“Louise is a wonderful lady, but I wonder about her taste sometimes.” 45 of 102
15/03/2008 19:57
TheFallenMan
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Janet had no comment.
Chee said: “What’s it for?” And waited, and belatedly understood that he should have kept his stupid mouth shut.
“It’s called ‘Technic Inversion Number Three, Side View,’” Janet said.
“Remarkable,” Chee said. “Very interesting.”
“I found it in the Kremont Gallery,” Janet said, glum. “The artist is a man named Egon Kuzluzski. The critic at the Washington Post called him the most innovative sculptor of the decade. An artist who finds beauty and meaning in the technology which is submerging modern culture.”
“Very complex,” Chee said. “And the colors . . . “ He couldn’t think of a way to finish the sentence.
“I really thought you would like it,” Janet said. “I’m sorry you don’t.”
“I do,” Chee said, but he knew it was too late for that. “Well, not really. But I think it takes time to understand something that’s so innovative. And then tastes vary, of course.”
Janet didn’t respond to that.
“It’s the reason they have horse races,” Chee said, and attempted a chuckle. “Differences of opinion, you know.”
“I ran into something interesting in Washington,” Janet said, in a fairly obvious effort to cut off this discussion. “I think it was why everybody was so cooperative with our proposals. Crime on Indian reservations has become very chic inside the Beltway.
Everybody had read up on narcotics invading Indian territory, and Indian gang problems, Indian graffiti, Indian homicides, child abuse, the whole schmear. All very popular with the Beltway intelligentsia. We have finally made it into the halls of the mighty.”
“I guess that would fall into the bad news, good news category,” Chee said, grinning with relief at being let off the hook.
“Whatever you call it, it means everybody is looking for our expertise these days.” Chee’s grin faded. “You got a job offer?”
“I didn’t mean me. But one of the top assistants in BIA Law and Order wanted to let me know they’re recruiting experienced reservation cops with the right kind of credentials for Civil Service, and I heard the same thing over at Justice.” She smiled at him.
“At Justice they actually asked me to be a talent scout for them, and when they told me what they wanted it sounded like they were describing you.” She patted him on the leg. “I told ’em I’d already signed you up.”
“Thank God for that,” Chee said. “I did time in Washington a couple of times, remember? At the FBI academy for their training course, and once on an investigation.” He shuddered, remembering. At the academy he had been the tolerated rube, one of “them.” But they would, naturally, look on Janet as one of “us.” It was a fact he’d have to find a way to deal with.
Janet removed her hand.
“Really, Jim, Washington’s a nice place. It’s cleaner than most cities, and something beautiful every place you look and there’s always—”
“Beautiful what? Buildings? Monuments? There’s too much smog, too much noise, too much traffic, too damn many people everywhere. You can’t see the stars at night. Too cloudy to see the sunset.” He shook his head.
“There’s the breeze coming in off the Potomac,” Janet said. “And the clean salty smell of the bay, and seafood fresh from the ocean and good wine. In April, the cherry blossoms, and the green, green hills, and the great art galleries, and theater, and music.” She paused, waved her hands, overcome by the enormous glories of Washington’s culture. “And the pay scales are about double what either one of us can make here—especially in the Justice Department.”
“Working in the J. Edgar Hoover Building,” Chee said. “That’d be a real kick. That old blackmailer should have been doing about twenty years for misuse of public records, but they named the building after him. At least it’s an appropriately ugly building.” Janet let that one lie, sipped her wine, reminded Chee his coffee was getting cold. He tested it. She was right.
“Jim,” she said, “that concert was absolutely thrilling. It was the Philadelphia Orchestra. The annual Founders Society affair. The First Lady was there, and all sorts of diplomats—all white tie and the best jewels dug out of the safety-deposit boxes. And Mozart.
You like Mozart.”
“I like a lot of Mozart,” Chee said.
He took a deep breath. “It was one of those members-only things, I guess,” he said. “Members and guests.”
“Right,” she said, smiling at him. “I was mingling with the crème de la crème.”
“I’ll bet your old law firm is a member,” Chee said. “Probably a big donor.” 46 of 102
15/03/2008 19:57
TheFallenMan
file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/Floop/Local%20Settings/Te...
“You betcha,” Janet said, still smiling. Then she realized where Chee was headed. The smile went away.
“You’re going to ask me who took me,” she said.
“No, I’m not.”
“I was a guest of John McDermott,” she said.
Chee sat silent and motionless. He had known it, but he still didn’t want to believe it.
“Does that bother you?”
“No,” Chee said. “I guess not. Should it?”
“It shouldn’t,” she said. “After all, we go way back. He was my teacher. And then I worked with him.” He was looking at her. Wondering what to say. She flushed. “What are you thinking?” she said.
“I’m thinking I had it all wrong. I thought you detested the man for the way he treated you. The way he used you.” She looked away. “I did for a while. I was angry.”
“But not now? No longer angry?”
“The Navajo way,” she said. “You’re supposed to get yourself back into harmony with the way the world is.”
“Did you know he’s out here again?”
She nodded.
“Did you know he’s hired Joe Leaphorn to look into that Fallen Man business?”
“He told me he was going to try,” she said.
“I wondered how he learned about the skeleton being identified as Harold Breedlove,” Chee said. “It wasn’t the sort of story that would have hit the Washington Post.”
“No,” she said.
“Did you tell him?”
“Why not?” she said, staring at him. “Why the hell not?”
“Well, I don’t know. The man you’re going to marry is on the telephone reminding you he loves you. And you ask him about a case he’s working on, and so he sort of violates police protocol and tells you the skeleton has been identified.” He stopped. This wasn’t fair. He’d held this anger in for too many hours. He had heard his voice, thick with emotion.
She was still staring at him, face grim, waiting for him to continue.
“So?” she said. “Go on.”
“So I’m not exactly sure what happened next. Did you call him right away and tell him what you’d learned?” She didn’t respond to that. But she edged a bit away from him on the sofa.
“One more question and then I’ll drop it. Did that son of a bitch ask you to get that information out of me? In other words, I want to know whether he—”
Janet was on her feet.
“I think you’d better go now,” she said.
He got up. His anger had drained away now. He simply felt tired and sick.
“Just one more thing I’d like to know,” he said. “It would tell me something about just how important this business is to the Breedlove Corporation. In other words if you’d told him about the skeleton being found up there when you first got to Washington, it might naturally have reminded McDermott of Hal Breedlove disappearing. And he’d want to know who the skeleton belonged to.
But if it was already on his mind even before that, if he brought it up instead of you, then it would mean a higher level of—it would mean they already—”