what seemed like just a minute, it was over. The clerk was throwing a last bucketful of water over the last smoking holdout. One of the helpers was examining places where embers had produced burn holes in his jeans. Chee rubbed watering eyes.
'I wonder what could have started it,' Chee said. 'You wouldn't think that stuff would burn like that after that rain.'
'Goddamn tumbleweeds,' the Hopi said. 'I wonder what did start it.' He was looking at Chee. Chee thought he detected a trace of suspicion.
'Maybe a cigaret,' he said. He started poking through the blackened remains with his foot. The fire had lasted a little longer than it seemed. It was four minutes after four.
'Blackened up the wall,' the Hopi said, inspecting it. 'Have to be repainted.' He turned to walk back to the motel office.
'Somebody ought to check the roof,' Chee said. 'The flames were going up over the parapet.'
The Hopi stopped and looked toward the flat roof. His expression was skeptical.
'No smoke,' he said. 'It's all right. That roof would still be damp.'
'I thought I saw smoke,' Chee said. 'Be hell if that tarred roof caught on fire. Is there a way to get up there?'
'I guess I better check,' the clerk said. He headed off in the other direction at a fast walk.
To get a ladder, Chee guessed. He hoped the ladder was a long ways off.
Miss Pauling was coming, hurried and nervous, from behind the counter when Chee pushed through the door. Her face was white. She looked flustered.
Chee rushed her outside to his patrol car. The clerk was hurrying across the patio, carrying an aluminum ladder.
'Call come?'
She nodded, still speechless.
'Anybody see you?'
'Just a couple of customers,' she said. 'They wanted to pay their lunch tickets. I told them to just leave the money on the counter. Was that all right?'
'All right with me,' Chee said. He held the car door for her, let himself in on the driver's side. Neither of them said anything until he pulled out of the parking lot and was on the highway.
Then Miss Pauling laughed. 'Isn't that funny,' she said. 'I haven't been so terrified since I was a girl.'
'It is funny,' Chee said. 'I'm still nervous.'
Miss Pauling laughed again. 'I think you're terrified of how embarrassed you're going to be. What are you going to say if that man comes back and there you are behind his counter playing switchboard operator?'
'Exactly,' Chee said. 'What are you going to say if he says, 'Hey, there, what are you doing burning down my cultural center?''
Miss Pauling got her nerves under control. 'But the call did come through,' she said.
'It must have been short,' Chee said.
'Thank God,' she said fervently.
'What'd you learn?'
'It was a man,' Miss Pauling said. 'He asked for Gaines, and Gaines answered the phone on the first ring, and the man asked him if he wanted the suitcases back, and—'
'He said suitcases?'
'Suitcases,' Miss Pauling confirmed. 'And Gaines said yes, they did, and the man said that could be arranged. And then he said it would cost five hundred thousand dollars, and they would have to be in tens and twenties and not in consecutive order, in two briefcases, and he said they would have to be delivered by The Boss himself. And Gaines said that would be a problem, and the man said either The Boss or no deal, and Gaines said it would take some time. He said it would take at least twenty-four hours. And the man said they would have more than that. He said the trade would be made at nine p.m. two nights after tonight.'
'Friday night,' Chee said.
'Friday night,' Miss Pauling agreed. 'Then the man said to be ready for nine p.m. Friday night, and he hung up.'
'That's all of it?'
'Oh, the man said he'd be back in touch to tell Gaines where they'd meet. And
'But he didn't name the place?'
'He didn't.'
'Say anything else?'
'That's the substance of it.'
'He explain why the boss had to deliver the money?'
'He said he didn't trust anybody else. He said if the boss was there himself, nobody would risk trying anything funny.'
