The Bisti Business

by Don Travis

  “When was that?”

  “The night before I met them, so it must have been Saturday. That’s why I went over and talked to them. You know, because people said they did okay against the bullies and had the balls to come back the next night.”

  “Surprised the bouncer let them in,” I said.

  “Naw. So long as you take your problems outside, anybody’s welcome at the Sidewinder. Now if they’d tore up the joint, that woulda been different.”

  “You figure Bud’s capable of tracking them down and getting his revenge later?”

  “Be the first time if he did. His attention span’s about as long as his dick. But he can hold a grudge sometimes. I guess if he ran across Lando or Dana with his buddies at his back, he might mix it up again, but I can’t see him plotting against them.”

  “Now the questions get harder,” I warned. “Did your uncle Riley ever meet either Lando or Dana?”

  “Riley? You know about Riley? No, he never met them. Not that I know of, anyway. Why?”

  “We understand he watches your back sometimes. Maybe he got the wrong idea.”

  “Nah.” Jazz shook his head firmly. “Riley’s cool. Besides, I never talked about those guys to him.”

  “Maybe not, but he goes to the Sidewinder too, doesn’t he?”

  “Sometimes. But they weren’t giving me any flack, so Riley wouldn’t have been involved.”

  “Does he like the same things you do?” Aggie asked.

  Jazz made a face. “No, he likes his women. Man, does he like his women.”

  “But he’s been known to break a few heads for you now and then,” Aggie persisted.

  “Yeah, but he had no call to take on Lando or Dana.”

  “And your brother?” I asked.

  “Man, you’re a real private eye, aren’t you?”

  “That’s what it says on my license, except the state cleans it up a little. It says Private Investigator.”

  “Henry never laid eyes on either one of them.” The kid paused. “But I did tell him about them. Me liking guys pisses Henry off, so I tease him about it sometimes. You know, tell him about a prime cut now and then.”

  “How did he react?”

  “Like he always does. Blew some steam at me and then dropped it. He never gets involved if it’s a fair fight, but he won’t stand for them ganging up on me. So far as I know, he didn’t even come off the reservation that weekend.”

  “Would you know if he did?”

  “Might not until later when he went to talking about some girl he banged.” Jazz put a long forefinger to his lower lip. “But I’ll tell you somebody they did worry about.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Dana’s ex-boyfriend. Bruno somebody or the other.”

  “Bruno Wills,” Aggie said when I looked in his direction. “His name is Bruno Wills.”

  “Lando told Dana to shut off his cell phone because the dude was calling. You know, that might be what they were arguing about—that Bruno guy.”

  I already knew a little about Wills. As soon as Melissa’d told me about the curious stranger asking after the orange Porsche, I had Hazel check out Dana’s former boyfriend. She’d given me a preliminary report this morning before I left my motel room. Aggie’s take on the man might add something. When I asked what he knew about Wills, he shook his head.

  “Not much. He’s older than Dana, but they met at school when they took some classes together. They supposedly had a thing going until Dana met Lando. Word was the guy took the breakup hard.”

  “Who is he?”

  “Construction foreman in LA last I heard. Think he’s got some kind of engineering degree.”

  “He come from money?”

  “Comfortable, but not….” Aggie trailed off.

  “Not like your old man,” I supplied.

  “You could say that.”

  Aggie’s information fit what I already knew. I turned to Jazz. “Did they say if Bruno was here in the Four Corners?”

  “I don’t have any idea.”

  “What were they going to do the next day?” I asked. “Before they argued, that is.”

  “Lando still wanted to see the Bisti badlands. He’d heard about all the weird shapes and spooky things down there. I told them they oughta go late in the afternoon so they could stay and see it at night. Some of those hoodoos blow your mind at night.”

  “Did they go?”

  Jazz pursed his lips and shook his head. “Dunno. I never saw either one of them again.”

  AFTER JAZZ left, Aggie smiled and shook his head. The kid had made an impression on him. I understood. Jazz Penrod was what my mom used to call “a presence.”

  Next I phoned my client. The sessions with Anthony Alfano were tedious affairs. This one was no exception. He heard me out and then started in on me.

  “This is taking too long, Vinson.”

  “You can always fire me, Alfano,” I shot back. We had long ago dropped the customary “mister” but hadn’t graduated to first names… and probably never would. “Or”—I dug at him a little—“send in that other guy you hired.”

  “What other guy?”

  “The one you hired before you dumped on me.”

  “I didn’t hire anyone else. What makes you think I did?”

  “Figured that was your style. Cover your ass. And besides, there’s some indication another guy was chasing Lando’s orange rocket ship.”

  “Why am I just now hearing about this? That could be significant.”

  “Because there’s nothing certain about it. Someone commented on the Porsche. But that car attracted attention. There’s no evidence it was the same man both times.”

  “Did you get a description?”

  “Mr. Everyman with a high forehead and thinning hair. His approach was so low-key, neither clerk I talked to took note of the guy. It was in two different parts of the state, and like I say, very casual.”

  “Wills,” Alfano snorted. “That queer’s sugar daddy is following them. It was probably a setup all along. I’ll get somebody down in LA to run him to ground.”

  “If you mean Norville’s former roommate, don’t bother. My Albuquerque office got someone in LA on it a few days ago. Wills has been on the job every day except for the weekend. They’re trying to account for that time as we speak. But if you hired someone else, I need to know about it right now.”

  “I already told you I didn’t. If that’s it, I need to speak to Aggie. Is he around?”

  I traded phones with my companion and used his to call Hazel to see if she’d had another update from the PI we’d hired to look into Bruno Wills. She hadn’t, but she took the opportunity to bring me up to date on a couple of other cases. Charlie had determined the insurance company’s client had indeed committed suicide, closed out the investigation, and sent off our bill. We had one new case, which Hazel had accepted in my absence, checking out an officer of the Central Avenue National Bank who was suspected of fraud. The bank’s executive committee wanted to gather a few more facts before reporting the man to the feds. Charlie, Hazel informed me, was handling the bank job since he had completed the insurance case.

  Aggie was engaged in some of that “Italian thing” when I hung up. The old man’s voice was audible even though they weren’t on the speakerphone. Aggie didn’t bother to modulate his tone either. He’d obviously learned years ago how to hold his ground with his father.

  After hanging up he said, “I have a problem. The old man’s hell-bent on buying another company, another vineyard. He’s insisting I come back and help him work on it.”

  “But you’re looking for his missing son.”

  Aggie sighed. “Apparently he’s got a lot of confidence in you. Anyway, I told him I was going to stay another few days.”

  “Can I gather from your attitude you’re against the purchase?”

  “He bought another company less than a year ago. We need to digest that one before we move on to another one. Besides, I’m not sure I want to be left
with the chore of assimilating a new business if something happened to him.”

  “You? How about Lando?”

  “Lando has no interest in vineyards. The only time he gets involved is when Papa needs him to show up at a function and wave the Alfano flag.” Aggie grinned. “We have one, you know. Our own Alfano flag. A purple standard with a grape cluster in a circle of white.”

  “Even if your father has confidence in me, I’m having trouble with the fact he wants you to come back right now. If it were me, I’d want someone who knew Lando out here looking for him.”

  “Normally he would, but this De Falco Fine Wines buyout has a deadline, and I’ve been fighting him hard. I think he wants to wear me down.”

  The whole thing struck me as odd, but maybe Alfano knew he had his bases covered even without Aggie on the scene—that other investigator asking about the Porsche. If, indeed, he was Alfano’s man.

  We traded cell phones again, and since it had been at least twenty-four hours since I tried Lando’s number, I dialed. As usual it went to voice mail. I tried Dana’s and got a surprise.

  “’Lo.”

  “Hello.” I lifted a hand to attract Aggie’s attention. “Dana?”

  “Who? Who you callin’, man?”

  “My name’s Vinson. Who is this?”

  The telephone went dead. I stared at the thing a minute before checking the number-dialed function. It was the correct number. Someone had answered Dana Norville’s phone, but I was willing to bet it wasn’t Dana. The voice I’d heard over the little instrument had the same clipped tones and swallowed syllables I associated with the speech patterns of some Native Americans—similar to Jazz Penrod’s manner of speaking. But that had not been Penrod’s voice.

  “Dana answered?” Aggie’s voice held a hopeful note.

  “No, somebody answered Dana’s phone.”

  “Maybe you misdialed.”

  I shook my head. “No. I checked the number. I dialed right, and some stranger answered. It was a young voice. Sounded like a teenager.” I hit Redial and held the phone to my ear. It rang several times before it went to voice mail. But the recording wasn’t Norville. I quickly hit the Speakerphone button and held out the phone so Aggie could hear.

  “Heh. You got it, man. But Honcho ain’t available. He’s out making time with some chick. Talk to him, and he’ll get back to you.”

  “That definitely was not Dana Norville,” Aggie said. “Try it again.”

  “We need to get to Dix Lee right away. We’ll try it from her office.”

  We were in luck; Dix was on duty this weekend. She heard our rushed explanation and then called across the room. A lean, dusky man with slick black hair and a proud nose looked up. A Navajo cop, I guessed as he walked over to her desk, a smile of pleasure stretching his lips.

  “This is Detective Lonzo Joe,” Dix said. “He used to be one of ours, but he deserted and went over to the San Juan County Sheriff’s Office for thirty pieces of silver—actually it was a gold shield. But he still hides out in our station when he doesn’t feel like working.”

  “Now, Dix.” The man’s smile grew broader. He turned his black-eyed gaze on us and explained. “I’m the Sheriff’s Department detective assigned to the crime lab we share. I spend more time here than I do in my own office over in Aztec. But I get out of the shop sometimes. Today I’m on the trail of some real mean hombres.”

  Dix laughed aloud. “Yeah, right. A dog-fighting ring, I hear.” After feeding him our names, she asked him to listen to the voice mail recording.

  “Sure.” He leaned over her desk and supported his weight on bony knuckles.

  I hit the Redial button once again and punched Speakerphone. We all listened to the call go to the message center and heard the recorded message.

  “What do you think, Lonzo?” Dix asked.

  “Kid on the reservation would be my guess. The first word, that heh, that’s short for ya-tah-heh, a common Navajo greeting. Young, I’d say. Probably eighteen or less, but trying to sound older.”

  “Honcho is a name?” Aggie asked.

  “Nickname most likely.”

  Dix Lee frowned at us. “This is not good unless your brother’s friend is so rich he goes around giving away his possessions. We’ll try to trace the thing down, although I’m not too hopeful. There’s only one tower over there, so we already more or less know the area the signal’s coming from.”

  “Let me try something.” I hit Redial again. When the recorded message finished, I spoke. “Honcho, my name is B. J. Vinson. This phone belonged to a friend of mine, and I’m trying to locate him. If you’ll help us out, I’ll make it worth your while. And you’re not in trouble over the phone. You can keep it as far as I’m concerned. Tell you what I’m going to do. I’m here at the Farmington PD with Sergeant Dix Lee and Sheriff’s Detective Lonzo Joe. I’m going to hand Detective Joe $500. If you’ll give us the details of how and where you got the phone, that money’s yours. You can tell us in person or phone me on my cell. I’m sure Detective Joe will get the money to you, right?”

  “Right,” the Indian cop said aloud. “I can leave it at your chapter house, no strings attached, just as soon as Mr. Vinson says it’s okay.” I knew that chapter houses spread across the Big Rez functioned as combination county governments and social gathering places. Then Detective Joe added something in Navajo, a reassurance, I assumed.

  “What do you think?” I asked my companions after citing my phone number twice and hanging up.

  “Five hundred’s a lot of money to a kid on the reservation,” Joe observed.

  “A kid anywhere,” Dix Lee put in. “He ought to bite.”

  “Aggie, how much do you have on you?” I turned to my companion. “I’ve got about three fifty in cash.”

  “I’ll handle it.” He reached for his wallet, and I didn’t discourage him.

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  Chapter 12

  MY CELL phone rang the next morning as I was finishing a short stack, light on Mrs. Butterworth’s, and a side of ham at a café across the street from the motel. Aggie was attacking a blue-collar meal of eggs over easy, hash browns, link sausage, and biscuits slathered with unsalted butter. A young male voice hesitantly answered my “Hello.”

  “Is… is this the guy that said he’d give money for this phone?”

  “Yes, this is B. J. Vinson. I left that message on the phone yesterday afternoon.”

  “Is it still good? The five hundred, I mean?”

  “You give me what I want, and you get the money. And you’re not in trouble over the phone. That is, unless you hit somebody in the head and stole it.”

  Aggie’s silverware clattered on his plate as he realized who I was talking to. His eyebrows climbed, asking a silent question. I nodded.

  “Naw, nothing like that,” the voice on the phone answered.

  “Where did you get it?”

  “Where’s my money.”

  “Handed it over to Sheriff’s Detective Joe, just like I said on the phone message. You deliver what I need, and he leaves it at your chapter house.”

  “How I know that?” the kid demanded.

  “Ask him about Lando,” Aggie whispered.

  I held up a hand to fend off his questions. “Look, Honcho—that’s your name, right?—I’ll do this however you want. I’ll come to the chapter house alone or with Detective Joe, your choice. I’ll meet you wherever you say, but it’s got to be fast. The man whose phone you found might be in trouble. You know anything about it?”

  “Uh-uh. Just found the phone laying right there on the ground.”

  “Where?”

  The voice on the other end hesitated, and I could imagine thoughts of entrapment racing through his mind.

  “Look, I need more than just the where. I need the phone to check his recent calls. So tell me where you found it.”

  “Bisti. Bisti badlands.”

  “Just lying on the ground?” I watched Aggie, his meal
completely forgotten, struggling to contain himself.

  “Uh-huh. Right in the dirt.”

  “Was anyone around? Did you see any sign of anybody?”

  “Nah, didn’t see nobody. Just the phone on the ground.”

  “When was that?”

  “Last week sometime.”

  “Exactly what day last week. It’s important, Honcho.”

  “Dunno. Tuesday, Wednesday. Something like that.”

  “Okay, here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to buy you a cool new telephone with a camera and a couple of hundred minutes on it. We’ll meet and trade the new phone for the one you found. Then you show me where you found it. That’s important, Honcho. You have to show me exactly where you found the cell phone. You do that, and the five hundred’s yours. Deal?”

  “Okay, but be sure and bring the dough.”

  “Nope, that goes to the chapter house. You tell me which one and who to leave it with, and I’ll meet you where you found the phone. You can use your new cell to call and confirm the money’s there. That sound okay?”

  “Guess so,” he replied and gave me the name of the chapter house.

  It was like pulling teeth, slow and painful, but eventually Honcho agreed to meet us at the Bisti badlands near a formation called the Cracked Eggs at noon. I phoned Dix and brought her up to date. Lonzo Joe was in the building and agreed to leave the money with a receptionist named Kaylee at the kid’s chapter house. Joe knew the woman and promised to come away with the identity of the cautious kid with Dana’s cell phone.

  “You familiar with the Bisti country?” Dix asked.

  “Haven’t been there in five years.”

  “The Cracked Eggs formation is in the Wilderness. That’s the smaller piece of the two tracts that make up the Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness area. It’s Bureau of Land Management land, so I better call somebody over there. You want to tag along, Lonzo?”