'You fucked up bad on the job, Turner.'
'Not just on the job.'
'What I heard.' He stared, smiled and wheezed a bit before saying, 'So where've you been?'
'Home, more or less.'
'And now you're back.'
'Briefly. Touching down. Here and gone before you know it.'
'I was just on the phone with Lonnie Bates.'
'Guess that explains why Sergeant Collins at the desk had me cooling my heels.'
'Sheriff Bates speaks well of you. Seems a good man.'
'He is. Would have made a great con artist. People tend to see him as just this hicktown officer, and he plays up to it, when the truth is, he's as smart and as capable as anyone I've ever worked with. Same goes for his deputy.'
'Other deputy, you mean.'
'Other deputy, right.'
Sam nodded. When he did, cords of loose skin on his neck writhed. 'Bates told me what happened.'
He fiddled with a Webster cup. Clutch of ballpoint pens, letter opener, scissors, six-inch plastic ruler, couple of paper-sheathed soda straws, a cheap cigar in its wrapper.
'Deputy sheriff from another county won't hold much water here in Memphis.'
'I know that. On the other hand, I do have a fugitive warrant.'
'So Sheriff Bates informed me. So after I hung up from talking to him, I called over to our own sheriff's office and spoke with the fugitive squad there, people you'd ordinarily be expected to coordinate with. We help them out sometimes. Game of 'Mother May I?' is mostly what it is. You know how it works.'
I nodded. 'They give you permission to take one giant step?'
'So happens they did.'
'Your town, Sam, and your call. Just I'd appreciate being there.'
'Course, first we have to figure out where there is.'
'Judd Kurtz doesn't ring any bells?'
'Not with me. Nino's we know. Also Semper Fi Investments. We keep an eye out. Hang on a minute.'
He punched in an interoffice number, waited a couple of rings.
'Hamill. Any word on the street about a missing quarter-mill or so?… I see… Say I was to whisper the name Judd Kurtz in your ear, would it get me a kiss?… Thanks, Stan.'
He hung up.
'Stan heads up our task force on organized crime. Says a week or two back, a minor leaguer made his rounds-passed the collection plate, as Stan put it-then went missing. Rumor has it he's a nephew to one of the bosses. Stan also says someone's tried his best to put a lid on it.'
'But even the best lids leak.'
Sam nodded.
'Stan have any idea where we can find this supposed nephew?'
'You really been away that long, Turner? You think we're gonna find this guy? What, he ripped off one of the bosses, then got himself arrested in the boondocks, made them send in the thick-necks? Those sound like career moves to you? Nephew or not, he's under Mud Island by now.'
'In which case I need to find the thick-necks.'
'How did I know?' Eyes went to the window looking out into the squad room. All the good stuff happened out there. He used to be out there himself. 'You know your warrant doesn't cover them.'
'I'm not asking you to help me, Sam. Just hoping you and your people won't get in my way.'
'Oh, I think we can do a little better than that.'
Again he punched in a number. 'Tracy, you got a minute?' Ten, twelve beats and the door opened.
Thirtyish, button jeans, dark T-shirt with a blazer over, upturned nose, silver cuffs climbing the rim of one ear.
'Tracy Caulding, Deputy Sheriff Turner. Believe it or not, this man used to be one of ours. The two of us came on the job together, in fact.'
'Wow. Now there's a recommendation.'
'Back home, his sheriff got taken down by some of our local hardcases. Turner would like to meet them.'
'Taken down?'
'He's alive. Badge is gonna spend some time in the drawer, though.'
'That really blows.'
'No argument from me. City rats gone country, Tracy. It's not their territory, what the fuck? They're in, they're out, they're gone.'
'Where am I in this, Sam?'
'You ever said 'sir' or 'boss' your whole life?'
'Not as I recall. My mother-'
'Was a hardcore feminist, six books, whistle-blower on the evils of society. I do read personnel files, Tracy.'
She smiled, quite possibly in that moment adding to global warming.
'Thing is, Turner here's been away a while. We don't want him getting lost. Show him around, help facilitate his reentry.'
'Ride shotgun is what you mean,' Tracy Caulding said.
'I don't need protection, Sam.'
'I know you don't, old friend. What I'm thinking is, with you back, maybe we do.'
CHAPTER SIX
Had a wonderful barbeque dinner that night, Tracy Caulding and I, at Sonny Boy's #2 out on Lamar: indoor picnic benches, sweaty plastic pitchers of iced tea, roll of paper towels at each table. There was no Sonny Boy's #1, Tracy told me-not that, after a bite or two, anyone was likely to care. Amazing, blazing pork, creamy cool cole slaw, butterbeans and pinto beans baked together, biscuits. 'Biscuits fresh ever hour,' according to a hand-lettered sign.
For all its cultural razing, Memphis remains one of the great barbeque towns.
Tracy lowered a stand of ribs she'd sucked dry onto her plate and, tearing off a panel of paper towel, wiped her mouth as lustily as she'd taken to the barbeque. She picked up another segment of ribs, held it poised for launch, told me: 'Stan Dimitri and I had coffee together this afternoon. From organized crime? He filled me in on the Aleche network.'
'That what they're calling them now? Networks? To us they were just gangs.'
'Then for a while it went to crews. Now it's networks. This one's responsible for much of the money that gets dry-cleaned through Semper Fi Investments. Run by, if you can believe it, a Native American who passes himself off as some sort of Mediterranean. Born Jimmy McCallum, been going by Jorge Aleche for years now.'
'He the one with the nephew?'
'Stan thinks so.'
'Stan thinks-that's the best you have?'
Shrugging. 'What can I say?'
'Well… What I think is, it's time for a massive rattling of the cage.'
The second portion of ribs dropped onto her plate. A third or fourth paper towel wiped away sins of the immediate past. Older sins took a bit longer.
'And here Sam thinks you're out of touch.' She held up her beer, tipping its neck towards me. 'I know who you are, Turner.'
'I'd be surprised if you didn't. However big the city, the job's always a small town.'
