Burning Midnight by Loren D. Estleman

the landline to voice mail.
    â€œWhat’s new?” Alderdyce asked.
    I told him about the surveillance video. There was no reason not to, as the Arson Squad would have a copy. He hadn’t had a chance to look at it yet.
    â€œCould be anything,” he said. “He stole the lighter, or Zorborón dropped it and he found it. Kids are magpies, snap up anything shiny.”
    â€œWhat do you know about the thunderbird?”
    â€œIt’s just about the worst wine in a bottle. Offhand I can’t think of a gang that uses it for an insignia. The Zapatistas lack imagination: Theirs is a Z with a line through it. I’ll run it past the Youth Bureau.”
    â€œAny news on a bodyguard?”
    â€œWe found Zorborón’s driver shacked up with his girlfriend in her apartment, across from Holy Cross Cemetery. They said neither of them has been out of the place since day before yesterday. Building super backed them up; he had to go up there three times to tell them to pipe down. They like to bat each other around and sing all the standards in between, at the top of their lungs. Not American Idol material, according to the supe. Place smelled like they smoked it with pot and scrubbed it down with gin. Cheez-It dust two inches deep on the floor; the Eucharist of munchies. Warren Zevon playing over and over on the stereo.”
    â€œâ€˜Werewolves of London.’ Subtle folk, Latins.”
    â€œSay what?”
    â€œSomething Zorborón said. Not pertinent. Sweet alibi for the driver.”
    â€œWe tanked them both for D-and-D and domestic assault, and him for CCW. Needless to say neither of them will press on the assault, but when the piñata busts you scoop up what spills out. He lugged around the Tiger’s gun for him, but with his record he couldn’t get a permit in Tijuana if he showed up at the police station with a bushel of pesos. They might crack and they might not, but it wouldn’t be the first time a human shield called in sick just when he was most needed.”
    â€œThat would let out Nesto. A sixteen-year-old from Lathrup Village doesn’t have the attention span to rig a conspiracy.”
    â€œThe punk who pulls the trigger is almost never the one who wrote the playbook.”
    I looked to Wally’s ghost for advice, but my foot blocked my view of his hole. “Do you want it to be him?”
    â€œI have to work extra hard to fit him to it so I can eliminate him. The tag’s out. If he shows his face at home or anywhere in the area he’s downtown meat. Faster if he shows it in Mexicantown.”
    â€œSuspicion of homicide?”
    â€œRight now it’s just runaway; but I let the department know the relationship. That way it’s high priority, but if he tries to run, the pieces will stay in the holsters.”
    â€œYou’re all heart, Gramps.”
    â€œFuck you. I don’t know the kid from Charlie Brown.”
    â€œThen why am I even part of this?”
    â€œWe got to create jobs, the president says.”
    I rubbed my eyes. They were cured in secondhand pot and strained from staring at videos. “We through here?”
    â€œI guess so. How’s expenses?”
    â€œI’m still working on my last carton. I’ll let you know when I need to tap the Swiss accounts.”
    â€œYou’re going to milk this thing for all it’s worth, aren’t you?”
    â€œHe’s just a kid, John. You used to be one, as I recall.”
    He blew air. There was smoke in it as surely as if I smelled it. “I wish to hell I could.”
    After we were done I lit a cigarette, but the exhaust made my eyes sting even worse and I screwed it out in the tray. I remembered to check voice mail on the desk phone. The message was from Chata. Nesto had called.
    *   *   *
    â€œWhat’d he say?”
    â€œâ€˜Hello.’”
    â€œThat was polite of him. What else?”
    â€œNothing. I