Falling Down Read online

  Yes, it was my own home.

  Built by a surgeon in the ’70s before the gold rush in real estate. Southeast of Sunset and Swann, you drop down into a small ravine and then climb a hill overlooking all of Tucson. Picnic table on the roof, a memory of my early years in Tuba City. Random wooden chairs from garage sales.

  I’d sit up there and watch the sun rise, or set, or streak through monsoon clouds and create double and triple rainbows.

  I helped the surgeon disprove a multimillion-dollar malpractice suit brought by a family of nine, I didn’t care much about the details, I just uncovered a history of past crash-car insurance scams. Buy four junkers. Cruise along U.S.-10 at seventy miles an hour, lock on to a Benz or Beemer, then box it between all four junkers and the guy driving the front car, they’ve disconnected the brake lights, he hits the brakes hard, and wham, it’s a huge lawsuit.

  The surgeon had properties all over the world. Could have paid my fee with cash, but the guy was so grateful, he gave me the home on the hill with the view. He never told me the place was lousy with pack rats. After five weeks they chewed through several cables on my Jeep Cherokee.

  Gates circled back to the table, pulled out a ladder-back wooden chair.

  “Sorry I had to come here,” he said. “Tried your office for a week.”

  “I’m retired.”

  “Still. I hate bringing this to your home, instead of your office.”

  “I don’t want to contract out to TPD. I really am retired. I quit.”

  “Not what I hear.”

  “I’ve got a good life here.”

  “Laura, I know you’ve got a good man, a loving daughter, and you’re gaga over a granddaughter. And where are your girls?”

  “Spider’s got a full-time job with flex hours, her baby always with her.”

  “And this baby, this granddaughter, what’s her name?”

  “Sarah Katherine.”

  As Gates settled into the chair, two of the lower rungs popped out and he nearly fell over when the chair collapsed. Not bothered, he pulled another chair over and sat down. Quick mover for a big guy. Gates somewhere in his fifties. He’d been with TPD for a thousand years. Instead of wearing his lieutenant’s uniform, he dressed for himself and not the job:

  pressed khakis

  Tommy Bahama silk Hawaiian shirt

  Paul Bond lizardskin boots

  The shirt had a blue flower-and-bird pattern, buttoned at the neck and color-coordinated with his light gray jacket. He removed his jacket, folded it across the back of another chair.

  “Want some sun tea?” I said.

  “I’d love some.”

  “No ice.”

  He shrugged. I pulled two large jelly glasses from a wooden cabinet, poured the tea. Set the glasses out on some paper napkins from Risky Business, poured the tea, and sipped it while Gates rotated his glass around and around, adjusting the napkin, finally tasting the tea. People mask and delay their real intentions by eating or drinking, by fiddling with glasses and plates and utensils and napkins, getting them in some order while they carefully work out in their head just how and what they’re going to say.

  Usually, the more they fiddle, the worse the message.

  “You read the local papers?” he asked.

  “Not much.”

  “But you’ve heard that we’ve got problems with drug smuggling?”

  “Drugs?” I said. “Yeah. The Star runs a drug story every day now.”

  “Reporters don’t know jack. A bust in South Tucson, front-page news. How much do you know about the mara cartels laundering money through Arizona banks?”

  “I quit hacking into bank records two years ago. I do nothing illegal anymore.”

  “And what if it was legal?”

  He’d been fiddling with a naugahyde briefcase under the table. Reached down, laid it flat but unopened on the table.

  “Heard you also quit taking autopsy photos,” Gates said.

  “You brought pictures of dead people to my house?”

  One hand hesitated on the briefcase, waiting for encouragement.

  “Drugs and dead people,” I said. “Not my line of work.”

  “Nope. But bank records, you can track money transfers. Legal or illegal.”

  “Illegal? Drug money?”

  “Drugs, extortion, gambling…we don’t yet understand the size of this operation. Bodies piling up, somebody new taking control of organized crime, from Nogales north to Tucson. It’s backward logic. With so many bodies, there has to be a lot of money moving somewhere.”

  “Where?”

  “No idea,” Gates said. “Our people can’t find anything.”

  “But it’s connected to a bad cop?”

  “I think it’s connected.” Hands out, palms up, shoulders rising and falling a few inches, the universal shrug of I don’t know. “We’ve been friends a long time, Laura. You know a gut feeling when it hits. My gut tells me, this is all connected.”

  “Please tell me you’ve checked this out on your own.”

  “As far as I can, without telling anybody…yeah, I’ve looked.”

  “And?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You’ve come at the wrong time, Bob. I’m trying to phase out of my business, not take in more work.”

  “You’re the only licensed PI in your company.”

  “That’s a poor argument, you know it. Computer searches, data mining, it’s a whole new world. Half my employees are MBAs. And a lawyer on board, to keep us strictly legit, and to get court orders and financial search orders. PIs aren’t like Sam Spade anymore.”

  “So there’s no use appealing to you as a good citizen?”

  I snorted, poured myself some more sun tea. A blend of Red Zinger and slices of jalapeño peppers. Gates wandered around the rooftop, shaded his eyes to look over the Santa Catalina Mountains piled high behind the house. Seated again, he pulled off his lizardskin boots and socks, stretched his feet into the sun.

  “Would you do it as a favor to me?” he said.

  Briefcase on his lap, opened, one hand inside, waiting.

  “I think I saw this movie,” I said finally. “Manhunter, from that Harris book Red Dragon. Where the FBI man brings photos of two happy families, wanting to sink the hook of interest for a retired investigator.”

  “TPD needs your help.”

  “I don’t work drug cases.”

  “It’s not about drugs. Or bank records. We’ve got a bad cop.”

  “Whoever it is, you know how to deal with them. You’ve got Internal Affairs, or whatever you call it.”

  “Office of Internal Affairs.”

  “So? Deal with the it.”

  “Don’t know who it is.”

  The whole thing shaped up, right then, I realized what he wanted, my eyes opening with the insight, and Bob saw my eyes and nodded.

  “Oh, no,” I said. “Bob, that’s, you want me to run an investigation?”

  “Computer records need checking. Got to be done by somebody from outside TPD.”

  “No way, Bob.”

  Stroking his briefcase, still making no move to open it.

  “You ever hear of these new gangs called maras?” he said. “All kinds of facial tattoos?”

  “El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras…probably in LA?”

  “For the last five months, the maras have been systematically taking over all Tucson drug networks. Weed, coke, white and black tar heroin.”

  “That’s not been in the papers,” I said. “Bob. You’ve got a lot of TPD people working this. I can’t see where I’d help in any way. I’m retired here. I want to shuck off most of my life.”

  “The presidential vote,” Gates said. “Just last fall. You volunteered to help detect electronic voting fraud.”

  “That was politics. I didn’t want my guy to lose.”

  “He lost anyway. Besides, knowing you, Laura, it’s mainly you that doesn’t want to lose. Look. If you don’t want to hear any more about why I’m here,
I’d understand that. I’d leave. Will you hear me out first?”

  He unsnapped the brass clasps of his briefcase, raised the top, swiveled the briefcase around for me to look inside. Two tabbed manila folders. A Glock nine.

  “Two propositions on the table,” Gates said, removing the folders. “Help us. You get back your PI license. And you get back your Glock.”

  All sound stopped. No breeze, no birds, no traffic, Nathan wasn’t snipsnipping. One of those moments where people say:

  An angel just fell.

  I nodded.

  He’d set the hook well. My computer forensics business depended, in part, in being legal, on my having a valid Arizona private investigator’s license.

  “After that casino deal last year, where you and your boyfriend hustled the casino manager out of his own place with guns in his back, well, the ISB assistant chief wants you totally out of business. Cancel your PI license, cancel your gun-carry permit.”

  He opened a folder. The top page was the TPD organizational chart.

  “Professional Standards Division,” Gates said. “See this blank box down here? Narcotics Conspiracy Section. We want to add a special section. Hasn’t even got a name. Headed by…”

  Wet his right thumb, slid the org chart off, showing a large color photo.

  “Jordan Kligerman. TPD up-and-comer. Tough man. An accountant, except he doesn’t know jack about computer hacking. He’s already got a staff of three people. You’d report as a civilian. Contracted, paid off the books, but equivalent pay of top detective. Sixty, seventy thousand.”

  He knew the money was not why I’d consider the offer.

  “What’s this guy like?”

  “Between you and me, Kligerman is a pogue. A desk cowboy. Never rode patrol, never worked a crime scene. Strictly an accountant, but somebody you’d never want to underestimate. If you do this.”

  “Bob, why would I do this?”

  “A lot of street people are dying. For every gangbanger involved in drugs, these maras are killing three, four, hell, whole families of civilians.”

  “How many?”

  “Laura. This is totally off the record. So far, near’s we can figure, the maras have killed almost one hundred twenty-five people. But that’s really not the worst thing of all.”

  Underneath Kligerman’s file, a white envelope stuffed with pictures. Gates started to pull out a few snaps, but I laid my hand over the envelope.

  “Not here, Bob.”

  “They’re not dead,” he said.

  “Just tell me who they are. I don’t care, right now, I don’t care about what they look like.”

  “They’re children.”

  “Children?”

  “Teenagers, mostly,” he said. “Being used as drug mules.”

  “Carrying?”

  “Swallowing.”

  “Good God,” I said.

  “They’re conditioned to swallow twenty, thirty…a whole lot of small balloons of heroin. They cross over alone or with rental parents. Once in a while, a balloon breaks. We’re talking almost pure heroin. Right from Afghanistan, suppliers of at least ninety percent of the world’s heroin. It’s so pure, if a balloon breaks inside somebody’s intestine, no way they live.”

  “Jesus,” I said. “Bob, I mean, where’s the dotted line here? Between teenage drug mules and a bad cop?”

  “No dotted line. Just a guess. An educated guess. Special drug raids, kept secret from all but top planners, some of these raids go sour. Somebody’s tipped off. We set a sting, a fake raid. Somebody talked.”

  “Somebody inside TPD?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you don’t know who.”

  “No.”

  “And you want me to…what, Bob?

  Gates hesitated, shoved the snapshots back into his briefcase. Laid the Glock in front of me, closed the case lid, and snapped it shut.

  “Do you ever hear any of these names? Rogelio González Pizaña, known as El Kelín? Osiel Cárdenas Guillén? A gang of assassins called Zetas?”

  “No. What’s in the other folder, Bob?”

  “Our first break,” he said. “In the gangbanger hoods, people are afraid to talk. This woman is completely different.”

  Opened the other folder. No picture, just a single sheet of paper with a name and a phone number, below it a long résumé:

  birth date

  job history

  married, now widowed

  “This woman called three days ago. Asked for me only.”

  “Mary…Em…itch?” I said.

  “Pronounced Em-ick. Spelled with the h at the end. German name. She’s the director of Visitor Services at Tohono Chul.”

  “The park?”

  “Yeah. I’ve never been there. You?”

  I nodded, not going to tell him the story of Tigger and the deaf pharmacist, my first murder case after moving to Tucson. Five long years ago.

  “What’s the connection?” I said.

  “This Emich woman, she claims she’s got a computer lead to the maras.”

  “What lead?”

  “Won’t tell TPD unless we send a computer expert to the park. Something about protecting a daughter of hers. I called the number she gave us, she’s a real person, didn’t want to talk on the phone. I thought about pitching this idea to Kligerman…since he wants you on his team, I figured you’d be perfect to talk to the woman. But I decided to keep this woman just between you and me.”

  “How complete’s her résumé?”

  He chuckled. “Got it off the Internet.”

  “How solid is her information?”

  “Totally off the record?”

  “Okay.”

  “An ex-cop works at the park. Director of all the volunteers. He’s a good friend of Mary Emich, he’s a longtime good friend of mine. Ken Charvoz.”

  Pronounced like a French name. Charveau.

  “Undercover detective, retired with heavy medical disabilities. Emich saw something on his computer, she asked him what to do. Ken called me personally. Nobody else knows about it. But I trust Ken’s instincts. I want it checked out by the best person I can find. That’s you.”

  I heard voices below, went to the roof’s edge and saw Spider, lifting Sarah Katherine out of her stroller. Nathan knelt beside them, rubbed Sarah Katherine’s cheek as he stared up at me. Spider carried her baby to the small pool downhill from the house, lowering the baby’s legs into the water, up to the knees. Sarah Katherine shrieked with delight. Spider jerked off her sandals, sat poolside, their legs wiggling together in the clear blue water.

  Spider turned on a boombox, cranked up Ruben Blades and Willie Colon doing Siembra. She lifted Sarah Katherine and began a dance routine.

  “My God,” Gates said. “What is she doing?”

  “Dancing. Salsa.”

  “She’s really good,” Gates said.

  “Well, she teaches.”

  “Teaches…what?”

  “Dancing.”

  Spider’s hips rotated in her own blend of salsa and merengue.

  “I hear it from car CD players. Never knew what it was.”

  “She dances, she teaches, she practices…right now, she’s tuned out most of the world except for her baby and salsa.”

  “Good-looking baby,” Gates said.

  “I’ll fix you some lunch,” I said, “but I don’t have much time.”

  “Nope. Can’t stay. Section meeting in an hour, they’ll want to know about you. Whether you’ll come on board.”

  “All legal claims dropped, I keep my PI license?” He nodded. “I couldn’t care less about the gun. I’ve got another gun. It’s not licensed. You’ll square that?” Nodded again. “Okay. I’ll talk to this Emich woman. If there’s an honest lead, you turn it over to TPD staff and at that point, I’m clear. Out of it, altogether.”

  “Sounds like a start.”

  “No, Bob. That’ll be the end.”

  “Can I ask…why?”

  I left him alone at the table
for at least three or four minutes. Thinking about the job. Watching Spider and Sarah Katherine dunking their heads into the pool, Spider demonstrating how to flick her head around and spin off water beads. Sarah Katherine, almost two, insisted on spinning her whole body.

  “I’m not…I guess the word would be, I guess I’m unsympathetic.”

  “Just a computer job. Just what you love to do.”

  “Bob. I don’t know if I’m that passionate about computers anymore. Besides, anything that starts with drugs and cartels and gangs will get messy. Right now, life is messy enough. I love my house, I love the people in my life, I don’t much enjoy the outside world anymore. Down here, near the border, it’s only going to get worse.”

  Bob watched Spider dangle Sarah Katherine’s feet in the pool.

  “This Mary Emich,” he said. “She’s got a daughter. You’ve got a daughter. The teenage drug mules that die, they’re somebody’s daughter.”

  “You goddamn bastard,” I said. “You son of a bitch. Drugs and daughters, that’s just, that’s just low.”

  “Ah, Laura. I’m really, I didn’t mean it that way. I’m so sorry I said that, I really didn’t mean to say, to make a connection with your daughter.”

  But I knew he really did say that intentionally. Truth to tell, I do have a daughter. I can’t imagine her in harm’s way, I can’t imagine what I’d do, living with any threat of harm.

  “Let me get this straight,” I said. “You’ve got a bad cop. A traitor, somewhere inside TPD. You want me to be…what, a spy? What do they call it, you want me to be a mole?”

  “Yes.”

  “And who would know what I’m doing?”

  “A very few, a very small, select, and trusted group of people.”

  “But I’d be at risk.”

  “No risk. You’d be hired in a bogus position. To advise TPD in setting up a Computer Crimes Department.”

  “But if the wrong person found out what I was doing?”

  “Wouldn’t happen,” Bob said.

  “Oh, yeah. Sure. Just like you wouldn’t have a bad cop working with teenage drug mules and Mexican crime cartels.”

  “The risk would be remote,” Bob said. “We’d set up firewalls.”