Funny, McGinnis said.

I’m going to ask you if that’s about the same as the letter he was telling you he wanted written.

I figured that’s what you were going to ask, McGinnis said. Let me see the letter.

I don’t have it, Leaphorn said. This Benjamin Tso let me read it.

You got a hell of a memory, then, McGinnis said.

Nothing much wrong with it, Leaphorn said. How about yours? You, remember what he wanted you to write?

McGinnis pursed his lips. Well, now, he said. Its kind of like I told you. I got a reputation around here for not gossiping about what people want put in their letters.

I want you to hear something else, then, Leaphorn said. This is a tape of an FBI agent named Feeney talking to Margaret Cigarette about what Hosteen Tso told her that afternoon just before he got killed. Leaphorn picked up the recorder and pushed the play button.

. . . say anything just before you left him and went over by the cliff? the voice of Feeney asked.

And then the voice of the Listening Woman. I don’t remember much. I told him he ought to get somebody to take him to Gallup and get his chest x-rayed because maybe he had one of those sicknesses that white people cure. And he said he’d get somebody to write to his grandson to take care of everything, and then I said Id go and listen Leaphorn stopped the tape, his eyes still on McGinnis’s.

Well, well, McGinnis said. He started the rocking chair in motion. Well, now, he said. If I heard what I think I heard . . . He paused. That was her talking about just before old Tso got hit on the head?

Right, Leaphorn said.

And he was saying he still hadn’t got the letter written. So nobody could have written it except Anna Atcitty, and that’s damned unlikely. And even if she wrote it, which I bet my ass she didn’t, the guy that hit em on the head would’ve had to gone and mailed it. He glanced at Leaphorn. You believe that?

No, Leaphorn said.

McGinnis abruptly stopped the rocking chair. In the Coca-Cola glass the oscillation of the bourbon turned abruptly into splashing waves.

By God, McGinnis said, his voice enthusiastic. This gets mysterious.

Yeah, Leaphorn said.

That was a short letter, McGinnis said. What he told me would make a long one. Maybe a page and a half. And I write small.

McGinnis pushed himself out of the rocker and reached for the bourbon. You know, he said, uncapping the bottle, I’m known for keeping secrets as well as for talking. And I’m known as an Indian trader. By profession, in fact, that’s what I am. And you’re an Indian.

So lets trade.

For what? Leaphorn asked.

Tit for tat, McGinnis said. I tell you what I know. You tell me what you know.

Fair enough, Leaphorn said. Except right now there’s damned little I know.

Then you’ll owe me, McGinnis said. When you get this thing figured out you tell me. That means I gotta trust you. Got any problems with that?

No, Leaphorn said.

Well, then, McGinnis said. You know anything about somebody named Jimmy? Leaphorn shook his head.

Old Man Tso come in here and he sat down over there. McGinnis waved the glass in the direction of an overstuffed chair. He said to write a letter telling his grandson that he was sick, and to tell the grandson to come right away and get a singer to cure him. And to tell him that Jimmy was acting bad, acting like he didn’t have any relatives.

McGinnis paused, sipped, and thought. Lets see now, he said. He said to tell the grandson that Jimmy was acting like a damned white man. That maybe Jimmy had become a witch. Jimmy had stirred up the ghost. He said to tell his grandson to hurry up and come right away because there was something that he had to tell him. He said he couldn’t die until he told him. McGinnis had been staring into the glass as he spoke. Now he looked up at Leaphorn, his shrunken old face expressionless but his eyes searching for an answer. Hosteen Tso told me he wanted to put that down twice. That he couldn’t die until he told that grandson something. And that after he told him, then it would be time to die. Looks like somebody hurried it up. He was motionless in the chair a long moment. Id like to know who did that, he said.

Id like to know who Jimmy is, Leaphorn said.

I don’t know, McGinnis said. I asked the old fart, and all he’d say was that Jimmy was a son-of-a-bitch, and maybe a skinwalking witch. But he wouldn’t say who he was. Sounds like he figured the grandson would know.

He say anything about wanting to give the grandson something valuable?

McGinnis shook his head. Hell, he said. What’d he have? A few sheep. Forty, fifty dollars worth of jewelry in pawn here. Change of clothes. He didn’t have nothing valuable.

McGinnis pondered this, the only sound in the room the slow, rhythmic creaking of his rocker.

That girl, he said finally. Let me see if I guessed right about the way that is. She’s after that priest. He’s running and she’s chasing and now she’s got him. He glanced at Leaphorn for confirmation. That about it? You left her out there with him?

Yeah, Leaphorn said. You got it figured right.

They thought about it awhile. The old mantel clock on the shelf behind Leaphorns chair became suddenly noisy in the silence. McGinnis smiled faintly over his Coca-Cola glass.

Вы читаете Listening Woman
Добавить отзыв
ВСЕ ОТЗЫВЫ О КНИГЕ В ИЗБРАННОЕ

0

Вы можете отметить интересные вам фрагменты текста, которые будут доступны по уникальной ссылке в адресной строке браузера.

Отметить Добавить цитату