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“He just came through,” she said. “He went that way.” She indicated the east entrance. “Hey, are you okay?”
I was already running down the corridor. I wasn’t okay. I wasn’t in my right mind, to be chasing a man armed with an automatic weapon. But if I couldn’t catch him, I might never know why he was ready to kill County Supervisor Tom Earley. I pushed open the glass doors, and was in the shade of the walkway. He was walking east on Monroe Street by the Chase Tower garage. I willed my legs to move, and then I was crossing First Street at a trot. Panels of sidewalk passed under my feet. Step on a crack, break your mother’s back. Step on a crack, get shot.
“Deputy sheriff, stop! Stop!” I drew down on him with half a block between us, but I had faith in the Python’s accuracy. With a little luck, the hollow point bullet wouldn’t go through him and take out a civilian.
He had no such qualms. He raised the Tek-9 and nothing happened. Just then, a woman walked across Second Street, and I didn’t fire. Adam screamed a profanity and ran, working the gun’s action. Jammed. I ran toward him, keeping the Python in a combat grip. I caught up with him at Second Street. Only a crosswalk separated us. Finally, I heard sirens, a lot of them. But somebody else was on the corner, one of the downtown guides. Adam punched him in the middle and shoved him to the ground.
“Don’t come any closer, Mapstone!” He knew my name. I crossed the street, keeping him in my sights.
“I’ll kill him! I swear to God!” He aimed the jammed Tek-9 at the guide. The guide wore a shirt that said, “Ask Me!” Behind us, the statues of the Herberger Theater Center cavorted with the muses. The sun went behind the Hyatt Regency, extending shade across the street.
“Put your weapon down slowly,” I commanded between panting breaths.
“Fuck you!” He was still fighting with the jammed action of the pistol. Suddenly a piece of metal made a sliding sound and a shell ejected out of the top. I fired from ten feet away.
36
A dust storm was coming in Friday night when I stepped through the door into Portland’s bar. I said hello to a few people I knew. They wanted to know if I was safe—the shooting had been on every television station and in the newspapers. I looked around the bar. Many people were dressed in artist black, giving me hope that Phoenix might become a real city. There wasn’t time to linger. I was meeting someone. There she was, sitting at a table, wearing a blouse that was as orange as her hair. She smiled as I approached. I nodded at her and sat down.
“David,” she said, “I can’t imagine what you’ve been through. Are you all right? Are you hurt? Thank God. I know you’re on leave, because of the shooting. That’s got to be routine, right? If this wasn’t justified…”
I let the bartender bring me a Beefeater martini. Before Dana sat a full glass of white wine.
“There’s good news,” she said. “The gas pipeline has been fixed. I won’t have to drive forever to fill up that SUV.” I said nothing, and in a moment she asked, “Do they know anything about who this man was?”
“His name was Adam Perez,” I said. “Thirty years old. He had a record of assault and attempted murder.”
“He was obviously the one who was blackmailing us,” she said. “Even so, it can’t feel good to kill a man.”
I said it didn’t feel good. I watched the ice crystals float across the top of the martini glass, then took a sip.
“David,” she went on. “I’m actually glad you asked me to meet you tonight. I wanted to thank you, of course, for saving Tom’s life. Maybe he won’t be so down on you and the Sheriff’s Office now.”
“Maybe,” I agreed.
“And I also wanted to explain myself a little better,” she said.
I didn’t say anything. She looked much the same way as the first time she came into my office. She had pretty green eyes, an average mouth, a weak chin. She still had butterscotch in her voice. Her hair fell to her shoulders in a respectable bob. It was the perfect voice and face for a liar. She saw me watching her and smiled at me. I watched the wind rustle the palm trees out on Central Avenue and raise dust from the light-rail construction.
“When I couldn’t meet you at El Pedregal,” she said, “I know what you must have thought. I wanted to. I wanted to show you the blackmail letters. But I told Tom what I was doing and he forbade me to go.”
“You don’t strike me as the kind who can be told no,” I said.
She sipped her wine and pursed her lips. “We’re a pretty traditional family,” she said. “I had to do as he asked. He wouldn’t even let me call you again.”
“Maybe it’s just as well,” I said. “Adam Perez came into the gallery that night, and he wasn’t browsing. I never knew if he was after you or me…”
“Oh!” Her mouth was a perfect lipstick doughnut. “Oh, I’m so sorry. Thank God that horrible man won’t hurt anyone again. And you’ll have to forgive me if I say the same about Mister Louis Bell, who put him up to all this to ruin my husband—and when that didn’t work, to kill poor Tom.”
“It’s a happy ending.”
She beamed and took my hands across the table. “Yes, thank you, Professor Mapstone.”
I was watching a blonde getting teary at the next table, describing something to a friend: the boyfriend who won’t commit, the workplace slight that she wouldn’t remember in a year. Outside the window, a homeless man struggled by, his shirt standing out in the wind.
“Dana,” I said, “you’re still lying.”
She let go of my hands and her smile blew off down Central.
