Blasphemy

Crawley sipped from his mug. “Fine. Love to hear it.”

“With the work completed and Isabella running, we no longer see the need to continue with your services. When our contract with Crawley and Stratham expires at the end of October, we will not be renewing.”

Yazzie spoke so bluntly, with so little finesse, that it took Crawley a moment to absorb the blow, but he kept his smile steady.

“Well, now,” he said, “I’m very sorry to hear that. Is it anything we did—or failed to do?”

“No, it’s just as I said: the project’s completed. What’s left to lobby?”

Crawley took a deep breath and set down the mug. “I don’t blame you for thinking that—after all, Window Rock is a long way from Washington.” He leaned forward, his voice dropping to a whisper. “Let me tell you something, Mr. Chairman. In this town, nothing is ever completed. Isabella isn’t actually online yet, and there’s an old K Street saying that goes, ‘There’s many a slip twixt the cup and the lip.’ Our enemies— your enemies—have never given up. Many in Congress are still itching to kill the project. That’s the way it is in Washington—never forgive, never forget. Tomorrow they could introduce a bill that would cut funding for Isabella. They might try to renegotiate the lease payments. You need a friend in Washington, Mr. Yazzie. And I’m that friend. I’m the man who kept his promises. If you wait until bad news reaches Window Rock—it’ll be too late.”

He watched their faces, but could read no reaction. “I would strongly recommend that you renew the contract for at least six months—as a form of insurance.”

This man Yazzie was as inscrutable as a damned Chinaman. Crawley wished he were still working with the previous chairman, a man who liked his steaks rare, his martinis dry, and his women well-lipsticked. If only he hadn’t been caught with his hand in the tribal cookie jar.

Yazzie finally spoke. “We have many pressing needs, Mr. Crawley—schools, jobs, health clinics, recreational facilities for our youth. Only six percent of our roads are paved.”

Crawley held his smile as if for a camera. The ungrateful sons of bitches. They were going to collect their six million a year from now until doomsday, and he would get none of it. But he hadn’t been lying—this lobbying assignment had been a bitch-ride from start to finish.

“If this ‘slip twixt the cup and lip’ should occur,” Yazzie continued, in his slow, sleepy fashion, “we would call on your services again.”

“Mr. Yazzie, we’re a boutique lobbying firm. There’s just me and my partner. We take only a few clients, and we have a long waiting list. If you drop out, your slot will be filled immediately. Then, if something happens and you need our services again, well—?”

“We’ll take the risk,” said Yazzie, with a dryness that goaded Crawley.

“I might suggest—indeed I strongly recommend—continuing the contract for another six months. We could even discuss renewing it at a half-retainer. That would at least keep your seat at the table.”

The tribal leader looked at him steadily. “You were well compensated. Fifteen million dollars is a lot of money. In looking over your billable hours and expenses, some questions come to mind. But that is not of concern to us at the present time—you succeeded and we’re grateful. We’ll leave it at that.”

Yazzie rose, then the others.

“Surely you’ll stay for lunch, Mr. Yazzie! My treat, of course. There’s a fabulous new French restaurant just off K Street, Le Zinc, run by an old frat buddy. They do a mean dry martini and steak au poivre combo.” He had never known an Indian to turn down a free drink.

“Thank you, but we have much to do here in Washington and can’t spare the time.” Yazzie extended his hand.

Crawley could hardly believe it. They were leaving—just like that.

He rose to see them out with limp handshakes all around. After they left, he leaned his bulk against the great rosewood door of his office. Rage burned in his gut. No warning, no letter, no telephone call, not even an appointment. They’d simply walked in, fired him, walked out—a real screw-you. And they’d implied he’d cheated them! After four years and fifteen million dollars’ worth of lobbying, he had gotten them the goose that laid the golden egg, and what had they done? Scalped him and left him for the buzzards. This wasn’t how things were done on K Street. No, sir. You took care of your friends.

He straightened up. Booker Hamlin Crawley never went down with the first punch. He was going to fight back—and an idea of how was starting to form in his mind already. He entered his inner office, locked the door, and removed a telephone from the bottom drawer of his desk. It was a landline phone registered in the name of a batty old lady in the nursing home around the corner, paid for by a credit card she didn’t even know she owned. He rarely used it.

He pressed the first digit, then stopped, tugged by the hint of a memory, the briefest flash of how and why he had come to Washington as a young man, bursting with ideas and hope. A sick feeling settled in his belly. But immediately the anger resurfaced. He would not give in to the one mortal sin in Washington: weakness.

He punched in the rest of the number. “May I please speak with the Reverend Don T. Spates?”

The phone call was short and sweet and the timing had been perfect. He hit the OFF button, feeling a surge of triumph at his brilliance. Within a month, he’d have those bareback-riding savages back in his office, begging to hire him—at twice the retainer.

His moist rubbery lips twitched with pleasure and anticipation.

4

WYMAN FORD LOOKED OUT THE WINDOW of the Cessna Citation as it banked over the Lukachukai Mountains and aimed for Red Mesa. It was a striking landform, an island in the sky walled all around by cliffs, seamed in layers of yellow, red, and chocolate sandstone. As he watched, sunlight spilled through an opening in the clouds and hit the mesa, lighting it on fire. It was like a lost world.

As they neared, details began to resolve themselves. Ford could make out landing strips that crossed like two black Band-Aids, with a set of hangars and a helipad. Three massive sets of high-tension power lines, strung on thirty-story trusses, came from the north and west and converged at the edge of the mesa, where there was a secure area, protected by a double fence. A mile away, a cluster of houses were nestled in a valley of cottonwoods, alongside green fields and a log building—the old Nakai Rock Trading Post. A brand-new asphalt road cut across the mesa, from west to east.

Ford’s eye traveled down the cliffs. About three hundred feet down, a massive square opening had been quarried into the side of the mesa, with a recessed metal door. As the plane continued to bank, he could see the only road up the mesa, twisting up the face of the cliff like a snake clinging to a tree trunk. The Dugway.

The Cessna nosed into a cone of descent. The surface of Red Mesa revealed itself to be riven and split by dry washes, valleys, and boulder fields.

A thin scattering of juniper trees alternated with the gray skeletons of pinons, patches of grassland and sagebrush, and areas of slickrock pocked by dune-fields.

The Cessna touched down on the runway and taxied up to a Quonset hut terminal. Several hangars stood behind, gleaming in the light. The pilot threw open the door. Ford, carrying only Lockwood’s briefcase, stepped onto the warm tarmac. There was no one there to greet him.

With a parting wave, the pilot remounted, and in a moment the small plane was back in the air, a glint of aluminum shrinking in the turquoise sky.

Ford watched the plane disappear, and then he ambled over to the terminal.

A wooden signboard hung on the door, hand-painted in Wild West–style letters.

He gave it a push with his finger, listening to it creak back and forth. Beside it, on metal posts sunk into concrete, a bright blue government sign spelled out, in dry bureaucratic language, pretty much the same thing. Wind gusted across the runway, coiling dust along the asphalt.

He tried the terminal door. Locked.

Ford stepped back and looked around, feeling like he’s dropped into the opening sequence of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

The rasping of the sign and the moaning of the wind brought on a flash of memory—that moment, every day, when he would arrive home after school, lift the key from around his neck, unlock the door to the family home in Washington, and stand alone inside that vast echoing mansion. His mother was always off at some reception or fund-raiser, his father away on government business.