by Brian Hodge
"I'd like to talk to you, Mr. Mayor, about the recent murders in the mountains."
"The bear has been caught and destroyed."
"I don't think a bear did that. More than one would've had to be around to do all that damage—I found the bodies of the low-riders."
"I know who you are, Mr. Del-Klinne."
And that shouldn't have taken him by surprise, but it did. He remembered the black Buick that followed discreetly behind him.
"Are you having me tailed?" he demanded.
"Why should I do that? You're no one, Mr. Del-Klinne." Griffen's smile widened.
"Well, somebody thinks enough of me to have put a black Buick or my tail."
"Perhaps you're imagining things. Or perhaps you have an angry creditor."
"I owe nothing to anyone," Chato said quietly.
The two men eyed each other for a few minutes, and Chato could hear the soft clicking of the air conditioner.
"What about the things in the mountains? I saw them; other people have as well. You can't explain those away as bears."
"Things in the mountains?"' The mayor's eyes seemed to flicker with some interest. "What precisely have you seen, Mr. Del-Klinne?"
"Shadows. Shadow creatures. I saw them in the mountains after I found the bodies."
"I see." Griffen relaxed and smiled. "It is rather hot, Mr. Del-Klinne. Heat can produce hallucinations."
"'Those weren't hallucinations."
"So you say."
"Why won't you listen?"
"I have listened. I've listened to a crackpot. You can leave now."
Chato stood and scowled. "You don't give a damn about your constituents. Something's going on; people are dying in terrible ways and no one seems to be doing anything or finding out. There could be more. I mean to find out what's going on." Chato walked to the door, grasped the knob. "I just hope you manage to survive." He opened the door. "One of those deaths I'm talking about could be yours."
He left before the mayor could speak, got into the elevator, thumbed the button for the ground floor.
Well, he thought, what the hell had he accomplished? Not a whole lot, that was for sure. And again in the back of his mind, almost at the subconscious level, he could hear the tiny whispers, pushing him, urging him. Toward what? For what?
He should get in his pickup and pack his clothes and leave the city, and not come back for a long, long time. Get out while he still could.
"That Indian was here," Griffen said into the phone. "No, the other one. Asking questions." He paused, listened to the other line. "I'm going to take care of him, don't worry. I've already made a call. It's just…. " He stopped, took out a handkerchief and wiped his forehead. Unease filled him. This afternoon that thing would be out of his possession; it would be the last time he ever saw it, thank God. "He mentioned something he saw up there. Shadows. Used the same words the woman did. Just like the kids talked about, too. Rob, I know this is crazy, but you don't think it has anything to do with the— No? You sure? Okay. Okay. I won't worry. No, you're right. I shouldn't. I'll see you later. Yeah. Bye."
He hung up, leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. But Kent's soothing words hadn't comforted him. He couldn't dismiss from his mind that there had been too many murders in the mountains—odd butcherings that no bear could have done—and that three people, in separate incidents, had seen something, something like no one else had seen. He didn't like it; he didn't like it one bit, didn't like it because he didn't have an easy solution for it.
And mostly he didn't like it because all of this seemed to have started about the time they decided to move the fetish out of New Mexico.
And that was too much of a coincidence.
Outside the municipal building on Marquette, Chato paused to get his breath, for it was a shock coming from the icy offices to this oven of unseasonable heat. The air was lifeless, without a breeze to stir it. The sun was still high, beating down unmercifully, and the peak temperature hadn't been reached yet, would not for another couple of hours. He wished he could be in a pool now. He thought longingly of the one at Laura's apartment complex.
A quick trickle of sweat slid down his back, and he shifted uncomfortably. He needed to go back to the motel and change his shirt, and maybe lie down for a nap for a while. Just get out of the heat and the sun.
He started down the street and grew aware that two Albuquerque cops were heading toward him. He looked around for the mysterious black Buick, but didn't see it.
The cops had stopped a few feet away. A young one and a middle-aged one. Both looked like they meant business.
"Are you Chato Del-Klinne?" the younger of the cops asked.
"I am." He frowned a little, raised one hand to shade his eyes. "Why?"
The cop stepped forward. "Mr. Del-Klinne, you're under arrest."
"What?" He stared in amazement at the cop. "What for?"
"For threatening the Mayor," the older man replied.
"Oh shit," he said, and held out his wrists for the handcuffs.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The cell was small, dirty, smelled of Lysol, urine, unwashed bodies, vomit, stale sweat and liquor. There were two other occupants besides himself. They were winos, unshaven, heavily clad despite the heat in the cell, and they still reeked of alcohol fumes. They had been asleep when the door had opened and Officer Bristol, the younger cop, had escorted him inside. They hadn't bothered to stir, and now, hours later, they were still dead to the world.
After the cuffs had been snapped on, the older cop had read him his rights. They'd pushed him into their squad car, then driven the few blocks to the city jail, and there he'd been booked and taken to the cell.
He had been allowed one phone call. He'd called Laura at the newspaper. She was out, a woman who answered her phone said. Frustrated, he had asked for her to take a message and had stressed that it was urgent that Laura get back to him right away.
What if she couldn't bail him out? What if it were too much money? But what did it matter if he spent a night or two in jail?
Loss of time is what it meant. And time was something he knew he couldn't waste.
He thought back to an hour before. The booking had been routine, and the cops had seemed almost apologetic, as if they weren't totally convinced of his guilt. Which confirmed what he had been thinking about Griffen. Not many of his underlings seemed to like him. He did not inspire trust.
Tiring of standing in one spot, he paced the small cell, taking care not to disturb his snoring cellmates. He supposed he could trip over them and they still wouldn't wake, so deep were they in their besotted dreams. Still, he didn't want to talk with anyone. He wanted this time to think.
He rubbed a hand across his face, smearing the sweat and dust there, and grimaced. He should have watched his mouth in the Mayor's office. He'd been as dumb as shit to make those remarks.
You don't give a damn about your constituents. I just hope you manage to survive. One of those deaths I'm talking about could be yours.
Damn him; damn the Mayor. Griffen knew what he meant, knew he wasn't threatening him. But it was convenient for the Mayor to get the troublemaker off the streets. And how the hell had Griffen known who he was? The man following him was a priest. What connection did Griffen have to a priest—and why was a priest tailing him, after all?—and …
Too many questions, not enough answers.
He smoothed down his hair with both hands, wished he could change his shirt. The sweat on it had dried and on his body as well, and he felt uncomfortable. The cell was without the benefit of even a fan, and he was surely contributing to the pungency of the air. He leaned his forehead against the coolness of the bars and waited. It was dark here, as several of the lights had burned out in the cell, and one in the hallway was gone as well. Typical efficiency of the police department. It would probably be months before the bulbs were replaced.
He was glad his parents couldn't see him. His father was proud of how no one in the family had ever been
arrested, and now he was here. At least, he thought, his lips twisting into a wry grimace that was almost a smile, it wasn't for DWI.
Down the corridor a door slammed; one of the drunks snorted, rolled over and fell heavily asleep again, and he heard two voices coming toward him. He stepped back into the shadows of the cell, not wanting to be seen.
"I don't know anything more about it, Manuel. Just what I told you," said the first voice.
"Who do you think she is?" the second man asked. His voice was slightly accented. "And why there of all places? That's weird, man, you know?"
"Hell, I don't know why that guy does anything. Maybe she's the Mayor's mistress."
"That son-of-a-bitch?" The second man laughed. "He couldn't get it up with the help of a balloon."
They both laughed. The two men were approaching his cell, and he pressed himself flat against the far wall, held his breath, waited.
"Yeah. You know, there's a lot of weird things going on recently, Bernie. All that hush-hush stuff up in the mountains, and now this broad. Bet the brothers are having one hell of a fine time. So much for chastity vows, eh?"
The other man laughed coarsely, made an obscene gesture with his hand, and his friend chuckled.
"Hey, isn't she the one who lived through the—"
"You guys down there taking a leak? You going to talk all day?" a third man called down the hallway.
"Mother-fucker," Bernie muttered under his breath.
Louder he said, "Comin' right there, George."
They walked past Chato's cell, toward the other door at the end of the corridor.
"Well, isn't she?"
"The survivor? Yeah… You remember last weekend up there—"
The slamming of the metal door cut off the rest of the man's words.
Survivor.
A woman.
The brothers. With vows of chastity. Monks.
A woman had survived something last weekend and was now with monks. Laura had mentioned that the woman who had made it through the attack on the campers was reputedly being held somewhere; the attack on her friends had been last weekend.
It had to be the same woman. It was too much of a coincidence otherwise. And he didn't believe in coincidences. Not this time, not now. Not with these circumstances.
So, she was being held at a monastery. But which one? How many could there be? Local or otherwise?
He had to find it, had to go there. Hurry, whispered a gruff voice at the back of his mind. Hurry, there isn't much time.
He slammed his fist against one of the bars, ignoring the pain that shot through his wrist and lower arm. When would Laura come to get him? God, he hoped it wouldn't be too late.
Impatiently he waited.
"I got your message just in time," she said.
He stopped at the desk, collected his wallet and penknife along with the other contents of his pockets. "Yeah?" They walked out of the building and he frowned in the sudden brightness.
"I was on my way to the cocktail party and wouldn't have been back till late tonight. I just decided to stop by the office."
"Good thing for me." They reached her rented car, got in. "Thanks again, Laura. I'll pay you back as soon as I can. I—"
"It's okay. I know you're good for debts."
They reached the lot where his truck had been impounded. She drove off, and he presented his ticket so he could reclaim his pickup.
He was heading for Central when he remembered. Damn! He'd forgotten to tell Laura about the woman at the monastery. Too late now. He'd tell her later.
He reached the motel, cleaned up, changed into a fresh shirt and jeans, then gobbled down the sandwich he'd picked up at the store around the corner.
What now?
Scowling, he glanced in the mirror on the dresser to brush back his hair, and he slowly sank onto the bed.
The face of Tenorio was staring at him.
He closed his eyes, willed the face to go away. When he opened his eyes again, it was still there.
"Boy," said the face in the mirror. "Boy, you must hunt them." Chato said nothing, was afraid to admit that he would be talking aloud to someone who was dead, had been dead for days "Boy."
The voice sharpened. "Do you hear me?"
Chato nodded.
"You must go to their lair in the mountains. Destroy them there. Only you can do this … you and the fetish. Believe, too, dreamer of dreams, believe in yourself or you will surely die." The old man's voice faded to a whisper and the image in the mirror wobbled.
Chato's eyes closed. He jerked them open. He didn't have time to sleep, had to get going, had to find—
He slept.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Every real and would-be politician in the thirty-two counties of New Mexico must be attending, Laura thought, surveying the crowd of well-dressed, well-groomed people who were mingling, talking, drinking and laughing at the Piñon Flats picnic ground, which was located on the northeast fringe of the city. And it only served to remind her that this was election year. How could she forget, with all these aspiring statesmen and stateswomen present?
She sipped at her drink and caught a young man from one of the eastern counties staring at her admiringly. She smiled a little. He might be a peanut farmer in Portales, but he certainly had good taste.
And she knew she looked good—she'd dressed with special care. She wore a low-cut velveteen dress with a wide gold belt that emphasized her narrow waist. The ivory of her dress contrasted strikingly with her dark hair and blue eyes. As for jewelry, she had selected only a simple single gold chain for her neck and gold button earrings.
Simple, yet elegant.
She wanted to make a striking appearance. She knew the senator had an appreciative eye for pretty women, and this couldn't hurt her chances of getting close to talking to him.
What an opportunity that would be—an exclusive interview, and a chance to find out what was really going on. It would have been easy to contact the wire services, to have blown the whole thing open, but not yet, not before she got all the facts, before she got all the credit. She smiled to herself. Laura Rainey—say good-bye to cub reporter, hello to investigative reporter.
The afternoon cocktail party had begun after lunch, which in this instance meant one p.m., and it was supposed to continue until the early evening, when the barbeque began in earnest. She wasn't sure how one could really tell the difference between the two, although at the barbecue they'd finally get around to serving the substantial food—the ribs, chicken, and other meats that would be cooked over the barbecue pits. Already some of the chefs were setting up their kitchens.
It had almost been called off, this great political affair, because of the recent deaths. People were spooked, afraid to go out, but Griffen had maintained publicly that the barbecue would be good for everyone's morale, and so the show, as it were, had gone on.
For the gala occasion, footed by the Mayor's and Senator's political party to prove what good sports they all were, several local mariachi bands in Mexican costumes had been hired to stroll through the crowds. Also performing were some puppeteers from the University, as well as the collegiate glee club, directed by their roly-poly leader. A scar-faced country singer, who had been born in New Mexico and came back yearly for the State Fair in Albuquerque, had drawn a sizable crowd in one part of the picnic grounds. One of the city councilors, who was an amateur magician, was enthralling a number of city government employees who oohed and aahed over his sleight of hand. In a little while hot-air balloon demonstrations would be given by balloonists who'd volunteered their time. Free rides would be given to those who wanted to go aloft, and already there was a substantial waiting list.
Sometime, in the midst of all this circus-like activity, Mayor Douglas Griffen, in a ceremony expected to be fairly informal and quite down-home, was scheduled to present the Indian statue to Senator Robinson Kent, who could be depended on to act like a senior statesmen. She'd seen the articles on Kent's arrival before the paper had
gone to press, and he had—not unexpectedly, she thought—come out looking quite good. Better than Yellow Colt, who was sitting in the city jail at the time, unable to raise the steep bail that had been set.
Laura took another sip of her drink and looked around. White tablecloths covered the cement picnic tables in a futile effort to make the surroundings look more elegant and less what they really were—a huge picnic grounds, ideally suited for company picnics or political party social bashes. The tables were laden with every possible kind of snack, from fancy crackers and olives to dips and tasty cocktail sandwiches, and by each table stood a smartly dressed high-school-age boy and girl, volunteers, courtesy of the Albuquerque Public Schools, just waiting to help someone. The standing joke at the Courier was that APS hoped to impress the legislators into putting more money in the schools' budget.
Off to one side, almost in line with the mountains—she looked at them shimmering in the afternoon heat, shivered as though she had been chilled, and gulped her drink—a pavilion had been erected in the unlikely event that the weather might turn adverse and everyone had to take shelter. Rain hadn't been predicted by the various television forecasters, but after so long of a heat spell at the wrong time of the year, it wouldn't be at all strange for a cloudburst to explode without warning. In that case, she thought wryly, a pavilion wouldn't be much protection with the torrent of water that would come swooping down off the slopes of the mountains.
Close to the pavilion a bandstand, painted white and trimmed with patriotic bunting, had been built, and there one of the mariachi bands played their trumpets and guitars. On the other side of the bandstand was a platform, at the front of which was a podium and a microphone system. Two immense speakers had been fixed on each corner of the platform. Metal chairs sat in a line behind the podium. For the distinguished-guests, who after hours of walking around and meeting the public and shaking said public's hands, would no doubt be glad to sit a spell.
