Quinn. Oh my God, yes. Now?”
“I just dropped Zachariah Robertson off at his hotel so I’m still in the city,” I said. “Want to meet at that Greek restaurant near your office?”
“Can’t. That was the last fraud case I worked and I’m about to bust them for money laundering.”
“I heard something about that, but the gyro platters are so good,” I said, but she wasn’t listening.
“Larry?” Her voice turned away from the phone and I heard her ask someone for a place around Campbell and Speedway. I heard a man’s voice say, “Pretty sure it’s open now.” She gave me directions to a cop bar near the Sheraton and added, after listening again to whoever on her end of the line was giving directions, “It’s Emery’s Cantina. I’m leaving the office right now.”
Nine
There are designated cop spots, places where everybody might not know your name, but where you can be sure they’ll cover your back because there’s a shotgun behind the bar. The Naugahyde elbow rest on the bar is cracked in places, the lighting is bad, and you try not to think about the kitchen. People besides cops go to these places, of course, like silent elderly couples on fixed incomes who appear to have said everything they have to say to each other decades before. Everyone knows it’s a safe place with reliably standard fare and dollar happy hours. This one turned out to be close to the hotel, about a mile north from the Sheraton on Campbell in a freestanding old building close to the road, one of the few in Tucson that hadn’t yet been torn down for a strip mall.
I got there first and recognized a couple deputies from the sheriff’s office, if only by first name. Wally and Cliff both stopped grinding their burgers just long enough to lift a greasy palm in greeting, as did the bartender, one of those cheerful lugs who look like an overweight baby.
At the bartender’s direction I took a table against the wall that was painted to look like crumbling adobe. A waitress came up before I had a chance to unstick the little white band that kept my paper napkin folded around the silverware. The waitress was in her late twenties, I thought, though young people look younger the older I get. She had a runner’s build and was African American. If I was still living in DC that last thing wouldn’t be worthy of remark, but there aren’t many black people living in Arizona.
I could have waited for Coleman to arrive so I didn’t seem in such urgent need but holding up my palms like two scales said, “Vodka in one glass, ice in another.” Customary maximum at cop bars is generally two light beers; the cops glanced over when they heard me order. I ignored them and looked around the place, noting the Special Olympics and Toys for Tots appreciation certificates on the far wall and the usual mass of photographs of customers mugging cheerfully. It felt good to get away from Zach and meet somebody for cop talk.
Coleman must have been booking it because she showed up before my drink was gone, so I didn’t have a chance to order a second without her knowing. When she sat down and leaned her black satchel against a leg of the chair, she looked at my glass. Though I spooned some more of the ice into the vodka glass I didn’t feel as if I had to justify myself.
After registering my alcohol she looked around at her surroundings, at the other cops in the bar, and didn’t seem entirely comfortable with it all, too low class or too barish for her.
“So why did you leave Fraud for Homicide? Usually people go the other way,” I asked.
“I just felt that was what I had to do.” She gave a mild shrug to go with her nonanswer and turned up one corner of her mouth. For someone so eager to get together she was evasive, her eyes pausing only in the vicinity of mine. Under the pretext of raking her fingers through her short curls she passed a hand over a pale copper birthmark on her right temple as if she considered that birthmark her only flaw and wanted to hide it. Other than that my only impression was that in high school she might have been the sort of girl who rode on floats.
The waitress came back. “Do you know what else you want?” she asked, as