“I guess you’re telling me that Bork asked you for an opinion about whether the photograph was of a copy of the original.”
“Yep. He did. And I told him it was probably a photograph of somebody’s effort at making a copy. Pretty damned good one, too. I suggested he might call the fellow who has it on his wall. See if he’d let him take a look at it. And then Mr. Bork said he thought he would do that, but he wanted to find out what I thought about it first. And I said those superrich folks who collect artifacts like that are going to be very careful about who they let into their house unless they know you. Bork said he thought about that and he wanted me to sort of introduce him so the man would let him in. And I had to tell him I didn’t actually know the man myself. Just by reputation.” Tarkington picked up his cup, noticed it was empty, put it down.
“Bork thought a man named Jason Delos had bought that house. I guess I could call information to get his telephone number. If it’s listed,” Leaphorn said. “Is that the right name? I think I’ll need to go talk to him.”
“You’re right about the number being unlisted,” Tarkington said. “And Jason Delos is the name. I guess he must be out of a Greek family.”
Leaphorn nodded. “Am I right in guessing you know his number?”
THE SHAPE SHIFTER
33
“Carrie,” Tarkington shouted. “Bring Mr. Leaphorn some more coffee and me some more ice water.”
“You know him just by reputation? Who is he?” Tarkington laughed. “I know him just as a potential future customer. It’s obvious he has a lot of money. Collects expensive stuff. Moved in here a while back, either from Southern California because the sun was bad for his wife’s skin condition, or Oregon, because the fog and humidity depressed his wife.” Tarkington gave Leaphorn a wry smile. “You know how reliable gossip is out here where we don’t have a lot of people to gossip about.
Frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear he doesn’t have a wife. Nobody seems ever to have met her. He has a middle-aged Asian man living out there with him. Sort of a butler, I think. And he uses a maid/laundry service, and so forth. And that butler leads into another story.” With that Tarkington shook his head and laughed, signaling to Leaphorn that this story did not carry his certification.
“This one makes Mr. Delos some sort of CIA agent, did a lot of work in the Vietnam War, retired after that and went into some sort of investment business. Then another version is that he got kicked out of the CIA because a bunch of the money our government was using to pay off South Vietnam government types when they were arranging that coup to get rid of President Diem—you remember that business?”
“I’ve read about it,” Leaphorn said. “As I remember, it blew up into a big battle in Saigon with paratroopers attacking Diem’s bunch in the Presidential Palace.”
“Yeah. It brought in a new president more popular with President Kennedy. Well, anyway, the way the gossip 34
TONY HILLERMAN
goes, the CIA, or whatever they were calling it then, had been handing out bags of money to help arrange that, and some of the generals who were getting it thought they were shorted. One of those quiet investigations got started, and it was concluded that some of those money bags got lighter when in the custody of Mr. Delos.”
“Oh,” Leaphorn said, and nodded.
Tarkington shrugged. “Well, you could probably find a couple of other versions of the Delos biography if you wanted to ask around in Flagstaff. He just sits up there all alone on his mountain and gives us somebody interesting to talk about. Take your pick, whichever version you prefer. Like a lot of rich folks, he’s into protecting his family’s privacy, so our gossiping fraternity has to be creative.”
The Hopi girl returned, smiled at Leaphorn, refilled his coffee cup, refilled Tarkington’s glass, and left.
“What I really want to know, I guess, is how he got that rug. Then I track it back, find out who made it, and that’s the end of it,” Leaphorn said. “So I need to know his telephone number so I can go ask him.” Tarkington was grinning. “So you can be done with this case, and go back to your usual police duties?”
“So I can go back to being a bored-stiff-by-retirement former policeman.”
“Well,” Tarkington said, staring at Leaphorn. “If you do learn anything interesting—for example, who copied it if anyone actually did, and why, and so forth—I’d sure appreciate hearing all about it.”
Leaphorn considered that. “All right,” he said.
Now Tarkington took a moment to think. He sipped his water again, while Leaphorn sipped coffee.
THE SHAPE SHIFTER
35
“You may have noticed I love to talk,” Tarkington said, emphasizing the statement with a wry smile. “That would give me something new to talk about.” Leaphorn nodded. “But you haven’t told me his number.”
“You had the name right,” Tarkington said. “Jason Delos.”
Leaphorn picked up a second sandwich, took a bite.
Judged it as very good.
“Of course I collect stuff myself,” Tarkington said, and gestured into the gallery to demonstrate. “And I collect stories. Love ’em. And that damned
“If it’s possible,” Leaphorn said.
Tarkington leaned forward, pointed at an odd-looking pot on a desk by the wall. “See that image of the snake on that ceramic there? That’s a Supai pot. But why is that snake pink? It’s a rattler, and they’re not that color. Well, I guess they are in one deep part of the Grand Canyon.
There’s a very rare and officially endangered species down there in Havasupai territory, and they have a great
