“You gunned down my people and you just thought it would be okay?”
“I didn’t have anything to do with that.”
“Why did you do it?”
“I didn’t do it. Didn’t you read the newspaper?” Of course, he didn’t.
“Screw this. Take him.” My brief and conditional freedom was rescinded, replaced by strong hands gripping my arms.
“You were lucky last night. We should have just come in the house and finished it. But this will be better. I’m going to feed you to my dogs. They like human flesh. They have a taste for it now. But first, I want you to have a little traveling companion. Let’s say it’ll help keep you quiet.”
He produced something dark and round, and another man latched onto my head.
“Open his mouth! Pull on his jaw!”
The next few seconds passed in a long, painful, frantic dream-state, ending with a man’s scream, something like a wet Chicken McNugget in my mouth, and half-proprietorship in a hand grenade.
A man was still screaming, as well he should. I had just bitten off one of his fingers at the second knuckle. Now I spat the bloody remnant on the pavement and stared at the jefe. The idea had been to put the grenade in my mouth. He held it up to my face as I struggled. Unfortunately, the man’s timing was bad and I have good teeth. The sudden turnabout had caused four-finger’s friends to loosen their grip, and I latched onto the grenade.
The jefe held it too, trying to wrestle it from me, tendons standing out in his neck and forearms. The crew could easily have overpowered me, but everyone hesitated. They could see that I had control of the top and the pin. That provided enough time to bend forward and pull the pin with my teeth.
Then I spat it away. The metal hitting the pavement was unnaturally loud.
The leader tried to back away but I wouldn’t let him. I held his hands wrapped in mine. His men were unsure what to do. The man who now had four fingers on one hand was reduced to moans as he ripped off his shirt to staunch the bleeding. All were confused by the new reality that had entered their lives: South Phoenix Rules-when you’re outnumbered and backup can’t arrive in time, when you have more assholes than bullets, all you can do is become the crazy Anglo.
I spat bloody saliva back at him. “Let’s all die today.”
His eyes widened and he tried again to disengage. It didn’t work. I had one hand firmly around his grip on the grenade and my other hand as the only thing holding down the safety handle. If my left hand was pried away, it was nearly impossible that anyone could move fast enough to keep the handle from springing, setting off the fuse, and leading to a short-countdown to explosion. What was it? Five seconds? Was it worth the risk? All had come to realize that el gabacho loco held their destiny, literally, in his hand.
I went on in Spanglish: “Ya no se puede hacer nada. Estamos jodidos.”
They all knew there was nothing they could do. We were screwed.
“Who the fuck are you? La Familia? No, too disciplined. Los Zetas? Mexican police? I don’t even give a shit.” I lightly fluttered my grip atop the safety handle and everyone tensed. Four Fingers stopped whimpering.
“You…” The leader stammered as his men regained themselves and aimed their M-4s at me. A new sheet of sandpaper colored his words. “You’re not going to just walk away…”
“Then we’re all gonna meet God in five seconds, and even if you shoot me, I guarantee you’ll go with me when this piña blows.” I watched his luminous brown eyes as they failed to blink. My arms ached but I fought to conceal it. “Or, we can talk, entre machos, warrior to warrior. ”
“What can you possibly give me?” he demanded, his hand still firmly in my grip. We were both sweating heavily but his hands were starting to shake.
“I can give you what you want.”
28
Back at the house, I tried to take stock. After brushing my teeth like a maniac, I put the Bill Evans Trio on the sound system, made a martini, and settled at the desk to think. I thought about Lindsey, wondered about the man or men she might be seeing. Might be in bed with right now. What was he like? Lindsey was so conservative, almost a prude in some ways. Now I guessed she had rubber to burn. My lodestar lost, perhaps irrevocably. Common male jealousy twined with my vivid imagination wrestled with grief over control of my emotions and lost. The level of the liquid in the martini glass went down. I was too broad shouldered to carry off the narrow neckties popular when Bill Evans was at his peak. I still didn’t understand why Robin mattered so much to Sal Moretti that he would put a hit on her.
For the first time, I looked at Robin’s legal pad as more than a painful relic. I pulled it over and started reading the notes she had made on that long afternoon she spent alone, after she had given me a kiss at the light rail station near the central library. Soon, I was making my own notes on a separate pad.
Peralta answered on the second ring.
“Have you murdered anyone?”
“No.”
“And you just happened to see the hit woman walking down the street several miles from your house.”
“I was just a concerned citizen.” When he didn’t answer, I went on. “You still have the contacts to get a fast-track check on military records…”
He reluctantly said yes.
I read him the information from the aged dog tags that I held in my hand.
Then I called a friend back east. She was an expert in the history of the Mafia. It was late her time, but she was indulgent. Something in my voice, perhaps. When I ended the call, all I could do was lay my head on the desk.
The next morning, I was at the ASU Hayden Library early. The Arizona Historical Foundation archives were a starting point at least, and by ten, a preservationist named Susan had set me up at a table where I was surrounded by the comforting mass of gray Hollinger boxes.
The Japanese internment of World War II was one of the sorrier chapters in American history, when more than 100,000 Japanese-Americans and Japanese living in the country were forcibly moved from the West Coast into concentration camps. The reasoning had been fear of a Japanese invasion or sabotage of war industries, even though there was never an instance of sedition or espionage. But it had been arbitrary: Hardly any Japanese living in Hawaii, which had actually been attacked, were interned.
No matter: the anti-Japanese feelings that had long simmered, especially in California, were unleashed by Pearl Harbor. Franklin Roosevelt signed executive order 9066 in 1942. Many were brought to camps constructed in Arizona, including one at Poston, in the western desert. Most lost everything and after the war had to start over. Today, conservatives were defending this move by the otherwise hated FDR as a useful precedent for profiling Muslims living in America. Everything comes around.
At my crowded table, like a credible historian, I moved through primary source material, the recollections and documentation of people who had actually been there. The Frances and Mary Montgomery Collection-they had been teachers at the Gila relocation camp south of Phoenix. The Wade Head Collection-he had been the director of the Colorado River War Relocation Center at Poston. I set aside the memoranda about camp construction and organization. Letters about individuals and families took more of my time.
It was a rich archive. I wanted to spend a month there and listen to the hours of oral histories. There was no time. And I couldn’t find much on the relocation in Phoenix itself. It was probably there. Everything is somewhere, if you look long enough-ask the archeologists who found ancient Jericho. But the records concerning Arizona related to the camps themselves. The same was true of the secondary source materials, such as the scholarly articles and a couple of Ph.D. dissertations.