Talking God

read it carefully and slowly, stopping now and then to listen. Finally he put it back on the desk, put his heels back on the wastebasket, and thought about Mary Landon, and then about Janet Pete, and then about Highhawk. He glanced at his watch. After ten. Highhawk had been gone more than thirty minutes. He walked to the door and looked up and down the corridor. Total emptiness. Total silence. He sat again in the chair, feet on the floor, remembering exactly what Highhawk had said. He’d said wait here a few minutes. Ten or fifteen.

Chee got his hat and went out into the corridor, turning off the light and closing the door behind him. He found his way through the labyrinth of corridors to the elevator. He pushed the button and heard it laboring its way upward. Highhawk obviously had not returned by this route. On the ground floor he found his way to the Twelfth Street exit. There had been a security guard there when he came in, a woman who had spoken to Highhawk. She would know if he’d left the building. But the woman wasn’t there. No one was guarding the exit door.

Chee felt a sudden irrational urge to get out of this building and under the sky. He pushed the door open and hurried down the steps. The cold, misty air felt wonderful on his face. But where was Highhawk? He remembered the last words Highhawk had said as he left him at Highhawk’s office:

“I’ll be right back.”

Chapter Fifteen

« ^ »

Leaphorn called Kennedy from his hotel room and caught him at home.

“I’ve got him,” Leaphorn said. “His name is Elogio Santillanes. But I need you to get a fingerprint check made and see if the Bureau has anything on him.”

“Who?” Kennedy said. He sounded sleepy. “What are you talking about?”

“The man beside the tracks. Remember? The one you got me out into the weather to take a look at.”

“Oh,” Kennedy said. “Yeah. Santillanes, you say. A local Hispano then, after all. How’d you get a make on him?”

Leaphorn explained it all, from St. Germain to Perez to the prescription number, including the little red-haired man who might (or might not) be watching the Santillanes apartment.

“Nice to be lucky,” Kennedy said. “Where the hell you calling from? You in Washington now?”

Leaphorn gave him the name of his hotel. “I’m going to stay here—or at least I’ll be here for message purposes. Are you going to call Washington?”

“Why not?” Kennedy said.

“Would you ask ’em to let me know what they find out? And since they probably won’t do it, would you call me as soon as they call you back?”

“Why not?” Kennedy said. “You going to stick around there until we know something?”

“Why not?” Leaphorn said. “It shouldn’t take long with the name. Either they have prints on him or they don’t.”

It didn’t take long. Leaphorn watched the late news. He went out for a walk in what had now transformed itself into a fine, damp, cold mist. He bought an edition of tomorrow’s Washington Post and read it in bed. He woke late, had breakfast in the hotel coffee shop, and found his telephone ringing when he got back to the room.

It was Kennedy.

“Bingo,” Kennedy said. “I am sort of a hero with the Bureau this morning—which will last until about sundown. Your Elogio Santillanes was in the Bureau print files. He was one of the relatively few surviving leaders of the substantially less than loyal left-wing opposition to the Pinochet regime in Chile.”

“Well,” Leaphorn said. “That’s interesting.” But what the devil did it mean? What would call a Chilean politician to Gallup, New Mexico? What would arouse in such a man an interest in a Night Chant somewhere out beyond Lower Greasewood?

“They wondered what had happened to him,” Kennedy was saying. “He wasn’t exactly under close surveillance, but the Bureau tries to keep an eye on such folks. It tries to keep track of them. Especially this bunch because of that car bombing awhile back. You remember about that?”

“Very vaguely. Was it Chilean?”

“It was. One of this bunch that Santillanes belongs to got blown sky-high over on Sheridan Circle, near where the very important people live. The Chilean embassy crowd didn’t make enough effort to hide their tracks and the Department of State declared a bunch of them persona non grata and sent them home. There was a big protest to Chile, human rights complaints, the whole nine yards. Terribly bad publicity for the Pinochet gang. Anyway after that the Bureau seems to have kept an eye on them. And things cooled down.”

“Until now,” Leaphorn said.

“It looks to me like Pinochet’s thugs waited until they figured they wouldn’t get caught at it,” Kennedy said. “But how do I know?”

“That would explain all the effort to keep Santillanes from being identified.”

“It would,” Kennedy agreed. “If there’s no identification, there’s no static from the Department of State.”

“Did you ask your people here to give me a call? Did you tell them about Santillanes’ neighbor? And did you pass along what I told you about Henry Highhawk’s name being in Santillanes’ notebook?”

“Yes, I told them about the little man in apartment two, and, yes, I mentioned Henry Highhawk, and, yes, I asked them to give Joe Leaphorn a call. Have they called?”

“Of course not,” Leaphorn said.

Kennedy laughed. “Old J. Edgar’s dead, but nothing ever changes.”

But they did call. Leaphorn had hardly hung up when he heard knocking at his door.