Cool in Tucson by Elizabeth Gunn

up early one day a week and face him in a brightly lighted office, close to the clatter of a busy kitchen, or the hiss of a pneumatic lift or the punishing clamor of tools dropped on cement.  
    Rudy watched them open the door to his office, kept his eyes on them as they walked or sidled or staggered to his desk.  He judged how easily or painfully they sat down on the hard straight chair, listened to their voices and noticed whether their hands shook.  From these signals he could judge accurately when they began to use their own product, how fast their use escalated and how much alcohol they were pouring in alongside the other poison.  He had seen many men go to hell in the drug business.  By now he could judge accurately when to start looking for a replacement pusher.
    He assigned his morning payoff times in the order of his dealers’ importance: the newest men had the earliest appointments.  As they built up a client base and brought in more money, they worked up to slightly later times.  It was one of those small favors he doled out sparingly, to keep people hopeful but wary. 
    This Tuesday, every one of them was right on time with the correct change, bam bam, like robots.  Tilly had nothing to do but watch, and the money piled up in the drawer. 
    Ace Perkins was the last one, due at ten-forty-five.  Ace was an anomaly, not a local but recommended five months ago by a reliable source.  And he had proved to be the kind, damn, you’d like to clone him, you know?  Biggest producer for the last three  months, had a string of solid clients that he took care of like a mother.  If he had any self-destructive habits Rudy hadn’t been able to spot them.  Sometimes Rudy worried that maybe Ace was too good to be true.
    But his arrest record said otherwise.  Rudy paid a stipend every month to an inside man at TPD, so when he needed to know something he got it toot sweet, no arguments and no dealing.  Before he hired Ace he got a copy of his Arizona prison history, three-plus years served of a three-to-ten for cocaine trafficking.  Not extensive but not pussy either.  He had served his time in Florence where he got those dragon tattoos and, Rudy guessed, the crooked fingers that didn’t match the rest of his handsome appearance.   
    He’d shown a lot of street savvy right from the start, had no trouble finding good corners for his crack business and quickly established a great roster of high-end clients for the snow.  He knew how to find the lawyers and real estate brokers, restaurateurs and high-end trophy wives who could come up with the cash, none of this whining around about credit that some dealers listened to.  Rudy had never seen anybody put together a client base from the low and high ends of the Tucson coke trade any faster than Ace had. 
    The other thing he liked, Ace was as big a stickler for precision as he was himself.  Set your clock by the guy, almost.  So when his watch read five to eleven, Rudy began tapping his fingers on the desk.   At fifteen past he turned a puzzled face to Tilly Stubbs and said, unnecessarily, “Ace is half an hour late.” 
    Tilly nodded, his shaved head reflecting the dim light in the tire store.  His hair had been strawberry blonde when he had any, and he’d kept the high coloring that went with it, pink cheeks and bright blue eyes.  An abused childhood had left him with an off-center nose and one oddly dented cheek, and the gang warfare of his youth in the rancid slums of Detroit had cost him several teeth and a piece of one ear.  So instead of the jolly appearance nature had designed for him, Tilly had a face that looked almost as dangerous as he actually was.  
    He stood up, his white T-shirt straining to cover his massive chest and biceps, and said, “’M on it.”  Because his larynx had been damaged in a fight during his first prison term, his voice had the dry rasp of gravel sliding over rock.  Graceful for a big man, he moved without making