Wall of Glass

by Walter Satterthwait

  George nodded, opened the door, stood back. “May I bring you something to drink?”

  “A beer,” I told him. Casually. “A Corona.”

  He nodded, and waved a hand to indicate I should enter. I did, and he closed the door behind me.

  The chlorine smell was stronger and the air was hot and moist, as thick as soup. Opposite me was another wall of glass. The glass must’ve been treated somehow; despite the humidity it hadn’t fogged over, and through it I could see the same spectacular view of cloud-wrapped valley that I’d seen upstairs.

  On a sunnny day, the room would be blinding. The floor was tiled with white, and so were the walls. On the wall to my right were three chrome showerheads, chrome nozzles and knobs running down the tiles beneath them. In front of the window was a raised white fiberglass platform. Set into it was a hot tub about ten feet across, and sitting inside that, nodding pleasantly to me, pale thin vapor rising all around him like mist off a lake, was a man who had to be Norman Montoya.

  “Mr. Croft,” he said. He had a raspy voice that sounded like three packs of Marlboros a day. “Good afternoon. Please be so good as to use one of the showers to rinse off and then come join me.”

  Well, why not. A hot tub was as good a place as any to conduct business. Henry the Eighth and LBJ, I’m told, conducted it on the toilet.

  I soaped up and rinsed myself off, then padded over, climbed up the rubber-coated steps, crossed the platform, and stepped down into the water. It was nearly scalding.

  Montoya stood to greet me, steam curling from his shoulders, and I was surprised at how short he was, no more than five foot three or four. His hair was white, cut close to the scalp but not so close you couldn’t see the waves in it. His eyes were dark and shiny and shrewd. Beneath a small, almost Indian nose was a thin, white, carefully trimmed mustache. His skin was tanned and his face was creased, lines crinkling out from his dark eyes and hollowing his cheeks. But he was in good shape, his body compact and wiry, the muscles taut. From what I knew about him, he must’ve been close to sixty years old. He could’ve passed for late forties.

  I shook his damp hot hand and he smiled at me. “Please, sit down. Shall I turn on the jets? They’re very good for muscular aches and pains, and I understand that you’ve had quite a strenuous morning.”

  I sat down on the wide bench that circled the tub at knee level. The hot water rose halfway up my chest. “The jets’d be fine,” I said.

  He nodded and sat down opposite me, the water lapping at his shoulders. He reached out a thin arm and tapped at a button on the platform. There was a whooshing sound and the water suddenly foamed up creamy white. I could feel pin-point bubbles whizzing along my back, rushing along my legs. It was like sitting in frothy warm champagne.

  He smiled at me, benevolently. “Did George ask you if you wanted anything to drink.”

  “He did, yes. He’s good, George.”

  The old man nodded, pleased. “My nephew. A graduate of the University of Mexico. And of Stanford, in California. He’s Phi Beta Kappa, you know.”

  “And he drives a lowrider?”

  He smiled. “He prefers his BMW—he appreciates German technology, you see—but he knows that frequently it pays to be underestimated.” He lifted his arm from the water waved it toward the window. “Do you like the view?”

  “Very nice.”

  Gazing out over the valley, he said, “It’s strange, isn’t it, how people become proprietary about the view from inside their homes. As though they owned everything they see. My lawn, my tree, my mountain, my sky.” He turned to me, smiling. “In my case, it would mean I owned most of northern New Mexico.”

  I smiled back at him. “In your case, I hear it’s not far from the truth.”

  “Now, now, Mr. Croft.” He waggled a dripping finger at me. “Never try to flatter a vain old man. Vanity is bottomless, you know. You could spend the rest of your life, fruitlessly, attempting to fill it.” He sat back in the tub, water bubbling beneath his chin, and eyed me through the steam. “Tell me,” he said. “Are you a religious man?”

  “No,” I said. “Not really.”

  He nodded. “Do you believe in an afterlife?”

  “Do I have faith in one?”

  He smiled. “An important distinction, isn’t it? Let me rephrase the question. Are your actions grounded on the assumption that one exists?”

  I shook my head. “No.”

  He nodded again. “Good. I dislike dealing with people who expect to be playing harps on a cloudbank somewhere. I find them untrustworthy. I, myself, am a Buddhist. Do you happen to know anything about Zen, Mr. Croft?”

  I shrugged. “I know you’re supposed to sit a lot.”

  Another approving nod. “Zazen. I sit in lotus for half an hour every morning, and another half hour every night. Merely sit, keeping my mind empty as possible and staring at an empty wall.”

  I nodded, but I was beginning to wonder where all this was leading.

  He smiled. “I’ll be getting to the point in only a few moments, Mr. Croft. Please be patient and bear with my ramblings for a while longer.”

  I shrugged, smiled. “It’s your nickel,” I said.

  “Thank you. Ah, here’s George with your drink.”

  George came in, carrying a round silver tray that held a bottle of Corona, an empty glass, and another cordless telephone. He set the tray on the platform, close enough for me to reach it, and nodded to the old man.

  Montoya said, “And what of Luis?”

  George jerked his head toward me. “He ran Luis off the road too.” He grinned. “With a Subaru.”

  “Very enterprising. Perhaps he can explain the technique to us before he leaves. Is someone seeing to Luis?”

  George nodded. “Vincent is picking him up. He’s already gotten Raoul’s car back on the road.”

  “Very good. Thank you, George.”

  George nodded again, grinned at me, turned and left.

  “I apologize,” said Montoya, “for the two cretins who tried to run you down. They were exceeding their instructions. I wished them only to follow you until you met with George. They will be reprimanded, and of course we will pay for any damage inflicted on your vehicle. Please, Mr. Croft, drink your beer.”

  The ice-cold bottle was sweaty with condensation. I filled the glass, sat back, and tasted it. Good.

  The old man spoke. “As I said, Mr. Croft, I sit in zazen two times every day. Now a curious thing happens when you stare at a blank, empty wall. Your vision flickers and fades for a while, and sometimes goes into a complete white-out. Sometimes a faint hollow in the surface of the wall, barely perceptible under normal circumstances, will fill up with waves of gray, or green, or red. And sometimes images will float across the wall, some of them so finely detailed they could have been drawn by a master. A dog or a horse, a Balinese dancer, a field of grinning skulls.”

  I took another sip of beer and nodded. I wondered how often he saw fields of grinning skulls.

  “We call this makyo, illusion, and we learn to ignore it. The point I wish to make, Mr. Croft, is that I believe something much like this has happened to you in your search for the necklace belonging to Mr. and Mrs. Leighton.”

  I thought I kept my surprise fairly well hidden—I hadn’t mentioned the Leightons or the necklace at La Cantina—but the old man smiled again and said, “Oh yes, I know all about it. Mr. Frank Biddle’s visit to your office last Friday, your contract with the Atco Insurance Company, your discussions with Ramirez and Nolan at the police department. At the risk of sounding self-satisfied, I must tell you that I am very well-informed.”

  “Sounds like it.”

  He nodded. “My existence depends upon it. And although this particular existence is only one of many and, like all of them, illusory, I confess to having become attached to it.” Another smile. “As Diogenes once said, ‘Old habits are hard to break.’”

  “He was a caution, Diogenes.”

  He smiled again. “As I said, Mr.
Croft, I believe you have become a victim of makyo. From somewhere you’ve heard that Mr. Frank Biddle was involved in small-time cocaine dealing. You have persuaded yourself that this fact is somehow connected to his death. This has led you to one of my people, Benito Chavez, and would have led you, ultimately, to me. I invited you here, Mr. Croft, to assure you that Mr. Biddle’s dealing in cocaine and his death are in no way related.”

  “What was related to his death?”

  “I have no idea. But I know that cocaine was not.”

  I drank some beer. “Assuming that’s true, why would you bother to tell me?”

  “We are all seekers after truth, are we not, Mr. Croft? And is it not our responsibility, if we see that one of our fellow seekers is following the path of error, to correct him?”

  “Sure it is,” I said. “Especially if we get something out of it ourselves.”

  He smiled. “Very well, Mr. Croft. What I get out of this is Mr. Stacey Killebrew.”

  “Get him how?”

  “Get him back in the prison, where—and here I’m sure your friend Ramirez will agree with me—he most certainly belongs.”

  “Why would you want Killebrew back in prison?”

  “He sets a bad example.”

  I laughed. “You mean he doesn’t fence his stuff with you.”

  Montoya raised his eyebrows. “Receiving stolen property is a criminal offence, Mr. Croft. Suffice it to say that the man offends me. He is violent. He is cruel. He has a fondness for very young girls. There are certain individuals whose karma is so dark, so black, that they seem to personify evil. Killebrew is such a one.”

  “Maybe next time,” I said, “he’ll come back as a mollusk.”

  “I think not,” he said. “A mollusk would be a decided improvement.”

  “Did Killebrew kill Biddle?”

  “Once again, I have no idea. But I think it likely that he killed Mrs. Silvia Griego.”

  So Griego’s death must’ve made the news. “Why would he kill Griego?”

  “Should I tell you everything, Mr. Croft?” He shook his head, clicking his tongue against his teeth. “It would seem unsporting to deprive you of the discovery.”

  “That’s okay,” I said. “Deprive me.”

  He nodded once. “A single small hint, then. Mr. Killebrew, Mr. Biddle, the artist John Lucero, and the late Mrs. Griego, they were all …” and he smiled slyly, as though he were about to impart one of the Great Secrets of the Orient, “… they were all birds of a feather.”

  “Uh-huh. And what does that mean, exactly?”

  “Think of it as a koan, Mr. Croft. A puzzle to be solved on the way to Enlightenment. You’re an intelligent man. I’m sure you’ll come upon an answer.”

  I glanced at my watch. Eleven-thirty. I asked him, “Could I use your phone?”

  A gracious nod. “Of course.”

  This time Rita answered on the first ring.

  “Everything’s still hunky-dory,” I told her.

  “All right,” she said. “Call again in another half hour.”

  “I will.”

  I put the phone back on the silver tray and turned back to Montoya.

  He said, “I met Mrs. Mondragón once, you know.”

  I shook my head. “I didn’t know.”

  “With her late husband. Some years ago, at a political gathering in Santa Fe. This was shortly after the late Mr. Mondragón had opened the detective agency. You were not, I believe, associated with it at that time.”

  “No,” I said.

  “I’d known him and his family for years. A fine old New Mexico family. I believe they were all very pleased that William was finally doing something with his life, even something as outré as opening a detective agency.” He smiled. “Later, of course, after he was killed, they all blamed Mrs. Mondragón, said that the agency had been her idea.”

  “I know,” I said.

  He nodded. “Of course. You were the one who found him, were you not? Found the man who killed William and wounded Mrs. Mondragón.”

  “Yeah.”

  He smiled. “How does it feel to be a part of the local mythology?”

  “You’d know the answer to that a whole lot better than I would.”

  He smiled, shook, his head. “Flattery again. You’re incorrigible, Mr. Croft.”

  “Listen,” I said, “would you mind if I asked you a couple of questions?”

  “Not at all,” he said, nodding graciously. “That is, after all, your job.”

  “Did Killebrew steal the Leightons’ necklace?”

  He shrugged lightly. “He seems the likely suspect, wouldn’t you say?”

  Not really an answer, but probably the best I’d get from him. “No one’s fenced the thing?”

  He shook his head. “If it had turned up anywhere, I would know.”

  “One thing I don’t understand. If you want Killebrew back in jail, why not go to the police with what you’ve got?”

  He shook his head, his lips pursed in distaste. “On general principle I avoid the police whenever possible. And explaining to them my sources of information in this instance would set in motion a chain of circumstances I prefer to avoid.”

  I nodded. “Okay. One thing more. A personal question.”

  “Certainly.”

  “How does a Buddhist get into your line of work?”

  He smiled. “According to the statements I submit annually to the Internal Revenue Service, investing in real estate is my line of work.”

  I shrugged. “So how does a Buddhist get into real estate?”

  “Karma, Mr. Croft. The failures and successes of previous lives have led me to this one, with its particular rewards and burdens. And because I’m well aware of my imperfections, I know that this one will not be my last. I cannot devote myself, unfortunately, to the meditative life as completely as I would like. I have too many commitments and responsibilities to an extended circle of family and business associates. Can you understand that?”

  “Sure,” I said. “I saw The Godfather.”

  He smiled. “You’re an amusing man, Mr.Croft.” He put his head back against the edge of the tub. “Perhaps we can do business together at some time in the future.”

  “I suppose that means we’re finished with our discussion.”

  “Sad but true, alas. I’m an old man and I need my rest. But I’m sure you’re anxious to return to Santa Fe and put to useful work the information I’ve provided you.”

  “Right,” I said. “The information. Birds of a feather.”

  Smiling, he nodded. “Precisely. Your clothes will be hanging in the hallway.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Not at all. Please feel free to contact me whenever you think it necessary. It’s been a great pleasure talking with you.” He nodded to me, smiled again, and closed his eyes.

  I clambered up out of the tub, grabbed a towel off the rack on the wall, and dried myself. Wrapped the towel around my waist and padded down off the platform and across the room.

  When I looked back, through the mist rising off the water, his eyes were still closed.

  FOURTEEN

  THERE AREN’T MANY THINGS to do in Santa Fe until summertime, when the opera season begins, and I’m one of the philistines who believes that there aren’t many things to do then, either. But one of the things you can do, year-round, is attend openings. New restaurants, new supermarkets, new shopping malls, new shows at the local galleries—all of them kick off with an opening. Openings provide an excuse for the locals to dress up in their Navajo silver and get out of the house to see who’s seeing whom, and be seen by whoever’s seeing whom. There are one or two individuals in town, it’s been said, who’d be willing to attend the opening of an envelope.

  I had thought that the opening at the Griego Gallery would’ve been called off. But when I telephoned the gallery after I got back into town from Las Mujeres, I learned that I was wrong. Despite Silvia Griego’s death, The Show Must Go On.

  There was a m
essage from Hector on the machine at the office, asking me to call him. I did, and he asked me if I’d known that Griego was dead. I said I had. He asked about my visit to her gallery yesterday, and I told him I’d spoken with her because of a reputed connection between her and Biddle. He said that was very interesting, and asked if Griego had admitted the connection. I said she had, more or less, but that I didn’t think she’d known anything about the stolen necklace. He said he liked the way I used the word reputed and suggested I come down to his office tomorrow to use it again in the statement he wanted me to make. I said I would.

  I called Rita, gave her the rundown on what’d happened up at Las Mujeres, skipping lightly over the scene at La Cantina and the chase on the highway, emphasizing my talk with Montoya. I mentioned the old man’s cryptic remark about “birds of a feather,” but it didn’t mean any more to her than it had to me. After I hung up, I drove over to the municipal pool and swam my mile. Then I went home.

  For my outing that evening I selected a pair of clean Levis, Luchese lizardskin boots, a pale blue silk shirt, and my Adolfo blue blazer. Understated elegance. The sort of thing Hoot Gibson might wear to the Four Seasons.

  When I arrived, fashionably late at seven o’clock, the gallery’s parking lot was packed with cars, and so were both sides of Canyon Road for a hundred feet in each direction. Apparently the death of the owner could really punch up a gallery’s business. I wondered if this would start a trend.

  I drove on until I found a space, parked the Subaru, and walked back. Dusk was becoming evening. The air was cooling off, but it carried the sweet purple smell of lilacs and, with it, the promise of summer.

  The people milling around on the gallery’s portico, illuminated by the soft glow of kerosene hurricane lamps, seemed prepared to take the promise for the reality. Most of them were dressed ten or fifteen degrees warmer than the weather. Nearly every male there was outfitted, as I was, in Middle-Class Cowboy, although there were a few three-piece suits circulating among the denims. A lot of the Hispanic women were wearing Hispanic-flavored outfits, long skirts set off with sashes of red or black, presumably to emphasize their Spanish heritage. A lot of the Anglo women—the blondes, primarily—were wearing dresses of bright summery white or yellow. Presumably to emphasize their blondhood.