The Long Fall (3 page)

At first, Evelyn had been shocked and hurt and dismayed by what she’d heard. There had to have been some mistake. She’d tried to be pleasant. She’d tried to get along. Somehow she’d failed horribly at both.

Eventually, though, something odd happened. She came to like those gossipy reactions, even take an odd sort of pride in them.

Suddenly she was a Bad Girl.

She again glances up at the clock. 1:45. Evelyn walks back to the break room. It’s empty. There’s a pot of coffee brewing, and the portable television in the corner is still on, tuned to an afternoon talk show. It’s a segment on Big Wish kids, five of them, three boys and two girls, all twelve and under, with terminal illnesses.

One of the boys says, “Sometimes when I wake up in the morning, it feels like there’s a fire in my bones.” He’s named Timmy and he’s eight years old, and he goes on to say he wants to visit the Grand Canyon and the Petrified Forest.

There’s a long sibilant hiss as the coffee finishes brewing. Evelyn closes her eyes for a moment and then crosses the room and turns off the television.

She walks back down the hall to the employee restroom. She locks herself in the first stall, lets out her breath, then sits down. She stretches her arms, pressing her hands on the walls to either side of her, then drops them back into her lap.

She watches the second hand circle the face of her watch.

She tries to imagine the need for a Big Wish and what hers would be.

T
he sun’s burning away what’s left of the morning, and the needle on the gas gauge is kissing empty when Jimmy pulls into the lot at Pete Samoa’s Pawn Emporium. There’s one other car parked out front.

Most of the surrounding buildings are one story and flat-roofed, fading and dirty and rundown, like paint was a relative they’d lost track of. A donut joint, a used tire shop, a twenty-four-hour Laundromat, a check-cashing service, and a package store are sandwiched between a string of empty storefronts covered in gang graffiti, obscenities, and oddly sequenced numbers resembling zip codes.

Just beyond a lethargic traffic light is a sun-baked playground empty of children but crawling with stray cats. At a glance, Jimmy figures there must be thirty or forty of them milling about, all of them scrawny and mange-ridden and yowling. At the edge of the grounds is an old man in a baseball cap, who’s methodically throwing pieces of gravel and chips of concrete at the cats and singing.

Jimmy burns down a Marlboro waiting for the owner of the other car to come out of the emporium and leave. He then flips back a canvas tarp in the truck bed and carries in a twenty-one-inch color television, a VCR, three CD players, a PC, and two plastic garbage bags filled with hubcaps.

Pete Samoa’s perched on a metal stool behind the long glass-faced counter fronting the register, his posture reminding Jimmy of a buzzard with its wings folded.

Nothing about Pete Samoa ever seemed to change. A little more gray at the temples now, but the same steel-rimmed bifocals punched back on his nose; the dark, sun-cured skin; the asymmetrical pencil-thin goatee resembling dried lines of chocolate syrup. The wardrobe’s a ditto, too. Blue pocket-T, plaid baggy Bermudas, black mesh shoes. A tiny gold crucifix lying in the hollow of his throat.

Pete climbs down from the stool and walks around the counter. He pulls a stub of a number two pencil from behind his ear and a small notebook from his pocket and begins itemizing what Jimmy’s set on the floor.

Jimmy looks around the emporium. Nothing’s changed there either. Row upon row of narrow and cluttered metal shelves filled with dusty hard-luck bargains. Half the fluorescent lights lining the ceiling burnt-out or buzzing. The stuff here, the straight pawn, covers the rent and utilities on the shop. What Jimmy brought in will end up in one of Pete’s three warehouses over in Avondale and will be fenced out within forty-eight hours.

Pete walks back around the counter, writes down a figure, rips the page from his notebook, and slides it across to Jimmy.

Jimmy glances at it, then looks down at his shoes. He then pulls a white handkerchief from his back pocket and offers it to Pete.

“I was thinking maybe you needed that for your glasses,” he says. “You know, maybe you had a speck on the lens there that you confused with a decimal point.”

Pete crosses his arms on his chest. “Glasses are fine, Jimmy.”

“Maybe it’s the light then,” Jimmy says, sliding the paper back across the counter. “You being too fucking cheap to replace the bulbs, the place like a cave here, you got some numbers reversed.”

“Best I can do,” Pete says, nodding at the slip of paper.

Next to the cash register is a plastic cup full of pens, the name of the shop and phone number on one side, the other holding a photo of an overly made-up middle-aged woman with an upswept mass of hair the color of butter. She’s wearing a black one-piece bathing suit that’s about two sizes too small. Jimmy lifts a pen and tilts it and watches the bathing suit drain away.

Pete shakes the cup and winks. “That’s Doris. The new Missus.”

Pete had been passing pens out at the Ocotillo the other night, and Jimmy supposes if you look at it from one perspective, shave away a few extenuating circumstances, you could see Pete Samoa as the prime mover in the series of events leading to Jimmy losing his job at the Old Wild West and Pete therefore owing him one.

“A little deeper in the pockets,” Jimmy says, dropping the pen back into the cup. “Come on.”

“What, come on? I’m looking at amateur hour here. What you do, hit one of the student ghettos over at Tempe?” Pete punches back his bifocals. “This is an embarrassment, Jimmy. At least bring me something I can work with.”

“A big score, huh, Pete, like maybe a tractor-trailer load of government-protected saguaros? A sure thing, that one. I follow up on your tip and end up looking at twenty-four months in Perryville.”

Pete shrugs. “No one twisted your arm. I heard something. I passed it on. It was entirely up to you what you did with that knowledge.”

Jimmy bites his lower lip and looks around the store, then turns back to the counter and picks up the slip of paper, studies it, puts it back down, and then picks it up again.

“Okay. Fine. Right there. Okay,” Jimmy says.

The thing is, on one level, Jimmy knows Pete’s right. A couple trash bags of hubcaps and some low-tech toys are strictly bottom-end action, a definite embarrassment, but until he can get a few things realigned, Jimmy needs some walking-around money.

Pete doesn’t punch up the sale on the register. Instead he brings out a squat metal box with a combo lock. He turns his back to open it. Jimmy watches him count out the bills.

“What the hell you doing?” he asks when Pete finishes. “You think I’m rusty on my basic math skills? That maybe I forgot how to add?”

Pete holds up an index finger. He pulls a small handgun from the front right pocket of his Bermudas and lays it next to the cash. “I thought you might want to take the balance out in trade,” he says.

“Why would you think that?” It’s a shitty little .22, the bluing on the barrel gone, the grip cracked and mended with electrical tape.

Pete looks up at the ceiling. “Because, Jimmy, I hear things. I stand behind this counter, and sometimes I sell things and sometimes I buy things, but mostly what I do is hear things. Your name and Ray Harp’s, for example,” he says, “have come up more than once of late, friend.”

Jimmy looks out toward the parking lot.

“Ray’s been on edge for a while now,” Pete says. “Things are tense between him and some of the Mexican gangs running crank labs. They aren’t very happy with the way Ray’s cutting up the pie.”

“What’s that got to do with me?”

“I shouldn’t have to explain this to you, Jimmy,” Pete says, dropping his hand and tapping the cylinder on the .22. “What I’m saying here is Ray has become more focused in his business practices since you went up. Considerably more focused. He can’t afford not to be. The Mex gangs are watching him, looking for any signs of weakness.”

You pick up a gun,
Jimmy thinks,
and it has a way of getting used.
He nudges the .22 over to Pete’s side of the counter. “I appreciate the thought, but I think I’ll stick with the cash.”

“Even if Ray has Newt Deems and Aaron Limbe out looking for you?” Pete asks, counting out the rest of the bills.

Jimmy starts rubbing the top of his head. Newt’s straight muscle. Jimmy can understand him coming around. But Aaron Limbe is a different story. He’s a wrinkle no iron can touch.

“Limbe’s working for Ray now?” Jimmy asks.

Pete nods.

“Look, do me a favor, will you?” Jimmy pulls the cash across the counter and crams it in the front pocket of his jeans. “If Newt or Limbe, they come back in here asking about me, you tell them as far as you know, everything’s copacetic, okay? Can you do that?”

Pete slowly lets out his breath and nods. “That’s as far as it goes though,” he says.

“I appreciate that. I really do.” Jimmy starts rubbing the top of his head again. “I may have gotten off on the wrong foot with Ray, but I’m working on straightening things out.”

Pete’s smiling but won’t look him in the eye. “I’m glad to hear that, Jimmy.”

Jimmy digs out his truck keys and turns to leave.

He’s just about made the door when Pete calls out to him. “Hey, I almost forgot. Sorry to hear about your old man. A hell of a thing, that. They let you out for the funeral?”

“No.” Jimmy leaves it at that. The last thing he wants is to get into a discussion about his father.

He palms the doorknob and tells Pete he’ll see him around.

Outside, the sun’s so bright it’s like a slap.

J
immy’s brother, Richard, owns and runs a string of dry-cleaning stores and keeps a central office in downtown Phoenix in a dark, somber, turn-of-the-century, stone building. From where Jimmy’s sitting he can look out the window past lines of palms and eucalypti and see snatches of traffic on Washington and beyond that, part of Wesley Brolin Plaza and the bright copper dome of the old capitol building with the white angel of mercy statue perched on its top like half of a wedding cake decoration.

Jimmy fights back a yawn. It’s 7:45, and he didn’t have time to grab coffee, let alone breakfast, to make the meeting with his brother on time. Harriett, the receptionist, had some decaf brewing, but Jimmy had passed on that one. As far as he’s concerned, decafs the equivalent of Elvis impersonators and Christian rock bands. All of them in one way or another missed the point.

A couple minutes later Jimmy hears the door open behind him, and Richard walks briskly across the office and stands behind his desk. Richard and Jimmy have never looked anything alike, not even as kids. Their father used to say that their genetic magnetic poles were reversed. Richard gets his looks from their mother and her side of the family. He’s tall and lanky, pushing six-four, one of those long-distance-runner physiques, with fair skin and fine straight hair not quite brown or blond, bones set close under the skin and sharpening his features. Jimmy, well, he’s always been close to the ground, five-eight in his socks, dark and thick, black hair and two shaves a day like the old man. Swarthy, his mom called him.

Richard’s wearing one of those tan lightweight khaki suits with ruler-straight creases, a pale blue shirt, and a dark knit tie. He takes in Jimmy’s sneakers, jeans, and T-shirt with a glance and sits down.

“I wondered how long it would take,” he says.

“Nice to see you, too,” Jimmy says.

Richard lets that one go by. He turns and boots up his computer. The logo for Frontier Cleaners flashes on the screen—a neon saguaro cactus with a citrus-colored sun perched on its top right arm—followed by a quick burst of music that Jimmy doesn’t recognize.

Richard swivels his head and studies him, then goes back to the computer screen, clicking on his e-mail and typing in a password. “I’m assuming this visit’s about dad’s estate and why you’re just getting around to doing something about it.”

“Hey, I’m here. Okay?”

“Not okay, Jimmy. Far from okay.” Richard slides his chair back behind the desk. “Did you know the back taxes and your share of the probate costs are due on the West Dobbins parcel before the end of the month? Any ideas on how you plan to pay them?”

“I’m working on it.” Jimmy glances at his watch. Fifteen minutes. About the average before he feels like punching out his brother. Even as a kid, Richard had the superior attitude. Mr. Chapter and Verse. Mr. Median Strip to Jimmy’s passing lanes.

“I knew it would come to this,” Richard says.

Jimmy tries to ignore the growling in his stomach while Richard checks in with his lecture mode, pointing out what Jimmy’s already aware of, that unless he can find the cash to cover the back taxes, he’ll lose his share of the inheritance. The farmhouse and the twenty acres it sits on will end up auctioned off. Richard tells him the developers have already picked up the scent and begun circling like wolves.

“That land’s been in the family for three generations,” Richard adds. “I don’t know what dad was thinking when he left it to you.”

“Grandpa,” Jimmy says. “He did it because Grandpa wanted me to have it.”

“And now you’re going to uphold the tradition of fucking up just like he did.” Richard again can’t keep himself from pushing things in Jimmy’s face, citing the obvious family parallels between Jimmy and his namesake, James Earl Coates, who at one time had been one of the largest cattle ranchers in the Maricopa Valley and who in a gaudy and inglorious trajectory of high living and poor planning had gone on to lose the bulk of the land and assets he’d amassed during his seventy-nine years.

“So what are you going to do?” Richard asks.

“You’re really enjoying this, aren’t you?”

Richard leans back in his chair. “Enjoyable is not exactly how I’d characterize a visit with you, Jimmy. Predictable, maybe. Tiresome, certainly.” Richard stretches, latching his fingers behind his neck.