The Bisti Business

by Don Travis

  “I can believe that.”

  “They seemed so nice,” she blurted. “Lando and Dana, I mean. They laughed and joked and flirted with me like regular guys.”

  “Did you talk to them much?”

  Melissa blushed. “Some. They came back to the motel one day and told me about their trip to the Aztec Ruins. And they liked the Salmon Pueblo too. They asked about the art galleries, and I steered them to the Three Artists’ Studio down the street. They must have liked it because Lando told me he bought a John Haley Muller landscape. That’s a local artist, and he’s not cheap either. There’s nothing in the studio under five thousand. He told me he had it shipped directly to California. They really seemed to be enjoying their vacation.” As she finished speaking, a frown tugged at her features.

  “What changed?”

  “The first night they were here, they ran into some trouble out at the Sidewinder. That’s a bar at the south end of town. Not sure what it was, but they both had bruises. I asked about it, but they just brushed me off. I heard later the police got called out there.”

  “Did they seem seriously injured?”

  “No. Like I said, just bruises.”

  “But that’s not all, is it?”

  She shook her head, her ponytail wagging like a dog’s appendage. “No, they shrugged that off okay, I guess. Kept on taking short trips around the area.” Her eyes swept the room before continuing. “Then they got in a fight.”

  “Another one?” I asked.

  “Not like that. With each other.”

  “A fist fight?”

  “No, but I thought it was going to come to that before it was over. It got loud enough another guest complained, and I had to go over and ask them to keep it down.”

  “What was it about, do you know?”

  Melissa reddened again, and I realized she had been attracted to one or both of the men. “About a boy.”

  I made a quick mental connection. “A boy named Cruz?”

  She frowned. “I don’t know any Cruz. This was a local kid. Jazz Penrod.”

  “You know anything about him?”

  “I know him,” she said without any inflection in her voice. “Trouble. Has been since he was thirteen.”

  “What kind of trouble?”

  “Maybe you better go ask somebody else. I don’t like gossiping.”

  “Okay, lend me your phone, and I’ll call Sergeant Dix Lee at the FPD and have her come ask the questions.”

  She opened up right away, rendering all her protestations false. “All right, Jasper Penrod is a mixed-blood kid who’s lived here all his life. Here and on the Big Rez.” She tossed her head in a westerly direction. “He’s about the biggest competition the girls in this town have. He’s as pretty as any of them—heck, prettier—and he likes the same thing they do, except he’s more aggressive about it.”

  “He’s gay?”

  “Most definitely.”

  “You mean dresses up in women’s clothes?”

  “Not Jazz. He dresses like a man and acts like a man, but he puts the moves on a man just like a woman. Been more than one guy in trouble for fooling around with Jazz when he was underage.”

  “How old is he now?”

  “About eighteen. He’s a good kid, really. By that, I mean, he doesn’t get anyone in trouble on purpose. But he wants what he wants and isn’t shy about it.”

  “A kid could get in trouble for that—especially around here, I understand.”

  “Yeah, a lot of the fellas don’t like gay people. And Jazz doesn’t make any bones about being that way. But he does it different. Not faggy or flighty or anything like that. And he’s just so… so pretty.”

  “A pretty face sometimes causes bad trouble.”

  “You’re right about that. But his daddy’s one mean Indian, and he’s got a whole clan to back him up—including Jazz’s brother. Half brother, I guess. So the word went out, and nobody in his right mind tackles Jazz. His mom’s brother stands up for him too. He’s white.”

  “How about the law?”

  “They just try to keep things peaceful. They don’t bother Jazz as long as he doesn’t do anything outrageous. Outrageously illegal,” she amended.

  “Jazz. How’d he come by that name?”

  “He doesn’t like the name Jasper, so he started calling himself Jazz.”

  “You sound like you know him pretty well.”

  “I ought to. His mom lives just down the street from our house. I watched the guy grow up.”

  “Does Jazz go with anybody? Steady, I mean?”

  “You want to know if somebody might be jealous enough to make trouble for Lando and Dana?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Jazz has never had a serious relationship so far as I know. So I can’t help you there.”

  “How about the family? The brother or the uncle?”

  “Oh, they wouldn’t get involved unless Jazz was being threatened or something. They accepted how Jazz is a long time ago.”

  I pressed the conversation, but the only additional information of value to surface was Jazz Penrod’s Farmington address. Melissa had no idea where to find him if he was on the reservation.

  “I understand Lando and Dana checked out of the motel better than a week ago. On the fourteenth, I believe.”

  She nodded. “That sounds about right.”

  “Did the man asking about the Porsche show up again?”

  “Nope.”

  Aggie came into the lobby, so I thanked Melissa and we left. After filling him in on my conversation with the desk clerk, I called my office to ask Hazel to look into the whereabouts of Bruno Wills, Dana’s former lover. Maybe he was the one shadowing the two men. Then we left in the hot pursuit of… absolutely nothing.

  “Bud Yarborough, the roustabout Lando and Dana fought with at the Sidewinder, is probably on the job out in the oilfield,” I said. “We’ll have to catch him this evening. So let’s go see if Jazz Penrod is home.”

  Eunice Penrod and her son lived on the north side of town in a modest residential section that reminded me of the company towns of yesteryear. It was more than the small box houses looking similar. Plenty of developments suffer from that problem, but these were almost exactly alike, as if few of the occupants had an imagination or sought to establish an independent identity. The one-story, porchless clapboard buildings were as depressing as any tenement. To her credit, Jazz’s mother had set out trellises of incredibly delicate climbing rose vines on either side of the stoop.

  Ms. Penrod, a nervous woman of about forty, was reluctant to talk about her son to two strangers, at least one of whom—Aggie Alfano—was certifiably handsome and hunky. Her guarded attitude confirmed she was aware of her son’s lifestyle. How could she not be? The kid had been on the hunt since his early teens if you could believe the desk clerk at the Trail’s End.

  “He’s not home right now,” she declared in a well-modulated voice.

  “Can you tell us where to find him?” I watched alarm flash across her eyes at the question. “We’re looking for Mr. Alfano’s brother, and we understand Jazz might be able to point us in the right direction.”

  “I don’t know anything about it.” With that she gently but firmly closed the door.

  We exchanged glances and returned to the car. Deciding to raise the mother’s anxiety level a bit, I sat in front of the house while I dialed Lando’s cell phone. As usual it went to his voice mail. I got the same results with Dana’s.

  “How many times have you called those numbers?” Aggie asked.

  “Gave up counting. No one’s going to answer, but I’d feel mighty foolish if I later found out one more call would have established contact.”

  As I pulled away from the curb, Aggie gave an exasperated snort. “Why are we doing this alone? Why aren’t the police here with us?”

  “Why? No crime’s been committed.”

  “No crime? My brother’s car was stolen, and two boys are dead as the result. He’s been in
a fight, and now he and Dana are missing.”

  “The fight was dealt with, at least as far as the cops are concerned. There’s no real evidence the car was stolen from here. After all, it ended up halfway across the state. Mixed jurisdictions are always tricky.”

  “And,” he added dryly, “the missing guys are both queers. No reason to break a sweat over them, is there?”

  “That could be a part of it, but mostly it’s because they’re both adults. They don’t have an obligation to keep you informed of their whereabouts.”

  “But Lando didn’t even report the car stolen. Doesn’t that mean anything?”

  “To you and me, it does. And I’ll warrant Dix Lee did a database search after we talked and has put out a bulletin. She’ll probably interview Bud Yarborough again, but that’s about it.”

  “What about this Jazz Penrod?”

  “Chances are they don’t know about that connection yet. The girl at the Trail’s End said the police weren’t called when Lando and Dana had their dustup.”

  “I can’t believe it.” Aggie shook his head. “I can’t believe they had a fight over another guy.”

  “You never had a fight with your girlfriend over looking at a woman?”

  “Yeah, but—” He caught himself. “Okay, I get it. It’s the same thing, right?”

  “I’d say so. Tell me, Aggie, do you approve of Lando’s association with Dana?”

  “He’s got a right to live his life the way he wants to, and I support him in that.”

  “Unlike your father.”

  “Yeah. Papa’s old school. He still thinks all gays are queers—you know, fags and flaming queens. I like to believe I’m more understanding than that, but every once in a while, I catch myself hoping the old man might be right. That one day Lando will wake up and put all that behind him.”

  “That’s okay too, if that’s what he really wants to do.”

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  Chapter 9

  WE WENT to see what Dix Lee knew about Jasper Penrod and found she knew a great deal. The kid had first come to the department’s attention the day he turned thirteen when he broke a bottle over his father’s head during a drunken domestic brawl. The prosecutors decided he was acting in defense of his mother, so no juvie charges were filed. Within a month he was back in their sights when a cop caught a twenty-two-year-old man in a compromising position with him. Since Jazz was a minor, the entire weight of the law fell upon the adult, who was charged with child sexual abuse. The next time it was a high school senior basketball player who suffered the consequences. The FPD file listed other such incidents over the years, but none in the past few months. I asked about that.

  “Nobody believes he’s changed his habits,” Dix confided, “but before he didn’t give a damn if he got caught because he didn’t pay the price. That said, he’s smart enough to realize we’ll come down on him now he’s eighteen.”

  “There’s not much here except for sexual liaisons and the beer bottle incident with his father,” I said. “Just a shoplifting charge last year that was dismissed.”

  “Yeah. We looked into it, and it was clear the accusation was payback when Jazz spurned some guy’s advances.”

  “No fighting. Nothing like that,” I continued. “That’s unusual, especially the lack of fighting. I’d think an obvious gay would be in scrapes all the time around here.”

  “Probably would be except for his older brother and his uncle. He’s got protectors on both sides of the family. Henry Secatero, his half brother, is more of a father than Louie Secatero ever was. Henry’s a tough guy, and if anybody plows into Jazz….” Dix faltered, apparently tripping over on her choice of words. “That is, if anybody attacks Jazz, they have him to deal with. Henry’s been in trouble more than once over situations like that, but it’s never anything serious enough for more than a night in jail.”

  “How old is Henry?”

  “Around twenty-eight or so.”

  “Native American, I take it,” Aggie interjected.

  “You take it right.”

  “You said something about protection from the other side of the family too,” I said.

  “Yeah. Jazz’s mother, Eunice, is sort of a sad case. She’s a hard worker but never had any luck with men. Louie Secatero is one good-looking guy—Jazz comes by it honestly—and he sorta swept her off her feet. But he didn’t have any interest in her except for the usual, and he made himself scarce when she got pregnant. To his credit he started coming around after Jazz was born and even contributes a little money to the family now and then. He works in the coal mine on the Navajo Reservation.

  “Anyway, Eunice’s brother, Riley Penrod, looks after her. She lives in his house. He never married, probably because of her dependence on him. He took to Jazz right off the bat. He’s the kind of man you’d think would toss a gay kid down a deep well with no rope, but he’s always been protective of his nephew. Riley’s been in a few fistfights over Jazz too. Not as much and not as violently as Henry but enough so you’d sit up and take notice. So word got around pretty quick not to lean on Jazz.”

  She did that thing with the curl of hair at her shoulder. “Of course, Jazz does all right on his own. He looks like an angel, but he fights like a devil.”

  I tapped the folder in her hand. “Nothing about that in there from the quick glance I saw.”

  “No, he’s always been the victim. That is to say, the other guy threw the first punch, but Jazz gets in his quota. You wouldn’t think it from looking at the kid. He’s long and lanky, but he’s got a set of muscles hidden under his shirt. Here, take a look for yourself.”

  Even the kid’s mug shot, taken for the bogus shoplifting charge, was something. A spectacularly handsome adolescent peered out from the image through dark, smoky eyes. Full, blushed lips. High, smooth cheeks. Gracefully arched brows that ended in a slight, upward twist, giving the teen an impish look. Raven hair spilled down on his neck in an ebony halo, slightly wavy and looking silky to the touch. Jazz Penrod was saved from androgyny by an Adam’s apple and the defined, definitely male slope of his shoulders. I got the feeling that in person, the kid was graceful, maybe even excessively so, but not a mama’s boy. I could understand how he came by his reputation. With those sultry, exotic looks, he’d get plenty of action by just crooking his little finger—or better yet, lifting one of those eyebrows. There was little of his mother in the image. He probably resembled Louis, his father.

  “Where can we find him?” I asked.

  “Your guess is as good as mine. The kid doesn’t have steady work, but he does odd jobs both here and on the reservation. That and the gifts he gets from his admirers keep him in enough money to get by.” Dix gave the photo one last look before putting it back in the folder.

  “He’s a male prostitute?” Aggie asked.

  “No, and if he was, we’d run him in. But he doesn’t turn down gifts. Despite what I’ve said, Jazz won’t go with just anyone. He’s got to be attracted to a man. Not all of the guys who got in trouble over him have had money.”

  “So we’re on our own finding him?” I asked.

  “Yeah. There’s no reason to put out a bulletin on him. But if a unit happens to see him, I’ll give you a call.”

  “Thanks.”

  With little to do until people started getting off from work, Aggie and I reported in to Alfano and then took a run out to the Aztec Ruins National Monument to see if we could find a trace of the two missing men on the trip Melissa had mentioned. As usual, the orange Porsche had snagged the attention of some of the monument’s attendants, although there was nothing about the behavior of the car’s occupants to attract notice.

  From there we went to the Salmon Ruins, an ancient Anasazi pueblo, with similar results. Before wheeling out onto Highway 64, I paused and glanced at Aggie. “Lando and Dana exhibited some interest in the Bisti badlands a couple of times. It’s a bit farther than these last two we visited. You want to take a swing down th
ere? It’s a different sort of attraction, a wilderness area with a bunch of weird-shaped rock formations. Hoodoos, they call them. The last time I checked, Bisti gets very little traffic. There probably won’t even be any park people around.”

  He consulted his watch. “How far?”

  “Probably forty miles or so. And then you do a little hiking, if things haven’t changed in the five years since I was there last.”

  Aggie made a point of glancing at his polished loafers. “Let’s go back to Farmington. I want to look up this Yarborough bird. If we don’t learn anything from him, we’ll go tomorrow.”

  THE SIDEWINDER Bar and Grill occupied a wood-frame building isolated in the middle of a large gravel parking lot at the southern city limits of Farmington. The green paint covering the outside walls reminded me of dried bile. The lot served up a miasma of dust and gas fumes every time a vehicle pulled in or departed. Tonight the place did not appear to be very busy. About a dozen pickup trucks and sports coupes huddled close to the building, leaving the remaining two acres vacant.

  I nosed the rented Ford in beside a double cab Dodge Ram. We got out of the car and started for the door. The walk, although short, was rough. How in the hell did drunks and women in high heels—drunk or sober—make it across the parking lot?

  Up close the bar was no more appealing. The paint had cracked and fallen away in some places. Pipes poking up from two swamp coolers atop the flat roof led me to believe they were derelict. The lack of a humming motor heightened the impression. Probably steamy as hell inside. On the other hand, this was northern New Mexico, where the nights were usually cool.

  A false-front overhang held a painted sign with the bar’s name in black letters lighted by a flood at either end. Competing neon signs in red and blue advertised different brands of beer on the building’s two front windows. A short concrete ramp led to double doors like the ones found in more pretentious homes, except the wood was as cracked and paint hungry as the rest of the exterior. Obviously the Sidewinder’s attraction was not its exterior.