Zuni Stew: A Novel (6 page)

Brooks was impressed with her looks. Gorgeous. Could be damn good in bed. He lit a cigarette, leaned back in a slouch, his arm over the back of his chair.

“Off the top of your head, any ideas of how to handle this covertly—even if for a few days? The bodies have been removed; the sanitation crew has the scene covered. So, how would you keep a lid on this?”

She turned the pages of the prelim case report. Mrs. D’Amico had been in very poor health. That was it.

“Rose D’Amico became very ill, and on recommendations of her Chicago physician, was flown to a Canadian hospital where a group of specialists were in the midst of a revolutionary way of treating very advanced asthma. The close-knit family went with her.”

“Well, I’ll be. That’s good, girl, very good. I like it.” Brooks went back to his desk, pulled a single photo from the desk drawer. “This is the fourth child. Jack D’Amico, or should I say, Doctor Jack D’Amico. All we know is that he’s in the military, attached to the Public Health Service. They assigned him to some Indian reservation out west. We got that from Cook County Hospital. They promised us all the Intel on him as soon as they can.” He stopped momentarily, drawing on his cigarette, then added, “Can you imagine a major hospital with so little computer automation? They don’t even have access codes yet. A patient could be dead for a week before the paper work gets done.”

“That could be to our benefit,” she commented, her attention focused on the brilliant blue eyes of Jack D’Amico.

11

T
he long afternoon over, Jack was still marveling at the babies born with a full head of hair. Zuni infants looked more mature than wrinkled WASP babies. He had delivered plenty at Cook County Hospital during his OB tenure. Zuni mothers did all the work. No screaming.

He showered. Jeans, a polo shirt. A quick look at the old rock hospital in the hazy light of dusk. He headed down the dirt street to Newman’s house for dinner.

“Keshshi!”
Bill said. “Welcome, in Zuni-talk.” He was wearing a grey T-shirt, bermuda shorts, and tennis shoes. No laces. A can of beer in hand, and a giant, friendly dog at his side. Nothing like the super-efficient physician of an hour earlier. “Coors, or something stronger? I’m partial to Jim Beam myself.”

“Beer’s fine.”

“I don’t have much of a repertoire. Hamburgers with
salsa cruda
. A little taste of West-Texas-meets-New-Mexico. First I have to check on Mother.”

“Mother?” Jack felt the rhythmic tap of the big dog’s tail against his leg.

“This is Flipper, proud Poppa-to be. A Newf, a gentle giant. Newfoundlands—I raise’em. Flapper, the dame, is expecting a litter any time now.”

“Seems like everyone’s giving birth around here.”

After making sure the soon-to-deliver Flapper was okay, Bill deftly diced an onion, a tomato, a small jalapeño. A dash of vinegar, water, salt, fresh cilantro. Loading a scoop of the salsa on a tostada, he offered it to Jack. “If you’ve never had this before, brother, prepare to become addicted.”

“I had some Hatch green chile in Grants,” Jack said between crunches. “Whew—this is dyn-o-mite.”

“You ain’t just a woofin’.” Bill turned to molding the ground beef into patties. “On the ranch where I grew up they had a cook, Barbara was her name, that took care of all us cowboys during the gatherings. Man, could she ride. She told me the secret to a great hamburger is not to smash the meat together. And don’t poke at it ever. On her day off, she rode topless—no kidding.”

“Get real.”

“Honest. She was wicked.”

The cast-iron skillet was hot. He shoveled the meat, two inches-thick, one-half pound each, into the pan. “Medium rare?” Jack nodded, scooped up more salsa, chasing it with beer. “I’ve learned to ignore the cooking process, keep busy doing something else.” He sliced an avocado in half, popped the seed out with a knife, scored the lime green flesh, and scooped the avocado out, dividing it between two buns. In a flash, the meat was turned, on the buns and smothered with salsa. They sat at the kitchen table, white Formica with stainless steel trim. Like everything in the tract house, an heirloom of the fifties.

“Awesome. Best hamburger I’ve ever had,” said Jack with his mouth full.

“You’re just hungry.”

“No, I mean it. My Dad has a restaurant.”

Bill fished two beers out of the frig. “Let’s move to the living room, put on some records.”

A LP dropped from the stack on to the turntable. Bill held up the album cover.

“Perfect, I’m into all the folk stuff, back to Guthrie, Seeger.”

Bill kicked off his tennis shoes, dropped to the floor, propped up against the wall. Jack took the only chair. A rickety folding chair with sagging plastic strips.

Bill talked about himself. He wanted to be a country GP. That was the rub. His girlfriend wanted him to be a surgeon.

“I met her freshman year. She was a cheerleader at UT. Wore white boots—the whole Jane Fonda look. Well, before Jane went to North Vietnam last summer. At first she wanted to live in a city like Dallas or Houston, have a big social life, join the Junior League, travel the world. I just wanted to jump her bones. Then came ’67. The Summer of Love in the Haight. She talked me into taking a Greyhound bus up there.

“I’ll go with love and liberation, but you can’t build a society on drugs. My babe was—she thought—a purist. I realized she was just snooty. Her left-wing politics and esoteric aesthetics. All a farce. Seemed to me that everyone was interested in two things—overthrow the government and screwing.”

Jack laughed. “Relevant. And tempting.”

“Tell me about it. She fell for it, all of it. She left me. You know, she was so beautiful—could have modeled for I. Magnin. I ended up volunteering at a free clinic. Treated kids suffering from bad acid trips or VD.”

“The Haight was an egalitarian bubble,” said Jack.

“That’s heavy. So cynical already?”

“I went to a Jesuit school. My best friend was in Vietnam—101
st
Airborne paratrooper. We tripped together, got into The Grateful Dead, Jerry Garcia. But in the end, I wasn’t impressed. Like you just said, it was all about drugs and sex. Hey man, what’s worse? Rebelling against the robots of the fifties or the cheating businessman knocking back martinis in the sixties?”

“Don’t ask me. I’m Episcopalian.”

“Turn up the music,” Jack said.

“You got it. And it’s time for some bourbon.” Bill took a bottle and glasses from a kitchen cabinet and poured a generous measure, then set the bottle between them on the floor.

Bill settled in. Record albums and protective sheets covered the carpet.

“Back to the Zunis. Like I said earlier, I really like them. Here I am, this youngblood from Texas. So I come up with this idea to serve up a real barbeque for all the staff. Brisket, beans, coleslaw, hot dogs for the kids. Mustard, catsup, the whole nine yards. Damn if the Indians didn’t sit around the perimeter of my dinky backyard. Some on chairs that they brought themselves. Some sat cross-legged on the grass. Quiet. Polite. Sort of Zen. Not like any of my wild buddies back home.

“One time we loaded beer—I mean cases of beer—into a stock tank. Iced it down. This one dude comes walking by and says, ‘Y’all watch over me—I may end up in that tank tonight.’”

Jack laughed. Reached for the bourbon bottle. Bill kept on rolling.

“What I’m saying is I’m copasetic with the Zuni people. It’s not that they didn’t have fun for sure. They just seemed more respectful—at peace. When they left, the place was pristine.”

Bill emptied his glass, saying, “Hey, Jack, you’re gonna like it here.”

“Midnight,” said Jack finally, rising to his feet. “We gotta work tomorrow.”

“Five AM.”

“Rounds?”

“No. I’m going to take you up for a ride. Give you a feel for the country. Good little two-seater Piper Cub over at the FAA. Can you dig it?”

Jack left, feeling a light buzz. More bothersome, he had a stiff neck. An aching in his bones. Too young for this, he thought. Was he reacting to the altitude? Six-hundred feet above sea level in Chicago, versus six-thousand in Zuni. Pretty damn big difference. He shivered. Ground fog was creeping in, drifting off the lake.



Lori worked better on a full stomach. She walked the three-and-a-half blocks down State Street to Marshall Field. Over a bowl of chowder in the restaurant, she thought about the tragic photos. She was still bothered about the secrecy. She didn’t mind going in alone, in fact, she preferred it. No cheerleader or sorority life for her. No rah-rah. Really not many friends. But she wasn’t being told everything—she could be sent in as a sacrificial lamb. Still, she had been handed a major case.

She reached for the check—a hand clasped her shoulder.

“Easy, there, Agent Wilson, it’s just me. We meet again,” said Yolanda Cervantes. “I’m on lunch break.
¿
Que pasa con
Agent Brooks?”

“Have a seat. I survived.” She told Yolanda, who asked to be called ‘Yolie,’ that Brooks was blunt, old school. “He put me in my place. Then he gave me a case. He’s letting me run with it.”

“Unreal. I’m blown away. That pig gave you a case—no offense, but he’s...”

“No offense taken. I wondered that myself.”

Yolanda folded her manicured hands on her lap. “If I were you, I’d think long and hard about each and every word that man says to you.”



Class B khaki uniform on, and hungry. Bill’s hamburger from the night before was long gone. He was still creaky. Must be a storm on the way.

Jack opened every cabinet, hoping the last occupant had left something. Literally, the cupboards were bare. He fished some ‘borrowed’ tea bags from the Albuquerque motel from his dopp kit. The PHS had graciously supplied a skeleton collection of pots (1), pans (1), and some utensils. One big spoon. One small spoon. Chipped Fiesta ware. Two dented tin cups.

Carrying his tea (no sugar), he checked out his new quarters. Small living room. Fireplace, a plus. He poured a second cup of weak tea, went into what he supposed was a mud room. One door led to a detached garage, another to the basement. Flipped on the outdoor switch and stepped into the pale pre-dawn darkness. Breathed in the scent of scrub pine and juniper. Brushing by a clump of purple thistles, he noticed beaded moisture on the flower heads glinting in the light of the back door. He lifted the door of the single car garage, pulled the string attached to a bare bulb. Grimy cabinets filled with paint, snow chains, empty oil cans, empty jugs of antifreeze. The cabinet door suddenly came loose from the hinges and crashed to the floor. He jumped back, spilling tea on his trousers. Ducking back outside, he saw headlights. Bill in a dusty VW van.

“Up for some flyin’?”

“Right on.”

Bill drove out of the compound to a lone building which housed the FAA presence in the region. En route he explained that the facility was small, but it did a lot—directing all aircraft between Phoenix and Albuquerque.

“Easy to get lost. Lots of real estate. Few landmarks. One mountain after another—they all look alike. Not to the Zunis, of course. They have an amazing capacity to comprehend space. Did you know the Zuni World has six directions? North, South, East, West, Above and Below.”

“I’m lost with just four,” laughed Jack.

After a ‘ howdy, good mornin’ tuya’ to the air controller, they walked to the red Piper. Bill primed the engine, hand-turned the propeller. Got it going on the second try, sending vibrations through the cockpit.

It was a cool morning—lots of moisture, patchy clouds. Take-off was bumpy. Noisy. Leveling at two-thousand feet, Bill pointed out Sacred Mountain and two other towering projections hovering in an indigo-infused light. “There’s a trailhead up there in the Zuni mountains, loops on three successive mesas. A spectacular overlook. Too cloudy to see it today. There was a strong thermal inversion during the night. Centered right over the Zuni Forest. We could have a real light show this morning.”

“Wish I had a camera,” said Jack.

“You’d need an extra-wide lens.”

Jack settled in, ready to grasp the vast, seemingly endless panorama spread beneath them. Primitive single-tracks, logging railroad corridors, two-track forest roads. He spotted a dust trail. Sheep herds. Wild horses. Miles and miles of grassland. Deep cobalt-purple shadows engulfed the depths of red earth canyons. To their east, the rising sun eased over the horizon. A shadow cast by Lookout Mountain onto a low cloudbank looked huge. An immense angular specter from his perspective.

The gently sloping forest began to climb in altitude. They were flying through ever-changing layers of air with varying densities. Light rays bent on the curve toward high-density cool air. Warmer, less dense air on the outside began to refract. Literally, out of thin air, the energized rays caused everything to change. At wildly different angles, the metamorphosed light re-cast “normal” accepted visible reality into an otherworldly spectacle.

In seconds. A flash. Flutter. Out of focus. Rational surroundings became shifty, elusive. Physical landmarks began to vanish. Appear where they were not. A wind-carved vertical tower of red and cream sandstone elongated. Striations multiplied like red and white- striped lighthouses guarding the coasts. Another compressed. Inverted. Shortened. Multiplied.