Chapter 15

Captain Williams pulled out of the wide four-lane entrance of the Sun Valley Motor Court and headed south on 52nd Street toward the older section of town. Ahead of him the famed South Mountain marked the edge of the city, beyond it lay the desert, flat spreads of tarnished yellow sand broken only by little clumps of desert plants and the tall cactus, ancient, fading, stretching their arms toward the sky.

He glanced down at the address scrawled on the clipboard that hung on his dashboard. At South Road he turned west and headed for a through street that would take him to the foot of the mountain.

As he drove he thought back to Rose Bianca, whom he had just left sitting beside her daughter in the tiny trailer. He recalled the look on her face as she told him about Sarah's encounter with her daddy at the Bel-Plaines Motel. Sarah herself had said very little, but the story checked with Billings' report from several guests at the motel.

"Must have been quite a row," Billings had said, "Old couple in the next cabin were up. Vacationers-packing to leave, actually. They thought someone was getting raped in there. They called the night clerk who lives behind the office and he came in and broke it up.

"She was in a pretty bad state according to the old couple. They drove her to Evans' place on their way out of town. That was about three A.M."

Captain Williams frowned. What a time the girl had picked to see her father! He thought about Rose's description of the big man chasing her to her car. Funny to think about, but at the same time sad. A mountain of strength, toppled suddenly, drunk with scotch and smashed pride, blubbering like a child in the middle of the street.

Sometimes strength is just a front for weakness, the captain thought. The big man made a lot of noise, but he didn't really do much else-to Rose. Everyone, it seemed, fell victim to the big man-except Rose. And that was curious. Even innocent children, guilty perhaps of some transgression, but nothing to match the magnitude of the punishment being dealt out.

Perhaps because the punishment was Rose's in his mind. Perhaps, in his mind, there was no punishment dreadful enough to reciprocate for what she might have been doing to him. The captain thought about the police record on the big man. His brutal methods, growing, building-and now this. An attack on his daughter, somewhat outshining in magnitude a long-range bullet fired into a crowd of street vandals.

Trying to protect what was his ... a rationalization of something deeper. Perhaps trying to get back something that was lost. Seeing through the haze of bitterness and humiliation, not the little girl who was his daughter but someone else, someone from the past-a young Rose, perhaps, or at least a willing Rose who, just a few hours before that, had led him to believe he was still in command-a willing Rose who had almost distracted him from his purpose.

Sometimes, the captain decided, a show of weakness is just a cover for strength. He was thinking of Rose again. He remembered the woman sitting next to her daughter on the miniature couch in the tiny trailer home. He remembered the slumped figure, a portrait of softness to match her plumpness, fussing over the girl like a mother partridge over her chick, smoothing back her long golden hair, looking frightened and yet incongruous in the mother role.

Too much the mother, the captain thought ... too much affection ... More than the girl needed or wanted. As though It were a means on Rose's part, perhaps to justify a deficiency that she recognized within herself. An excess of decorum used by people who sin too much.

He thought about the comments from the women who worked with Rose at the electronics plant. Exaggerated, maybe, but exaggeration of something that must exist.

A hungry woman, the captain thought. Clinging to youth, manifesting it in herself, in her appearance and in her dress, clinging to it in the form of her daughter, copying her, moving with her side by side, playing the game of youth along with her and, as payment for the nights she played alone at being young, a forced maternity that in her mind was as real and as vital as the feel and weight of a lover's arms.

How much mother love would it take, the captain wondered, to counterbalance her weakness? Would it be enough to make her move to leave that tiny trailer and race with the dawn toward that motel room where in one righteous move she could equal a hundred years of fussing and primping and hiding-and crying?

What must she have thought as she stared down at the sleeping form of her daughter in the tiny bedroom of that trailer? How much of her own guilt could she have passed on to that hideous bulk that was as much responsible in the making of this child as she was? How those eyes must have burned as she stared down at the little girl, a carbon copy of herself, and listened to the breathing that was agitated with terror and hurt and disillusion!

Captain Williams remembered Rose's eyes. He had watched them while she talked, he had seen the fury that flashed behind them, well-guarded but breaking through at times.

It was strength. Behind the fury it was strength the captain saw in Rose's eyes.

How much strength, he wondered, does it take to cover guilt? On the other side of the balance, how much guilt does it take to unleash that strength-in the guise of righteousness...?

Captain Williams pulled his car to a halt in front of a duplex, ancient, greyed, one of many in the tract at the foot of South Mountain.

He pushed the doorbell. While he waited for an answer, he watched a group of Negro children pushing an old wheelbarrow over the flat brown sand in the vacant lot across the street. One of them had spotted the captain and quit the game to stare at him.

The child, whose spindly sun-browned legs looked like poles sticking out from the mass of denim of his cut away jeans, edged forward cautiously till he was just across the street. The captain watched him out of the corner of his eye and, as the boy grew bolder and stepped off the curb, the captain turned suddenly.

"Bang!" he said, and the boy's eyes widened. Then he turned and ran to join his own group again. The captain grinned.

"Kids!" he muttered. He turned back to the door and scowled impatiently at it. He rang the bell again, then knocked on the dry, blistered wood.

Finally he heard someone approaching.

"Is this the Banderro residence?" he said to the small heavy-set woman who finally had answered his knock and was frowning at him in the doorway.

She nodded. She was typically old-country, with the usual built-in fear of strangers, especially strangers on her front porch. Her eyes were small and dark and they darted past him to see his car. She reacted as he would have expected at the tell-tale cream finish with the familiar blue shield and emblem on the door.

"Is Tony Banderro in?" the captain said. He tried to sound casual so as not to frighten the woman even though he knew it would do no good. She looked uncertainly back into the house, then pulled the door wider.

"Come in," she said. "I call him."

The captain followed the woman into a small parlor that was crowded with furniture, old but neatly kept, and watched while she climbed the stairs to the second floor, moving slowly, labored, taking each of the stairs separately.

He looked about the room. It was dim, facing the shade, and crowded with religious pictures and statues and small studio pictures of people in cardboard frames on the mantle. There was no air-conditioning, only a large window fan that whirred loudly.

Finally two legs emerged from the landing on the stairs and as they descended into view the captain replaced a small statue he had been examining, and turned to face Tony Banderro.

"Yeah?" the man said, and the captain nodded a greeting.

"Are you Tony Banderro?"

"That's right," he said. "Why?"

The captain dropped into one of the large overstuffed chairs, even though he wasn't invited to sit. "I'm Mike Williams," the captain said. "I work for the Phoenix Police Department."

"Oh?"

"I have a small problem and I thought you might be able to help me out-if I'm not imposing."

"What kinda problem," Tony said skeptically. Then he grinned slightly and shrugged. "Sure. I mean, what can I do for you?" He sat down on the couch opposite the captain. He was nervous and it showed because he tried to hide it. "I'm always glad to help the law. You know, I got a friend on the force. In fact I was thinking of being a cop myself once. I got the right build for it."

"Well, we could certainly use more fellows like you in this town," the captain said and he smiled warmly. "By the way, what do you do, Tony?"

"Me? Well, I'm kinda between jobs right now." The captain nodded.

"I usually work on construction, you know. That's my trade. But they all lay off in the summer. Too damn hot."

"You've had quite a few jobs in the past year, haven't you?" the captain said. "You move around quite a bit, it seems."

"So what?" Tony frowned uncertainly at the captain. "I don't like working inside. I told you I'm a construction man."

"So you did."

"Anyhow, how do you know so much about me?"

"According to my information," the captain said, ignoring the question, "Your last place of employment was the General Electric plant in Mesa. That was for two weeks. Is that correct?"

"Hey, what is this?" Tony said, and suddenly he lost his grin, replacing it with an angry frown. "What are you leading up to?"

"Nothing much," the captain said. "I just wondered how well you know Rose Bianca, formerly Rose Cartell."

"Now listen, cop, and get this straight! I didn't have anything to do with that-see? I didn't have anything to do with that!"

"Call me captain," the captain said, and the younger man retreated. He moved nervously toward the window. "Son-of-a-bitch," he said under his breath, and he slammed his fist into his palm and he turned back to the captain. "Just call me lucky," he said and he jabbed a thumb against his chest. "That's me."

"Take it easy," the captain said. "I'm not accusing you of anything. I'm just looking for information. Actually I'm seeing quite a few people who knew the Cartells, also a guy named Bernie Evans who I think might be the man we're looking for."

"I never heard of him."

"But you do know Rose."

"Yeah. We're friends. So what? She's got lots of friends."

"You're more than friends, aren't you?" the captain said.

"She likes me," Tony said hotly. "So what?-I like her!"

"You met at the plant."

"That's right."

"Two weeks later you quit your job and you haven't worked since."

"So what?"

"I haven't got time to play games," the captain said. "As a matter-of-fact I just left a trailer park in Mesa. On my way out I stopped to talk with a young fellow in a Hawaiian shirt and sunglasses. Nice fellow. He tells me that according to the neighbors you've been spending quite a few evenings at that trailer park."

"Who told you that? He's a lying bastard if he told you that."

"I don't think so," the captain said. "I know him pretty well. He works for me."

"Well, so what?" Tony said. "Hey, if you guys think I killed her old man, you're barking up the wrong tree! I mean, let's face it! I been going around with Rose. Sure. She likes me, so what the hell? But it's not thick-I mean she's all right. She's generous and, I mean, I look after myself. But...." Tony shook his head, suddenly lost for words, and he laughed to cover his nervousness. "Geez, you guys really scrounge around for a pigeon!"

"I'm not looking for a pigeon," the captain said. "As a matter-of-fact I've got one. It's a killer I want.

"Well, I ain't your man," Tony said.

"When was the last time you saw Rose?"

"Two days ago," Tony said. "Honest." He raised his hand in an oath. "She told me her old man was coming to town and she wanted me to fade. She was afraid of him. She said he was some kind of a nut." Tony shrugged. "I didn't give a damn. I mean, she was divorced, you know. But that's the way she wanted it. So I stayed clear. That's the truth."

"What have you been doing?"

"Nothing," Tony said. "I been sticking around the house. You ask Ma. She'll tell you."

"How about last night?" the captain said.

Tony's fists worked nervously, tracing over the edge of the slip-cover on the couch. The captain watched him closely and finally Tony looked up.

"I can't stay home all the time," he said angrily. "I mean, just look at this dump! So I went out-so what?"

"Where?"

"Everywhere." Tony got up and crossed the room, talking more easily as he gained distance from the captain, whose eyes never seemed to let up. "I stopped at Jack's for one. Then I went over to the Seven Seas and Jako's-I was just cruising, you know? You can check. I was in all those places. And I went to the Round-Up, too. Yeah, and the Red Mill on Adams Street."

"And then where?"

While Tony talked, the captain had risen and moved to the window. He was looking out at the lot behind the house.

"That's a good-looking car you've got out there," he said, turning back to Tony. "You should park it on the street instead of hiding it out back."

"I'm not hiding it out back!" Tony said hotly. "I always park it there. It's shady."

"Red convertible." The captain nodded. "I like red convertibles. You don't see many of them around."

"There's lots of them," Tony said.

"Not with your license plates, though. That always checks out no matter what name you put down on a hotel register. Didn't you know they always put down your license-plate number on motel registers?"

"Of course, I know it," Tony shouted and then he slammed a fist into his palm again. "I'm telling you, you're looking at Mr. Lucky. That's me, boy! For two days I stay out of his wayI don't call, I don't come around and what happens? Boy, it couldn't happen to anyone else!"

Tony moved back into the room, his palms turned out in a futile gesture. "How did I know he was staying at the Bel-Plaines Motel? I didn't know the guy. I didn't even know what he looked like.

"So, what am I suppose to do-knock around the house for two days? I went out for some laughs, that's all. I had some drinks, then I picked up this chick and we had a few laughs. That's all!"

"Who was the girl?"

"How do I know," Tony said. "I just met her. She gives me the nod. I was drinking, so what the hell!"

"And you don't know her name?"

"Who asks?" Tony said. "She's a waitress. One of the girls at the Pancake House."

Tony dropped down on the couch again, scowling angrily as he remembered Madge. Two-bit whore! he thought. Dirty, perverted bitch! If they thought he was such a goddamn pig, they should learn about her! Damn broad! And, he thought, it wasn't worth it. He looked up at the captain, who was staring at him from the window, and he thought, It damn well wasn't worth it.

"Mr. Lucky," he said and he smiled bitterly, "that's me."

Captain Williams moved away from the window. Suddenly he was thinking of a pretty waitress in a green uniform who had been crying, and he knew instinctively this was the girl Tony was talking about.

The captain sat down in the chair opposite the couch, drawing out his pack of cigarettes. Tony looked up at him, defeated, and the captain grinned.

"Tell me about this waitress," the captain said and he offered Tony a cigarette....