,” he said

“You brought it on.”

He looked at me earnestly. “I mean it. Had to spit on you, see? Nothing personal but I had to put on a show. You didn’t disappoint.”

A drawer opened and his hand reached in. I started bringing up the sawed-off but he came out with only a dry face cloth. I used it to wipe off the ruined necktie.

I asked him why we needed to put on a show. His eyes avoided me and he pulled on the T-shirt, his loopy arm muscles standing out. Sweat stains were darkening the garment.

“How’s your buddy, Sheriff Peralta? I hear he became a private eye.”

The question surprised me considering Peralta’s newfound notoriety, but I made my face express boredom.

“He’s doing well. How’s the fence business?”

He studied me with sad gray eyes. I was one of the few people who knew he had been one of Peralta’s CIs or confidential informants.

He lightly rubbed his mashed face. When he took his hands away, his drawn appearance was evident. Since the last time I had seen him, he had probably lost twenty pounds he couldn’t afford.

“Business is shitty. That’s how it is.”

“Is that what made you pick up the muscle out front?”

He stared into his lap. “He picked me up. He’s MS 13, so you’d better watch your ass. Goddamned Salvadorans. I’m into ’em deep. Look, I’ve got to close pretty soon, so what’s on your mind?”

He pulled out a Marlboro and lit it with trembling hands, offering me the pack, but I waved it away and said nothing.

He smoked with his bad hand. The shooting accident had shorn off most of the index and middle fingers. So he smoked by holding the cigarette between his thumb and fourth finger. The effect was half Sinatra and half circus geek.

After a few moments, he shrugged. “This business used to be simple. Junkies and burglars bring in electronics, I pay ’em shit, send the stuff to Mexico where it’s repackaged and resold.”

He smoked and stood. His small body seemed incapable of idleness, but what had that gotten him? When I kept staring, he sat back down and continued.

“Here’s what made it work. Stuff goes to a pawnshop and it’s liable to attract the cops. A legit pawnbroker has to log it in the computer system. Here, I got a smoke shop in Maryvale. Who’s gonna think? Simple business model. I connect buyers and sellers. How am I different from an investment banker or a hedge-fund guy? We’re a coarse, shitty land run by criminals. I go with the flow.”

While he philosophized, I gently uncocked the little shotgun’s hammers, broke it open, tossed the shells on the floor, and set the empty firearm beside his desk.

“So what changed?” I asked.

“The fucking Internet, for one thing. E-sellers, they call them-craigslist, eBay. Scoop up a lot of the really good stuff, so I’m dependent on the dude who’s too stupid or too poor or too jonesing and impatient to go online.”

He had given this much thought.

“Plus, there’s too much crap today,” he said. “Thieves don’t know the PC era is over, see? Don’t even try to bring in a PC nowdays, much less with Windows XP. Macs, iPads, iPhones, and Androids-those I can use.”

He pouted.

“And?” I said.

“The fuckin’ Salvadorans.”

“You have to go through them now?”

“Shit, they don’t care about stolen iPads. Stolen guns, they like those if they’re the right kind. No, they use my humble, locally owned retail establishment the way they want.”

He wiggled his arm to see a silver watch.

I put my hands behind my head, exactly the way Peralta used to do when he was either relaxing or trying to irritate me. It had the latter effect on Jerry.

“What do you want from me, Mapstone? Use your fucking imagination. Money and drug drops. Stuff I don’t want to know about, okay? If there’s heroin coming through here to be broken up and distributed, it’s not my problem. The less I know, the less chance they’ll feed me to their pit bulls.” He paused. “Cigarette smuggling is the biggie. That I have to know about.”

“What about the tax inspectors?”

“Haven’t seen one in years,” he said. “State cutbacks. Anyway, some of the inventory is legit. Go look, you’ll see tax stamps. The rest goes into the black market. I don’t get diddly as a cut even though I’m the one taking the chances here.”

“How’d they take over?”

“I needed a loan fast, okay? Goddamned Indian casinos, all around the city now. It’s their revenge on the white man. Anyway, I was fifty thousand short and a guy told me about a guy. You know how it goes. Next thing I know, Ahu is my babysitter.” He used his good hand to wipe away sweat. “Are we done?”

I thought about that. Ahu’s tattoos didn’t look like MS 13, one of the most dangerous criminal organizations in the hemisphere. He didn’t fit the profile ethnically, either. Jerry, as a former cop, should know that. But somebody was leaning on him and Phoenix had no lack of gangs.