tossed them out the window,” Bob said. “Free phones for your local dealers.”
And it was not a neighborhood where Deese and the gang would be hanging out.
“Back to the original plan,” Lucas said.
Rae: “Groan.”
* * *
—
BOB AND RAE would focus on emergency rooms west of I-15, the north-south interstate highway that split the city right up the middle. They did that only because the Wrights thought the getaway car had gone west.
“It’s weak, but it’s what we’ve got. Everything we know about them has come from west of I-15,” Lucas said.
Lucas would meet Mallow, who had a short list of fences where the Wrights’ jewelry might be held.
* * *
—
LUCAS FOUND MALLOW waiting outside a Dunkin’ Donuts on the east side of town. Mallow had said he wanted to walk to the first place they’d visit and the donut shop was nearby. He had a bag in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other and was wearing a loose, bright yellow shirt with its tail over his slacks. Lucas got his iPad out of the Volvo, left the car in the parking lot, and walked around to the front of the shop.
“A flatfoot at a donut shop,” Lucas said. “You got no self-respect . . . You get an extra?”
“Hey, Cargo shorts and drivin’ a Volvo, let’s not talk about self-respect,” Mallow said, tipping his coffee cup at Lucas’s knees. There was a trash can outside the door. As they left, Lucas took the last donut, a double chocolate, and Mallow threw the bag into the can.
“You got me on the Volvo,” Lucas said. “Where’re we going?”
They were going down the block to a low stucco building with a red neon sign that said “Alvin’s Gems & Jewelry” and a door with an electronic lock. As they walked up, Mallow said, “Ring the doorbell. There’s a camera aimed at the door, they know my face. I’m gonna hang back.”
Lucas rang the bell and a moment later was buzzed through the door. He held it for Mallow, then led the way down a short hallway to the main room, where a woman was sitting behind the jewelry counter, looking at a television set.
Mallow said, “Miz Alvin. Ray around?”
Mrs. Alvin resembled some of the weeds that overgrew Las Vegas’s vacant lots—thin, dry-looking—with yellow-white hair atop a puckered-up face. “Nope. He’s up to the ranch.”
“Didn’t know you had a ranch,” Mallow said.
“Did since Ray’s dad died. It’s north of St. George. He’ll be back tomorrow,” she said. “What do you want him for?”
“The marshal here wants to show you some pictures,” Mallow said.
Lucas called up the photos of Toni Wright’s jewelry on the iPad and spun it around to show Alvin. She looked at them carefully, then said to Mallow, “That’s way high-end. We wouldn’t handle that. Of course if we did, we’d want a good provenance. There’s so much fake Loloma out there that you can’t sell it if you can’t prove where it come from.”
Mallow said, “Right,” letting the skepticism ride on his voice.
“Don’t believe me?” Alvin said. “Look at the stuff we handle.” She rapped on the glass top of the jewelry counter. “Most expensive thing in here is five hundred and forty-nine dollars, and we could be talked down. We don’t handle no twenty-thousand-dollar Loloma.”
“How about that princess necklace?” Mallow asked.
“Shoot. We didn’t handle no princess necklace.”
“Well, I know you did, and you know I know. You sold it to that Fitch guy up in Denver and he sent it along to Baltimore. What’d you take out of that? Fifty K? Is that where the ranch came from?”
She sneered at him, a rim of ragged teeth showing beneath her thin top lip. “You must not have checked the real estate market lately. You don’t buy no Colorado ranch for no fifty K.”
It was starting to sound like a lover’s quarrel, so Lucas jumped in. “Mrs. Alvin, I’m a U.S. Marshal and I’m trying to track down a killer. That cannibal from Louisiana, you probably heard about him on television?”
She said, “Maybe,” which meant yes.
“He’s with this bunch who stole the Loloma jewelry,” Lucas said. “If it turns out you or your husband handled it, and if you lie about it and we find out we’ll put you in prison. We’re not talking about thirty days for handling a stolen bracelet. We’re talking about being an accessory to murder, which is the same as murder, and that’s life in prison.”