Bad Country: A Novel (12 page)

You know Sirena’s been back around. Tomas raised his voice as Rodeo started the cranky engine of his Ford. I seen her in some big ass negro truck cruising the neighborhood blasting that bullshit classy music she likes. What should I tell her from you after she quits fucking my brains out?

Tell her she needs to improve her tastes.

*   *   *

Rodeo rolled slowly to Cushing Street then drove east two blocks where he parked under shade near the Tucson Police Department building then went to Old Pueblo Credit Union where he rained his change into the coin counter. He took the slip to the window and deposited half of the fee Katherine Rocha had paid him into his near-empty account. He then crossed Sixth Street and stepped up to the walk-up window at Midtown Liquors drive-through liquor store where there was a short line of men on foot, all in fragments of GI gear with commemorative patches from theaters of war including several intergalactic. All the men were heavily tattooed and none over forty years old.

The men sized up Rodeo quickly and turned back to the walk-up window where a thirty-pack of Keystone Light appeared. The trio hurried toward wherever they drank with the suitcase full of beer cans between them like luggage. A thin white face appeared on the clerk’s side of the walk-up window.

Long time no see, the face in the window said. A Green and a Blue?

You got a good memory, Rodeo said.

Nothing else to do around here but remember is it, the clerk said.

The Foster’s oil cans appeared on the counter in less than a minute and Rodeo laid out the cash for the two beers and added an extra dollar as a tip.

Where’s your old truck at? the clerk asked.

In shade.

How’s your old dog?

He’s pretty good considering how bad he is, said Rodeo.

Where’s your old girlfriend at?

That, I don’t know.

I miss seeing that girl around, the clerk said. You don’t get to see women like that too often without paying for the pleasure. She still dancing at Richard Dick’s clubs?

I don’t know what she’s doing these days.

How you ever get used to being around some woman that looks like that woman looks like I don’t know.

Men get used to the way their women look, said Rodeo.

*   *   *

Rodeo walked a block west and knocked on the door of a beautifully remodeled adobe the color of lemon pulp trimmed in the color of lime rind.

Come!

Jarred Willis, Esq. was sitting behind his mahogany desk moving papers around under a gold Phantas ink pen. Two fresh Cuban Diplomáticos were clipped and laid out in a Waterford ashtray on the desk. The lawyer’s Brooks Brothers suit was custom made for his paunch. His face looked freshly baked from Miraval Spa.

Sit, the lawyer said.

Rodeo settled into a distressed leather armchair that was soft as veal, unpacked the Foster’s and put the Green in front of Jarred Willis and the Blue between his own knees.

What’s the occasion, Chief? asked the lawyer.

Just visiting, said Rodeo.

That’s horseshit. You always want something. Something for free usually.

The men popped their beers and drank off an inch or three.

Why you all dressed up, Jarred? What’s with the twenty-dollar cigars?

The gentleman coming in after you is as rich as the Pope’s pimp, so poor you just shut up about my three-thousand-dollar suit.

You are a piece of work, Jarred.

Seriously, Chief, just look at you on that side of the big desk like something the cat dragged in and then look at me on this side of the big desk like one million dollars in cash money. We went to Tucson High together, Tonto.

I get your point, Jarred. There’s no justice in the world.

You just here to annoy me or you got some business in town?

A little, said Rodeo. A Mrs. Katherine Rocha hired me to look into her grandson’s death by misadventure.

Don’t know the case, said Jarred Willis. The lawyer studied Rodeo, his brow wrinkled in exaggerated concentration. Oh. I get it, Willis said. You want the neighborhood rundown? Always the seeker of information. Willis pounded the remainder of his bitter, aimed the can at a wastebasket across the room and tossed it surely in. Well, Sirena got out of rehab and was downtown lately, shacked up with somebody in the neighborhood. She’s serving at BoonDocks on the weekends, said the lawyer. And she might be shagging your old football buddy Tank Hage. At least Tank’s shagging somebody at the club and he and Annabeth are splitting. I heard that from a divorce lawyer friend of mine. And from my real estate buddy I learned that Sirena’s former employer Richard “Nine Inch” Dick has bought up most of that block of Convent he lives on for reasons unknown. The lawyer took a breath. And now you are up to speed, Chief.

Thanks for the update, Mr. Cronkite, said Rodeo.

Speaking of local affairs, how’s all that shit going down at Los Jarros with the murder at your place? asked the lawyer.

I made my statement, said Rodeo. I didn’t have much to say but that I found the dead man and so that’s what I said and nobody’s bothered me about it yet. Special Investigations Unit was down there.

Apache Ray called in Special Investigations? asked the lawyer.

Or SIU called themselves in, said Rodeo.

You think a few Undocumenteds dead in the desert amounts to anything serious, Chief? The lawyer asked this question as if he were really interested.

That would depend on who is killing them and why, wouldn’t it? Rodeo asked.

Do you think something major is going on out there in your hole in the world like Federation Cartel or major smuggling of UAs? You think that’s why State is getting involved and taking over from County?

It’s not my business, Jarred.

The lawyer nodded. That’s a good attitude, Chief, he said. Maybe you ought to keep that attitude and just stay low on this one. Maybe you should even think about extending your vacation this year.

There was a brisk knock on the office door, and Willis Jarred, Esquire smoothed his pale hair, stood, walked around his huge desk and ushered Rodeo out a side door. Rodeo lingered a moment but could hear nothing through the bulletproof steel, so he strode across the street to the Tucson Police Department.

*   *   *

Rodeo passed through the metal detectors, got his big belt buckle and jeans frisked then signed in to see Clint Overman and sat down. The detective came out to the waiting area ten minutes later and waved Rodeo through to his small, over-tidy office.

What’s up? The big lawman eased himself into his captain’s chair behind a metal desk. On the desk was a “participation” trophy for youth soccer and a framed photograph of the detective’s teenaged son, an only child murdered three years before by the serial killer Charles Constance. The policeman adjusted the trophy so that the player kicked the ball directly at his guest.

Just in the neighborhood, Clint, said Rodeo. Thought I’d suss you out about the thing over at Starr Pass. The Rocha kid that went off the bridge.

Overman leaned forward in his chair and aligned his calendar blotter so the edges were exactly perpendicular to the edges of the desk. He put his hands down on the blotter. On one hand three fingers were severely misshapen and on the other a thumb and the ring finger were altogether missing, the effects of prolonged torture. His eyes were swollen and bloodshot and he smelled slightly of alcohol.

Nothing to suss out, the detective said. The Rocha kid got hit in a drive-by, fell off the bridge, busted himself up pretty badly but managed to crawl under some brush and rock overhang when nobody saw him for days and he died.

Bled out? asked Rodeo.

The kid’s wound was relatively superficial, just a flesh wound to his shoulder. Enough to weaken him but nothing that would have been deadly if he’d been found soon enough. He died of exposure the ME said. Dehydration.

Was he paralyzed? Rodeo asked.

ME says so but that seems unlikely to me since he crawled up under some bushes to get shade. Must have seemed like a good move at the time but he hid himself where he couldn’t be seen and got too weak to call for help.

There’s shade under the bridge, Rodeo said.

Maybe he was trying to get out of the creek bed.

With all those busted bones? asked Rodeo.

You know yourself what people can do when adrenaline kicks in, the policeman said. It’s not always rational. But then when that buzz wears off they can be totally disoriented and disabled completely.

Could somebody have dragged him under the brush?

Could be. No proof of it if they did. Riverbed is totally tracked up, so we didn’t find any drag heel marks as I recall.

No cell phone on the kid? asked Rodeo.

Not that I recall.

And y’all didn’t find a slug? asked Rodeo. The one that hit the kid?

We didn’t find any slug that I recall. The policeman jiggled his head as if something were loose in it. We don’t even know for sure that the kid was shot and TPD doesn’t have the manpower to search a river of sand for a slug that might not even exist.

You think Samuel Rocha just fell off the bridge? asked Rodeo. Was he high?

The kid had drugs in his system and had dope on him when he was found.

But he wasn’t high.

The detective shrugged. He did time at the Pima County Juvie Center for selling nickel bags at a couple of high schools and middle schools, so he’s probably connected to a gang, said the cop. It’s still an open case and will stay that way, so don’t think we’re covering anything up.

I didn’t think that, Clint.

The detective realigned the trophy on the desk slightly.

What gang does anybody think Sam Rocha was in? asked Rodeo.

I could check with Detective Haynes, who heads our gang task force, but he’s up at John Jay in New York City at some criminology conference at that college of justice. The policeman shifted in his seat and looked directly at Rodeo. What’s your interest here? Overman asked. Maybe we need to get that straight first off.

I got hired to look into this Rocha kid’s death is all, Rodeo said.

Hired by who?

I’d prefer to keep that under my hat since it’s just a routine follow-up. I’m in and out in a day.

Overman shrugged. Like I said it’s an open case, so anything you get is ours by law anyway. You got anything yet?

Rodeo shook his head.

Well, if you do come up with something it comes right to me, got that?

You handled the Samuel Rocha case? asked Rodeo.

I did.

Who found the body?

Horseman, said Overman. And there’s nothing there. The guy who found the dead body is just a guy who rides the river every Saturday morning. Horse got spooked by the smell … The detective brushed at his eyes. That’s all in the papers. He readjusted the soccer trophy on his desk again so that the little striker aimed the ball out the window. The policeman looked out the window too as if following the potential path of the prize ball. And I can tell you there’s not much in the file that’s not in the papers, so don’t ask me to see the file. Overman aimed his watery eyes back at his guest and adjusted the kicker so that his foot was aimed at the door. I’m busy now, so …

I guess my free pass is about run out around here? Rodeo asked.

Nothing personal, said the lawman. It’s just that I’m trying to put all that behind me and you remind me not to.

You don’t owe me anything, Clint.

I never said I did. The detective sighed and pressed his fingertips into his bloodshot eyes. But as bad as it was for me, the Constance Case was still a potential career maker for me, the cop said. So I might still get to Phoenix on that one high-profile case if I can keep my shit together. He paused. So I won’t forget you for the career boost, at least. But this Rocha kid, he’s just a drive-by and you know how prosecuting a drive-by can be. If all the assholes and related persons keep their mouths shut there’s not much we can do. The cop stared at his shaky hands and then stood. I need to get back to work now.

Rodeo stood and held out his hand but Overman walked past him and opened the office door.

Call next time, the TPD detective said.

*   *   *

Tucson, Arizona, is a schizophrenic place, a small city that feels like a big town divided into discernible sections based mostly on money and ethnicity or occupation or some hybrid admixture of these with most of the conservative Anglo retirees on the northern edges, protected in gated communities around golf courses, and with the liberal intelligentsia and college kids huddled around the University more or less in the middle of the valley, with military spreading out from Davis-Montham Air Force Base on the east side and with Mexicans and lowriders and cholos in South Tucson and increasingly in EastSide, and with bars and saloons and dives everywhere there were people, and a few places where there weren’t even many people.

The Buffet opened early for the chronic regulars and stayed open late for the acute frat boys and sorority girls who liked to slum. Rodeo established himself near one end of the horseshoe bar, took off his hat and laid it crown down on the carved-upon wood. He put his saddlebags with his laptop and maps and notebooks on a stool beside him. A middle-aged woman was behind the horseshoe bar, her glass eye fixed at some spot slightly above Rodeo’s left shoulder. Rodeo ordered a shot and a beer. The waitress slid a shot of house brand between his hands and placed an iced stein of beer on top of his twenty-dollar bill and moved away to wait on another customer. Rodeo threw back the shot and chased it with a long drink of Coors Light. There was not much custom in the place, not enough people to require conversation, so he pulled a spiral notebook from his bag and a Bic and started to work.

First he sketched the layout of Sam Rocha’s death with Starr Pass Road bridge as one boundary and A-Mountain as another with the Rio Santa Cruz in between. He drew an arrow showing Sam’s path across the bridge and Xs where the kid had most likely been hit on the bridge and where he had landed under the bridge. He drew a line from halfway up A-Mountain to the X. He drew a B for Billy on one side of the dry river.

You an artist, cowboy? the barkeeper asked.