Two fifty-dollar bills? McGinnis said he was broke.
Did Pinto have his jish with him? Where is it?
Then he called the FBI office at Gallup, got Jay Kennedy, and invited him to lunch.
“What do you want this time?” Kennedy asked.
“Wait a minute,” Leaphorn said. “Remember. Last time somebody wanted something it was you. You wanted me to check a homicide scene for tracks.”
“Which you didn’t find,” Kennedy said.
“Because there weren’t any,” Leaphorn said. “Besides, I’ll buy.”
“I’ll have to cancel something,” Kennedy said. “Is it important?”
Leaphorn considered. And reconsidered.
“Well?”
“No,” Leaphorn said. He considered again. “Probably not.”
He heard Kennedy sigh. “So what are we talking about? Just in case I need to look something up. Or dig into something so confidential that it might cost me my job.”
“Delbert Nez,” Leaphorn said.
“Oh, shit,” Kennedy said. “Naturally.”
“Why?”
“It was a sloppy job,” Kennedy said. “Even worse than usual.”
They met at the International Pancake House on old U.S. 66 and sat a while sipping coffee. The autumn sun warmed Leaphorn’s shoulders through his uniform jacket and the traffic streamed by off Interstate 40. He noticed how gray Kennedy had become, how?uncharacteristic of FBI agents and of Kennedy himself?he needed a haircut. Old cops, Leaphorn thought. Two old dogs getting tired of watching the sheep. Old friends. How rare they are. The Bureau would be glad to see the last of Kennedy?exiled here years ago for some violation of the old J. Edgar Hoover prohibition against bad publicity, liberalism, or innovative thinking. The story was that Kennedy’s ex-wife had been active in the American Civil Liberties Union. She had left him to marry a real estate broker, but the stigma remained.
For that matter, Leaphorn suspected there were those in his Navajo Tribal Police hierarchy who would be happy to celebrate his own retirement. He wouldn’t make them wait much longer.
Kennedy had been talking about one of those endless interagency shoving matches which involve public employees?this one an effort of the Bureau of Land Management, the Forest Service, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and “The Bureau” to make one or another of them responsible for protecting Anasazi ruins under the Antiquities Act. Leaphorn had heard a lot of it before.
Kennedy quit talking. “I’m not holding your attention,” he said.
“You ever been to China?” Leaphorn asked.
Kennedy laughed. “Not yet,” he said. “If the Bureau opens an office there?say in North Manchuria?I’ll get the assignment.”
“Think you’d like to go?”
Kennedy laughed again. “It’s on my wish list,” he said. “Right after Angola, Antarctica, Bangladesh, Lubbock, Texas, and the Australian outback. Why? Are you planning to go?”
“I guess not,” Leaphorn said. “Always sort of wanted to. Wanted to go out in the steppe country. Outer Mongolia. The part of the world where they think the Athabaskans originated.”
“I used to want to go back to Ireland,” Kennedy said. “Where my great-grandfather came from. I outgrew that notion.”
“Yeah,” Leaphorn said. “Do you know if anybody checked on that pistol Pinto used?”
“Somebody checked,” Kennedy said. “It was a common type, but I don’t remember the brand. American made, I think it was, and an expensive model. It had been recently fired. The slug in Nez came from it. Check of Pinto’s hand showed he’d recently fired something.”
“Where did it come from?”
“No idea,” Kennedy said. “The old man isn’t saying. Totally silent from what I hear. I guess he bought it at some pawnshop.”
“I don’t think so,” Leaphorn said.
Kennedy peered at him, expression quizzical. “You’ve been asking around,” he said. “Any reason for that?”
Leaphorn made a wry face. “Turns out Ashie Pinto is sort of shirttail, linked-clan kinfolks of mine,” he said. “Through Emma’s clan.”
“You know him?”
“Never heard of him.”
“But you got roped in.”
“Right,” Leaphorn said. “I don’t think he bought the pistol because he was broke. Not even eating money. What do you know about those two fifties he had?”
“Nothing.”
