In Gallup, Greed

by Tower Lowe

  Johnnie gave Jake a look, but left him there and followed Jerry into the house. The sun blasted his already dry skin and Jake took deep breaths, catching site of a scared bunny hiding in the sparse desert undergrowth.

  “You and me, buddy,” he whispered to the soft brown creature.

  Johnnie popped out of the house and Jake jolted.

  “Let’s make you a rich man. Come on.”

  The two kept walking down the block, Johnnie aggressive and self-assured, Jake visualizing a ride down the back roads of Gallup, heading downhill, 30 mph, feeling the wind in his face and seeing Redemption and Johnnie and Jerry – small – in the rearview mirror.

  ∆

  I Wanted to See Momma

  The note suggested 10 am on Friday evening. I had to show. If it’s not Momma, I’ll find out who was playing the joke, I thought. Mirage sure didn’t seem like a practical joker at all, and Alice was practically part of our team. Jake is on my side, so he wouldn’t want set up a hoax meeting with Momma.

  I pulled on my jeans and a blue and white patterned sweater, similar to one Momma wore when I was a kid. I added an inlay Sunface necklace that I bought in Zuni, the Indian Reservation Momma mentioned in her letter.

  It was on a Zuni trip with Burro that I found out, from a Zuni elder, that Momma was in love with the archeologist Dr. Walter Stuart and that he might actually be my father. I was glad to know that Momma was alive and well when she was in Zuni, but I didn’t truly accept the information about Dr. Stuart as my father. After meeting Alice, I figured the elder confused me with Alice, who was, in fact, Dr. Stuart’s daughter. Daddy was the only father I knew, and if there is another father, I needed to hear that information from Momma herself.

  Burro had invited Alice and Mirage for a chat that evening at The Grounds, since Mirage claimed to have new memories of the night of Lonnie’s party and new information about Redemption. There was no reason not to sneak out to that address on Cactus Drive. If it was a hoax, and no one was there, then no harm done. If Momma is actually there...I sat down on the edge of the aqua spread. After all this searching, am I ready to meet Momma face to face? Will I run up and hug her, as I remember doing when I was a little girl, or will I hurl accusations?

  I pulled hotel room air into my lungs, stood up, and headed for the lobby. No, I am past accusations, past even hugs, I thought. What I need is to see the woman who gave birth to me, hear her voice again – simply to watch, listen and be in the moment of having Momma back.

  I parked the Corolla down the street and walked the last block. The house was one story, stucco with new windows and an artistic xeriscape front yard, generally better off than it’s neighbors on each side. The front door was wide open, an invitation.

  I approached the opening with purpose, peeked inside, and then walked in, my feet creaking on narrow polished pine. It was bright and well furnished, but no one greeted me in the living room.

  “Momma,” I called softly, heading towards the kitchen, where I saw a clear glass pitcher of ice water sweating on the counter. The smell of Cinnamon spice wafted through the house.

  I entered the kitchen, planning to take a drink of the cool water. As I reached out for a glass, a hot hand caught my mouth, yanking my jawbone into my neck. I screamed, but only a moan emerged. Then a knife, with an oak handle and a wide sharp blade, appeared in my line of vision. I smelled expensive whiskey and the Cinnamon spice again, sprinkled like insult on the last moments of my existence. It angered me. I twisted against male arms. It was a tight embrace, vaguely romantic, the last man of my short life. The blade was close against my skin and I felt how fragile we all are, creatures covered in a soft cellular mass, easily pierced by our predators.

  “WOO!” A deep familiar voice called out, loud, from the front room. The knife clattered to the floor and I heard heavy footsteps running, but I saw nothing except the little droplets of blood on my cotton sweater, smeared by the bright Zuni inlay that raked across its surface.

  Burro’s face, framed by the Spanish blond hair, appeared in front of me.

  “For God’s sake, Cinnamon, I told you not to come. I told you.”

  I frowned. “I wanted to see Momma.”

  “Are you alright?”

  “I think so. It’s a small slice to my neck. He planned to slice my throat open. I planned to die.”

  “For God’s sake,” Burro repeated.

  “Did you see him?”

  “No...only his arms reaching around you. I made that sound, and he ran.” Burro began to look around the kitchen, noticing the ice water and sniffing the cinnamon spice.

  “He set this up for you.”

  “You were right. The killer wants to get me out of Gallup.”

  “We need to call the police, Cinnamon. We are in way over our head on this one.”

  “No. I’m fine. I don’t want to explain this to the cops. I came here looking for Momma,” my voice dropped. “So foolish.”

  “It’s attempted murder, it’s....” Burro stopped. I saw his eyes, focused on unseen events in the empty house. He stumbled, and I caught his arm.

  “It’s the vision. Let’s get out of this house,” I insisted.

  I straightened up, took one longing look at the water pitcher that I thought Momma prepared, then turned away. “We’ll talk to the police on Monday, like we said.”

  Burro and I rushed out into the sun, one of us bloodstained, the other one with wobbly knees. But both of us were quite determined, I knew now, to find Lonnie’s murderer.

  “Cash and a sense of scrambled morality,” Burro muttered.

  From the sidewalk, Jake’s voice— “Cinnamon? For God’s sake. What happened?”

  I turned sharply and saw him approaching us, while another man held back, looking down the street.

  “Did you do this, Jake?” I queried my lover.

  Jake’s face turned dark red. “Do what?”

  “Put this blood on my sweater,” I accused.

  “Cut your neck, you mean?” He trembled slightly, his eyes puzzled.

  “That’s what I mean.”

  “No. Never. No.” He reached out to touch the red spot on my sweater. It was already drying, and he pulled his hand away as if the spot were on fire.

  I eyes fixed my eyes on the man behind Jake, who continued to move away with wary eyes turned on all three of us.

  “Hello,” I challenged loudly. The man stopped, and walked forward a few steps.

  “Johnnie Tru,” he called out.

  “You the Johnnie works for Jerry Luster?” Burro guessed. The man moved in a little closer.

  “I know Jerry.”

  “My name’s Burro and this is Cinnamon. We’re work for the state. We had a terrible experience here....”

  “Accident, accident,” I broke in. “A terrible accident. We were walking, trying to get some exercise....I tripped...got nipped by that plant there....” She gestured vaguely in the direction of a prickly pear cactus under one of the front windows.

  Burro followed my lead. “Yes, a terrible accident. We need to clean her up, get a disinfectant. Nice meeting you.” He put his arm around my shoulder and steered me in the direction of the hotel.

  By now, Johnnie was turning in circles, looking up and down the street as if he were waiting for someone, or lost his car.

  Jake turned away from his companion and addressed me. “Did you bring the car?”

  “Down the street.”

  Jake wrapped an arm around my opposite shoulder, and he and Burro began to walk with me, as if I were much more seriously injured. We left Johnnie behind in front of the house.

  “I’ll call you later, Jake,” he called out.

  Jake made no reply.

  All three of us entered the Hampton Inn and took the elevator up without much comment. At my hotel room door, Burro refused to leave Jake and I alone.

  “I’m fine,” I protested.

  “Cash,” he repeated. Great, I thought. My help comes in the form one deluded man and one d
ishonest man. I slid my card through the lock and let them both into the room. Next, I sent Jake out for hydrogen peroxide and band-aids. He left without argument, but his eyes danced over to Burro and out the window at the hotel parking lot, like he was panicked.

  “Jake’s involved in this somehow,” Burro claimed the minute Jake got down the hall. “I saw the cash in his pockets, in his shoes, coming out of the t-shirt neck.”

  “He can’t be involved with the gallery.”

  “Maybe not, but he looks terrified—panicked. I wouldn’t be surprised if we never see him again.”

  “Don’t be so extreme, Burro.”

  “Maybe he’s the one who attacked you.”

  “He was out in front of the house.”

  “He looks guilty.”

  “Probably because he wants to break up with me over all this drama.”

  “The vision says he’s involved in all this,” Burro contradicted.

  I groaned and lay down on the bed. My neck didn’t really bother me that much – Burro startled the man before any real damage was done. I felt exhausted with confusion over Lonnie’s murder, Jake’s behavior and, always, my obsession to find Momma.

  Burro got a hotel washcloth to wipe the wound.

  “Listen to me,” he pleaded. “It’s strange he knows Johnnie enough to take a walk with him right in front of the house where you were attacked.”

  “No. They didn’t smell the same. Jake smells of chai...this man smelled like....”.

  “Cinnamon, right?’

  “No—expensive whiskey. But the kitchen smelled like cinnamon – to make me think of Momma.”

  “Did Jake mention to you that he knew Johnnie?”

  “No. But I never mentioned Johnnie to Jake. It’s a coincidence that they know each other.”

  “That the two of them were walking right outside the house where you were attacked is more than a coincidence.”

  “Jake’s not involved in trying to slice my neck open, Burro. Ask him about Johnnie when he gets back.”

  “If he gets back.”

  I gave him a look. Two knocks sounded at the door.

  Burro let Jake and the medicine in, and the two of them fussed over me until I called it off.

  “Burro. Out.”

  Left with alone with Jake, we both lay still on the puffy hotel pillows. I tried to assess my situation. Momma had been gone for many years, and Daddy had often told me to forget Momma and move on. For a while, I followed his advice and focused on my social work degree and a new job in Richmond. When Grandma died and the letters showed up in the back of her narrow closet, right next to where I played as a toddler and worked math problems in elementary school, I fell full force back into the desire to find Momma. I took a new job in Santa Fe, New Mexico and moved out here to find out Momma and answer the question of why she left.

  But, lying on the bed with Jake after a near-death experience, my pursuit of Momma appeared to be a tornado of emotion—abandonment gone wild. The last time I saw my mother, I was six years old. I really remembered nothing about her smell. The cinnamon smell came from her letters. Even Momma’s physical appearance would be a mystery except for the pictures Daddy kept in an album because a family counselor told him that to destroy pictures of Momma was the same as destroying a part of me.

  And that was exactly the problem. Momma is a part of me. Only by seeing Momma in person and talking to her can I erase the idea that Momma left because I drove her away.

  So, I forgave myself for running after a false trail, and turned my thoughts to Lonnie, stabbed to death on his own bed and to Jake, who somehow knew a key player in Lonnie’s death.

  “How did you meet Johnnie?” I put it directly to him, ignoring the warm call of his skin.

  “At a bar. He’s a strange bird. At first, I liked him. He befriended me on the spot – very sociable – at first.”

  “Do you know he works for Jerry?”

  Silence. Then, “Yeah. I know I didn’t mention it to you, but I don’t know any of these people well or anything. Met Johnnie and Jerry in the same bar – Sammy’s Bar and Grille—over there near the bus station.”

  “Jerry is the one that owns Redemption. The guy that got stabbed was an artist in the gallery and sold his paintings there.”

  “I remember you said that.”

  I turned then, to be able to see Jake’s face. His eyes darted to the curtains, and then the door. He wanted to get out—get away—because he was lying to me. A thought slipped into my head.

  “Did Jerry ask you to get me to leave Gallup?”

  Jake squirmed, sat up. “What are you talking about?” He rubbed a hand over his brow, worked up a frown, and raised his voice in an approximation of offense. “I hardly know these characters and I definitely don’t like Johnnie.”

  I rolled back towards the window, deflated, annoyed, disappointed in Jake and in myself.

  Jake jumped to grab his wallet, stuffed it in his pocket. “I gotta go.”

  “Bye.”

  “I can’t stand Johnnie, okay?” Jake answered no one. “He’s a creep, and that gallery’s a creepy building with evil spirits all over the place. I’m not a friend to these guys. I met them in a bar is all.”

  “You’ve been to the gallery?” I sat up.

  “Yeah, okay. Jerry promised to give me a job there as manager – since Lonnie died, Mirage can’t be the manager. It paid a lot of money, so I thought, why not?”

  “What about the bike shop in Santa Fe?”

  “Oh...I’ll tell you about that later. What I’m saying now is that this Johnnie and Jerry thing is not what you think. They offered me a job, and I didn’t say anything to you because I figured you’d be like a lot of women, throw a fit, say I was abandoning you, and make a big deal out of it. I wanted the money until I got to know this Johnnie and then I wanted out of town. I still want out of town. Tonight.”

  “This is unreal, Jake. You came to Gallup to support me, you said. Next thing I know, you’ve made friends with a couple of likely murderers, taken a job with them and made a plan to leave me before we officially got together in the first place.”

  “I knew you’d make a big deal out of it.”

  “Oh, and I forgot – I bet you agreed to get me to leave Gallup and go back to Santa Fe. I bet you had no intention of buying a bike shop. Maybe you hired a guy to write me notes from Momma and try to slit my throat.”

  “Cinnamon! I’m not that grotesque. I agreed to talk you into leaving town. I didn’t know anything about this man with the knife – it’s one of the reasons I’m leaving town. This is not my kind of action. I like life light and easy.”

  “And the bike shop?”

  “Don’t make a scene. I’m not abandoning you.”

  “Indeed,” I agreed. I had already abandoned myself.

  “I got to get away from all this hysteria,” Jake shouted to my silence and slammed the hollow hotel room door.

  I stood up, slightly dizzy from the attack and the fight, but invigorated. Johnnie and Jerry hired my lover to talk me into leaving town. They meant that the two of them were hiding something.

  ∆

  Respect

  “R-e-s-p-e-c-t. Find out what it means to me.”

  Aretha Franklin?

  Alice opened the door to Mirage’s apartment.

  Mirage stood washing dishes and swinging her hips, singing soul music. Alice laughed, and Mirage turned around.

  “Haven’t seen you this happy since college,” Alice called out. “And I’ve never seen you this happy washing dishes.”

  Mirage walked over, turned the music down. “I know. It’s wrong, with Lonnie gone. But I figured out how I can bring him back, in a way, by respecting his memory and changing my life.”

  “Bring him back?” Alice felt a little alarmed.

  “It sounds crazy, but here’s what I mean. All Lonnie wanted – what he meant by spirit – was for us to respect our art and ourselves. It wasn’t some native religious thing with him – w
e all knew that. He wanted us all to start living with a purpose that wasn’t making money or getting drunk or even pleasing our parents, like Nez. Jerry temporarily interfered with that process and put Lonnie on the wrong track. In the end, Lonnie wanted to us to grab our dignity back out of the gutter.”

  She sounded sincere. “How did you come to this enlightenment?” Alice pursued.

  “The knife’s not mine; the towel’s not mine. And I remembered an important detail from that night, Alice.”

  “What?”

  “One thing is—Jerry didn’t go home like he told me he did.”

  “No,” Alice agreed. “We heard that from Holly.”

  “He went into Lonnie’s room, Alice. We’re calling Cinnamon and Burro, and we’re going to tell them that Jerry stabbed Lonnie to death because Lonnie knew what Jerry was up to with Redemption.”

  “What was that?”

  “Fraud. I spent my afternoon at the gallery, looking through the computer at the sales records and payouts to the artists, and I’m telling you, there was no consistency at all. Jerry claimed he had Internet buyers, and he did at first, but they were all lawyers or other professionals like Blue Dog and Drew. No collectors or art enthusiasts. And all of them work for the same online company.”

  “I thought Blue Dog and Drew were lawyers.”

  “Not any more, at least not according to my Google search. They closed the law office two years ago, about the time Redemption opened.”

  “Okay. They’re rich friends of Jerry. That’s still not a crime.”

  “How did they get so rich?”

  “I don’t know. Business.”

  “Business is right. I found some emails in the office, too. All those men worked for a company called Pleasingly Plump Paramours.

  “Paramours? Like lovers?”

  “Possibly prostitutes, in this case. The website is set up like a dating service. The girls are all – plump. That’s the gimmick, if you will. Guys can get a date with a heavy girl who loves sex.”

  “Creepy.”

  “They don’t sell it like that. The concept is that the girls are sensuous, experienced. The site is titillating, not graphic. It pretends to be a dating site, but there are prices.”