DANNY STEERED THE rental car out of the lot at Phoenix Sky Harbor, followed the GPS directions for the Ak-Chin Pavilion to the west of the city. A Mexican eatery near there, with a bar, popular with the locals, he’d been told.
This goddamn heat. Christ, he was used to the cool of San Francisco, never too hot, never too cold. Not like this. The goddamn air cooked the inside of his throat. He’d made the mistake of putting his hand on the hood of the Chevrolet when he collected the car, and it recoiled as if he’d stuck it on an electric burner.
The journey took twenty minutes along the highway, then only a handful of turns until the sprawling grounds of the amphitheater came into view. He headed west for two blocks and found the restaurant. A hand-painted sign over the door, big red letters, green cacti wearing sombreros. Plenty of space at the curb this time of day, he pulled in.
Danny put his fingers to the door handle and braced himself. The car’s AC had barely begun to cool it down, and sweat pooled in the small of his back, in the crack of his ass. He opened the door, and the heat roared at him.
A few paces took him to the restaurant door. Inside, ice-cold air gushed down from an AC unit over the threshold. He stayed there for a moment, savored the feel of it on his body. A young Hispanic woman approached, took a menu from the table by the sign that said PLEASE WAIT TO BE SEATED.
‘For one?’ she asked, a broad smile on her face.
Danny returned the smile. ‘Hey, how are you? I’m here to see George. I think he’s expecting me.’
Her smile disappeared. ‘Wait right here,’ she said and dashed over to the bar to speak with a large man. His black hair was greased back, his arms sleeved with tattoos. He glanced over at Danny as the girl spoke. He lifted a telephone receiver, spoke a few words, listened, then hung up before saying something to the girl.
She came back to Danny, nervous now, and said, ‘This way, please.’
He followed her to the restaurant’s dim interior, weaving through the tables and the scattering of afternoon diners. A doorway veiled by stringed beads, the sign above reading PRIVATE DINING. The girl slipped a hand between the beads, pulled them back to allow Danny to step through. On the other side, the beads rattled and whispered across his back as she let them go.
The room held one large circular table. Big enough to seat a dozen comfortably, more if patrons were willing to touch elbows. It had been set for a gathering, a clean white cloth, sparkling cutlery and glasses. At one of the chairs, George Lin.
‘Long time, Danny Doe Jai,’ George said.
‘Ten years,’ Danny said.
‘I was sorry to hear about your wife and your little girl. No man should have to deal with that shit. Come, sit down.’
Danny walked around the table, took a chair two away from George’s. A little more than arm’s length. He wasn’t afraid of George Lin, but that didn’t mean he trusted him.
Danny cast his eyes around the room. ‘Mexican?’
‘When in Arizona,’ George said.
‘How can you stand this heat?’
‘What, you don’t like it? It’s always wet and cold in San Fran. Here, it’s summer all year long. Why do you think I moved out here? I got a pool in my yard and everything.’
Danny shook his head. ‘I don’t think I could take it. Drive me crazy after a while.’
George smiled. ‘Man, just chill out and eat some ice cream, drink some water, you’ll be fine. Anyway, you ain’t here to talk about the weather.’
He reached under the tablecloth for something on the seat to the far side of him. A large padded envelope, creased and torn. He set it on the table, a weighty clunk from within.
‘Here you go,’ George said as he sat back, one hand waving at the envelope. ‘Check it out, see if it fits.’
Danny pulled the envelope toward himself, parted the opening with his fingers, peered inside. He tipped it up and a Smith & Wesson Model 60 tumbled out, followed by three boxes of ammunition and a speedloader.
George tapped each box in turn. ‘Hollow point .357, FMJ .357, and FMJ .38 Special. Unless you’re thinking of starting a war out here, I figure that should cover you.’
Danny lifted the pistol, kept the short muzzle aimed at the wall, and opened the cylinder to check that the five charge chambers were empty. He gave it a spin, closed it, then cocked and dry-fired three times.
‘That’ll do,’ he said. He packed the pistol and the ammo back into the envelope.
George extended his open hand. Danny fished a roll of bills out of his pocket, counted out hundreds into George’s palm.
When he was satisfied, George asked, ‘So, you just doing some target practice while you’re here?’
‘Something like that,’ Danny said as he grabbed the envelope and stood to leave. ‘Good to see you again, George.’
As he walked to the beaded doorway, George called after him.
‘Whatever you got going on, Danny Doe Jai, just be careful, all right?’
Danny glanced back over his shoulder and said, ‘I’ll try.’
He slipped through the hanging beads, back out through the restaurant, the package under his arm. The young lady who’d greeted him gave him a nervous smile as he passed on his way to the door. As he reached the cool draft of the AC unit, a thought occurred to him. He turned back to the girl.
‘Hey,’ he said. ‘Is there a hardware store near here?’
20
THE SUITED MAN extended his hand across the table and said, ‘My name is Todd Hendry, I’m a public defender.’
The chain rattled as Audra lifted her hand to shake his. ‘You’re what?’
‘I’m your attorney,’ he said.
The interview room’s fluorescent light reflected off his freckled scalp. He placed a thin file, a notepad, and a pen on the table as he sat down.
‘Why are you here?’ Audra asked.
‘You can’t go to an arraignment without representation,’ he said. ‘Well, you can, but I wouldn’t advise it.’
‘Arraignment?’
‘The possession with intent charge,’ Hendry said. ‘The hearing’s in an hour. Didn’t they tell you?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘All they’ve done is question me about my children.’
Another session with Mitchell last night, one first thing this morning. The same questions over and over, the same answers. No matter how often she told the FBI agent that Whiteside and Collins had taken Sean and Louise, that her husband had to be behind it, Mitchell kept turning it around, pointing the question back at her. And always that kindness in her eyes and in her voice.
At one point this morning, during a brief break in the questioning, when she was alone with the patrolman in this room, an idea crept into Audra’s addled head: What if she really had hurt her children? What if they were right? Maybe her mind couldn’t cope with the truth, so she had created another reality? None of this felt quite real, did it?
That had been the closest she’d come to breaking. She had felt herself crumble, like a wall with no foundation.
Hendry opened the file, what looked like some sort of police report, clicked his pen, and placed the tip close to the pad. ‘So, tell me exactly what happened on the morning of the fifth.’
She told him. The general store by the roadside, Whiteside’s car parked out front, driving away, the flashing lights in her mirror, the stop, the search.
‘Wait a moment,’ Hendry said. ‘Before Sheriff Whiteside opened the trunk of your car, did he seek your consent to search it?’
‘No,’ Audra said.
‘Was the bag of marijuana visible from outside the vehicle?’
‘It was never in my car in the first place. He planted it there to—’
Hendry raised a hand. ‘Listen, let’s not say anything about planting things in your car. Assuming – just assuming – the marijuana was in fact in your car, where he found it, would it have been visible from outside the vehicle?’
‘No,’ Audra said. ‘He reached under some blankets to get it, but it wasn’t—’
‘That’s all I need to know,’ Hendry said, smiling.
Judge Miller peered over the top of her glasses, her gaze somewhere over Audra’s shoulder.