Extreme Prejudice

Chapter 4

4

It was after one o’clock, so I scarfed down a couple of Chicago hot dogs in Arizona Center’s food court while I perused the files for the two fugitives. Conspiracy Bob, I could handle on my own. This Rudy Pratt fellow might be a different story.

Pratt’s lack of priors was a good sign he wasn’t a hardened criminal. Then again, the man was charged with first-degree murder, and now the judge wanted him remanded. He might not be so keen on going back to jail willingly. So once I took care of Conspiracy Bob, I’d contact my crew for backup on Pratt.

After lunch, I hopped on I-10 to the Loop 101 North and exited west onto Bell Road. Sun City was a retirement community northwest of Phoenix, where golf carts were a common form of transportation and turning left from the right-hand lane was considered going with the flow of traffic.

Conspiracy Bob lived in a small yellow house. A low wall cordoned off a front patio littered with dusty old watering cans and garden gnomes his late wife had collected before she died a few years back. A forest of weeds, some at least two feet tall, poked up from the layer of crushed rock in the front yard.

Bob’s forest-green Subaru, a relic from the 1980s, baked in the sunny driveway. From the back, I could hardly tell what color it was painted with all of the conspiracy-themed bumper stickers.

Behind the house, a shortwave antenna rose forty feet into the air. Bob used an elaborate radio set to communicate surreptitiously with his fellow conspiracy theorists.

I blocked the driveway with the Gray Ghost in case Bob got any ideas of making a run for it. He’d done so once or twice out of the dozen times I’d picked him up. What he lacked in rational thought, he made up for in determination.

My knock at the door triggered a series of barks from inside. Sounded like a big dog and might have been convincing if it hadn’t deteriorated into a fit of very human coughing. Conspiracy Bob was up to his usual shenanigans.

“Bob, it’s Jinx Ballou!” I hollered loud enough for him to hear me. “You missed your court date.”

The barking continued, although with less enthusiasm.

“Sure is a nice door you have here. What is it? Oak? Be a shame if I had to knock it in with my battering ram.”

“Bob’s not here right now,” said a rattly tenor voice, “but if you leave a message at the beep—”

“I’m getting my battering ram.”

“Wait! Wait!” Several locks clicked free, and the door opened to a dour little man in his seventies standing on the tile floor in leather Jesus sandals. He stood six inches shorter than me and had a gray beard that hung down to his chest. He wore tattered jeans and a pale-green shirt that read Everything You Know is a Lie.

“We really have to do this?” he asked with hands on his hips.

“’Fraid so. You wouldn’t want to lose this, uh, lovely house of yours.”

“None of this would’ve happened if they’d just listened to me.” He sighed. “All right. Let me get my coat.”

I followed him into his house, past half-empty cardboard boxes, computers in various states of assembly, stacks of newspapers, dirty dishes, and heaps of clothing. Aluminum foil lined the walls and windows.

“You know, you’d save yourself a lot of money and trouble if you just showed up to court.” I trailed him into his bedroom. A bookshelf stuffed with yellowing paperbacks stood next to a bed that reeked of urine.

“Where’s the fun in that?” He picked through the crammed wall closet until he found a faded Grateful Dead hoodie. “I’m trying to make people understand what’s happening before it’s too late.”

“And what’s going on?” I asked casually, not interested in hearing his latest conspiracy theories.

“The mole people are planning to take over the city, possibly the world.” He pulled on the hoodie and held my gaze with fervor in his eyes. “They’re planning to detonate bombs at strategic places around the city. The first one’s set to go off in a few days near the state government buildings.”

I gestured toward the front door, and he led the way outside.

“Have you actually seen these mole people?” I asked.

“You think I’m crazy, don’t ya?” He pointed at me as we stopped next to the Gray Ghost.

“Well, Bob, the thought crossed my mind.” I unlocked the passenger door, and he climbed in. I hopped in behind the wheel and cruised out of the neighborhood.

“They’ve been living in the abandoned mines north of the valley and communicating via shortwave,” he explained. “I started picking up their transmissions a couple months ago.”

“So mole people have shortwave radios, huh?”

“Oh, they’ve adopted much of our technology. Radios, gene splicing, even video games.”

“How do you know they’re mole people? Maybe they’re just, well, people.”

“For starters, they use code names like Lodestar, Grays Gulch, and Crizaba—all names from abandoned mines in the area.”

“That doesn’t necessarily mean they’re mole people.”

He got a gleam in his eye. “When you’ve been listening as long as I have, you can tell. They have a certain way of speaking. And one thing I heard is that the days of tolerance are over. They refer to us as the immigrants because they were here first. They’re tired of how we’re polluting the planet. All the drugs and violence and corruption.”

“They speak English?”

“Oh yeah, they’ve been studying us for a long time. Listening in.”

“And what do they look like?”

He pulled up a photo on his cell phone. I glanced at it as we waited at a red light. “Isn’t that a character from a Star Wars movie?”

“That’s what they want you to think. But they’re real. And when they start blowing up buildings in Phoenix, everyone’s going to be sorry they ignored me.”

“If that happens, you are welcome to tell me you told me so.”

Suddenly his glee vanished, replaced with profound sadness. “We’ll all be dead or enslaved by then. So what would be the point?”

Conspiracy Bob got quiet for the rest of the trip to the North Phoenix Jail.

As the officer was processing him in, I told Bob I’d put in a good word with Sadie for him and hoped his lawyer could get his bail reset.

I felt bad for the guy. Yeah, he was brainwashed by the talking heads spreading absurd ideas, faulty logic, and outright lies to the gullible masses. But all in all, Conspiracy Bob seemed to have a good heart and never gave me any trouble.

After Bob was back in custody, I sat in the Gray Ghost and studied Rudy Pratt’s file in depth. Pratt lived in a single-family residence, not far from Metrocenter mall in Phoenix. He was married with two kids and had worked for ten years as an electronics engineer on rocket systems at SpaceJet America.

More recently, Pratt had worked as a salesclerk at Hardware SuperCenter, where the murder in question occurred. From rocket scientist to cashier to murder suspect to bail jumper. Helluva fall from grace.

No prior convictions. His credit report showed some medical bills that had gone ninety days before being paid, but whose hadn’t these days? He owned three pistols, a revolver, and a shotgun registered in his name. Not unusual for Arizona, but as a bounty hunter, I didn't like taking any chances.

I called my friend Rodeo, who worked for me part-time. His real name was Nathaniel Kwan, but he’d earned the nickname Rodeo during his time in the army due to his fondness for cowboy hats. More recently, he’d developed a fondness for my brother, Jake, who was newly out of the closet.

“Hey, Rodeo, I need your help with a case.”

“Copy that. Who’s our FTA?” Shorthand for failed to appear.

“Rudy Pratt, a former rocket scientist charged with first-degree murder.”

“Interesting. You want me to meet you somewhere?”

“The guy lives near Metrocenter. I’ll text you the address.”

“Meet you there in a couple hours.”

“Couple of hours? Come on, dude. Time’s money. Whatever it is can wait.”

“Sorry. I’m dropping Gwyneth off at her dance studio as we speak. They’re rehearsing their Christmas recital.”

“Ugh, I’m so tired of this Christmas nonsense.”

“Come on, girl. Don’t be such a Scrooge.”

“Charles Dickens can kiss my skinny white ass.” I sighed. “Go do the daddy thing then get your butt over to our fugitive’s house. I want to get this job done so I can go back to Winter Con tomorrow.”

“Aha! The real motive for urgency emerges.”

“Screw you.”

“I’ll see you in two, boss.”

I disconnected and hit another number on speed dial.

“This is Caden.” His voice was a youthful tenor, growing deeper each month he was on testosterone therapy.

I’d known Caden Morrow for a few years, having met him at Phoenix Gender Alliance, a local transgender support group. At the time, he was working as a CO at the women’s prison in Tonopah. When his employer, Rehabilitation Systems of America, fired him for transitioning on the job, he came to me looking for work. Turned out he was a good fit for the job.

“We got another case, dude. Need you to meet Rodeo and me near Metrocenter in a couple hours.”

“Sounds good. Hey, d’you hear someone dressed as Wonder Woman arrested Daniel Warren at a comic book festival?”

“Really? Imagine that,” I replied with feigned surprise. “I’ll text you the address.”

“Oh my God, was that—”

I ended the call and started the Gray Ghost.