The Bisti Business

by Don Travis

  “Would you like to ask my questions for me?”

  Lonzo’s smile let me know he would like that very much. “Sorry, again. It’s strictly against policy to question federal prisoners.”

  “Okay,” I said, giving up. “This Felipe Levy, you know where to look for him?”

  “Home probably. He sure as hell isn’t gonna be working. Hasn’t had gainful employment for as long as I’ve known him. He’s probably lost without his buddy to lead him around by the nose. Phil doesn’t have enough ambition to get into trouble on his own. He leaves that to Shirttail.”

  “Okay, give me his address.”

  After I parted ways with Lonzo in the parking lot, I called Anthony Alfano and tipped off Gilda that Lando was still with us—somewhere—before she turned me over to her boss. Alfano heard me out, asked a few blunt questions, and told me to go find his son.

  I also dialed Aggie’s cell phone but got his voice mail. I warned him the Salt Lake City FBI office would probably be looking for him, although I decided not to say anything about Shirttail.

  My third call was to Jazz, who answered his phone promptly. Apparently he’d entered my number in his telephone because he greeted me by name. I told him I had a hot lead for Henry to check out.

  “Is he still taking time off from work to look for Lando?”

  “Till the end of next week. Why do you need him?”

  “I’m looking for a guy named Felipe—or Phil—Levy. When I find him, I might need to lean on him some, and your brother looks like he’s leaning even when he isn’t.”

  He chuckled after I explained why I was looking for Levy. “Don’t need Henry. Not for Phil Levy.”

  “You know him?”

  “Yep. He’s older’n me, but I went to school with him. I can handle him. And he won’t be home, not if somebody’s looking for him.”

  “You know where he will be?”

  “Probably.”

  “I want to be there when you find him. Swing by the motel and pick me up.”

  I drove to the Trail’s End, parked the car in front of my room, and leaned against the fender until Jazz’s Wrangler pulled up. He had removed all the canvas except for a roof tarp to provide protection from the sun. As we tore out of the parking lot, the rush of the wind made my eyes water. I slipped on a pair of shades as Jazz headed east on Main and zigzagged down to the Bloomfield Highway. Just before the road crossed the Animas River, he turned north toward a stand of trees.

  “There’s a little lean-to in that cottonwood grove where the kids go to party,” he said. “Phil and his asshole buddy, Shirttail Hawkins, go there to drink. I’m betting he’s there now. And I’ll lay odds Phil had a hand in whatever landed Shirttail in jail.”

  “I want to know everything about the incident. When. Where. How badly Lando was hurt. Everything.”

  “He’ll talk.”

  “He’s not as tough as Shirttail?”

  “Not by half.” He slowed and pointed off to the left where the tail end of an old Dodge coupe poked out of the bushes. “He’s here. That’s his car.”

  “All right, let’s do it.”

  “Phil will talk to us, but you’ll have to let me talk to him alone first.”

  Jazz spoke with such certainty that I decided to trust his judgment. He pulled to a halt short of the tree line and asked me to remain in the Jeep, but as soon as he was out of sight, I quietly trailed along behind.

  Although it was still late summer, some leaves had already fallen, making it impossible to walk without raising a ruckus. I watched as Jazz stopped in front of a pudgy figure sitting on a log, scratching at the ground with a stick. Their voices were not loud enough for me to hear, but I understood Jazz’s confidence when the young man reached out and touched him on the thigh. I discreetly withdrew and returned to the Wrangler. A few minutes later, Jazz emerged from the grove and motioned me forward. Without saying a word, he led me to where Phil Levy stood in front of a rude lean-to of dried branches. The cottonwood canopy overhead rustled in a gentle wind. It was ten degrees cooler in the grove.

  “Mr. Vinson, this is Phil Levy. He’s ready to tell you what happened, but he’ll only tell you, not the cops. And he doesn’t want any witnesses, so I’ll wait for you in the Jeep.”

  So this was Shirttail Bob Hawkins’s running mate. The kid was flushed and nervous. He had probably been muscular during his high school days, but he was running to fat now. He refused to meet my eyes.

  “All right, Phil,” I said, “this is just between us. Tell me about roughing up that derelict and taking his wallet.”

  “It was Shirttail,” he protested. “His idea. I told him to leave the guy alone.”

  “Okay, we’ve got that straight. Now tell me about it. Where did it happen?”

  “In the alley behind the Corner Market on Twentieth, out near the golf course.”

  “What time?”

  “Ten… ten thirty. The store was closed.”

  It took some prodding, but eventually he told me he and Shirttail had pulled into a Fast Gas station to get five gallons, all they could afford by pooling every nickel they had. When they went inside to pay, this guy walked past them fumbling to open a quart of milk. He was dirty and unshaven and wouldn’t have been worth a second look if he hadn’t dropped his milk and his money on the floor—a lot of money, according to Phil Levy. Maybe a dozen or so bills, mostly tens and twenties.

  Phil claimed they were only curious where a guy like that would get so much money, although they probably hatched their plot on the spot. But by the time they paid for their gas, he had disappeared into the night. Later, Shirttail got the bright idea of checking the hobo jungle under the viaduct, and sure enough the dude was there, sitting off by himself at the edge of the campground. But they spooked him somehow, and he moved over to join some other men around a fire.

  The guy stayed clear of the viaduct after that, but a day or so later Shirttail and Phil spotted him in another convenience store and followed him into an alley. He was sitting in an empty refrigerator crate eating chips and drinking a soda when Shirttail—at least in Phil’s self-serving version—attacked the man and took his billfold and money.

  “Describe him,” I said.

  “Thin. Dirty as hell. Scraggly beard.”

  “Fair, dark, what?”

  “Dark. Black hair. Never saw his eyes. Not enough light in the alley, but they looked dark.”

  “Height. Weight?”

  “My height. Probably hundred fifty. Not big. But he put up a fight. It took both of us—” He bit off his words.

  “How badly did you hurt him?”

  “Wouldn’t of, if he hadn’t fought us,” Phil muttered.

  “How bad?”

  “We… uh, Shirttail punched him. He punched back. We got him down, and Shirt kicked him in the head. I wanted to dump him at the hospital, but Shirt said no.”

  “And, of course, you do whatever Shirttail says.”

  “That guy wasn’t right in the head anyway. Ever time we saw him, he was muttering to himself.”

  “Muttering what?”

  “He didn’t make sense.”

  “Do you remember any of the words?”

  “He just kept saying this girl’s name.”

  “What name?”

  “Sounded like Diana or something like that.”

  I had intended to give the kid something for his information, but by the time I left the cottonwood grove, I was so disgusted I forgot about it.

  Jazz turned the ignition in the Jeep as soon as I scooted into the seat. “Did he deliver?”

  “Yeah, but it was all I could do to keep from busting him upside the head. He made my skin crawl.”

  “Yeah. Uh… I saw you watching from the trees.”

  “I didn’t stay.”

  “I know. Mr. Vinson, don’t get the wrong idea. I wouldn’t get with a shit bag like that. I just flirted with him.”

  “Whatever. It worked.” I related what I’d learned from Phil Levy. When
I finished, he asked what I was going to do about him.

  “Nothing. Sooner or later, Shirttail will give him up, and then he’s the FBI’s problem—or the County Sheriff’s.”

  “That’s what I figure too.” Jazz sped up a bit. “What’s our next move?”

  “We know Lando’s probably still in the area, so we search for him. If Henry’s got the next week off from work, give him a call and have him give us a hand. I need to find Lando before the FBI does.”

  “And then what?”

  “And then… I don’t know. Not yet. There are some things I don’t understand about this situation. But I know one thing. Lando’s in bad shape. Levy said every time they saw him, he was muttering a name.”

  “What name?”

  “Levy thought it was Diana.”

  “Dana.”

  “Yes. He’s either mourning Dana or looking for him.”

  Shifty had mentioned Young’un One’s head wound, so that meant Lando, if it was Lando, had returned to the hobo jungle after he had been rolled. He was probably looking for safety in numbers. But that failed to explain why he had not reached out to the best safety net of all—his family. Was he so far around the bend he didn’t know who he was? That made no sense. Until Shirttail and Phil came along, he had a wallet with picture ID, credit cards, and money. Even if Lando was suffering from some form of amnesia, he would have taken advantage of the clues in the billfold.

  No, something else was keeping him from reaching out to those who should have been his first line of defense, and I intended to find out what it was. Maybe I was overstepping the bounds of the contract, but I didn’t care. I wanted an answer, and that was why I needed to find Lando before the FBI did.

  You could argue this did not put the interests of my client—and I now considered Lando my client, morally if not legally—first. He would undoubtedly be safer in Gaines’s custody than on the streets, but then my access to him would be limited if not cut off completely. That’s why I had to find him first. So I offered Jazz and Henry a thousand dollars apiece to locate Lando, a move not without some risk for all of us.

  Although I had not seen a federal wanted bulletin on Lando, Gaines had confirmed one had been issued. The agent and Lonzo Joe were aware Jazz and Henry were helping me look for Lando, but there was a slight risk some overzealous law enforcement officer might press aiding and abetting charges if we were caught in the company of a wanted fugitive. I failed to point this out in order to give them the shield of ignorance—which is, of course, no shield at all. The old saying “ignorance is no excuse” is absolutely true. I would have to take the heat for them if things went bad. I’d worry about that later.

  AFTER I turned my army of two loose on Farmington, the next morning I booted up the laptop and had almost finished updating the case log when Charlie Weeks called.

  “What’re you doing up there that’s got the FBI all fired up?”

  “Come again?”

  “They showed up this afternoon and started asking questions. Wanted to go through your office, but I told them they’d need a search warrant for that.”

  “Good. Have they come back with one?”

  “Nope. They haven’t gone through the hassle it takes for that—yet. They just separated Hazel and me and asked a bunch of questions. All of them leading back to the Alfano case. So what’s going on? What’re you doing to stir up the local feds?”

  “I have no idea, Charlie. All I’m doing is trying to find Lando—hopefully in one piece. I know he’s alive, or at least he was a few days ago. And I’ve turned over everything I know to the feds and the sheriff’s office. In order to get a search warrant, they’d have to involve their Chief Counsel Division in El Paso and the US attorney. They haven’t had time for that. Wonder how they knew you’d be in the office on the weekend.”

  “We’ve been hitting it hard lately. Hazel and I’ve been coming in pretty regular on Saturday, and I guess they knew it. That means they’ve been watching us. Like as not they tried the same trick out at your house.”

  “Oh, shit. What’s Paul going to think? I’d better call him.”

  “Hazel already has. He wasn’t home. At school, I think. But she got him on his cell and warned him he’s under no obligation to tell them anything.”

  “Okay, please let him know I’ll call just as soon as I find out what’s happening.”

  “I got ahold of Del Dahlman at home before I phoned you. I figured we might need legal counsel, and he owes you big time.”

  Charlie was right. My ex, Del Dahlman, was a well-known Albuquerque attorney who was indebted to me for saving his ass last year when he was being blackmailed.

  “So what was his reaction?” I asked.

  “He’s on his way over to talk to Hazel and me. He wants to know everything they asked while it’s fresh in our minds. Hazel’s putting together a memo right now.”

  “Good job, Charlie. You and Hazel did the right thing. Let me know what Del thinks, but in the meantime, I’m going straight to the source—a special agent named John Gaines right up here in Farmington.”

  Gaines was no longer at the office and did not return my repeated calls. Seething, I was forced to wait out the weekend. I considered calling their regional office but decided against it. I didn’t want to appear anxious.

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  Chapter 25

  I SPOTTED the tail Monday morning when I took a sudden left turn after almost overshooting the intersection leading to the FBI building. The car behind me had a difficult time making the maneuver, and his squealing tires refocused my attention away from the coming confrontation with Gaines and onto the street. The other driver recognized his mistake, turned into an alleyway, and sped off as I applied my brakes. Traffic prevented me from backing up and giving chase, so I whipped around a couple of corners but saw no sign of the car. From the quick glimpse I got, it was a gray Toyota or Nissan. All I could say about the driver was he appeared to be a large man. At least, his bulk pretty well filled up the front seat.

  I cruised the streets in the immediate vicinity, spotting three cars that could have been the one I was looking for, but two were parked and vacant while a woman was behind the wheel of the third. Giving it up as a lost cause, I proceeded to the FBI office, where Gaines appeared to be expecting me.

  He waved me into his office. “I thought I might be hearing from you this morning, Vinson.”

  “You knew damned well you would. Why are you prying into my personal affairs?”

  “You have anything to hide?” He slipped behind his desk and sat down, motioning me to a chair opposite him. It was obvious the room was a temporary office for visiting agents. There was nothing personal in it. No art on the walls, just the two obligatory framed photos of the president and the director. The metal desk was bare except for a single file centered in the middle. The effect was cold—even chilling.

  “Not like you mean. You ever hear of privacy? It’s something we’re all guaranteed under the constitution.”

  “Not a single reference to it, actually. That was the thinking in the old days, maybe, but not so much anymore.”

  “What are you going to use for probable cause to get a search warrant? That’s what comes next, isn’t it?”

  “Sometimes,” he hedged. “But how about consorting with known drug dealers?”

  “What in the hell are you talking about?”

  “If you don’t like that one, then maybe crossing state lines for immoral purposes.”

  “What state line did I cross for what immoral purpose?”

  “You didn’t cross a state line, but Alfano and Norville are gay and they did. I hear you’re that way too. Were you meeting for a rendezvous? A threesome? Or was the Penrod kid going to make it an even quartet?”

  Only the fact that I knew he was deliberately provoking me allowed me to hold on to my temper. I took a deep breath and leaned back in the uncomfortable chair.

  “Okay, Agent Gaines, you can
stop playing games now. This is serious business.”

  “Yes, it is, isn’t it?” He bounced the eraser end of a pencil on the metal desktop, making a hollow thump. “You’re a wealthy man, Vinson. I didn’t know police and private investigative work paid so well.”

  “You’re still playing games. You must be aware what I have was inherited from my parents.”

  “That only moves the question back a generation. I didn’t know school teachers made that kind of money either.”

  That was out of bounds. My jaws clenched. My teeth ground audibly. “You know full well my father put some money in a small Albuquerque business that became Microsoft. He died a wealthy man.”

  “Around $12 million, I understand.”

  “And if you ever get a warrant, your bean counters will find that’s still what it amounts to plus a reasonable return on the investments. Now let’s get down to business. So why do you have a hard-on for me? I’ve cooperated and passed on every bit of information I’ve come up with. What brought all of this on?”

  He pushed his chair back and swiveled to a beat-up credenza to pick up a sheet of paper in a glassine envelope. “It’s about $100,000.”

  “What hundred thousand?”

  He handed over the document. It was a Bank of America statement for Dana Norville’s account. The transaction that had caught his attention leapt out at me. All of the entries were four figures or less—mostly less. The prior ending balance was $5.65. The balance as of August 27 was $100,105.50. The large deposit in question was made on the seventeenth.

  “Where did it come from?” I asked.

  “A wire transfer from a bank in the Caribbean.”

  “I thought Dana died somewhere around the fourteenth or fifteenth.”

  “That’s what the medical report said. But that doesn’t mean the deal wasn’t already set up.”

  “Deal. What deal?”

  “This whole vacation was a cover for a drug transaction.”