“No, there aren’t,” McConnico said. “I was reading a story in the Republic today about the professional sports teams. Do you realize Phoenix is one of eleven cities around the country that has all four major professional sports represented? God, I remember when the Suns first came to town, and that was all we had for years.”
“I do, too. We went to a lot of games that first season. At the old coliseum.…”
Brent McConnico smiled past me. “Anyway, this article quoted some academic type-no offense-sneering about Phoenix’s inferiority complex, and about how we’re a city of Jed Clampetts building ‘ce-ment ponds.’ No culture. No philanthropy. No history. People like that don’t understand this city, this state.”
The waiter reappeared with the martini. Brent McConnico looked at him, annoyed, and he retreated.
“You and me, David, our families. They mortgaged their land to build the first dam so we’d have water in this Valley. People today, they don’t even know where our water comes from, they take it so for granted. In our parents’ lifetimes, this city was built. It’s a miracle.”
He was fairly drunk. He hid it well, until he got on a roll like this.
“David, I hope you don’t mind, but I made some inquiries about you.”
“I guess not.”
“I felt so bad about what happened. I wondered what I might do to make things better between us.”
“Senator, you don’t owe me anything.”
“Brent, please call me Brent.”
“Brent.”
“Anyway, David, you’ve got quite an interesting history, no pun intended. Raised by your grandparents after your parents were killed. A sheriff’s deputy for four years in the early 1980s. Then you got your master’s and Ph.D. in history and left Phoenix to teach. You went to Miami of Ohio for eight years, right? Then to San Diego State. What a beautiful city San Diego is.”
The waiter took our orders. I ordered the lobster quesadilla. McConnico asked for another drink and the duck tamale with Anaheim chile and raisins.
“You wrote a modestly successful book on a history of American railroads. You were a popular teacher,” he went on. “You didn’t get on as well with some of your faculty colleagues, I understand. The politically correct types. God, I hate that kind of institutionalized intolerance.” He started on the new drink. “Married for five years to an heiress to a beer fortune. Patricia? Divorced, no children. And now you’re back in Phoenix, having turned forty. When most people are well settled down and connected, you’re very alone.”
I picked apart a roll and ate a piece. “I guess you did your homework, Brent,” I said.
“I did that to help, David,” he said. “You see, I have an interest in our university system, in the quality of education. It’s been one of the centerpieces of my career. I would love nothing better than to see a native Arizonan come back home and do what he does best. You know, that’s always been a problem in this state. We look outside for everything. We don’t look after our own. We don’t appreciate our homegrown talent.”
He watched as a slender redhead walked past in a short black cocktail dress. She looked us over and smiled. I thought of Phaedra.
“Anyway, David, I’ve been talking to my good friend Charles Harrington, who, as you know, is the dean of the college of liberal arts at ASU. He tells me they’d love to talk to you about a tenured position in the History Department.”
“That’s interesting, Brent, considering that a month ago my alma mater wouldn’t give me the time of day.”
He waved it away with a wave of his elegant Yale-in-3 hand. “David, it’s all who you know. This is a relationship-based world. You have to get the door opened, so people can see how smart and talented you are. It’s in the bag, David. The job is yours. Just take it.” He smiled warmly.
I sipped the martini, a truly sublime creation. I thought about what McConnico was saying. It brought to mind the line in Dante’s Inferno: “For the straight path was lost.” Or as an old cop used to say to me, “Who knows what happens to people?”
“Brent,” I said. “Tell me about the Rico Verde Cattle Company.”
His mouth tightened imperceptibly.
“Come again?”
“The Rico Verde Cattle Company.”
“You’re babbling now, David. Didn’t you just hear what I’m offering you?”
“Rico Verde was a land swindle back in the mid-1980s, substantial even by Arizona standards. The profits were never found. A couple of people went to prison. But a newspaper reporter I know says the real kingpin of Rico Verde was a man named Sam Larkin.”
Brent McConnico stared at me. His hand trembled and upset the bourbon. A puddle of liquor rolled across the tablecloth. The waiter silently cleared away the spill and brought another drink along with our food.
“Sam Larkin was your political mentor, if my history’s correct. And the year Rico Verde went down, you were in need of money, so the scuttlebutt down at the newspaper goes. Something about a rape allegation involving a legislative page? It must have cost dearly to make her go away.”
“You’d better stop right there, Mapstone,” he said. His finely sculpted cheekbones were flushed.
“See, I couldn’t understand the link between Rebecca’s murder and you. I mean, you were just a kid when she was killed. But there had to be something. Something big enough to make you hire a goon named Dennis Copeland to warn me off, and, when I didn’t take the hint, to kill me.”
I leaned in toward him. “And I didn’t understand why the things I said to you Tuesday upset you so badly that you got careless and drove straight from the capitol to meet the man in the black Mustang.”
He stared at me, suddenly ashen. “You followed me?” he said.
“You drive fast.”
“You little bastard,” he said.
He was actually indignant, as if I’d shown up at his country club or tried to date his perfect WASP daughter.
“That man Copeland murdered a police officer after he left you. That makes you an accessory.”
He shook his head deliberately. “I had nothing to do with that.” He lowered his voice and spoke more calmly. “No one will believe you anyway. One phone call to Mike Peralta will end your little law-enforcement adventure, Mapstone. I tell nobodies like Mike Peralta what to do. I can step on you just like a bug.”
“I don’t doubt it,” I said. “Which made Copeland even more puzzling to me. Why would somebody like you need muscle when you have all this power?”
“Well, what on earth do you theorize, Professor?” he asked with extravagant sarcasm. “Pray tell me what you see.”
I looked at him hard and said, “I see a loser in debt to the mob.”
I expected him to shout or break down, but he just leaned back and regarded me with a disdainful patrician calm. “You are a fool, David. Two minutes ago, you could have had a cushy job-teach a couple of classes, fuck the beautiful young coeds, draw a check from the taxpayers. Now…”
He paused and sipped his drink. Then he cut his food and began to eat.
“Now,” he said pleasantly, “I am going fuck you like you have never been fucked. You won’t be able to find work as a school janitor when I get through. And then one night, when your guard is down, dear socially challenged Dennis will be back, and you will die. He has a real sadistic streak.”
I said, “The Rico Verde Cattle Company, Brent.…”
He shook his head and laughed softly. “You are very persistent, David.”
“I have a thirst for knowledge.”
“Yes, I suppose you do,” he said. “Rico Verde was very good to me. My name wasn’t associated with it, of course. But I made a tidy profit, which is essential for a young man with political ambition and no money.” He was picking apart the dried-flower arrangement.
“What about your family’s money?”
He snorted. “There was none. A college trust fund, tightly controlled. Then nothing. That was my old man. In the 1960s, everybody in America made money, except him. A former governor no less. He refused to profit from his name or connections. He was weak. Sam wasn’t weak. Sam knew money and power. If that put him into debt with unsavory people, it was worth it.”