another of those things that tells me this Carl Mankin was either very important himself, or had done something very important.”
Chee paused, glanced at Osborne. Osborne was listening, but pretending not to.
“I didn’t see that name on your most-wanted list.”
Osborne shrugged.
“If somebody stole my Discover Card, and I reported it missing—or if I disappeared myself, hiding out, and was using it here and there—would the federal government drop everything and start this dragnet? I doubt it.”
Osborne chuckled. “You think one of your girlfriends would miss you?” he said. “How about that pretty Officer Bernie Manuelito you’re always talking about. Would she come back to look for you?”
Which caused Chee to change the subject of his thoughts. He resumed his fruitless speculation about Bernie, about the real reasons she’d quit the Navajo Tribal Police to become a Border Patrol Officer, and about the letter from her in his jacket pocket, what it had said about the dangerous-sounding work she was doing, and, worse, its absolute lack of any hint of missing him. But Chee didn’t want to talk to Osborne about Bernie. He let the remark pass and went back to the question of Mankin.
“Or perhaps Mankin was in the act of doing something very important for some very big bureaucrat,” Chee said. “What do you think?”
“I don’t think,” Osborne said. “Remember? You told me federal employees aren’t allowed to do that.”
“Come on, Osborne,” Chee said. “Someone big in federal affairs believes this is important or we wouldn’t even know about the credit card. The purchases were recent. Somebody big had to call Mr. Visa himself and get a drop-everything computer check made on that Mankin number. Right?”
“They don’t tell me things like that.”
“And they still haven’t told you whether they’ve identified our well-dressed homicide victim? Right?”
Osborne nodded.
“Let me speculate then. Let’s say the officially unidentified body and the Visa card both belong to Carl Mankin. And Mankin was either a much-trusted and highly ranked agent of something like the National Security Agency, or the Central Intelligence Agency, Drug Enforcement, or our new Homeland Security Agency, or any of the other ten or twelve federal intelligence bureaucracies busy competing with one another, and now his bosses have missed him. And they want to know who killed him? Or, more important, why?”
Osborne looked at Chee, yawned, and resumed staring out the window.
“So we’re out here on the off chance that we will catch whoever got off with Mankin’s credit card, and he will tell us something useful.” Chee said. “Is that it?”
“I wonder who started that notion that Navajos were silent, taciturn people,” Osborne said. “My theory is the killer is the lead scout for a flying saucer invasion and he had to shoot Mankin because Mankin had uncovered their conspiracy to take over our planet? Or how about Carl Mankin is a favorite nephew of the president’s best friend? That sound all right?” He turned off his tape player, fished another tape out of the glove box, and looked at it. “How about
“Whatever,” Chee said. “You’re the one who listens to it. And you know what I’m going to do tomorrow, if we’re not still out here waiting for Volks? I’m going to a man I know who accepts Visa cards from his customers, give him this Mankin number, and get him to call Visa for a background check. Then I’ll tell you, and you can pass it along to the top brass in the Bureau.”
“I listen to the music to keep me from listening to you,” Osborne said. “You’d finally wear me down and I’d be leaking all of our secrets.”
So James Taylor’s voice floated in, barely audible through the wrong side of Osborne’s earphones, something about plans putting an end to someone catching Chee’s attention. The plans someone made had permanently put an end to a still-unidentified well-dressed middle-aged man who might, or might not, be Carl Mankin. But whose plans? And what plans? And how did this fellow fit into them. Apparently not well because he’d been shot and then dumped facedown into a shallow wash and buried so casually that the wind had blown the dirt away from one hand and the back of his head. A sad way to go into that next existence.
Osborne had removed his headphones to rub his ear just as James Taylor was remembering the lonely times when he could not find a friend. His sadness worsened Chee’s mood. When his time came, Chee knew, his kin would come, and his friends. One of the Mormons in his paternal clan would suggest an undertaker, one of the born-again Christians in his maternal clan would agree, and the traditionals would politely ignore this. The designated one would wash his body, dress him properly, put his ceremonial moccasins on his feet, properly reversed to confuse any witch who might be hunting dead skin for his corpse powder bundle. Then his body would be carried to some secret place where no skinwalker could find it, no coyotes or ravens could reach it, no anthropologist could come to steal his little vial of pollen and his prayer jish to be stored in their museum basement. Then the sacred wind within him would begin its four-day journey into the Great Adventure that awaits us all.
Chee sighed.
Osborne took off his headset. “That Taylor stuff’s too sad for you,” he said. “You want something more upbeat? How about—”
Chee violated a traditional Navajo rule by interrupting.
“Look down there,” he said. “I think I see our blue Volks van pulling up to the pumps at Huerfano Trading Post.”
“OK,” said Osborne, starting the engine. “Let’s go talk to Carl Mankin.”
“Or whoever stole his credit card.”
It didn’t seem to be Mankin. He had just finished hosing gasoline into his tank, a short man, burly, needing a shave, and wearing greasy coveralls. Probably part standard white man and part Jicarilla Apache. He was screwing on the gas tank cap when Osborne braked his Ford beside him. He glanced at Chee through a set of dark sunglasses, and then at Osborne, looking as if he expected to recognize them and surprised that he hadn’t.
Osborne was out of the car, thrusting his FBI identification folder toward the man and asking him his identity.
Sunglasses took a step backward, startled. “Me? Why, I’m Delbert Chinosa.”
“Could we see your credit card?” Chee asked.
“Credit card?” Chinosa was clearly startled by this confrontation. “What credit card?”
“The one you’re holding there,” said Osborne. “Let me see that.”
“Well, now,” Chinosa said. “It’s not actually mine. I’ve got to give it back to my brother-in-law. But here.” He handed the card to Osborne. A Visa, Chee noticed. Chinosa had taken off his sunglasses and was looking tense and uneasy.
Osborne examined the card and nodded to Chee.
“This card is made out to Carl Mankin,” Osborne said. “You say you’re not Carl Mankin. Is your brother-in-law Carl Mankin?”
“No sir. He’s Albert Desboti. South of Dulce. I think this Mankin fella loaned it to him. Told him he could go ahead and use it.” Chinosa rubbed his hands on his coverall legs and managed a smile. “So Al told me I could go ahead an buy gas with it.”
“At the pumps where you don’t have to sign the credit card form,” Osborne said. “Was that his idea?”
Chinosa managed another smile. “Said that would be all right. Said no harm in that.”
“Well, not unless you’re the one getting stuck with the expense,” Osborne said. “And now we’re all going to have to go find Albert Desboti.”
They did, making the long drive into the Jicarilla Reservation; Chee with Chinosa guiding them in his van through the maze of dirt roads and past endless evidence that this famous oil and gas field was still producing its wealth of fossil fuel and Osborne following. Desboti seemed to have heard them coming. His little single-width mobile home was located on the east edge of Laguna Seca Mesa, and Desboti was standing in its door.
“Hey, Delbert,” he shouted. “You just in time for supper.” Then added something in Apache, which Chee interpreted as: “What you doing with that Navajo cop?”
Osborne was out of his sedan, flashing his FBI credentials, introducing himself. Chinosa was saying he’d told them Desboti had loaned him the credit card.
“What credit card?” Desboti said. He grimaced.
“You’re Albert Desboti?” Osborne said. “That correct?”
“That’s right. Al Desboti.”
