Shred of Evidence

Arizona sun leeched blue from the sky, scorched blacktop.

The heat got so bad Joe Pender abandoned his office for the front stoop of U-Save Storage. A wind picked up and spat warm dust at him, but it was movement, at least. Air circulated past his armpits. The sweat clinging to his Dickie shirt started to dry.

And then: two shapes approached along the frontage road.

They came fast, on motorcycles, and Pender saw the glint of round helmets, the familiar brown-and-tan uniforms. He put a grin on his face. Waved. Sure enough, the officers slowed as they neared the storage facility, angled their bikes off the road and into the parking area.

He felt fresh sweat begin to trickle.

They swung the kickstands down, leaned their heavy machines onto softening asphalt. Both slid their helmets off at the same time—Christ, he knew these two. Ray Satoshi and Robert Opp. They started over to him, Satoshi taking the lead. He had stiff black hair and big eyebrows that looked like caterpillars. Pender had gone to high school with him, made fun of him, in fact, about those eyebrows. And being half-Japanese.

“Joe,” Satoshi said, giving his hand a quick, professional shake. “We dropped by because we’re checking all businesses along the freeway. We’d like to ask you a couple questions.”

“This is about that robbery last night, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“News said the guy got fifty grand. That doesn’t sound right for knocking over a bar.”

“Forty-three grand,” Robert Opp said, leaning in. He was older than Satoshi, sort of doughy, but just as serious. “And the place he robbed was a topless club. Gentleman’s Choice.”

“You familiar with it?” Satoshi said.

“I’ve sunk a couple there, yeah.”

Opp’s expression went from police-friendly to police-stoic. “What makes this case so important, Joe, is that a man was shot during the robbery. One of the bouncers. He died this morning.”

“You guys have any idea who did it?”

Satoshi took a folded paper from his uniform pocket and handed it to Pender. Pender unfolded a copy of a photograph. A young hard-ass with a teardrop tattoo under one eye stared up at him. There was a name printed at the bottom. An unusual one: Yrigoyen.

“How the hell do you pronounce that?” he said.

“Ear-eh-GOY-en,” Satoshi said.

“Sounds Armenian.”

“Mexican national.”

Pender handed the paper back. “I still don’t see how this guy gets forty-three large, even from a titty bar. What he do, make the girls cough up their g-string money?”

“He did,” Opp said, reddening. “He also got the manager to open his private safe, at gunpoint.”

“Jesus.”

Satoshi and Opp were looking at him expectantly now.

“Are you trying to ask me if I’ve seen this asshole?”

“We think he’s still somewhere in town,” Opp said. “The first thing we did was throw a cordon up on the highway, in both directions. And we warned Border Patrol to double-check everyone trying to get into Mexico. So, odds are he’s hiding. And no offense, but we’ve heard things about these storage places. How people will live in the units sometimes, or hide evidence, because the managers don’t ask too many questions.”

“We’re not trying to sound accusatory,” Satoshi said.

Pender smiled to show them he wasn’t taking this personal, despite the fact he never had a criminal record. Not even a ticket. Despite the fact some of the money he made went to city taxes, which in turn went to paying the salaries of city officials. Including a certain half-breed cop and his fat buddy. But no, he wasn’t offended.

He walked up to the side of a nearby unit and rapped his knuckles. “Hear that?” Corrugated aluminum. It starts cooking as soon as the sun comes up, and with all this blacktop the grounds never really cool at night. I suppose in some states a manager could make extra bucks letting someone live inside a unit. Not in Arizona, though. With a concrete slab, and no ventilation, the temperature will creep upwards of a hundred-ten degrees. And that’s in the spring. In the summer, you can bake bread inside these suckers.”

Opp wiped sweat from his forehead.

“I’ve got fifty units on the premises,” Pender continued, “some about the size of a closet and some could hold a boat, and each one takes a special key plus the master to open. If you guys want, I’ll go get the board with all the individual keys and we’ll start checking, unit by unit. It’ll take at least an hour. Assuming we’re not that thorough. Otherwise…”

Satoshi nodded at his partner and the two of them walked about ten feet away, where they leaned close and spoke in low voices. Every now and then Satoshi glanced up at Pender.

They walked back over.

“Look,” Pender said, taking a step towards his office. “I’ve got plenty of time, okay? A couple of hours doesn’t mean anything to me. I’ll just get the keys and we’ll start. Only one master, though, and it’s got to turn at the same time as the unit key, so we can’t split up or anything.

Satoshi didn’t reply. He peered at him like they’d never met before, his black eyes steady. Appraising.

Pender took another step.

Opp puffed out his cheeks and said: “Maybe later. We’re on kind of a schedule, here.”

“It’s not a problem.”

“We appreciate that,” Opp said. “You being so co-operative.”

Satoshi had already turned and started walking back towards the motorcycles. Opp made an apologetic gesture and joined him. Their boots clik-claked against the asphalt. Pender watched them put their helmets on and kick the bikes started, neither one saying anything. They roared off down the frontage road.

He watched until they were two black specks that merged with freeway traffic.

He watched the specks disappear.

Back inside his cramped office, he took two Gatorades out of a mini-fridge and opened the heavy steel cabinet behind the desk. Rows of keys hung there. He selected one in the lower right corner, slid it inside his pocket, and left with a Gatorade tucked beneath each arm.

He walked down the rows of storage units, feeling the blacktop’s warmth creep through his shoes. The last row was marked ‘G.’ He approached G-9, a smaller unit towards the center, and set the drinks down. He had to crouch to insert the unit key and the master in the locks at the door’s bottom. The locks snapped open. He grabbed hold of a little bar and hauled the door up about six inches.

Furnace-air wafted from the crack. There was a scrabbling sound and then half a face pressed itself up against the opening; a strip of tanned flesh with a gasping, unshaven mouth. Sweat dripped down the stubbled cheek.

The face had a teardrop tattoo, beneath one brown eye.

“Your rent just went up,” Pender said. “I had to lie to some cops about you. They might come back and search.”

The brown eye glared at him. “Cocksucker,” came a near-whisper of a voice.

“You know how long they’d pop me for, Aiding and Abetting? With the risks I’m taking I figure you owe me an extra hundred a day. Payable now.”

Yrigoyen looked like he wanted to spit. His eye roved up and down Pender, and then it noticed the Gatorades sitting on the blacktop. The eye widened.

“You want a beverage?” Pender said.

“What do you think, asshole?”

“Costs twenty bucks.”

Yrigoyen cursed. He rattled off a string of cuss-words in liquid Spanish. Pender opened one of the plastic bottles and took a long gulp, making wet, smacking noises. “You about finished? Because if you want I can open the door all the way and let you out. There’s a convenience store with cold drinks about three miles down the road.”

“Puta motherfucker.”

“Don’t think you’d make it, though.”

“I know what you’re trying to do,” Yrigoyen said, his half-face contorting in a sneer. “Squeeze more money out of me while I’m hiding here. Well, you’re not going to get it.”

“The extra rent plus the Gatorade, that comes to a hundred-twenty bucks.”

A brown hand curled itself along the bottom of the door. The fingers looked muscular and throbbed with blue veins. “I’ll kill you right now. Break your fucking neck and stash your body in here.”

Pender shook his head. “You do that, you’ll never make it to Mexico. You need my help. They’ve got Feds swarming the border right now, and I figure it’ll take a week before you can even try.”

“A week.” The hand gripping the door went limp. “Jesus, that long?”

“At least.”

“I should’ve never turned in here. I should’ve kept on going, taken my chances.”

“You should’ve planned your getaway better.”

Silence.

“Tell you what,” Pender said. “You give me the hundred-twenty and I’ll throw in a portable fan. How’s that? Cool drink and a fan doesn’t sound so bad. Make things tolerable, at least.”

All the malevolence drained from the brown eye. It kept sliding back to the bottle of Gatorade, a couple feet away.

“Okay,” Yrigoyen said

The sweating face disappeared and Pender listened to him crawl through the semi-darkness. He pictured the two big duffel bags stashed back there, fat with cash. He’d seen them on the front seat of Yrigoyen’s car while they were hiding it in one of the bigger units, throwing a boat-tarp over top. Poor bastard was probably using the bags for a pillow now.

The face reappeared, and the hand slapped six bills down on the concrete. Pender grabbed them. The money was damp with sweat. “Wonder if this was tucked in some lovely’s g-string,” he said, rubbing the twenties against his cheek. “Oh well.” He nudged the Gatorade towards the gap with his foot, and Yrigoyen snatched it inside.

“You enjoy that,” Pender said. “I’ll be right back.”

He slammed the door down and locked it.

A walk from the back row to the office would normally take less than four minutes. He took a lot longer than that.

When he came back to G-9, he was holding a small plastic fan. He undid the locks and yanked the door up higher than before. Yrigoyen stared at the thing like Mecca had sprouted up through the pavement.

“Go ahead,” Pender said.

Both arms reached out and pulled the fan through the gap. Pender waited, a grin on his face. He heard a series of clicks followed by more cursing.

“You fucking with me again, puta?” Yrigoyen said, his face re-appearing. “This thing doesn’t work.”

“It runs on batteries.”

“So?”

Pender took a pair of copper cylinders out of his pocket, cradled them in his palm. “Batteries’ll cost you fifty bucks.”