Page 39 of We Chase Shadows

His friend, Ken, has clearly just said something about a dog.

‘If a dog’s got no balls then it’s not a dog, Ken,’ says Tommy. ‘It’s a bitch.’

Tommy now looks directly at his phone as if Ken has lost his tiny mind.

‘A bitch isn’t a dog, Ken,’ says Tommy. ‘It isn’t. A dog is the name for a boy dog. You’re kidding me? It says that in the dictionary? Jeez Louise, we’re believing the dictionary now? How did we get here? Dictionaries f’chrissake.’

Now, you shouldn’t build a city in the desert, you really shouldn’t, but what were human beings supposed to do when they actually stumbled upon Palm Springs? When they saw the mountains rising from the desert floor, turning from grey to pink with the sun, and then slate grey to onyx black at the end of the day? When they saw the stars on a clear night? It left them no choice but to find some sort of détente with the fiery ball in the sky and start laying bricks.

‘The guy who invented the dictionary,’ says Tommy, stepping around a medium-to-large-sized lizard sleeping on the burning asphalt. ‘Whaddaya think he made? Not much is how much. The dictionary is a joke, Ken. You disagreeing with me doesn’t make me wrong. If the words you got ain’t working, then you ain’t saying them loud enough. That’s my dictionary.’

Most people Tommy knows here are ‘snowbirds’. They’ve got white hair and every summer they fly away. Good customers a lot of them. Everybody in this town needs Viagra and plenty of people have the money to pay for it.

Tommy is the only man walking in the whole of Palm Springs today. You won’t see anybody engaging in the summer business of a regular city, taking an idle stroll, jogging the mountain trails or lazing in the park with a picnic and a podcast.

Tommy, however, is strolling along the sidewalk wearing a full suit. Tommy stays in Palm Springs all summer, simply because he refuses to be bullied by the sun. Or anything else. Heat, like so much – pain, sadness, sciatica, regret – is just a state of mind. It can be overcome with self-belief.

He won’t pretend that the trip to Ireland wasn’t a light relief, but now he’s back in Palm Springs he’s not about to admit defeat to a fiery ball in the sky.

‘If I wanted to keep buying from Spokane, do you know what I woulda said? You do know? What would I have said, Ken? Yeah, I’d have said I want to keep buying from Spokane. And what did I say? The Irish, you got it. You can hear. I thought you were deaf maybe. I said I thought you were de– Oh, real funny. Ken, I’m not shouting, you’re shouting. You are, brother, you’re shouting, I’m talking at a normal volume. Well, maybe your phone is screwy? There’s a volume control on it, my grandson showed me it.’

Tommy listens to Ken for a moment, clearly being asked a question. He looks up.

‘Uh, it’s sunny, I guess, how about with you?’

He listens some more.

‘Look, we buy in Europe, and no one’s going to kill anyone, trust me. Of course, if you want to, Ken, you’re your own man, I’m just saying no one’s going to kill us.’

Tommy turns from Sammy Davis Jr. Boulevard on to Tamarisk Way, the mountains rising in the distance.

‘Great, great, I’m just heading for a sauna. I’m telling you, they’ll save your life. Okay, brother, okay, I know you’ve got it. I know I’m never going to hear the word ‘Spokane’ again. And throw out your dictionary. You don’t need no new words.’

The street stretching ahead of Tommy is lined with expensive homes. These low houses crouch down from the sun and hum in the heat, pops of neon and long swathes of pastel among the desert plants. The road is arrow straight until it meets the mountain, where it becomes a snake, winding its way upwards.

Does Tommy Griffin notice all this? Hard to say.

He’s just had a call from Vern Blackwood. Vern wants a chat about Jakob Eriksson. They both know, of course, what Tommy is up to. But they have to understand that Tommy is American, and Americans don’t have to do what they’re told. They don’t have to, because they already live in the greatest country in the world.

A few yards behind Tommy, a black Lincoln Navigator, prowling low like a cougar, turns on to Tamarisk Way. It moves slowly, as if the driver is looking for something. The address of a friend perhaps? Who knows? It passes Tommy and halts about fifty yards further up the street. Engine and air-con still running.

Tommy Griffin buttons up his suit and pulls his tie a little tighter. He shows no sign of seeing the car parked across the street.

High up above the desert, a vulture finds a current of air and rises and swoops with ease. Looking down, the vulture sees a man wearing a suit, in a city that shouldn’t exist.

Someone to keep an eye on there.

23

‘I feel like we might have to,’ says Amy, looking at Korbin’s body.

Rosie rolls her eyes, but Steve nods.

‘I mean, if we didn’t have to,’ says Vern, ‘that would make my life easier. Rosie?’

Rosie takes some time to think. She has to be honest with herself, this is everything she could have dreamt of when she suggested they form We Solve Murders. One murder leads to another murder. Perhaps more to come, one can only hope. But it does all come with more admin than she’d anticipated. More responsibility. This is a case in point.

‘It feels like we might have to,’ says Rosie. ‘I don’t like it any more than you, Vern, but, instinctively, I’d say probably we should let the police know.’