Kennedy grimaced and peered across his coffee cup at Leaphorn.
“You remember the Howard case in Santa Fe. The defrocked CIA agent who was working for the State of New Mexico, and the CIA thought he had sold out to the Russians, and we had him staked out watching him until somebody could get around to filing charges. You remember.”
“I remember,” Leaphorn said, grinning. “The part I remember best was the ingenious way he slipped away from you guys. Had his wife drive the car.”
Kennedy grinned, too, even broader than Leaphorn. “Embarrassment squared. Embarrassment to the third power,” he said. The grin turned into a chuckle. “Can you imagine what it was like in the Albuquerque office when the powers found out Howard was safely behind the Iron Curtain? Hell was raised. Fits thrown. Carefully written reports were sent out explaining why it hadn’t occurred to the Bureau that Howard might have his wife driving the car on the escape run.”
“I can imagine the CIA people were rubbing it in.”
“I think you can be sure of it,” Kennedy said.
“Can I be sure that all of this is going to have some bearing on why nobody talked to this Juan Gee?”
“You can,” Kennedy said. “It seems the Bureau was aware that Huan Ji was a friend of the Agency. He was a colonel in the South Vietnamese Army. In intelligence, and he was working for Washington as well as Saigon. We have this vague, scuttlebutt impression that he was one of the very hard people, involved with the sort of stuff we used to hear the horror stories about.”
“Like dropping Vietcong out of helicopters so the one you didn’t drop would be willing to talk?”
“I don’t know,” Kennedy said. “It was just gossip. But anyway he was a client, so to speak, of the CIA and so when everything went to hell over there in 1975 and the Saigon government collapsed, they got him out and helped him get started in the States.”
“A Vietnamese named Juan?” Leaphorn asked.
“It’s H-U-A-N and J-I. Sounds like ‘Gee.’”
“So why didn’t the FBI talk to him?” Leaphorn asked, thinking he already knew the answer.
Kennedy looked slightly defensive. “Why talk to him? The case was all locked up. The arrest was made. We had the smoking gun. No mystery. Nothing to resolve. We didn’t really need another witness.” He stopped.
“And bothering this guy would look bad to the CIA. Would maybe irritate the CIA, which is already sneering at you guys for letting Howard walk away.”
“More or less, I’d say,” Kennedy admitted. “I’m not privy to the upper councils, but I’d say that is a close guess.”
Leaphorn ate more waffle.
“And what the hell’s wrong with that? Why waste everybody’s time? Why piss off the Agency? Why bother Mr. Ji?”
“I just wonder what he was doing out there,” Leaphorn said. ‘That’s all.”
Kennedy finished his waffle. “I’ve got to go to Farmington,” he said. “A hundred bumpy miles up Route 666. And then a night in a Holiday Inn.”
“You sure you don’t want to go to China?”
“About as much as I want to go to Farmington,” Kennedy said. “And don’t forget to leave a generous tip.”
Leaphorn watched Kennedy leave. He saw his car pull out of the Pancake House parking lot onto old 66, heading for the long drive north to Farmington. He was still wondering what Colonel Ji was doing out in the rain by the rock where the witches gather. Chapter 11
THE HAND MAN’S reputation was as good as they get in modern medicine. He had identified himself as an “Indian Indian,” smiling as he said it and giving Chee a name which Chee instantly forgot. His voice carried a slight British accent with a trace of lilt in it, and he asked his questions in a soft, gentle voice without looking at Chee, never taking his eyes off the ugly, puckered cavity burned across Chee’s left palm. With the Burn Doctor, a woman named Johns, the Hand Man discussed tendon damage, ligament damage, nerve damage, regeneration of tissue, “prognosis for usage,” and “viability of surgical techniques.”
“You clutched the handle of a car door? Is that how I understand it? And the car was burning?” He glanced at Chee’s right hand.
“But you are right-handed, is it not true? Why did you use your left hand?”
“I guess because it’s natural to open the driver’s door that way,” Chee said. “If I had another reason I don’t remember it.”
“It’s almost as if your subconscious sensed the forthcoming damage and protected the hand most useful to you.” The Hand Man said it in a clipped, didactic tone, still staring at the angry red mass of scarring on Chee’s palm, never glancing up. “Would you agree?”
“I doubt it,” Chee said. “I’d guess it was also because I was going to pull Delbert out of there with my right hand. But it’s all sort of hazy to tell the truth.”
“Ah, well,” the Hand Man said, no longer interested. And that was that. The Burn Doctor put on a new bandage, using a different wrapping technique. She gave Chee a prescription and instructions, and said she would see him in a week.
“Well, what do you think?” he asked the Burn Doctor.
“Think?”
“About surgery. About how much use I’ll regain of my fingers. Things like that?”
“We’ll have to decide,” the Burn Doctor said. “You’ll be informed.”
