Wall of Glass (13 page)

C
ANYON ROAD
may be the oldest road still travelled in the United States. Years before the Mayflower reached Plymouth Rock—or the drafting board—it was a pathway for Indians trekking up over the Sangre de Cristo mountains to the pueblo at Pecos. Later, outside the township called Villa Real de la Santa Fe de San Francisco, Spanish settlers and their descendants built homes here. Some of these still stand, but they've become art galleries and boutiques and eateries that supply food—
quiche, ceviche, pasta al pesto
—that would've made the
hidalgos
scratch their heads in wonderment, and at prices that would've made them roll, giggling, across the quaint hardwood floors.

The building I wanted had been a large home, fronted with a territorial wooden portal. The rectangular bronze plaque to the side of the door was engraved in black anodized script: “The Griego Gallery.” The main door, of some heavy dark wood, was open, but the screen door was shut. I opened it and stepped inside. There must have been a buzzer under the floor mat; somewhere, far off, a discreet set of chimes announced that an intruder had arrived.

The walls were white, and so were the broad Greek flokati rugs, two of them, atop the dark polished hardwood floor. Pottery and other objets d'art nested throughout the room on white boxlike display stands, and nestled in spotlit alcoves inset along the walls. To my right an older couple stood peering into one of the alcoves. She wore a lime green pants suit and he wore khaki slacks, a suede sport coat, and a cowboy hat. Up from Dallas or Houston, most likely, to find themselves some art; it was only Texans who attached a certain amount of importance to wearing their hats indoors.

A woman came around the corner to my left, smiling pleasantly. Perhaps twenty-two years old, short, nicely proportioned, she wore a black silk blouse, a black miniskirt, and black pumps. She had very good legs and she walked as though someone had informed her of this, frequently. Her blond hair was curled in tight ringlets close to her scalp and her features were even and regular, with the kind of blue-eyed outdoorsy good looks that you see, maybe a shade too often, in Pepsi commercials.

“Can I help you?” she asked me, and her smile didn't waver even as her glance took in, quickly, the flamboyant bruise gleaming below my left eye.

“I'm looking for Silvia Griego,” I said, smiling back as pleasantly as I was able to do with a cheek that felt the size of a cantaloupe.

“Silvia's on the phone right now. May I give her your name?”

I took a business card out of my blazer pocket, one of the cards that had only my name embossed on its front, and handed it to her.

She looked at it, then looked up at me, still smiling amiably. “And what's this in reference to?”

“It's a personal matter.”

Briefly, her glance skated up and down my height and her smile took on a knowing quality. Mine probably took on a befuddled quality. What did she know that I didn't?

Probably, like everybody else, quite a lot.

She nodded. “I'll tell her,” she said and moved off, back the way she'd come. I ambled after her into the next room.

She crossed the room, opened a door at its far side, and disappeared within. I looked around me. To my right, more pottery, bowls and pitchers, all of them heavy, black, and glossy. Most likely from the Santa Clara pueblo whose Indian artisans were famous for their black ware. I picked up one of the bowls from its stand and turned it over. No price tag; this wasn't Safeway, after all. Then I noticed the small, tastefully printed card, tented, standing atop the stand. It described the object, in case there was the least shadow of a doubt, as a bowl, and then gave the name of the Santa Clara artist who produced it, and then its price. I set the thing down with a lot more caution than I'd used to pick it up.

Opposite the pottery were the kachinas, handcarved wooden dolls, painted and feathered. There were four of them, each perched on one of the display stands, each lit separately by a small spotlight. I strolled over to the nearest one.

It was two feet tall, an animal figure of considerable power, a wolf or a bear. Below a sort of skullcap made of feathers was a head of white fur and a white wooden snout filled with needle-sharp teeth. Its eyes were blood red, with round black pupils. Its body was that of a man, smoothly sanded, painted white. More white fur ran down its spine, and tufts adorned the back of its hands and its white leather boots.

A good deal of care had been taken with the details. The leggings and armbands were of leather, painted black and dotted with white. Its loincloth was white cotton, embroidered with a geometric design of green and red. Each tiny, carefully shaped finger was tipped with a claw carved from thin translucent shell.

I took a look at the card taped to the stand. The price was $3,500. Took a look at the artist's name.

John Lucero.

“That's
Hon
,” said a voice behind me.

I turned. “It's who?”

She smiled as she came up to me. She had wide handsome lips and bright white teeth with an attractive overbite. There was a small cleft in her chin and another one, barely visible, at the tip of her nose. Her eyes were brown, laugh lines crinkling at their corners. In her late thirties, or early forties, she wore a beige cashmere sweater, a black skirt, and black flat-soled shoes. Her hair was her most impressive feature. Deep brown, laced heavily with silver, it was long and thick and it outlined her shoulders like an aura. To make it look so artlessly dramatic, she probably spent the cash equivalent of a Santa Clara bowl every month or two.

She said, “
Hon.
The Bear kachina. The Hopis believe he can cure serious diseases.”

“How is he at bruises?”

She looked at my left cheek. “Did you walk into a door?”

“Three or four of them.”

She laughed softly and held out her hand. “Silvia Griego.”

I took it. “Joshua Croft. Are all the kachinas as expensive as this one?”

If she resented the question, she didn't show it. She smiled, and in a reasonable, well-modulated voice that probably sold a lot of kachinas, she said, “That's actually one of the least expensive. I couldn't let you have that Buffalo over there, for example, for less than forty-five hundred.” She nodded to the figure on the stand farthest away. No bigger than this one, it sported an elaborate headdress of feathers.

“Lot of money for a doll,” I said.

No doubt she'd heard the same sentiment expressed before, and more diplomatically, but once again she merely smiled. “They take time,” she said, “and they take care. The artist, John Lucero, is one of the few today who works from a single piece of cottonwood root. Assuming you can locate a piece, which is getting more and more difficult to do, the wood has to be dried for a period of time before it can be worked. And John makes the paintings himself from native materials. Iron oxides, copper carbonates, vegetable dyes. The others use acrylics.”

“Acrylics are bad,” I said.

“Acrylics are perfectly fine,” she said, “if you like them, and many people do. It's a matter of taste. But personally, I happen to prefer a somewhat softer tone.” End of lesson. Her smile became speculative. “But I don't think you came here to discuss kachinas.”

“No,” I said. “I came here to discuss Frank Biddle.”

I've discovered that one of the advantages, or disadvantages, or simply one of the side-effects of growing older, is that whenever I meet people now, I can somehow see in each of their faces the face of the child they once were. Long ago, before things started happening. It's not a trick I do intentionally; it simply happens, more or less easily.

And Silvia Griego, just then, made it easy. All at once, her grown-up face collapsed. One moment she was a handsome, friendly, self-assured career woman; the next she was a stricken young girl, mouth open, eyes tight with fear, shoulders slightly hunched against an expected blow.

Surprised, a little alarmed, and maybe a little guilty, I watched as she pulled herself together. With a visible effort she straightened her back, brought her adult face back into focus. Without looking at me, she said, “In my office,” and she turned and strode off toward the door at the far end of the room. I followed her.

She pulled open the door, stepped inside, and said something to someone in there. I waited, and after a moment the Pepsi-Cola girl sauntered into the doorway. She gave me another knowing smile as she passed by, heading back toward the front of the gallery.

Silvia Griego turned to me, mouth set, eyebrows lowered, eyes staring somewhere in the middle of my chest. “Come in.”

The office was airy and spacious, with cream-colored walls and white shag wall-to-wall carpeting. To my immediate right, an L-shaped desk held a computer workstation and a bulky printer. On the opposite wall was a painting of a landscape that I recognized as Diablo Canyon, down by the Rio Grande. Beneath the painting sat a couple of comfortable-looking white chairs; and high above it on the wall, braced with metal struts, were two television screens, each showing a view of the gallery. When I'd been in there, I hadn't noticed any cameras. I wasn't supposed to, of course.

Beyond the desk, an open door led out onto a small enclosed courtyard of Russian olive and flagstones. Although there was no one visible out there, Silvia Griego crossed the room and shut the door. Her eyes still avoiding mine, she came back around the desk and sat down behind it in the padded leather swivel chair. She put her arms along the arms of the chair, took a deep breath, and looked up at me.

“What do you want?” she said, her voice flat. She was back in control now, or she'd convinced herself she was.

“Mind if I sit down?” I asked her.

Pursing her lips as though she minded very much, she nodded to the pair of white chairs. I took one, sat back, crossed my legs. Casually, taking my time. I had an advantage over the woman, even if I didn't know yet what it was, and I couldn't afford to lose it before I did.

I said, “Frank and I had a little business deal going.”

She crossed her arms beneath her breasts. A defensive gesture, shielding herself against me. “What sort of business deal?”

“Frank had something I wanted.”

Even as wary and guarded as she was, she was able to look me over clinically, head to toe and back again, and say, “I'm not surprised.”

I ignored that. “I figure you and Stacey Killebrew know where I can find it.”

“Then why not ask Stacey Killebrew?”

I smiled, shook my head. “Wrong question. The right question would've been, ‘Who's Stacey Killebrew?'”

She frowned. “Just what is it you want from me?” Anger was beginning to build up behind the wariness. At me, possibly at herself for the slip.

“You know Killebrew,” I said.

“I know of him.”

“Never met him?”

“Not that I can recall.”

When people make equivocal statements and stare at you defiantly, they're lying.

I said, “Was Lucero in on this?”

Her eyelids fluttered briefly and her voice, when it came, had lost its anger and become uncertain. “John? In on what?”

“The necklace.”

She frowned again, looking genuinely puzzled. “Necklace?”

“Felice Leighton's diamond necklace.”

“Felice?” She sat back, put her arms along the arms of the chair. “What
are
you talking about?”

“I'm looking for the necklace,” I said.

She shook her head. “I don't know anything about any necklace.”

“Why'd you fall apart out there when I mentioned Frank Biddle?”

“All right,” she said, crossing her arms again. “Just who are you?”

“I'm a private investigator,” I told her. “I'm working for the company that insured the necklace.”

She looked at me for a moment. “Do you have any identification?”

I reached into my jacket, took out my billfold, opened it, leaned across the desk, and showed her the ticket. Still sitting back, she studied it, nodded.

She said, “The diamond necklace Derek gave her a few years ago?”

Sitting back down, I nodded.

“When was it stolen?”

“Last year. October.”

She shook her head. “She never told me.”

“Biddle never mentioned it?”

A surprised look. “You don't think
Frank
stole it?”

“The day before he died, Frank was talking about offering it back to the insurance company.”

“Frank wasn't a thief.” A simple statement.

“How long were you involved with him?”

“I don't really see that that's any of your business.”

“Maybe not. Maybe you'd rather talk to the cops.”

She smiled, and I knew then that whatever my advantage had been, I had lost it. “I've nothing to hide from the police. Or from anyone else. But now, if you'll excuse me, I have an opening tomorrow and I'm really quite busy.” She stood up.

I stood as well. “Thanks for your help,” I said.

She nodded, and the smile became ironic. “Anytime.”

W
HEN
I
GOT BACK
to the office at one o'clock, the telephone on the desk was making noises. It's not one of your more expensive models, and it sounds like a large retarded bird in considerable distress. I snatched up the receiver and plopped myself down into the chair.

“Mondragón Agency.”

“Joshua?” The smoky aristocratic voice of Mrs. Leighton.

“Felice. How are you?”

“Rather confused at the moment.”

“How so?”

“I just had a call from a friend of mine, Silvia Griego. She tells me that she had a visitor this morning who wanted to know about a necklace of mine. She described him, and I'm quoting now, as ‘an attractive thug,' and said that he gave his name as Joshua Croft.”

“It's a common name, I understand, among attractive thugs.”