Moonlight Water (28 page)

Red grinned at Gianni and heard the barman grunt.

“It ain't over yet,” said Five-Day. He lined up and tried a trick shot where you shoot down on the cue ball hard and it jumps over other balls and bumps its target. World champions do it well. Five-Day poked the cue ball clear off the table.

Pinky Lee flashed out a hand and caught it. She looked around at everybody like a dumb blonde. “What happened?” she asked in kind of a dazed way.

The barkeep half-smothered a laugh behind the back of his hand.

Five-Day slammed the butt of his cue stick on the floor.

Folding Knife crowed, “The ‘little lady' won.” He swaggered to the table. “Wanna try your luck again?”

Five-Day slammed his butt into a chair.

“Why, uh, sure!”

“How about putting something on it this time? Ten bucks.” He fingered a sawbuck flat on the wooden rail.

She looked at Briz. No help in that inscrutable face.

“I guess that'd be okay!” she said brightly. She fished in her pocket and came up with a sawbuck.

This time Red was not a bit surprised when she brought off a similar trick. Knife was not mentally quick, but he was plenty pissed off.

She took the two bills and fluttered them in the air like pompoms. She high-fived Briz, who raised one impassive hand.

“I think the little lady's shuckin' us.” This came from Five-Day, who was stroking his cue stick almost lecherously. “I think she's takin' us for a ride.”

Pinky Lee turned on him and put an edge in her voice. “You backin' that up, or you just talkin'?”

“Pinky Lee!” said the barman.

“A girl's gotta have some fun,” she said in a lah-de-dah tone.

“Backin' it up.” Five-Day put a twenty on the rail.

“You call that backin'?” Pinky Lee laid down two twenties and a ten.

Five-Day studied her, then matched Pinky Lee's bills.

“My break, I believe,” said Pinky Lee.

All of a sudden she had a nice stroke. She nodded to herself with satisfaction when the fourteen ball dropped. Then she ran the entire table. Five-Day never even had a chance to get his cue stick out.

Pinky Lee put the hundred bucks in her rear jeans pocket quick. The air was thick with cowboy snortin'.

A quick sixty bucks and as neat a job as I've ever seen,
thought Red.

The two hats eyed Pinky Lee's form and considered the possibilities. Knife advanced on her. She backed off, but he pinned her against the bar. Red saw the barman reach for whatever fight-stopper he had, probably a baseball bat. Then he treated himself to a lopsided smile and put it back.

Zahnie grabbed Red's arm and squeezed.

“I think we done been flimflammed,” said Knife.

Five-Day stalked up beside Knife. “Yeah. Flimflammed.”

Together the two hats made about four of Pinky Lee. Red considered evening up the odds, but Zahnie's hold on his arm tightened.

Knife leaned into Pinky Lee's face now, forcing her to bend back. She was trying to keep her cue stick between herself and them. “I bet you come here every night. I bet you play this table every night. I bet you know every hair on that felt. And you sucker newcomers.”

Pinky Lee glanced back at the barman. He just grinned at her and put his hands flat on the bar.

Five-Day reached out and cupped her cheek with one big hand. “Since I missed a coupla pockets, think I'll try for the hole with hair around it.” He grabbed one breast roughly.

She flashed a foot into Five-Day's belly and shoved him into Knife. Right quick, Five-Day got his balance and grabbed the cue stick out of her hand. With a look of slow malice, he raised the stick, brought it down, and splintered it on the bar. Now he held a truly nasty weapon, a wooden pole about four feet long with a jagged point.

Pinky Lee looked nearly as scared as she should have been.

Enough.
Thanks to the U.S. military, Red was an old hand at just such bar fights. He grabbed fast and hard and got both ends of the cue stick. One quick spin twisted it out of Five-Day's hands. Holding Five-Day's eyes hard, Red hurled it against the back bar.

Pinky Lee screamed.

Knife was waving a switchblade in her face.

Red grabbed a jar of hot sausages and broke it over Knife's head.

At the same time, Briz raised the eight ball and with a roundhouse swing coldcocked Knife right behind the ear. He slithered to the floor.

Five-Day was trying to head-butt Pinky Lee. Red lowered a shoulder and rammed him clear across the pool table and off the other side.

Unluckily, they rolled and Red landed on the bottom. He had a bad moment getting his breath while Five-Day clobbered his gut with a massive fist.

Briz broke a wooden chair over Five-Day's head.

While he was dazed, Red hit him hard with the base of his palm on the base of the nose.

Blood gushed like Red had clipped a fire hydrant with a truck. He pushed the bleeder off quick. Five-Day's eyes rolled up in his head, and he zonked out. The barman came out with bar towels to stop the bleeding.

Red creaked to his feet. They looked at one another, Pinky Lee, Briz, and Red, triumphant. “Think I owe you, Superman,” said Pinky Lee. “Big-time.”

Red and Pinky Lee stumbled to the bar, leaving their enemies snoozing. Zahnie threw her arms around Red. Gianni clapped his friend on the back.

All of a sudden Red remembered Winsonfred. The old man sat on a bar stool, drinking a Coke, quiet as a boiled egg. Though he was thin and dry as a wisp of straw, his eyes were enormous. He was watching Gianni. Then Winsonfred beckoned to Red with a finger. “Gianni didn't fight for you,” he said.

“I taught him way back in the army to stay out of my fights.”

Winsonfred seemed to sip and swallow these words. “You don't see,” he said.

Pinky Lee ripped Red's attention away. “Randy,” she said to the bartender, “you're fired.” She looked at Red. “You and your friends, the rest of the evening's on the house.”

Leeja said, “That's okay, Pinky, we'll pass.” She grabbed Red's sleeve and they all headed for the door.

Pinky hollered at their backs, “I'll keep an eye out for the kid.”

Red said over his shoulder, “You own this place?”

“Yeah,” called Pinky Lee. “Like I said—a girl has to have a little fun.”

“Night,” said Red.

The deep, dark air was deliciously cool. “Not the first time I've seen the whole thing,” said Leeja, “including Randy getting fired.”

Gianni and Red looked at each other and chuckled.

As they got to the car, Leeja nodded at Red and whispered to Zahnie, “This guy is a keeper. Don't blow it.”

 

34

CONFESSION

Don't kill a deer without leaving part of it. You'll never get another one.

—Navajo saying

 

When they left Leeja's place, with nowhere to wait for news of Damon other than home, the night was very black and the stars unnaturally bright. Red and Zahnie lay on the bed built into the back of his van so they could cuddle. Red wrapped his arms around her and kissed her lightly. She buried her face in the crook of his neck, and he pictured the vast, empty spaces beyond the moon, where there are no human beings to love each other. Some stars glimmered a tinge of mystical blue, and he wondered if there was some sort of love out there anyway, maybe the stars loving one another. How else could it be so beautiful, even in the middle of pain and worry?

From the front passenger seat, Winsonfred gave driver Gianni the eye, as if to say,
Get with it, buster.

Gianni said, “Hey, don't look—”

Winsonfred stopped him with a soft hand on the shoulder. “That is not,” said the Ancient One, “what you are feeling guilty about.”

Silence. Cold, rigid silence.

Red and Zahnie didn't know how long the silence lasted, because they wrapped up in each other and fell asleep.

When Gianni stopped in Tony's driveway, Winsonfred said to him, “Now's the time. Own up. Tell everyone why your face is that color.” This was a high, quavery old man's version of a command.

Gianni gave him a stricken look.

Then, to Red's amazement, Gianni turned around shamefaced and hangdog and said in a cobbly voice, “Buddy, let's stay up awhile. I got some things to say.”

Long after midnight, then, they assembled around the coffee table, Red feeling very wobbly. Tony came over from his endless stack of bills, looked blearily from face to face, and collapsed onto the sofa. Winsonfred looked at Gianni with the forbearance of a confessor.

Gianni fished a little plastic holder out of his wallet and, with the look of the guilty, he gave each of them a business card. It said, “Gianni Cash.”

“Damon just didn't know the clever way I spell my DBA.”

The rest of the card said “Indian trader” and gave an 800 number. Red looked up in Gianni's eyes. With Internet printing miracles, anybody could be anybody.

Gianni laid out two more statements, like a stud dealer turning over cards that the player wants to see but dreads. “At breakfast? Damon ran away because he saw me.” Pause. “The seller is me.”

Red's stomach squirted something nasty up his gullet.

He looked his old army buddy in the eye, and Gianni gave him back a squirmy smile. Maybe the smiles had been squirmy for years now, and Red had paid no attention.

“Looks like I'm involved in a big problem. Very big. I just want you to know that I haven't done anything wrong, not the way I see things, and I haven't encouraged or hired any wrongdoing.”

Gianni smiled and took a shot at looking each of them in the eye. When he got to Winsonfred, Gianni dropped his gaze and coughed.

Zahnie's voice was a blackjack. “You listen to me and listen good. I want to know where Damon is.”

“I gave him a wad of cash and told him to get his ass to Santa Fe. The others in this deal, they don't know where he lives or who with.
I
don't know. He's out of it. Safe.”

Zahnie took a long moment to breathe. “All right, now tell us what the hell is going on,” she said in a hard voice. “All the details. We'll be the judge of wrongdoing.”

Gianni was caught between the confessor and the cop.

*   *   *

The cop's attack was relentless.

“You know James Nielsen has been murdered.”

“I had nothing to do with that. I've known Dr. Nielsen all my life. It's awful.” His mouth wiggled. In a formal tone he added, “I don't condone it.”

“You could be implicated.”

“Well, according to you, the sheriff said the seller couldn't be.”

Zahnie gave Red an angry look.
Damn. I trusted Gianni and spilled the beans to him.

She gave Gianni her cop stare, which would have boiled a glacier. She noticed Gianni looking into Winsonfred's face for something. The old man was having some sort of effect on him.

“What's going on out there in Lukas Gulch?”

Gianni worked his mouth. Winsonfred nodded, as though to say,
Tell the truth.

“If you're the one who tells us, it will go easier for you.”

Pause, then, “Okay, we're Moqui digging.” The old Mormon term for unearthing Anasazi artifacts.

“Where?”

Gianni considered. “You use this stuff in a court of law?”

“Absolutely. And you're headed right there.”

“Then I'd better keep my own counsel.”

“Let's call the sheriff.”

“I'd have to head out for California. Now.”

“You can be extradited. You will be. This is a federal and state crime.”

Gianni considered. Winsonfred waited, his eyes saying,
Just the truth.

“I can tell you what I know.”

“Well, bravo.” Zahnie's voice had snap in it. “Where is the site
exactly
?”

“Halfway up Lucky Dog Canyon from Lukas Gulch.”

“How'd you connect with Damon?”

“Sat in with a band in Santa Fe, played a couple of tunes, shared a toke. Turned out we grew up in the same town. I told him, like I tell everybody in the Four Corners, I'm an Indian trader. Which I am. Next day he comes to me at La Fonda saying he'll show me something unbelievable.”

When Gianni paused to consider, Zahnie pushed him. “The something was?”

“A big ruin. Nothing's going to be Chaco Canyon or Mesa Verde again, but a great find. Untouched. A bonanza. Blind luck, just a couple of kids wandering in the outback.” He shook his head and smiled ruefully.

“On public land.”

He had a little trouble letting go of the next words. “I guess so.”

“How are you getting around the law?”

He shrugged. “The old way was to go through Christie's or Sotheby's. Then you'd have to get certificates telling where the artifacts came from.”

“You mean you'd have to fake certificates.”

He shook his head. “None of that matters anymore. There's a new world out there, created by the Internet. I've got Arab collectors, Iranian collectors, Taiwanese collectors, a couple of really good Australian guys, a South African collector, even a collector in Argentina. These buyers don't care about certificates—U.S. law doesn't apply in their countries.”

“Oh, shit.” Taking in this information, Zahnie wilted.

Winsonfred waited patiently, expectantly.

Then Zahnie put her cop stare back on. “So, there's a bonanza. What did you do?”

“I'm a trader, not a Moqui hunter. I needed someone experienced.”

“Who?”

“We won't talk names yet. I found someone I'd known a long, long time. We made a deal. I supplied the money, they supplied the labor. Damon was the guide. A team.”

“Of crooks. Thieves.”

“You'd best be grateful I'm no killer. Otherwise…” He sighed. “I guess Damon's share is wind and sand now anyway. The whole deal is.”