“No. No. Just daytime. Five days a week. That was for maybe the first year. Then Mr. Delos thought I was ready to go to cooking school and I would spend my daytimes at a sort of restaurant-bakery and food store. The boss there was from Manila. A nice man, and he knew something THE SHAPE SHIFTER
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about Hmong people, but the other language he spoke was sometimes Spanish and sometimes a sort of tribal speech. From his island, I think.”
“Were you still living in the hotel?”
“Oh, no. We moved into an apartment building. Close enough so I could walk down to where I was working.”
“And what was Mr. Delos doing?”
“He was gone away most of the time. Sometimes people would come there to see him, and Mr. Delos would tell me to plan a meal for them, buy the wine, all that. I would put flowers on the table. Make everything nice. Put on this sort of apron and white cap he bought for me, and be the waiter. I enjoyed that.”
“Gone most of the time?” Leaphorn said. “For days, or weeks, or months? Do you know where?”
“Usually just a few days, but sometimes for a long time. Once for more than a month. I think that time, he had gone to Phoenix, and another time he was in San Diego, and once it was Albuquerque.”
“Did he always tell you where he was going?”
“No, but usually, after he had taught me how to do it, he was having me arrange the trip for him.” Vang was smiling again. “He said I was his butler-valet. Like the man in the hotel lobbies who does all the arranging for you.”
“You called the travel agencies, worked out the schedule, bought the tickets, everything?”
“Sure,” Vang said. “Mr. Delos always had me call the same agency. There was a woman there. Mrs. Jackson.
Always first class. And she knew all about where he liked to sit, that he liked late flights. If he wanted to have a car waiting for him. All those sort of things.” 194
TONY HILLERMAN
“You just gave her the credit card number? Or what?”
“Yes. Well, no. She had the number. She say: ‘Mr.
Vang, do I just put this on his regular business card.’ And then she would e-mail the paper to get him on the air-plane and I would print it out for him.”
“Overseas flights, too. Or was he making any of them?”
“Yes. Not many though. One to Mexico City. One to Manila. One to London, but I think he had me cancel that.”
“She handled the visas, too. “
“Sure,” Vang said. “Very nice lady.”
Leaphorn nodded, thinking of the benefits of the very rich.
“Sometimes there would be two tickets. Because he would take me along to take care of things for him if he was staying several days.”
Leaphorn was silent a moment, considering that.
“She handled your visa for you when you needed one?
Tommy, did Mr. Delos get you naturalized. As an American citizen, I mean. Were you sworn in and all that?”
“Oh yes,” Tommy Vang said. “That was exciting. It was when I was twenty-one years old. The same day I registered so I could vote.”
“Several years before that—I’d say when you were about fifteen or sixteen—was Mr. Delos away for a long period of time? Maybe as long as a year?”
“Oh, it was longer than that,” Tommy Vang said. “For about five years, he was gone most of the time. Sometimes he’d call about the mail, or messages. And then he would call and tell me to meet him at the airport, and THE SHAPE SHIFTER
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he’d be home for maybe a week and then he’d have to leave again.”
“You just stayed at the apartment?”
“And worked for Mr. Martinez, at his bakery, restaurant place.” He produced a wry sounding laugh. “Not good times. I watched television, and went for walks, and worked a lot. Nobody to talk to. Spent some time at the li- brary trying to learn something about what had happened to the Hmong people.”
“And thinking about going home?”
“No money,” Tommy Vang said. “Sometimes I tried to talk to Mr. Delos about that, but he would just say when everything was finished here, he would take me back himself.”
“He never paid you any salary?”
“He said it was just like he was my daddy. He gave me my clothes, my home, my food, everything I need. Had me taught things. Just like I was his son.” Leaphorn looked at Tommy. Yes, that statement seemed serious. It also seemed terrible.
