Spike waved to their usual waiter, then dropped a manila envelope onto the table and sat down to the right of Gage, a plate of chicken in chili-laced cream sauce already cooling before him. A warming Coke stood next to it.
“Sorry I’m late,” Spike said. “I got hung up at a meeting with the chief. The mayor is pissed because some Japanese woman got mugged coming out of the St. Francis Hotel. Cut up pretty bad. He’s worried about losing the Asian tourist business.”
Gage set down his fork. “I’ve got an idea. Maybe he should hire the homeless to paint targets on the Nicaraguans and Sudanese so the crooks would know who he wants mugged.”
Spike grinned. “Why didn’t I think of that?”
“You did, you just didn’t say it because you know the chief doesn’t appreciate that kind of sarcasm.” Gage pointed at Spike’s plate. “You want it heated up?”
Spike mixed a little of the sauce with the rice, then tasted it. “No, it’s okay.” He tilted his head toward the half-eaten roasted birra in front of Gage. “You’re still the only white guy I know who eats goat.”
Spike dug into his chicken while Gage opened the envelope and thumbed through the thirty pages of police reports about Palmer’s shooting.
“I appreciate you taking over the case yourself instead of leaving it with your underlings,” Gage said. “Anything else besides what’s in here?”
“There’s also a ballistics check on the slug. A. 38. Five lands and grooves, right twist. Could be just about any Saturday night special.”
“What about the shooter?”
“Charlie gave us almost nothing to go on. The guy he described couldn’t have been more average if Charlie had made him up.”
“And that’s what you think he did?”
“The uniforms at the scene pushed him real hard for a description-a dying declaration in case he didn’t survive. All they got was a cardboard John Doe. At first I thought maybe shock scrambled his brain, but it didn’t get any better when I went to see him two days later. It was like he did some kind of statistical survey and came up with the mean…” Spike cocked his head and squinted toward the ceiling, then looked back at Gage. “Is it mean or median?”
“I think it’s called the mode. Mode is what there’s most of.”
Spike smiled. “Mr. Salazar will be thrilled to know ninth grade math stuck.” He took a sip of his Coke. “It’s like Charlie came up with the mode, and then said, ‘That’s the guy.’ ”
“You have a theory?”
“I think he didn’t want us to catch him.”
“And do it himself after he got better?”
“Except he didn’t get better. When I called Socorro last week, the doctor had just told him he’d recovered as much as he ever would. Might not get worse, but wouldn’t get better. He was never gonna work again, that’s for sure. Maybe never even get out of bed.”
“That must be why he called me.”
Spike shook his head. “I don’t think so. He knew you’re not a vigilante. He had to have guessed you’d be doing exactly what you’re doing, not roaming the streets with a six-shooter.”
“Then why didn’t he reach out to you if he changed his mind and wanted to get the guy?”
Spike shrugged. “Maybe it has to do with one of his cases. Attorney-client privilege and all that.” He aimed his fork at the file. “You know what he was working on the day he was shot? He wouldn’t tell me.”
“A tax evasion case. Yachts. He was interviewing marine appraisers.”
“Like those car donation scams?”
“But in the multimillion-dollar range. And knowing Charlie, he was probably trying to get one of them to commit perjury by testifying the appraisals were accurate.”
Gage caught Spike’s eye, then glanced toward the glass entrance doors. Two silver-adorned Jalisco cowboys entered, dressed in the style of their home state in Mexico. Silver belt buckles, silver toe tips on rattlesnake-skin boots, silver bands on their hats, and silver buttons and lapel points on their shirts. The men paused just inside the door and scanned the restaurant, then took a small table near the front window. One slid a black briefcase underneath, while the other pulled out a cell phone, punched in a number, spoke a few words, and disconnected.
“Must be door-to-door encyclopedia salesmen,” Gage said, as a waiter delivered the men a basket of tortilla chips and salsa.
Spike slipped in a Bluetooth earpiece, punched in a number on his cell phone, and turned slightly away and passed on his location and a description of the Jaliscos. He rested his phone on the table, waited until the men were both looking down and reaching for chips, and then snapped a photo of them and sent it.
“It’s just like riding a bike, isn’t it?” Spike said.
“Don’t you ever just want to get off it at least long enough to enjoy a meal?”
“Can’t. It’s like having the television on all the time in the back of your head.”
“I used to think of it as white noise,” Gage said, poking around in his birra. “Charlie used to alert to guys like that from a mile away.”
“But that was more about like attracting like.”
Spike reached into his coat pocket and withdrew a wallet-sized Mexican prayer card encased in plastic.
“My brother bought this for Faith at a shrine in Culiacan. He’s still playing amateur anthropologist. He wanted to give it to her at your father’s funeral, but it didn’t seem appropriate.”
He handed it to Gage.
“She still interested in Catholic animas?” Spike asked.
Gage nodded as he examined the image of folk saint Jesus Malverde, protector of drug dealers, overlaid on a painting of the Virgin of Guadalupe. He dipped his head toward the Jaliscos. “Those guys may need this thing a lot more than Faith.”
“I’m sure they never leave home without one.”
“They also don’t leave home unarmed,” Gage said. “Check out the front pocket of the guy on the right.”
Spike’s cell phone vibrated a couple of minutes later as the Mexicans ate shrimp cocktails from bulbous sundae glasses.
“ Hola, Mama. ” Spike spoke loudly, smiling at Gage. “ Estoy en la Fiesta Brava.” He listened for fifteen seconds, then in a lower voice passed on the warning about weapons and disconnected.
“You know what else Charlie was working on?” Spike asked.
“Off the record?”
“I don’t know. Tell me a little more.”
“He was trying to recover the wallet of somebody who got robbed.”
“Why off the record?”
“It was a government official.”
“There’s no law saying people have to report crimes against themselves,” Spike said. “Off the record is okay.”
“Brandon Meyer was mugged a week or two before Charlie got shot.”
“No shit?”
“He wanted Charlie to get his wallet back.”
“Why didn’t Meyer report it?”
“I think he was afraid it would slop back on his brother.”
“I don’t get it. A mugging is a mugging. Happens all the time.”
“But this one happened at night in the Tenderloin.”
“The Tenderloin?” Even Spike wouldn’t walk through the Tenderloin after sunset, and he carried two handguns and Mace. “What was the brother of a presidential candidate doing in there? That has National Enquirer written all over it.”
“Meyer claimed he cut through on his way to a meeting, but I don’t believe him.”
Spike clucked. “You not believing an exalted federal judge like him. I’m shocked, simply shocked.”
They watched the waiter deliver two Dos XXs to the Jaliscos.
“How’d you find out about the mugging?” Spike asked.
“From Socorro. Then Meyer called me to drop by, but only to make sure I didn’t pursue it.”
“Why didn’t he just cancel the credit cards and forget the whole thing?”
“I don’t know. He wouldn’t tell me. Could be there was something in the wallet.”
Spike grinned. “Like maybe a Viagra tablet and the cell number of a Tenderloin prostitute?”
Gage shook his head. “Unlikely. I’m not sure sex is his thing anymore. He gets off screwing over whoever shows up in his court.”