'Not how I hear it,' Jesse said absently, scanning a missing persons flyer.
'Heard you did the spray painting. Heard you actually poured the gasoline and struck the match.'
'No.' Robbie's voice was shrill now.
'Snapper and Earl were only in the house in the first place because they were trying to get you out. They both tried to stop you, but they were too late.'
Robbie was crying now. There was a tape recorder on Jesse's desk. Jesse punched the RECORD button.
'No,' Robbie said, struggling to talk through the sobs.
'No. I wasn't even in the house. I was outside watching chickie for the cops.'
'Oh? So who set the fire?'
'I don't know. I wasn't even in there. Earl had the gas can.'
'You're trying to tell me that he was in there with Snapper?'
'Snapper told us he found an open window at the fag house and he'd been in there and tagged the walls in the living room,' Robbie said. He was talking as fast as he could, at the same time struggling not to wail.
'Earl stole the gas from my dad, for the power mower, and him and Snapper told me to watch for the cops, and they went in the house.'
'Through the window?'
'No, Snapper left the door unlocked.'
'And you went in and torched the place,' Jesse said gently.
'No,' Robbie almost screamed.
'No, I didn't. Snapper and Earl torched it.'
Jesse punched the STOP button on his tape recorder. Then he got up and went around the desk and took the cuffs off Robbie's wrists. He shoved a box of tissues to the edge of the desk where Robbie could reach it and went back and sat down. He raised his voice.
'Suitcase?'
The door opened. And Simpson appeared.
'Time to talk with Earl,' Jesse said.
TWELVE.
Macklin was having lunch outside on the patio at Janos restaurant in Tucson with an Indian named Crow. The Indian's real name was Wilson Cromartie, but he liked to be called Crow. He was wearing a shortsleeved white shirt, pressed blue jeans, polished boots, and a silver concho belt.
Everything about Crow was angles and planes, as if he had been packed very tightly into himself. The muscles bulged against his taut skin like sharp corners.
The veins were prominent. He wasn't much bigger than Macklin, but everything about him spoke of force tightly compressed. They were drinking margaritas.
'And you want me to be the shooter?' Crow said.
'Not just a shooter,' Macklin said.
'I need a force guy, somebody can do the job on the operation and keep discipline in the crew.'
'You can't do that?'
'I can do that, but I gotta run the whole dance, you know? Besides I don't scare people like you do.'
'That's 'cause you look like some guy graduated Cornell,' Crow said.
His voice had traces of that indefinable Indian overtone, even though Macklin knew that Crow hadn't seen a rain dance in his entire life.
'And I sound like it, and that works pretty good for me. But I still need a force guy.'
'And you come all the way to Tucson to hire me?' Crow said.
'To cut you in,' Macklin said.
'I'm trying to cut you in on the score of a fucking lifetime and you're asking questions like I was trying to steal your land.'
'White eyes speak with forked tongue,' Crow said.
'Don't give me that Geronimo crap,' Macklin said.
'It's me, Jimmy Macklin. You wouldn't know a tepee from a pee pee, for cris sake
Crow's expression didn't change.
'Tepee bigger,' he said.
A waitress came and took their lunch order. There were small birds in some dry desert shrubbery around the patio. They made a lot of noise.
When the waitress left, Crow said, 'Twenty percent.'
'I got too many expenses, Crow. I gotta get an electronics guy, explosives guy, guy with a boat. I can't afford
