Talking God jlajc-9

by Tony Hillerman

  And Janet, of course, was way ahead of him. “I’ve thought about that,” she said. “That maybe John would hire him to make a copy of the thing. Maybe I guessed right about that.” She looked sad as she said it, not looking at Chee, studying her hands. “Then I guess we would give it to our man in the Tano Pueblo. And he’d use it to get himself elected.”

  “Tell him it’s the real thing?”

  “Depending on how honest our Eldon Tamana is,” Janet said glumly. “If he’s honest, then you lie to him. If he’s not, then you tell the truth and let him do the lying.”

  “I wonder if anyone at the Pueblo could tell the copy from the real thing,” Chee said. “How long has the thing been missing?”

  “Since nineteen three or four, I think John said. Anyway, a long time.”

  “You’d probably be safe with a substitute then,” Chee said. He was thinking about Highhawk. It didn’t seem within the artist’s nature to use his talent in a conspiracy to cheat an Indian Pueblo. But perhaps Highhawk would be another one considered honest enough to require that he be lied to. Maybe he didn’t know why he was making the replica. In fact, maybe that carving wasn’t a replica at all. Maybe that cottonwood fetish in his office was something else. Or maybe it was the genuine fetish itself. Or maybe this whole theory was nonsense.

  “Jim,” Janet said. “What do you think? Do you think they’re sort of being—that I’m getting sort of led into something?” She was looking down at her hands, gripped tightly in her lap. “What do you think?”

  Jim Chee thought the way she had changed that question was interesting. He thought it was interesting that she didn’t ever actually pronounce the name of John McDermott. He wanted to say “Led by whom?” and force her at least to put some sort of name to it—if only the name of the law firm.

  “I think something’s going on,” Chee said.

  “And I think we should go somewhere quiet, and eat dinner and talk it over.” He glanced at her. “Maybe even hold hands. I could use a little handholding.”

  She had been looking down at her hands. Now she gave him a quick sidelong glance, and then turned away. “I can’t tonight,” she said. “I promised John I would meet him. Him and the man from Tano.”

  “Well, then,” Chee said. “I’ll ask you another question. Has Highhawk said anything more to you about this crime that hasn’t been committed yet? You remember that? You mentioned it when you called me at Shiprock. I think it was sort of vague. Some reference to needing a lawyer in the future for something that hadn’t yet happened. Do you remember?”

  “Of course I remember,” Janet said, looking at her hands again. “And tonight it’s really law firm business. John arranged to have Tamana come. He said he wants to get me involved in how to handle the problem. He wants me to talk to Tamana. So I could hardly get out of it.”

  “Of course not,” Chee said. He was disappointed. He had counted on this evening stretching on. But it was more than disappointment. There was resentment, too.

  Janet sensed it. “I guess I could,” she said. “I don’t know how long this man’s going to be in Washington. But I can try to call John and cancel it. Or leave a message for him at the restaurant.”

  “No, no,” Chee said. “Business is business.” But he didn’t want to think about Janet and John McDermott having dinner and about what would happen after dinner. If I was honest with her, he thought, I would tell her that of course McDermott was using her. That he had probably used her when she was his student in law school, and ever since, and would always use her. He had never seen McDermott, but he knew professors who used their graduate students. Used them for slave labor to do their research, used them emotionally.

  “Back to my question,” Chee said. “Did you ever ask Highhawk what he meant by that reference to the uncommitted crime? Did he ever explain what he meant by that?”

  Janet seemed happy to shift the subject. “I said something like I hoped he wasn’t intending to dig up any more old bones. And he just laughed. So I said—frankly, this whole thing bothered me, so I said I didn’t think it was laughable if he was planning to commit a felony. Something stuffy-sounding like that. And he laughed again and said he didn’t intend to be guilty of making his attorney a co-conspirator. He said the less I knew the better.”

  “He seems to know something about the law.”

  “He knows a lot about a lot of things,” Janet agreed. “Nothing wrong with the man’s mind.”

  “Except for being crazy.”

  “Except for that,” Janet agreed.

  “Can you arrange for me to see him again?” Chee said. “And I’d like to get a look at that genuine Tano fetish figure. You think that’s possible?”

  “I’m sure there’s no problem seeing Highhawk. About the fetish, I don’t know. It’s probably stored somewhere in a basement. And the Smithsonian must be pretty selective about who has access to what.”

  “Maybe because I’m a cop,” Chee said, wondering as he said it what in the world he could say to make anyone believe the Navajo Tribal Police had a legitimate interest in a Pueblo Indian artifact.

  “More likely because you’re a shaman,” Janet Pete said. “You still are, aren’t you?”

  “Trying to be,” Chee said. “But being a medicine man doesn’t fit very well with being a policeman. Don’t get much business.” Even that was an overstatement. The curing ceremonial Chee had learned was the Blessing Way. In the four years since he had declared himself a hataalii ready to perform that most popular ceremonial he’d had only three customers. One had been a maternal cousin, whom Chee had suspected of hiring him only as an act of family kindness. One had been the blessing of a newly constructed hogan owned by the niece of a friend, and one had been for a fellow policeman, the famous Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn. “Did I tell you about singing a Blessing Way for Joe Leaphorn?”

  Janet looked shocked. “The famous Leaphorn? Grouchy Joe? I thought he was—” She searched for the word to define Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn. “Agnostic. Or skeptical. Or—what is it? Anyway, I didn’t think he believed in curing ceremonials and things like that.”

  “He wasn’t so bad,” Chee said. “We had worked together on a case. People were digging up Anasazi graves and then there were a couple of homicides. But I think he asked me to do it because he wanted to be nice.”

  “Nice,” Janet said. “That doesn’t sound like the Joe Leaphorn I always used to hear about. Seems like I was always hearing Navajo cops bitching about Leaphorn never being quite satisfied with anything.”

  But it had, in fact, been nice. More than nice. Beautiful. Everything had gone beautifully. Not many of Leaphorn’s relatives had been there. But then the old man was a widower and he didn’t think Leaphorn had much family. Leaphorn was a Red Forehead Dinee and that clan was pretty much extinct. But the curing itself had gone perfectly. He had forgotten nothing. The sand paintings had been exactly correct. And when the final singing had been finished Old Man Leaphorn had, in some way difficult for Chee to define, seemed to be healed of the sickness that had been riding him. The bleakness had been gone. He had seemed back in harmony. Content.

  “I think he just always wants things to be better than they naturally are,” Chee said. “I got used to him after a while. And I’ve got a feeling that all that talk about him being a smart son of a bitch is pretty much true.”

  “I used to see him in court there at Window Rock now and then, and in the police building, but I never knew him. I heard he was a real pragmatist. Not a traditional Navajo.”

  And how about you, Janet Pete? Chee thought. How traditional are you? Do you believe in what Changing Woman taught our ancestors about the power we are given to heal ourselves? How about you leaving Dinetah and the Sacred Mountains because a white man wants you to keep him happy in Washington? But that was none of his goddamn business. That was clear enough. His role was to be a friend. No more. Well, why not? For that matter, he could use a friend himself.

  “What did you mean about getting t
o see the fetish as a shaman?” he asked.

  “Highhawk would be very impressed if he knew you were a Navajo hataalii,” she said. “Tell him you’re a singer and let him know you would like to see his work. He’s setting up a mask exhibition, you know. Tell him you’d like to see the Navajo part of the show.”

  “And then ask to see the fetish,” Chee said.

  Janet looked at him, studying his expression. “Why not?” she asked, and the question sounded a little bitter. “You think I’m thinking too much like a lawyer?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “Well, I am a lawyer.”

  He nodded. “You think I could see Highhawk tonight?”

  “He’s working tonight,” she said. “On that exhibit. I’ll call him at the museum and see if I can set something up. Will you be at your hotel?”

  “Where else?” Chee said, noticing as Janet glanced at him that his tone, too, sounded a little bitter.

  “I’ll try to hurry it up,” she said. “Maybe you can do it tomorrow.”

  It proved to be quicker than that.

  Janet had shown him the Vietnam Memorial wall, the Jefferson Memorial, and the National Air and Space Museum, and then dropped him off at his hotel. Chee ate a cheese omelet in the hotel coffee shop, took a shower in his bathroom tub (which, small as it was, was huge compared to the bathing compartment in Chee’s trailer home), and turned on the television. The sound control was stuck somewhere between loud and extremely loud and Chee spent a futile five minutes trying to adjust the volume. Failing that, he found an old movie in which the mood music was lower-decibel and sprawled across the pillow to watch it.

  The telephone rang. It was Henry Highhawk.

  “Miss Pete said you wanted to see the exhibit,” Highhawk said. “Are you doing anything right now?”

  Chee was available.

  “I’ll meet you at the Twelfth Street entrance to the Museum of Natural History building,” Highhawk said. “It’s just about five or six blocks from your hotel. I hate to rush you but I have another appointment later on.”

  “I’ll be there in twenty minutes,” Chee said. He turned off the TV and reached for his coat.

  Perhaps Janet’s idea of being followed had made him edgy. He looked for the car and he saw it almost as soon as he left the hotel entrance. The old Chevy sedan with the bent antenna was parked across the street and down the block. He stood motionless studying it, trying to see if the small man was in it. Reflection from the windshield made it impossible to tell. Chee walked slowly down the sidewalk, thinking that the small man hadn’t made any effort at concealment. What might that mean? Did he want Chee to know he was being watched? If so, why? Chee could think of no reason for that. Perhaps it was simply carelessness. Or arrogance. Or perhaps he wasn’t watching Chee at all.

  His route to the Museum of Natural History would take him the other way, but Chee detoured to walk past the sedan. It was empty. He leaned against the roof, looking in. On the front seat there was a folded copy of today’s Washington Post and a paper cup. A street map of the District of Columbia was on the dash. The backseat was empty except that an empty plastic bag with a Safeway logo was crumpled on the floor. The car was locked.

  Chee looked up the street and down it. Two teenaged black girls were walking toward him, laughing at something one had said. Otherwise, no one was in sight. The rain had stopped now but the streets and sidewalks still glistened with dampness. The air was damp, too, and chill. Chee pulled his jacket collar around his throat and walked. He listened. He heard nothing but occasional traffic sounds. He was on Tenth Street now, the gray mass of the Department of Justice building beside him, the Post Office building looming across the street. Justice seemed dark but a few of the windows in the postal offices were lit. What did post office bureaucrats do that kept them working late? He imagined someone at a drafting table designing a stamp. He stopped at the intersection of Constitution Avenue waiting for the Don’t Walk signal to change. Two men and a woman, all wearing the Washington uniform, were walking briskly down the sidewalk toward him. Each held a furled umbrella. Each carried a briefcase. The little man was nowhere in sight. Then, under the shrubbery landscaping the corner of the Justice building to Chee’s left, he saw a body.

  Chee sucked in his breath. He stared. It was a human form, drawn into the fetal position and partially covered by what seemed to be a cardboard box. Near the head was a sack. Chee made a tentative step toward it. The trio walked past the body. The man nearest glanced at it and said something unintelligible to Chee. The woman looked at the body and looked quickly away. They walked past Chee. “… at least GS 13,” the woman was saying. “More likely 14, and then before you know it…” Probably a wino, Chee thought. Chee had seen a thousand or so unconscious drunks since his swearing-in as an officer of the Navajo Tribal Police, seen them sprawled in Gallup alleys, frozen in the sagebrush beside the road to Shiprock, mangled like jackrabbits on the asphalt of U.S. Highway 666. But he could see the floodlit spire of the Washington Monument just a few blocks behind him. He hadn’t expected it here. He walked over the dead autumn grass, knelt beside the body. The cardboard was damp from the earlier rain. The body was a man. The familiar and expected smell of whiskey was missing.

  Chee reached his hand to the side of the man’s throat, feeling for a pulse.

  The man screamed and scrambled into a crouching position, trying to defend himself. The cardboard box bounced to the sidewalk.

  Chee jumped back, totally startled.

  The man was bearded, bundled in a navy pea-coat many sizes too large for him. He struck at Chee, feebly, screaming incoherently. Two men in the Washington uniform hurrying down Constitution Avenue glanced at the scene and hurried even faster.

  Chee held out empty hands. “I thought you needed help,” he said.

  The man fell forward to hands and knees. “Get away, get away, get away,” he howled.

  Chee got away.

  Highhawk was waiting for him at the employees’ entrance on Twelfth Street. He handed Chee a little rectangle of white paper with the legend VISITOR printed and Chee’s name written on it.

  “What do you want to see first?” he asked. Then paused. “You all right?”

  “There’s a man out there. Sick, I guess. Lying out there under the bushes across the street.”

  “Drunk maybe,” Highhawk said. “Or stoned on crack. Usually there’s three or four of them. That Department of Justice building grass is a favorite spot.”

  “This guy wasn’t drunk.”

  “On crack probably,” Highhawk said. “These days it’s usually crack if they’re dopers, or it can be anything from heroin to sniffing glue. But sometimes they’re just mental cases.” He considered Chee’s reaction to all this. “You have them too. I saw plenty of drunks in Gallup.”

  “I think we have more drunks per capita than anybody,” Chee said. “But on the reservation we try to pick them up. We try to put them somewhere. What’s the policy here?”

  But Highhawk was already limping hurriedly down the hallway, not interested in this subject, the braced leg dragging but moving fast. “Let me show you this display first,” he said. “I’m trying to get it to look just like it would if it was really happening out there in your desert.”

  Chee followed. He still felt shaken. But now he was thinking again, and he thought that he hadn’t looked for the small man around the Twelfth Street entrance to the Natural History Museum. And he thought that possibly the reason he hadn’t seen the small man following him was because the small man might not have needed to follow. He might have known where Chee was going.

  Henry Highhawk’s exhibit was down a side hall on the main floor of the museum. It was walled off from the world of museumgoers by plywood screens and guarded by signs declaring the area TEMPORARILY CLOSED TO THE PUBLIC and naming the display THE MASKED GODS OF THE AMERICAS. Behind the screen was the smell of sawdust, glue, and astringent cleaning fluids. There was also an array of masks, ranging from gro
tesque and terrible to calm and sublimely beautiful. Some were displayed in groups, one group representing the varying concept of demons in Yucatán villages, and another Inca deities. Some stood alone, accompanied only by printed legends explaining them. Some were displayed on costumed models of the priests or

  “This one is mine, of course,” Highhawk said. “I did some of the others, too, and helped on some. But this one is mine.” He glanced at Chee, waiting a polite moment for a comment. “If you see anything wrong, you point it out,” he added. He stepped across the railing to the figure and adjusted the mask, moving his fingers under the leather, tilting it slightly, then readjusting it. He stepped back and looked at it thoughtfully.

  “You see anything wrong?” he asked.

  Chee could see nothing wrong. At least nothing except trivial details in some of the decoration. And that was probably intended. Such a sacred scene should not be reproduced exactly except for its purpose—to cure a human being. Talking God was frozen in that shuffling dance step the yeis traditionally used as they approached the patient's hogan. In this display, the patient was standing on a rug spread on the earth in front of the hogan door. He was wrapped in a blanket and held his arms outstretched. Talking God's short woven kilt seemed to flow with the motion, and in each hand he carried a rattle which looked genuine. And, Chee thought, probably was. Behind Talking God in this diorama the other gods followed in identical poses, seeming to dance out of the darkness into the firelight. Chee recognized the masks of Fringed Mouth, of Monster Slayer, of Born for Water, and of Water Sprinkler with his cane and humped back. Other yei figures were also vaguely visible moving across the dance ground. And on both sides the fires illuminated lines of spectators.

  Chee's eyes lingered on the mask of Talking God. It seemed identical to the one he'd seen in Highhawk's office. Naturally it would. Probably it was the same one. Probably Highhawk had taken it home to prepare it for mounting. Or, if he was copying it, he would be making the replica look as much like the original as he could.