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“I’m calling Kimbrough. Phoenix PD.”
“Not enough time,” I said, pulling on my black leather jacket. “Phoenix PD will fuck it up.”
She turned off the phone. “Damn it!” she whispered.
I pulled the black nylon holster off the bedside table, checked to see the Python was loaded, and slid it securely into my belt.
Seven minutes later I rounded the corner onto McDowell, leaving behind the dark quiet of Willo. It was a little after three on Thursday morning, and traffic on McDowell was light. The red porch light of Fire Station 4 glowed in the dry, chilly air. Behind the glass doors, all the fire engines were home asleep. Across the street, a two-story inflatable gorilla looked down on me. He went with the pawn shop, which, in one of Phoenix’s more tasteless ahistorical acts, occupied a building that had been a synagogue when I was a kid.
I walked quickly on McDowell. A Phoenix police cruiser flew by heading west, paying no attention to me. Up ahead, a couple of low-riders sat in the drive-in parking lot, steam coming out of their tailpipes. A large black kid in an Arizona Cardinals parka stood at the drive-through window ordering. As I walked into the cones of light I made out the pay phone at the edge of the lot, nobody around. I thought it was a fool’s errand, but didn’t know what else to do. Maybe Leo O’Keefe had been in prison so long he didn’t realize these inner-city pay phones were rigged so they could only call out, to foil the drug trade.
But as I walked closer, it was ringing.
I sprinted the last fifteen feet and picked up a receiver that was chipped and sticky with grime.
“Mapstone,” I said.
“Walk to the front of Kenilworth School. Come up the steps into the dark under the columns. Do it now.”
I didn’t even try to engage him. I hung up the phone, jogged across McDowell and headed west. At Fifth Avenue, I could see a figure in dark sweatshirt, hood up, hanging out at the Mexican shrimp cocktail shop: Lindsey. I keyed the auto-dial on my cell phone, still concealed in my pocket, and told her where I was going. I turned south at Burt Easley’s Fun Shop and disappeared into the darkened neighborhood. I was aware of her behind me, but when I turned to look around me the sidewalk and street were empty.
Leo O’Keefe, in my neighborhood, on the steps of my grade school. At the press briefing, we had handed out the newest prison photo of him. We had explained our theory that he had come back to get revenge. Why, the press asked? Because he felt railroaded in the Guadalupe shooting, we said. Why now, the press pressed? Because the media coverage of Peralta winning the election had driven him to make a dramatic statement. It was a neat theory. It was the only one we had. But theory was running into reality in the cold desert night.
I walked down the sidewalks I had walked as a kid, dragging my way to school, flying home. Past the stately trunks of palm trees and the smart little World War I-era bungalows that had survived the coming of the underground freeway. Tonight they were all dark and silent, not even a dog to bark at a tall man in a leather jacket moving along at a half jog, half walk. Half a mile southeast of here the streets degenerated into a nasty mix of crack houses and young hustlers-the cops called it “Boys Town”-but up here I felt only solitude. If O’Keefe was nearby, I could only sense him in the aftertaste of my nightmare.
At Culver, the old school building loomed ahead. Barry Goldwater went to school there. Many years later, so did I. Now, as the constant low moan of traffic attested, it had an eight-lane freeway running beneath it. It was classic, columned and floodlighted against vandals. But, sure enough, gloom sat securely at the top of the front steps.
I spoke softly into my jacket. “I’m at Kenilworth, I’m going to the steps now.”
Suddenly the trunk of a palm tree shattered beside me, and then came the deep boom and echo of a large-caliber weapon. I followed the shreds of palm tree down to the cold sidewalk, banging my knees and elbows. Rolling behind the tree trunk, I clung to the ground, my heart hammering against my ribs. I brought the Python up next to my face, resting the coolness of the barrel against my cheek. With my other hand, I pulled out the cell phone.
“Dave, Dave…”
“I’m OK. Don’t come up.” I scanned the school, the park, the darkened houses. Everything was still. The shot could have come from anywhere.
Lindsey said, “What was that noise?”
“Somebody took a shot at me with something very large.”
“Can you get under cover?”
“I’m OK. Behind a palm tree at the northwest corner of Culver and Fifth Avenue.”
Just then I saw a blur at the far end of the school steps. O’Keefe.
Instinct took over and I sprang up, crossing the old playground quickly, my magnum held in a combat grip, two-handed. I made it to the side of the building and fell against the wall. No shots came.
“We’re on the move,” I said into the phone. “Suspect is headed south from the school. Let them know he is being pursued by a plainclothes deputy!” I stuck the phone back in my pocket and sprang forward up the stairs. The gloomy area behind the columns was empty. But beyond, I caught a glimpse of a figure running hard out the other side of the playground.
He wasn’t that fast. I took the steps down three at a time, my knees crying in protest. Then I dashed past swings and unidentifiable play equipment at a hard run. My lungs ached against the cold air, but I was gaining on him.
“Sheriff’s deputy!” I yelled. “Stop! I am armed!”
I could make out a man in dark clothing and some kind of a baseball cap. He ran down the sidewalk, paused, then took off again running west toward Seventh Avenue. I put on the jets and got to within 100 yards of him when a pair of headlights shot up out of the earth and a horn screamed an angry klaxon.
He disappeared down the freeway onramp.
I went after him.
