“I think Colloquy would bite my finger off,” I said.
“You’re right,” he replied.
While we negotiated the orange barrels of downtown on our way to the FWS office, I wondered why Rick had been so quick to raise the issue of calling in the police on my earlier visit, and so slow to do it now.
12
OUR NEXT STOP was the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service law enforcement office on Fourth Street. Parrot smuggling is a federal crime. So is dealing in endangered and protected species. Whether a species already extinct in the U.S. could be considered endangered was a question I couldn’t answer. The thick-billeds weren’t in trouble in New Mexico or Arizona; they were gone. I knew that the Lacey Act makes it unlawful for any person to import wildlife in violation of U.S. or foreign law and that Wes Brown’s smuggling activities had to put him in violation of that act. For evidence I had the video in my fanny pack and the thick-billed parrot in the camper shell. I peered through the rear window at the thick-billed, which sat silently on its perch watching downtown Albuquerque go by.
“Do you think it’s a male or a female?” I asked the Kid.
He shrugged. “You have to look inside to tell.”
We turned into the FWS office, a nondescript government building. Inside we confronted a gray-haired man at a metal desk who was acting as a receptionist and/or a guard. He eyed us and the bird with suspicion.
“I’d like to talk to Special Agent Violet Sommers,” I said.
“Your name?”
“Neil Hamel. I’m an attorney.” It goes against my basic instincts to seek out law enforcement. I was only doing it because the bird needed a home and Wes Brown needed federal attention.
The man at the desk picked up his phone and said, “A woman named Neil Hamel here to see you, Vi. She’s a lawyer.” He told us to wait in the reception area, where the government hadn’t been wasting any of our taxpayer money on decoration. The furniture was metal, the walls institutional green, the artwork consisted of geodetic survey maps. I studied the maps while we waited for Special Agent Sommers. Door was a tiny dot, two hundred miles from Albuquerque, sixty-two miles from the border. Which direction had Wes Brown headed? I wondered. North or south? The Kid clucked to the bird, and I could see it was going to be difficult for him to give it up.
Special Agent Violet Sommers showed up in uniform: a short-sleeved shirt, matching long pants, sensible shoes, a wide belt and a holster at her hip. Considering the automatic weapons many smugglers would be packing, using her revolver would be like aiming a slingshot at Goliath. Vi’s uniform was not designed for a woman’s body. What would have been soft curves in something more forgiving was hard-packed cellulite under the law enforcement suit. But it was a body she seemed comfortable with, and her face was open and friendly. Her brown hair was cut in wash-and-wear layers. Her eyes were the color of violets in springtime. Either she’d been named for the color of her eyes or she’d chosen contacts to match her name. She wore a delicate ring of turquoise surrounded by diamonds. My guess was that Violet, when she went home, got out of the uniform and put on a dress.
She clapped her hands when she saw us and cried, “A thick-billed. Where did you get it?”
There was only one answer to that question—from a smuggler. “We found him on Wes Brown’s boat in Door.”
“Wes Brown, huh? Let’s go talk in my office.”
We followed her to her office, which was Spartan but had soft touches. She had a large metal desk. There were no Kodachrome pictures of herself on the wall. Her photographs were of a towheaded boy and a golden retriever. She probably lived in the East Mountains and drove a four by four with a bumper sticker on the back that said my CHILD IS AN HONOR STUDENT AT HIS MIDDLE SCHOOL. On her desk I saw a paw print of a wolf encased in plaster and a plaque in cross-stitch embroidery that read SCAT HAPPENS.
“Do you know Wes Brown?” I asked her.
“Actually, I’ve never had the pleasure.” She brushed a stray curl away from her face. “Let’s say I know of him.”
At least she hadn’t fallen under his rescue-me spell. Special Agent Vi Sommers seemed far too stable to be taken in by Wes Brown’s maneuvers, but when it comes to women and men you never know.
“Wes Brown uses a number of aliases,” she said. “He’s been known at various times in his career as Charlie Brown, Eddie Green and Tom Jones.”
“How original,” said I.
“Isn’t it? His activities are reported to be illegal whatever the names. How did you get my name?”
“From Rick Olney, Deborah Dumaine’s lab assistant at UNM.”
“Deborah talked to me about Brown.”
“Do you know Deborah well?”
“Not really. We get together every now and then and talk birds.”
“Do you know she’s missing and is presumed kidnapped?” I wanted to ask. “Do you have any idea where she could be? Is she alive or dead?” But those questions had fallen into the quicksand of attorney/client privilege and gotten mired in the muck. The next question was, if she knew that much about Wes Brown, why hadn’t she nailed him by now? But she answered that one before I had a chance to ask.
“I’ve been wanting to go after him, but it’s been a matter of priorities and resources. Usually, when we catch one smuggler he rolls over on another to cut himself a deal. We catch a lot of them through snitches. No one has given us the goods on Brown yet.”
I pulled out my video. “This is a tape of Brown purchasing parrots from Mexican smugglers in Cotorra Canyon.”
“All right!” Vi said.
“I want to keep the original. Can you make me a copy?” I didn’t have the equipment myself. I don’t even have a VCR. That’s how far off the information highway I am.
“Can do,” she said. She left the office briefly, taking the tape, which I had labeled Cotorra Canyon, to be copied.
“How’d you get the video?” she asked when she came back.
“I filmed it.” That was about as much as I was able to say.
“How did you find out about Wes Brown?”
“I can’t answer that.”
“Can you testify if the case goes to trial?”
“Probably not. I was in Door on business for a client. I may have to plead attorney/client privilege.”
“How about you?” she asked the Kid.
“Sure,” he said. “He’s a bird killer. I’d like to see him go to prison for life for that.”
Even with the evidence we had, Wes Brown wouldn’t go to prison for life. He might not go to prison at all unless I could nail him for a different crime. The penalty for violating the Lacey Act could well be a fine that he’d pay with dirty money. Judges take crimes against property and people more seriously than crimes against wildlife. Of course, Wes Brown might have committed crimes against people too. If he’d killed my client and/or Deborah Dumaine, that could put him in prison for life.
Violet watched the sorry thick-billed pick at its feathers. “A lot of them come across the border like that,” she said, “but often we can bring them around.”
“What happens to the bird now?” the Kid asked.
“We’ve been turning the thick-billeds we get over to the Phoenix Zoo. The ones that are healthy go into the reintroduction effort. The thick-billeds that come from Mexico are tough and do much better than the ones that have been in captivity in this country. The ones that have been pets have forgotten how to act in the wild and the goshawks pick them off. Flocking is their only defense. It’s hard for a goshawk to pick one out of the flock. Also, a flock has a lot of eyes, and they warn each other.”
“Are goshawks endangered?”
“Level two sensitive.”
“Brown’s been killing them too. We saw a pile of dead hawks in Cotorra Canyon and found hawk feathers in the boat.” I was going to get Brown for every offense I could.
“We’ll look into it,” Vi said.
“There is an up-close look at the other smuggled birds on that tape,” I sai
d. “There are three yellow-headed Amazons and one blue-fronted Amazon. Right?” I asked the Kid.
“Right,” he said.
“I saw some of Brown’s records while we were on the boat. He’s been selling to the Birds of Paradise Pet Shop.”
“Damn them,” Vi said. “I can understand why some poor person south of the border would trap and sell a bird to feed a family. But nobody would be doing it if there weren’t a market here, and that’s what I don’t understand—why someplace like Birds of Paradise would deal in illegal birds. Why people will either knowingly buy smuggled and endangered birds or try very hard not to know the birds have been smuggled. We have a long and porous border. If we can’t keep people out, how are we going to keep out parrots? People will pay one hundred thousand dollars for a rare parrot, and that’s what’s driving them into extinction. The rare and endangered will always be procured by someone. What’s extinct is gone forever. One thousand species of birds are threatened with extinction, and two-thirds of them are on the decline. Pretty depressing, isn’t it? Then you’ve got people like Brown speeding the process along.”
“Does captive breeding help?” I asked.
“The nature of the third world economy is that a wild bird there is always going to be cheaper than a hand-raised bird here. Breeding in the country of origin helps. So does involving the local population in the conservation effort. There have been some successes in that area.”
“If you get an agent down to Door right away, you may be able to get Brown’s records before he thinks to dispose of them.”
“I’ll do that.”
“I’d check with the DEA too. I believe Brown was prosecuted for dealing drugs. He may be on probation.” All that information would be on a government computer, but the computer wouldn’t release it unless someone asked. The various branches of the federal government were not known for communicating with each other. I handed her my lawyer’s card. “We have a strong interest in this case. Will you let us know what develops?”
“Of course,” she said. “Thanks a lot for your help.”
The guy from the front desk came into the office and handed Vi the tape and the copy. Vi gave me back my original. “I’m really grateful for this,” she said.
“It’s nothing,” the Kid replied.
It’s a lot, I thought.
The time had come to turn the thick-billed over, and the Kid was sad to see it go. Perigee was big and beautiful, but the Kid’s heart was with the stray. Mimar, one of my favorite words in Spanish, means to pet, and that’s what the Kid was doing to the parrot. The thick-billed was wary, but it did let him stroke its head.
“He’ll be in good hands. Don’t worry,” Vi reassured him.
“Maintain, lorito,” the Kid said.
******
Before we left the FWS office I’d looked at the time on the wall: five-thirty. It had only been yesterday that we’d left for Door, but it seemed like a month. I’d used up all my adrenaline hours ago and was running on empty. I was so tired, downtown Albuquerque wavered like a poorly propped-up movie set. You know you’re either tired or hallucinating when Albuquerque looks like anything but a cow town downtown. My office was only a few blocks away on Lead, but when the Kid asked me if I wanted to go there I said no, that I wanted to go home and mix up a batch of Jell-O shots but I knew I’d be asleep before they jelled. The near-death experience had made me want to make love. Real death made me want to pull the covers over my head. Alone in my own bed. When we got to La Vista the who-goes-where moment came up.
The Kid rubbed the palm of his hand against the steering wheel. Maybe he wanted to be alone too. “I think I will go home now, Chiquita,” he said.
Out of the depths of my peripheral vision I had a glimpse of Alice of the long blond hair, but I considered that an unworthy thought and banished it into the darkness from which it had come. “Okay. I’m really tired,” I said.
“Me too,” he replied.
******
I was too tired to eat or drink or even to smoke. I took a long, hot eucalyptus oil bath while burning a candle at the edge of the tub. I stared at the flame until I could reproduce its shape exactly with my eyes shut tight. That was the kind of focus I’d need to solve this case. The minute I hit the bed I fell asleep and dreamed of a flickering fire, a royal blue macaw, a red-headed woman and a dead white man. When I woke up after midnight, the wind was rubbing against the window like a giant disembodied feather. I considered turning on the TV but I knew what I’d find there—Ron Bell in a black leather jacket, Cliff Vole selling cell phones and the same thing I’d been seeing in my dreams—murder. What are the things people kill for? I asked myself. Love, hate, money, revenge, gold chains, running shoes. Wes Brown might have been collaborating with Terrance Lewellen. He might have killed Terrance to protect himself and keep the money. He’d proved he didn’t have the cojones to kill someone face-to-face, but Terrance’s death—if it was murder—had been murder by remote. There’d been no mess, no bloodshed, and quite possibly no confrontation. I wondered if the distance would lessen the killer’s sense of guilt. It didn’t change the fact that my client was dead, that I’d given up his money but hadn’t gotten back his wife, that I’d tied up Wes Brown but not tight enough.
******
It was morning when I woke up again. I went to the window and paid my respects to the wind goddess, who was dove gray today, silhouetted against a sky of robin’s egg blue. Something was burning in the Heights, and the black smoke rose as straight as a signal fire. The wind goddess didn’t even bother to puff it away. Maybe she was still asleep. Maybe she was tired from a night spent rattling people’s windows.
I was starving and went to the refrigerator, which was, as usual, a case of hope triumphing over shopping. I should have known there’d be nothing there but a cold burrito from Arriba Tacos left over since when? I had a cup of Red Zinger tea and a handful of blue corn chips and went to work.
Anna was at her desk, but Brink hadn’t shown up yet. Anna’s hair was approaching Lyle Lovett’s pompadour in height and in slickness; the altitude looked better on her than it did on him. She’d added a few more inches by wearing her hooker’s shoes. I didn’t think the shoes were right for her, but I hadn’t gotten around to telling her that yet.
“How’d it go?” she asked me.
“The good news is that we got the macaw back. He’s with his mate now and in bliss.”
“That’s great.”
“Yeah.”
“So what’s the bad?”
“Terrance Lewellen is dead.”
“Yow! What happened to him?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “We took Perigee there first and found Terrance flat on his back in his bed. Dead. The medical examiner thinks it might have been an allergic reaction.”
“To what?”
“Antibiotics, food or a bee sting.”
“You think a bee sting could kill him?”
“It’s possible,” I said, but I didn’t believe it either.
“He was tougher than a boot heel, but I kind of liked the guy. He brought me a rose one time when he was in here.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. He had a soft side.” For younger women he did. She stretched out a skinny leg and looked at her ankle-strapped foot.
“I don’t know about those shoes, Anna,” I said.
“What? They’re not right for the office?”
That was a part of it, but not the whole story. “You go around looking like a hooker, everybody’s going to be hitting on you. There’s enough trouble out there without asking for more.”
“I was at Nob Hill last night and some guy on a bike asked me for change. When I told him I didn’t have any, he called me a fucking white bitch.”
“What did you do?”
“Called him an asshole.” She had cojones, I’ll say that.
“He might have been carrying a weapon. Did you ever think of that? If they’ll kill you for a gold chain, they’ll do
it for a swear word.”
“You think he hit on me because of the shoes?”
“Who knows? He could hit on you for wearing combat boots, but if you’d had on running shoes you could have gotten away faster.”
“Okay, I’ll think about it.”
“Any messages?”
“Roberta Dovalo called. She said she can’t make the appointment tomorrow. She’s thinking about gettin’ back with her Jimmie.” She imitated Roberta’s cowgirl twang. She wasn’t as good at it as the Amazons, but I got the message. “‘Damned sorry about that, ma’am.’”
I wasn’t that sorry. “Is that it?”
“One more. Charlie Register at BankWest.”
That was no surprise. “Look up a couple of numbers for me, will you? ABC Security and Dr. Talbert. Talbert’s an allergist.”
“You got it.”
I went into my office and crossed Roberta Dovalo off the calendar. It could be months before I heard from her again—if I ever heard from her again. The indigo feather made an arc in my cup. I took it out and ran my fingers down the barbs. Cowboy, Indian, hooker, soldier, scientist, bird. There’s a costume for every actor (good or bad) in New Mexico. Something about the altitude or the air or the space here makes people want to dress up and act out. What would look ridiculous in some gray city looks normal in our movie-set scenery. I’d made the mistake of choosing one of the drab, brown bird roles myself—lawyer. Try as I did not to dress or act the part, it stuck to me like Velcro.
I called the other brown bird professional who had a role in this drama, Charlie Register.
“I hear that Lewellen died,” he said.
“He did.”
“What the hell happened to him?”
“I don’t know yet. The OMI is investigating.”
“Did you get Deborah back?”
“No.”
“Where is she? Is she all right?”
“I don’t know that either.”
“Can we talk this afternoon?”
“How about tomorrow?” There were some other people I needed to talk to first.
Parrot Blues Page 14
