Dark Reservations (28 page)

Mickey waved them away. “You guys have no taste. How about it, Sadi? You got a special place in your heart for a hot dog?”

Joe turned. Sadi and Stretch stood behind him.

“Not for this hot dog,” Sadi said, her eyes focused on Joe, her face deadpan.

Cordelli and Tenny both chortled like little kids about to see a school-yard brawl.

Sadi started in. “What the hell are you doing screwing around in our case?”

“Let's not do this here,” Joe said.

Stretch put a hand on Sadi's shoulder. She shrugged it off. “You're an asshole, Joe. Cordelli was right. You ain't part of the team.”

“Don't drag me into this,” Cordelli said, hands up, grinning.

Joe was getting tired of people attacking him.

Sadi looked down at Joe's hands. “You wanna hit me, Joe? You wanna go after me like you went after Cordelli?”

Joe unclenched his fists and spun back to the counter, surprised by his own reaction. The bar was watching their exchange. Watching him. He reached into his pocket, pulled out some bills, threw them down. “See you later, Mickey.” He stood and shouldered his way past Sadi.

“You're an asshole, Joe,” she said to his back, her voice loud. It carried over the music coming through the speakers. People in the dining area turned to look.

Joe faced her. He wanted to tell her to shut her trap and get out of his face. He wanted to call her a bitch and tell her that's why no one liked her. He wanted to tell her to get laid. But instead, he restrained himself and offered a reluctant “Sorry.”

“Sorry?” Sadi said. “Why be sorry? You're going to solve the big case. Be the big hero, right?” Her voice turned cold. “The sad thing is, you'll screw it up because you can't help yourself. You're a walking mess, Joe. Do yourself a favor and leave the investigating to people who still care about the cases and who don't bury themselves in a bottle.”

Stretch moved closer to Sadi. Joe expected him to say something, anything. It wasn't only her case; it was his, too. But his friend stood silent, not meeting Joe's gaze.

Joe turned.

At the entrance stood Linda and Sue. Next to them was Gillian.

All three had watched the show.

He gave an embarrassed smile and got the hell out of there.

O
CTOBER
5

T
UESDAY
, 10:45
A.M.

B
UREAU
OF
I
NDIAN
A
FFAIRS
, O
FFICE
OF
I
NVESTIGATIONS
, A
LBUQUERQUE
, N
EW
M
EXICO

The next morning was akin to a midlife circumcision, except the pain was in Joe's other brain. It took him an hour and four aspirin before he could crawl out from his cubicle to give Stretch an update on the Othmann interview and attempt to repair the damage to his manhood. Sadi joined them. Surprisingly, she was in a good mood.

“You look like shit,” she said.

“Good,” Joe said. “That's better than I feel.”

She crossed her arms. “Well?”

“I didn't get much,” Joe said.

“You always seem to know the right words to make a girl feel good, don't you?”

“No, that's not—”

She held up a hand. “Save it. All I want to know is if you tipped him off to our investigation.”

He didn't bother answering. Instead, he gave an account of the interview. Sadi and Stretch listened, dropping comments here and there when they didn't like what they heard.

“I think he knew I was coming,” Joe said.

“How?” Stretch asked. “From the newspapers?”

“I don't know. But he knew me. He said he remembered my name from when I was in the paper last year.”

Sadi laughed. “Your reputation precedes you. You'd better hope the people you're sending résumés to don't read the papers.”

“Was there a lot of coverage last year?” Joe asked. “I only remember the one article. And it was buried.”

“I don't know.” Sadi said. “I wasn't following the Joe Saga last year.”

“I didn't follow the papers much, just the talk on the squad,” Stretch said. “Dale tracked it, though. I recall he mentioned a couple articles.” He paused a moment and then said, “Maybe someone you interviewed tipped him off.”

“My thought was William Tom,” Joe said. “But to bring up a newspaper article from last year?”

“You're a dinosaur, Joe,” Sadi said. “The
Internet
? You know, that magical box on your desk.” She shook her head. “You're immortal and don't even know it.”

Of course. Othmann had found the articles on the Net. Joe had never searched himself, but they had to be out there. That was probably why he hadn't received many replies from the companies where he had sent his résumé. They did their due diligence.

“So what you're telling us,” she continued “is that Othmann is on his guard.”

“I may have something for you.” He told them about the Yei mask. “The professor's e-mailing me the photo.”

Sadi actually seemed somewhat mollified.

“I don't see how we can use it,” Stretch said.

“You might be able to get a search warrant.”

“Maybe,” Sadi said, her mollification exhausted. “A single Yei mask isn't much.”

“I need to talk to the boss. I'll send you the photo when I get it.”

He walked over to Dale's door and knocked. An unintelligible grunt invited him in.

Dale looked annoyed. “What?”

Joe gave him a summary of the Othmann interview.

“So it's another dead end.”

“I need to talk to Malcolm Tsosie,” Joe said. “He was a buddy of yours, wasn't he? Where can I find him?”

“Why do you need to talk to him?”

“You're not seriously asking me that, are you?”

Dale didn't respond right away. “Tell me why.”

Joe couldn't believe his ears. “Why do you think? He was the primary on Edgerton.”

Another pause. “Are you doing an end run to interview Senator Holmes?”

“What are you talking about? I need—” Then Joe got it. “Wait … Malcolm works for Senator Holmes?”

Dale didn't answer.

“You shittin' me?”

Dale just looked at him.

“You're not shittin' me.”

Dale wasn't.

“You didn't think that was important to tell me?” Joe didn't know how to feel. What was it? Betrayal. No, not betrayal. What, then? He didn't know. There was no word for this. No way to describe how he felt. But that wasn't true. There was a word. He felt
screwed.
He sat back and smiled. The revelation wasn't as big as the fact that Dale had held back that little tidbit.

“You were going off in all different directions. I didn't want you pissing off a senator unless you had something solid.”

“You mean pissing off a senator on the Indian Affairs Committee?”

“Exactly.”

“Are you letting politics dictate our investigations now?”

“Grow up. Get me something solid. Otherwise, you don't go near the senator.”

“That's bullshit.”

“That's how it is.”

Joe walked out. The stench was too much.

O
CTOBER
6

W
EDNESDAY
, 8:58
A.M.

O
THMANN
E
STATE
, S
ANTA
F
E
, N
EW
M
EXICO

“David!” blared from the intercom speakers mounted throughout the house. It was particularly loud in the kitchen, where Books sat at the breakfast bar, eating his second bowl of Cap'n Crunch cereal and reading a
Forbes
article about the ten best places to retire outside the United States. Tendons in his neck tightened.

The Cap'n seemed to laugh at him.

He'd been with Mr. O. seven years. He wasn't sure if there would be an eighth. Before coming to work for him, he'd spent six years in lockup. When he got out, he had asked the parole board to allow him to go to Albuquerque to try to make a fresh start. He'd been at a halfway house for only a day when Ernie, the house daddy, told him about a gig in Santa Fe.

“There's a rich dude up there. He takes on a few of my guys from time to time, doing security and stuff around his gallery. Pays good, but he don't take no thieves, only honest felons.”

Books almost laughed. Honest felons? Was this guy for real?

Ernie went on: “You honest? Good, 'cause he'll like you. Big and mean. I guess art's a tough business. You interested?”

The next day, Ernie gave him a ride up to Santa Fe to meet Mr. O. “That's what he likes being called: Mr. O. I guess it's because his last name is Othmann. You know, that begins with an
O,
” Ernie said.

Several smart remarks came to Books, but he kept quiet. He was good at keeping quiet. And anyway, Ernie was doing him a favor.

After a quarter-mile drive from the front gate, Ernie parked the halfway house's ten-year-old passenger van in front of a huge Southwest-style home. The place was peaceful, tucked away in its own little part of the desert. This was somewhere Books could make a fresh start. Not like the big city. Not like city life anywhere. This is what he needed. No matter what, he wanted this job.

His interview had taken place in the study, where Books was heading now. It had been short.

“I hear you worked for some people in Philadelphia.”

Books nodded. He'd learned years earlier that the less he spoke, the better.

“People tell me you understand loyalty. Is that true?”

He wondered, What people? but only nodded.

“I have a special job that recently opened up. I need someone I can count on. Someone I can trust. A bodyguard. You interested?”

Books held back a smile. Another nod. It seemed the proper response for a bodyguard.

“Okay, we'll give it a go for a few weeks, see if we get along. How's that? If we do, you stay here and live in the house. The pay's good. Two a week, plus room and board.”

At first, Books thought two hundred a week was chump money, even with room and board, but it was better than living at the halfway house. A week later, he got his first paycheck and realized that Mr. O.'s two was followed by three zeros. He decided he would be staying on as long as Mr. O. would have him.

But now, Mr. O. was no longer that cool dude he'd met seven years ago. The crazy had set in. He constantly talked about his father, who had died long before Books came along. And he was hitting the powder more and more. Just the year before, he and some artist tramp had spent a Bolivian weekend together in his room. Come Monday, she wouldn't wake up, so Books spent the rest of that day finding a safe place to dump her. He also spent two hours bleaching her—in and out—after Mr. O. admitted to having had sex with her that morning, thinking she had only passed out. The police had come around looking for her, hearing that Mr. O. had been with her on Friday, but they went away. Mr. O. never skimped on spreading his money around. He had several officers he could reach out to throughout the state—not to mention lawyers.

Books had been frugal over the years, saved up most of his salary. He thought it was a good time to leave. Cut out before his boss lost it altogether and brought Books down with him. But Ernie had been right: Books was honest, and he was loyal. He would see his boss through this mess before he left. It was a matter of honor for Books. But afterward, he would be heading for Ecuador.

When he walked into Mr. O.'s study, he was daydreaming about opening a little coastal restaurant catering to tourists, maybe calling it Rick's Café, like in
Casablanca.
They'd shown the movie in prison.

“That motherfucker Evers isn't letting this shit go!”

Books debated whether he should serve French or Italian food.

Mr. O. paced the room, powder on his upper lip like a Hitler mustache. “Motherfucker. Who does he think he is? He comes in my fucking house and accuses me. Fuck him! And fuck that William Tom. That son of a bitch should have died ten years ago.” He stopped pacing and looked at Books, eyes wide, finger pointing. “David, you need to take care of this. You need to take care of it now. He's coming after you, too. For Eddie.” He spun around and jacked a finger at the painting of his father. “And you shut the fuck up. I can handle my own shit.”

Books decided on an American menu for Rick's Café.

O
CTOBER
6

W
EDNESDAY
, 10:35
A.M.

W
INDOW
R
OCK
J
USTICE
B
UILDING
, W
INDOW
R
OCK
, A
RIZONA

The interview was going well. Joe had the answers, and Samuel Becenti seemed to have the interest.

“You'd be working here in Window Rock,” Samuel said. “Do you plan to commute, or would you move out this way?”

“I'm in an apartment right now, but if I got the job, I'd move to Gallup.” He picked at a piece of lint on his pressed pant leg. The crease was sharp. Yes, he felt good about the interview. “There's nothing holding me there. I'm actually looking forward to a move.”

Samuel appeared pleased. He wrote something on his notepad.

A knock at the door. Samuel gave a perturbed “Come in.”

A man in a Navajo police uniform entered. Joe didn't recognize the face, but he recognized the name on the name tag. Calvert Cornfield. Chief Cornfield of the Navajo Nation Police Department.