South Phoenix Rules by Jon Talton Page A

lied. I bent the truth. For the moment, there was no reason for Amy to think I didn’t still carry a badge. It was a useful fiction and I could use it for a few more days without getting caught; paperwork traveled slowly down on Jefferson Street. I had used my name and badge number that afternoon to run my scumbag through the NCIC. His wallet had two stolen credit cards and fifteen dollars cash, but his California driver’s license was true. And he was a member of La Familia—on parole after doing time for assault and weapons possession, the latest in a long and violent sheet.
    â€œHere’s a gift for lighting your backyard grill.” I reached into my windbreaker pocket and tossed Amy the yellow book of matches. She studied it all of five seconds.
    â€œWhere did you get this, David?”
    â€œOff a banger who was watching the house the other night. He’s La Fam. Then I took a little field trip, too. Quite an operation at Jesus Is Lord. Good ole Barney.”
    â€œYou know you shouldn’t be doing this.” Her voice assumed a taut, supervisory tone. “If you see a suspicious vehicle, call PPD. This isn’t a county case and you’re personally involved anyway. I can’t believe you did that.”
    But I did, so I just smiled at her, and let the silence collect between us.
    â€œHow’s Lindsey taking all this?”
    â€œShe’s concerned. She’s in D.C.”
    â€œAlready? Well, she’ll go far. Fighting cyber attacks is the growing field and she’s got the skills.”
    I didn’t go for the distraction. I just watched her and kept my mouth shut.
    â€œLook,” she said, “you know Phoenix is the center for people smuggling into the United States. The
coyotes
bring them across the desert and once they’re here, they spread out all over the country. Even corporations hire the smugglers to get them to the poultry and hog operations in North Carolina or the packing plants in Nebraska. We’re number one in kidnappings and almost all of that is tied into the people smuggling. Now the probability is high that we’ve become ground zero in the drug trafficking organizations’ ongoing expansion in this country. So if La Familia has shown up, it doesn’t surprise me.”
    â€œAnd they say we don’t have a diverse economy.”
    She didn’t smile. “Local law enforcement is not ready for what’s coming, David. That war down in Juarez and Tijuana—it could come here. The people behind their gated communities think this won’t touch them. They’re wrong.”
    â€œBut I thought tax cuts would solve everything,” I said.
    â€œThe thing is, we don’t just import and distribute, with all the bodies along the way. We’re probably the biggest hub for firearms smuggling back the other way.”
    â€œThe drug war in Mexico.”
    â€œExactly,” she said. “Calderon’s offensive has set off a bloodbath down there. The cartels get their guns from here.” The Mexican president had promised an offensive against the narcos, and the border had been convulsed with violence. I wondered when we would have a failed state on our southern flank. And the firepower for the bad guys was courtesy of the good old U.S. of A.
    I asked her if it was that easy.
    She nodded emphatically. “The gun laws are so lax. There are six thousand licensed gun dealers in the border states and we have two hundred agents to police them. Try to get an Arizona jury to convict these gun dealers. Not going to happen.”
    I listened as she explained the enterprise: American citizens can take the guns across the border—they won’t be searched going in. The smugglers hire Americans with clean records, have them buy three or four assault rifles, and take them south. Sometimes they buy at gun shows where there’s no requirement to notify the authorities. Other times they use licensed dealers.