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  16

  Willie Drumm surveyed the desert. The sun was up, darkness banished. He said, ‘Different place in daylight. Striking, if you like miles and miles of nothing.’

  Amanda gazed at shadows in the distant foothills. A hawk crossed the sun with lazy ease. Four patrol cars, doors hanging open, were parked among cacti near the Datsun that contained Isabel’s possessions. Uniformed officers stood round in groups and drank coffee from vacuum flasks. She counted a dozen men.

  Among them she noticed Drumm’s superior, Police Chief Dan Kelloway, long neck and lean concave body and shaven head. A fitness freak, he was reputed to cycle 20 miles every morning before breakfast and survive on a diet of almonds and yoghurt. He was tanned and tall and wore an off-white suit, and his posture was invariably rigid. Between her and Kelloway was a chill zone, a permafrost which had its origins in a bitter disagreement a year earlier over a case Kelloway had been desperate to bring to trial. Amanda had considered the police evidence circumstantial, and the case – involving a young black man with the unfortunate name of Hood, who’d been caught in possession of a gun used in the fatal shooting of a pregnant white woman during a robbery – altogether unworthy of the court’s time. Kelloway’s frustration and anger with her opinion had been volcanic. He accused her of dereliction of duty, wilfulness, stupidity, hawking up a whole thesaurus of insults. It had seemed to her at the time that Kelloway’s vibrating rage went some way deeper than the flawed Hood affair, as if he were driven by other more subterranean resentments she’d never quite figured out and didn’t have the inclination to try.

  She said, ‘The brass is in evidence, I see.’

  ‘Yeah. I guess he wanted to put in an appearance. The mood to get involved overtakes him. When he’s not playing Mussolini at the office.’

  Drumm ticked out a list on his fingers. ‘OK, this is what we got: two shoes, one with a heel broken. One car, flat tyre. Assorted items of junk-food containers. One map of the United States in the glove box. Clothing and more footwear. Some blood in the vicinity, but significantly no corpse. We did find some dog hair, though.’

  Amanda was barely listening. She stared at the car. ‘New Mexico plates.’

  ‘Yeah, we ran those already,’ Drumm said. ‘The car was stolen in Farmington.’

  ‘Farmington?’

  ‘What was she doing in Farmington, you wonder,’ Drumm remarked. ‘I couldn’t even hazard a guess. Where she’s been, what brought her back here. The only thing I can come up with is maybe she travelled all the way just to see you, Amanda. She was in some kind of trouble and you were the only one she could turn to.’

  ‘She was supposed to be beyond trouble, Willie. That was the whole point.’

  ‘She didn’t trust anyone else but you. God knows, I spent hours trying to get through to her, but she never told me much. Must be the woman’s touch.’

  ‘Must be,’ Amanda said. A tuft of dog hair, New Mexico plates, a carload of fast-food wrappers – it was like a list of ingredients you could never turn into a digestible concoction. She tried to picture Isabel driving long frantic distances to see her, ending up out here, panicked and forlorn and alone.

  A patrol car appeared out on the flats. It kicked up a storm of orange dust as it approached. A uniformed cop, a sandy-haired, square-faced man with a moustache, stepped out of the car. Amanda recognized him as Sergeant Thomas Gannon.

  He nodded at Amanda and said, ‘Ms Scholes. Nice to see you again.’

  ‘Sergeant,’ she said.

  Gannon said to Drumm, ‘The tyre tracks you’re interested in go way out there into that canyon where it’s rough terrain, so we’re looking at an off-the-road vehicle for sure. I couldn’t take the car up there, no way.’

  Amanda gazed off into the foothills again where shadows created sinister pools. The sun burned into her eyes and when she turned her face to the side her sight was streaked with zigzagging lines and flashes.

  Drumm said, ‘We’ll send up a chopper.’

  Sergeant Gannon said, ‘No stone unturned, Ms Scholes.’ He laid the palm of his hand on his pistol. ‘I liked the woman.’

  ‘Yeah, we were all fans,’ said Drumm with a small forlorn note in his voice.

  We were all fans. An epitaph, Amanda thought.

  Drumm said, ‘I know what you’re thinking.’

  ‘You know a lot more than me then.’

  ‘We’re gonna have US Marshals from the Program coming in droves. Probably guys from Justice. You can count on that,’ Drumm said and touched her arm. ‘Your best bet is to walk away. Walk the fuck away and keep walking and don’t look back.’

  ‘Or I’ll be turned into a pillar of salt,’ she said.

  ‘Go live your life with John. Get your priorities straight.’

  Amanda went back in the direction of the red VW. She was aware of Kelloway approaching.

  ‘Miss Scholes,’ he said.

  She turned to him. Sun gleamed on his shaven head. He resembled a predatory bird, the nose a beak created for ripping flesh.

  ‘Morbid curiosity bring you out here?’ he asked.

  He had a habit of attributing sleazy motives to people.

  ‘I’m curious,’ she said. ‘Morbid doesn’t come into it.’

  ‘I don’t need to remind you that this is strictly police business,’ he said.

  ‘No, you don’t need to remind me.’

  ‘I should hang a sign: “Civilians Keep Out.”’

  ‘I have a stake in Isabel,’ she said.

  ‘Had a stake. Had. Past tense. And I don’t want you out here interfering with any of my guys.’

  He made it sound like she had sexual molestation of uniformed officers in mind. He was more eclipse than human being, she thought. He enjoyed the dark little satisfactions he got from flexing authority.

  ‘I’d love to chat more with you because it’s always such a life-affirming experience, Kelloway, but I’m pushed for time.’ She moved past him and sat behind the wheel of her car.

  He stuck his face close to the window and smiled. He had a gold filling in an upper-left bicuspid. ‘You’re history, lady. Remember that. Any rights and privileges you enjoyed before, they’re null and void. Your visa’s withdrawn. Your credit’s wiped.’

  ‘Thanks for reminding me,’ she said.

  ‘My, do I hear testy,’ Kelloway said and brought his face a little nearer. ‘Guess what?’

  ‘Astonish me,’ she said.

  ‘Our old acquaintance Hood, the one you figured had a halo round his head?’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘Busted him last night for illegal possession of firearms and conspiracy to distribute crack cocaine.’

  She stared straight ahead. ‘I hope it stands up,’ she said.

  ‘Oh this one’s watertight. This one’s not falling apart because of some petty misgivings of the lady prosecutor.’

  She turned the key in the ignition. ‘They weren’t petty, Kelloway.’

  ‘They were piss-ant, and you know it.’

  ‘Up yours,’ she said.

  She turned the car in a circle and headed for the road. She waved at Drumm and then glanced once in the rear-view mirror and saw Kelloway smile, and then he was gone, leaving a reflection of the barren desert. She drove a few miles before she’d shaken Kelloway completely out of her system.

  17

  She found Bascombe in a coffee-shop near the Federal Building. He was halfway through a buttered bagel when she slid into the booth alongside him.

  ‘I see our concerned citizen is also an early bird,’ Bascombe said. ‘How did you track me down?’

  ‘I asked a secretary. You know why I’m here.’

  Bascombe finished his bagel. ‘I had a copy of a report from the Phoenix PD filed by Lieutenant Drumm. I know about your desert jaunt last night.’

  ‘There was another jaunt this morning,’ she said. ‘I just got back from it. She’s not out there. If she is, she’s buried deep. Drumm had a dozen men looking. Including God, in
the form of Kelloway.’

  Bascombe sipped his coffee and looked impassive.

  Amanda said, ‘First Galindez, now Isabel. Face it, there’s a serious breakdown here. There’s a fatal flaw.’

  ‘Yes, yes, there is,’ Bascombe said. He rubbed his eyes, which were faintly bloodshot.

  ‘You sent off your report on Galindez?’

  ‘Immediately after you left my office yesterday afternoon, a fax went out.’

  ‘You’ve heard nothing?’

  ‘Amanda, they don’t break open the brandy and the cigars because Lew Bascombe happens to send a message. A fax comes through, somebody picks it up, then it has to be directed to the person responsible.’

  ‘What about Isabel? Have you reported that? Did you mention the fact that she phoned me last night in a state of distress?’

  ‘Done. Half an hour ago. Another fax.’

  Amanda crushed out her cigarette. ‘Did you mark it urgent?’

  ‘I drew attention to the fact that both Galindez and Mrs Sanchez were prosecution witnesses in the Victor Sanchez trial.’

  ‘What does that mean? Drew attention?’

  ‘It means I pointed out the background shared between Galindez and Mrs Sanchez. I cross-linked.’

  ‘Is this Fed-speak I’m hearing, Lew?’

  ‘You asked me what I’d done. I told you.’

  ‘Drew their attention, for God’s sake. Cross-linked? Why didn’t you come right out and say the security’s fucked? Why didn’t you phone them? Why didn’t you speak to a living human being? A fax. You don’t even know if anybody ever receives a fax. They can go off into the ether sometimes. Mars.’

  ‘These things are done by the book,’ Bascombe said. ‘The book says words on paper. The permanence of a written record.’

  ‘Yesterday you were a rebel, Lew. What happened to you overnight?’

  ‘What I did yesterday was a personal favour to you.’

  ‘And I’m grateful.’

  ‘But I can’t ignore the guidelines all the time. I can’t just disregard them because some former prosecutor with a bug up her ass breezes into my office.’

  ‘A bug up my ass,’ she said. ‘That’s a goddam funny way of describing my reaction to two dead people.’

  ‘One dead anyway. The other isn’t so clear-cut.’

  ‘Because there’s no corpse? Lew, I want to believe she’s still alive, but even if by some remote chance she’s wandering around the goddam desert barefoot and seeing visions of the Blessed Virgin on account of dehydration, the fact remains – security is shot. That’s what this is all about.’

  Amanda lapsed into silence. There was a fuse burning in her head. She could hear it hiss. She lit another cigarette. She smiled at Lewis Bascombe and changed the tone of her voice to something more reasonable. ‘OK, I’m calmed down.’

  ‘And better for it,’ he remarked.

  She kept the smile fixed on her face, but Jesus it was an effort. ‘If security’s on the fritz, Lew, you’d think they’d want to act at once. You’d think they’d go like greased lightning. You’d also think they’d be having a quiet word with Victor Sanchez, seeing as how he’s the choice suspect here.’

  ‘They’ll talk to Sanchez, Amanda. Obviously he’ll be top of their agenda. Just because I haven’t heard, it doesn’t mean they’re not doing anything. Of course they’ll act fast. They’re not obliged to keep me informed of everything they do. In fact, they don’t have to tell me a goddam thing.’

  ‘So you sit in the dark, knowing nothing.’

  ‘I’m just the guy who beats a drum. They hear it, they do something.’

  ‘And they don’t tell you what.’

  ‘They don’t have to.’

  ‘Secrets and more secrets.’

  ‘That’s how they designed it.’

  ‘They didn’t design it all that well, did they, Lew? Not if somebody can ferret out witnesses –’

  ‘The best-laid plans.’ Bascombe picked up the check, rummaged in his billfold, left a five-dollar bill on the table. ‘I have to get back.’

  ‘Tell me one thing, Lew. Is this the end of it? Do we never hear anything again? Do we never get to the root of it all? Why it happened. Why these two people weren’t properly protected. How security was breached. Is this where it finishes?’

  ‘I can’t even answer a simple question like that,’ Bascombe said, and moved towards the door.

  Amanda sat for a time after Bascombe had gone, then she rose to leave. She had a moment of dizziness when she stepped outside. Too many cigarettes and no food, the way it had been before she’d quit, before she’d decided to make her break for freedom and good health.

  Except she wasn’t free. She thought she’d dynamited her way out of the cave.

  But she hadn’t.

  18

  In his hotel room Anthony Dansk flicked through a sex sheet, studying the ads for escort services. He liked hookers because they filled up a space inside. Fast-food sex, hygienic disposable wrapper. He liked how hookers didn’t linger after, fishing for affection. They came and went with minimum fuss, just a basic lube job and thanks for the business.

  When his phone rang he picked it up and heard McTell say, ‘I’m in the bar.’

  Dansk left his room, stepped along the corridor and decided to skip the elevator and walk down to the lobby. A little cardiac action did wonders. He believed in physical exercise. He was proud of his body.

  The bar was shadowy. McTell, bearded and pale, occupied a table in the middle of the floor. Dansk sat and asked the miniskirted cocktail waitress for a club soda. He didn’t like alcohol because it kicked the struts out under your judgement.

  Eddie McTell said, ‘Done. Finito.’

  Dansk didn’t speak. His drink arrived and the waitress departed, leaving a pleasing mango fragrance in the air. He followed her skimpy little dress and long legs with his eyes, a reflex action.

  ‘Pussy on stilts, hey,’ McTell said.

  Dansk ignored this.

  McTell said, ‘We got her. Out in the desert.’

  ‘Spare me the details,’ Dansk said.

  ‘The dogs added a neat touch,’ McTell said.

  ‘That’s a detail.’

  McTell shrugged. ‘So we can get out of this town now anyway. This fucking heat, you can keep it.’

  Dansk sipped his soda. He looked at McTell’s thin face. The beard was an attempt to give the face some hint of intelligence, but it didn’t work. It looked glued-on, a spy’s beard.

  McTell picked up his lager. ‘Vaya con dios,’ he said.

  Dansk watched McTell slug his drink and asked, ‘When you were a kid, how did you see your future?’

  ‘My future? You mean, like ambitions?’

  ‘You must have dreamed of something, McTell. Fireman. Engine driver. Super jock, last-minute touchdown, your pick of the cheerleaders. Making it big some way.’

  ‘I used to be a wizard on ice-skates.’

  ‘You thought hockey. A future in hockey.’

  McTell shook his head. ‘I tried out for a team in Boston one time, but I guess I lacked some quality they were looking for.’

  ‘Maybe it was grace, McTell.’

  ‘Grace. Yeah, maybe. Funny, my first wife was called Grace. Grace Spatsky. Polack broad with tits out to here.’

  Dansk had no interest in McTell’s matrimonial history. He said, ‘I had a notion of becoming a missionary. Doing good. Working in a leper colony maybe. I used to study maps. Places with names like Chad. The Ivory Coast.’

  McTell grinned and stroked his beard. ‘A missionary?’

  ‘You think that’s funny?’

  ‘Just that kids think funny things. No offence.’

  Dansk wondered why he’d bothered to mention this childhood fancy to McTell. Everything you said to McTell vanished inside a black hole. It was like sending a message into outer space because McTell was an inferior creature, barely a notch above the kind you saw all the time in K-Marts, pushing carts and surrounded by a s
quabble of snotty-nosed kids and waddling wives, or in late-night supermarkets stocking up on monster frozen pizzas and a gross of Danish. They lived in trailer parks with broken windows and crooked satellite dishes, or in subsidized housing with cockroaches and graffiti. They gorged themselves on Snickers bars and potato chips. They watched Oprah and thought they were checking the pulse of America. These people operated on weak batteries.

  The sad thing, they didn’t know they were empty and stupid. They had a certain animal cunning, but in reality they were on this earth to run the errands, to do the dark stuff somebody like Dansk wanted done.

  Dansk pushed his glass away. He’d had enough of McTell’s company. The beard depressed him, so did the light-blue jacket and the necktie the colour of a dead salmon.

  Dansk stood up, reflecting on the fact that in this business you had to work with guys like McTell.

  ‘Me and Pasquale, we’ll just head out, I guess,’ McTell said.

  ‘Go to Vegas, stay at the usual place,’ Dansk said. ‘I’ll be in touch. There’s another piece of work coming up in Seattle.’

  Dansk turned to leave.

  McTell said, ‘Oh yeah, Pasquale shot the dogs. Took them somewhere off the freeway and shot them. Smack between the eyes.’

  Dansk knew McTell was telling him this because it might rile him a little. He pictured canine heads blown away and bloody fur. He kept going. In the lobby he passed the concierge’s desk, stopped sharply and wheeled back round again. He approached the desk.

  The concierge looked at Dansk with the general ass-clenched expression of concierges the world over. There had to be some kind of college where these characters learned how to patronize.

  ‘Can I help you, sir?’

  Dansk didn’t answer. He picked up a newspaper from the stack on the guy’s desk. The Arizona Republic with the word ‘Complimentary’ stamped on it.

  ‘Help yourself,’ said the concierge.

  ‘Yeah,’ Dansk said.

  Halfway down the front page, a single column. There it was. A jolt. He walked back inside the bar.

  He stood over McTell and said, ‘Forget Vegas. Vegas is off the fucking menu.’

  Dansk drew up the chair that was still warm from before and stared at McTell.