Minor in possession

CHAPTER 17

I slept, content in the knowledge that whatever incursions booze may have made against my liver, other pieces of essential equipment, unlike Calvin Crenshaw's, remained totally unaffected. I awoke to the sound of small scratchings, rodent sounds, only to discover that Rhonda Attwood, sitting curled up in the high wing-backed chair beside the window, was busily sketching away.

"Coffee or orange juice?" she asked, not looking up. "Ralph already brought us both. He's out cleaning the pool."

It was only to be expected that Ralph Ames was already up and on duty. He evidently also knew where Rhonda had spent the night. "Coffee," I said, a little sheepishly.

"Okay. Just a minute."

She finished what she was doing, examined it critically at arm's length with a slight frown pursing her brow, and then put the sketch pad on the table next to her. Pouring two cups of coffee from a stainless steel carafe, she padded barefoot across the room to the bed. She was wearing a knee-length blue nightshirt with Mickey and Minnie Mouse emblazoned on the front. Her hair was tousled, but from the strained lines and shadows around her eyes, I suspected she hadn't slept nearly as well as I had.

"What are you working on?" I asked, taking one cup of coffee off her hands.

"Nothing much." Careful not to spill her coffee, she lowered herself onto the bed beside me. "Just a sketch."

I reached over and let my hand fall on the smooth firm curve of her thigh. It rested there for some time, and she made no effort to move it away. Closing my eyes, I lost myself in the miracle of an instant replay until she jarred me out of it with a softly voiced question.

"Will you drive me down to Sierra Vista today?"

Surprised, I opened my eyes and looked at her. "To Sierra Vista? Why?"

"Because I've got to talk to Guy Owens."

I sat up in the bed. "I thought we already went over that. Your chances for persuading this guy are nil. He's one angry man."

Rhonda Attwood's blue eyes filled with tears. "I can try, I've got to try. Don't you understand? Joey was all I had, my only child. I was never able to have another one after he was born, even though I wanted one and tried for years. This baby, Michelle's baby, is part of me, too. I can't just turn my back and let it go. I can't." The last sentence was a strangled sob.

When God gave Eve the ability to cry, he stacked the deck against us. It hasn't been a fair fight since. I'm impervious to lots of things, but a weeping woman isn't one of them. Besides, Rhonda Attwood could easily have gone off on her mission alone, without telling me. My masculine pride was honored that she wanted to have me along.

"All right, all right," I said, knowing perfectly well that I'd been manipulated and sounding suitably crotchety. "I'll drive down there with you, but don't count on it doing much good."

Smiling through her tears, Rhonda Attwood leaned over and gave me a quick peck on the side of my neck. "Thank You," she said, "I'll go shower."

Gracefully she eased herself off the bed and disappeared into the bathroom. I drank my coffee, listening first to the rush of the shower and later to the hum of a blow-dryer. When I finished draining my first cup, I slipped on a pair of shorts and went over to the table to pour a second. The sketch pad was lying right there next to the carafe. I couldn't resist the temptation to pick it up and see what she'd been doing.

It was spooky-almost like looking in the mirror. The penciled sketch staring back at me was me. My eyes, my nose, my ever-increasing forehead. I was still standing there holding it when the bathroom door opened. I jumped as though I'd been caught doing something I shouldn't afraid she'd be offended by my prying.

"You have good features," Rhonda said, stopping in the doorway. "Strong, masculine features."

Never at ease with compliments, I turned it aside with a question. "How do you do that?"

"Do what?" she returned. "Draw?" I nodded, and she shrugged. "I don't know. It's something I've always been able to do, from the time I was little. You don't, I take it?"

"Not me, not at all, I wouldn't have the foggiest idea how to go about it."

Rhonda smiled. "That's all right. I wouldn't have known how to drive the car into the pickup's tire, either, so we're even."

There was a knock on the door. "Are you two decent?" Ralph asked, in his unflappable manner. "There's a call for you, Beau."

I opened the door and took the cordless handset. "Hello."

"Beau, it's me, Delcia. They've got him, the guy from the truck. Phoenix P.D. picked him up a little after midnight, but I didn't find out about it until just a few minutes ago. Somebody neglected to call me."

"They caught him? Who is it?"

"I don't know yet, but according to the detective who called me, he's already got himself a very high-priced defense attorney, and he refused to say word one without his attorney present."

"So this is someone who knows the ropes."

"Sounds like."

"Do you need us to come down there with you? I only got one look at him in the headlights as he was going ass-over-teakettle into the water. I'm not sure whether or not I could identify him."

"No," she said. "I'll be there. The City of Scottsdale's sending someone over. It'll be enough of a crowd without having you there as well. Just keep me posted as to where I can reach you if I need to."

"I thought I'd check into the swap meets around here. I understand the one at Greyhound Race Track is pretty good."

Delcia laughed. "That's what they say."

"And then Rhonda and I may take a ride down to Sierra Vista."

The laughter stopped. "Why?"

"Rhonda wants to talk to Guy Owens. She's hoping to get him to change his mind about Michelle having an abortion."

There was a pause. "Well," she said at last, "as long as you're there to keep an eye on her, I suppose it'll be all right."

"Any word on Michelle?"

"No. Nothing so far. When will you get back?"

I glanced at Rhonda. She had picked up the sketch pad and was standing next to the window, adding a few deft lines here and there with her pencil. Her blonde hair caught the sunlight from outside and glinted like a burnished golden halo. Rhonda Attwood was a beautiful, desirable woman.

"I don't know," I said to Delcia. "Probably sometime late this afternoon or evening. We'll leave a telephone trail with Ralph Ames."

When I hung up, Rhonda was looking at me. "How soon do we leave?" she asked.

"Look, are you sure you want to do this? The funeral is tomorrow. Shouldn't you stay here? Aren't there people who'll want to see you?"

"Just because Joey's dead doesn't mean I have to make a public spectacle out of myself. The only person I want to see is Michelle."

"She knew you were staying at La Posada?" I asked.

"Yes."

"Did anyone else?"

"Not really. I didn't take out an ad in the Arizona Republic, if that's what you mean. What are you getting at?"

"I'm trying to figure out who else besides Michelle, Detective Reyes-Gonzales, Ralph Ames, and me knew where you were staying."

"That's all," she said. "I didn't even tell Vincent, and not the people at Renthrow Gallery either. I didn't want people being able to find me, people and reporters."

I was gratified to hear that she differentiated between the two. It gave us something in common.

"But somebody else must have known."

She shook her head. "I can't think of anybody."

At that juncture, Ralph Ames, who had obviously never heard of cholesterol counting, summoned us to breakfast-an Eggs Benedict extravaganza served poolside. He wasn't terribly enthusiastic about our proposed drive to Sierra Vista, but he nonetheless offered us the use of his Lincoln, saying that for safety's sake the Fiat should probably remain parked where it was for the time being.

"I agree about the Fiat, Ralph," I said, "and thank for the offer, but I think I hear Alamo calling me. After all, the insurance will cover the damage. Besides, none of it was my fault. They owe me a car."

Ralph Ames grinned. "You are one stubborn man, Beau. They may not agree with you, but I'll see what I can do."

In the end, Ralph prevailed. Rhonda and I left the Alamo office driving a low-slung Chevrolet Beretta, having taken the extra collision insurance at an additional ten dollars a day and with the rental agent's final prohibition once more ringing in our ears that we were not, under any circumstances, to take the car to Mexico.

Bye ten-fifteen we were in the parking lot at Phoenix Greyhound Race Track. The people who frequent the swap meet, vendors and customers alike, struck me as a new lost generation, one that had started out in the late sixties making love not war. Almost twenty years later, these folks still hadn't gotten their act together.

There were plenty of wear-dated peace symbols in evidence, and the people displaying them were middle-aged earth-mother types with ample bosoms and long-haired men whose ponytails and beards were flecked with gray. It struck me as ironic that Zeke, Delcia's illegal-arms merchant, should be hiding out in the open, peddling his lethal wares among all the militant peacenik anti-nukers, I would have expected them to run him off as well since, statistically speaking, the attendees are far more likely to be shot than they are to be nuked.

For a while Rhonda and I wandered through the milling aisles. Finally, though, impatient to get out of there, I asked one of the vendors in he knew where I could find Zeke.

"Sure," he said, eying me suspiciously. I didn't fit the typical customer profile. "Next aisle over. Far end on the right."

We found Zeke's stall without any trouble, but the first thing I saw when we got there wasn't Zeke or his guns-it was the rattlesnake.

The snake, so similar to Ringo that they might have been full brothers, sat waist-high on a wobbly card table. Unlike Ringo, however, this one was dead, thoroughly dead, forever frozen by some taxidermist's art into a ferocious striking position. The curved fangs were bared, and the charcoal-colored body coiled back on itself, while the glassy eyes stared straight ahead-directly at me. Just looking at it was enough to prickle the hairs on the back of my neck. Instinctively, I dodged back.

"Purty, ain't he," growled a yellow-toothed man with a fat chew of tobacco stuffed in one cheek. His weighty peace symbol, three inches tall and made from hand-pounded silver, dangled on a frayed leather thong in front of a worn red flannel shirt that was stretched taut over a bulging midsection. "Bagged him myself last year up near Bumble Bee. I'll sell him to you cheap-a hun'red fifty. You won't do no better 'an that."

"No thanks," I said, still maintaining a wary distance.

Rhonda stepped closer and examined the snake curiously. "It does look like Ringo," she said before turning to the vendor. "Are you Zeke?" I had told her who we were looking for and why.

Zeke nodded slowly, giving her a lecherous up-and-down appraisal as he did so. "Sure am, ma'am. What can I do for you today? If'n you don't like snakes, how 'bout a Gila monster then?"

He paused long enough to spit an arc of brown tobacco juice over his shoulder where it landed unerringly in a two-pound Folgers coffee can several feet behind him. "Got me one of them, too. That'll run you 'bout tow hun'red even. Or somethin' a little smaller maybe-scorpions and centipedes. These here are s'posed to be plastic paperweights. Real classy if'n you work in an office."

The guy took off his hat and wiped a shiny bald pate with his red bandanna. When he put the Stetson back on, I noticed it was decorated with a rattlesnake skin hatband and several multicolored feathers. Considering his alligator boots and hand-tooled leather belt, this dusty overweight specimen was someone the Earth First folks should have picketed right along with all those fur-wearing, opera-going society matrons.

"We're more interested in guns," I said casually. He blinked. "I've got me some of them, too," he said tentatively. "What kind you lookin' for?"

He pointed me toward a second rickety table, this one covered with guns. The weapons, mostly aged specimens, were a collection of ten or so rifles and shotguns of various makes and models. Some were undoubtedly antique quality with ornate handmade inlay work on the stocks. Others were just plain old.

"Not any of these," I said, dismissing the entire table with a wave. "These are all too big. I was thinking of something smaller."

He looked at me closely.

"A friend told me about you," I added as a further reference, "a nameless, mutual friend. She said you had quite a collection, but if this is all you've got…"

Zeke, watching me closely, made up his mind. "I can't afford to put 'em all out," he said quickly. "Somebody might rip 'em off. Exactly what kind of gun might you be lookin' for, mister?"

"A handgun," I said. "Thirty-eight caliber."

"A. 38," he repeated thoughtfully. "I just might have one of them. It's small, though. Only a two-inch barrel."

"Small's fine," I said.

He nodded then called over his shoulder, "Hey, Carl. Would you keep an eye on my stuff for a while? I gotta go out to the parking lot for a minute."

Carl, a permanently sunburned blond, occupied a booth that advertised genuine Zuni hand-tooled silver jewelry, although Carl didn't look like any American Indian I'd ever seen. He waved a careless hand in response. "No prob, Zeke. Take your time."

Zeke led us through the parking lot to where a beat-out Volkswagen was parked. Someone with more patience than brains had carefully painted it so that it bore an uncommon resemblance to a mini-Greyhound bus. The inside, however, had been specially fitted with a set of custom mini-blinds which shut off the interior of the vehicle from any outside snooping.

Turning off an elaborate auto alarm system, Zeke unlocked the side door, heaved himself up into the van, and returned to the doorway carrying a heavy tool chest. With a grunt he set the chest down on the floorboard in front of us, opened one compartment, and extracted a cloth-wrapped package.

"This here one's a beaut," he said, lovingly untying the string and unwrapping the cloth to reveal a blued-steel Smith and Wesson Chief. "Five shots not six, and it comes complete with its own clip-on holster."

He handed me the gun with its stubby barrel, and I hefted the weapon in my hand. It was lighter than my old standard-frame. 38, but, depending on the kind of ammunition used, I knew it could be every bit as deadly. I snapped it apart and looked it over. It was clean and had been well cared for, either by Zeke or by its previous owner.

"Looks like you've handled one of them before," Zeke observed approvingly. "'Course, that thing ain't no good for shootin' rabbits."

"We both know what these are good for," I answered shortly. "I won't be hunting rabbits."

Zeke ducked his head and, with feigned interest, examined the scuffed toe of his cowboy boot. "Make you a good deal on it," he said at length, still looking down. "It's steal at one and a quarter."

"Is it a steal?" I asked.

Zeke looked up quickly, an offended frown on his face, "You mean is it hot? Hell no, man, it ain't hot. I don't fence shit for nobody. This is my very own private collection. I wouldn't be sellin' none of it, but the wife's been sick and had a lot of doctor's bills and all."

"Sure she has," I responded, "but this gun's not worth a dime over sixty bucks, so stop jacking me around."

Zeke yelped like he'd been stuck with a hot poker. After several rounds of negotiating back and forth, we finally settled on eighty-five dollars, cash-and-carry. Ten minutes later, without benefit of anybody's three-day waiting period, we were on our way.

Once we were beyond Zeke's earshot, Rhonda Attwood burst out laughing. "What's so funny?" I asked.

"Remind me to take you along if I ever decide to sell my Fiat. Now that I've seen you in action with Zeke, I'll bet you can handle car salesmen, too."

It's nice to be appreciated.