Shadow Play Read online

  “Do you believe?”

  “In Christianity?”

  “In anything.”

  “I believe in myself,” I said finally, the only true answer I could give.

  “Me, too. Well. I must insist on your company at dinner. Agreed?”

  How do you turn down an invitation from a movie star. Judging my hesitation, he clasped both of my hands again. “Agreed,” he said. “Where can I send my car?”

  “Here. At the casino.”

  “Eight?”

  “So what is this model?” I said, not sure of my answer yet.

  “Eight,” he said.

  “All right.” Already thinking of what to wear. “Oh. And this model, this three-dimensional landscape. What is this?”

  “Where I’m going to make my next movie.”

  “What’s the movie about?”

  “A remake of Man of the West. I play the Gary Cooper part.”

  “And this landscape model?”

  “Where I’m building my sets, where we’ll shoot the entire movie.”

  “And where is that?”

  “Here. Right here.” He swirled his hands over the valleys of the landscape. “In the Palm of God.”

  “I’ve never heard that expression,” I said.

  “Shamans use it for this area. Healers, mystics, psychics. I’ll tell you later. Now, I apologize, I’ve got some unpleasant business to take care of. One of our guests at the casino, unfortunate accident.”

  “The jumper?” I said. “The suicide?”

  “I’ll pick you up here tonight.” He clicked his tongue and the mastiff leapt off the sheepskin and followed Vincent into a closed room.

  21

  “Georgia?”

  “Yes. Laura.”

  “Glad I caught you,” I said. “Can you talk?”

  “I’ve got a few minutes before my next session.”

  “What is the Palm of God?”

  A sniff, an intake of breath through the mouth, a pause. “Why are you asking about that?”

  “Somebody mentioned it. You know about it?”

  “The Palm of God.”

  “Yes. Is it, what, the palm of a hand?”

  “A palm, yes.”

  “Palm reading?”

  “No,” Georgia said. “What’s the context, whoever mentioned it?”

  “I saw a, I guess, a model. A three-dimensional landscape.”

  “Of a valley?”

  “Yes. And mountains.”

  “Several different mountain ranges?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Around the valley.”

  “That’s the Palm of God.”

  “A valley.”

  “Several. And more mountain ranges.”

  “Where?”

  “Not on any map,” Georgia said.

  “In a book?” I said. “A movie, what?”

  “We’ve talked about vortexes.”

  “So this valley, it’s a vortex?”

  “Laura. It’s many vortexes. You’ve been to Sedona?”

  “Yes. The power spots, yes.”

  “Some people believe that the Palm of God runs from Sedona south almost to Mexico. If there was only one valley, I’d say, it would be near Arivaca.”

  “Arivaca? That weird community, near the drug corridor to Mexico?”

  “To outsiders, weird, maybe, I would never say that. I did my training down there with a Reiki master. Why are you asking this? Are you on a case?”

  “A case?”

  “As an investigator, as a private investigator. Is this a case?”

  “Georgia,” I said. “It’s not a case. It’s actually about a movie.”

  “Have I seen it?”

  “A movie that’s not been made.”

  “Oh. Yes, just a minute,” she said, a woman’s voice in low register asking a question. “Tell me more at our next session. But, Laura. Are you going down there?”

  “Where?”

  “To Arivaca.”

  “No…I just heard the term, heard about the Palm of God. I just wondered what it meant, where it was if it really existed.”

  “Don’t go down there alone. I’ll see you next Tuesday.”

  “Why shouldn’t I go down there?” I said.

  “Lots of drug smuggling. Border Patrol is all over the place, plus, somebody strange shows up in Arivaca, it’s a small community, a tight community, but with so many cops a stranger sticks out. Do you know anybody there?”

  “Can you take me?”

  “I could, if I had time. Why?”

  “I want to find a movie set,” I said.

  “Okay. I know a stunt man down there. We could talk to him, if any movie’s being made, he’ll know about it.”

  “So when can you go?” I said.

  “Day after tomorrow? Can you wait?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  But I’m not the waiting kind and started to make my own plans.

  22

  “Hola,” she said, hands fluttering welcome. “Sí, sí, this is the place.”

  She squeezed into a tiny nook, an old-fashioned cash register with plastic pearl keys of her combination grocery and taqueria. Three aisles crammed floor to ceiling with cans, boxes, and jars of Mexican foodstuffs, pink and green prickly pear cactus paddles, stacks of fresh tortillas in several sizes. Six-inch corn, fifteen-inch flour, packaged by one or two dozen. A wire rack of vividly erotic comic books.

  “In the back,” she said. “Your daughter, no?”

  “My daughter, no,” I said. “Mi compadre y mi amiga.”

  “Ah.” Her smile never wavered. “Por favor, please, in the back. Eat some antojitos. Enjoy.”

  “Laura?” Alex Emerine called. “That you?”

  Slender as I am, I almost had to turn sideways to get down the center aisle and into the lunchroom. Three tiny tables, plastic hibiscus flowers layered in cereal bowls on each table, chairs scattered around to be pulled up anywhere, all of it old-style cheap kitchen furniture. Salsa blared from a boom box, TV tuned to a Mexican soap opera, the volume down.

  Alex half rose from a chair, turned off her iPod and parked the headphones carelessly atop her rave-shaved-sides haircut, the wild curly top dyed incredibly pink. Except for earrings, no other noticeable body piercings, I was glad to see that. Alex rarely paid attention to her model-slim looks other than dyeing her hair and meticulously selected sandals, some of them I knew worth several hundred dollars. She saw me looking at her feet and raised one leg to display a lime-greenish flip-flop.

  “Rubber,” she said. “Really hot in Singapore.”

  “How much?”

  She shrugged, which usually meant over a hundred bucks. “Juanita,” she said. An incredibly tiny woman straightened up to smile at me over a handmade countertop. “Laura, Juanita.” She waved in both our directions, Juanita’s smile growing impossibly wider. “Juanita’s got some corn steamed, a fresh tub of masa to make our taquitos. You want barbaco or carnitas?”

  “Goat,” I said. “Only if it’s got that toughness stewed out.”

  “Mas carnitas, Juanita. Y dos cecina flautas. What do you want to drink?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Agua fresca, flavored, um.” Sipped from the brown plastic glass, ran her tongue over her upper lip. “Mango, I think. Here. Try it.”

  “I’ll have one,” I said to Juanita, who’d already poured it and was pattypatting the corn tortillas.

  “Great place,” I said. “Never heard of it. I thought the best taquitos, food like that, came off those neighborhood trucks.”

  “On the weekends, she makes this fantastic pozole. Tacos with salsa smothered on cecina or tengue.”

  “Tongue, no way.”

  “So what’s the haps?” Alex rarely bothered with small talk, or at least she didn’t with me, especially when I disagreed with her about something. “The fake ATM scam thing? Monster job, I’ve got five computers cranking on it. Nothing yet, though.”

  Juanita set paper plates in front of u
s, we dug into the delicious stewed goat taquitos. “I can’t work on that for a while. You able to handle it by yourself?”

  “Stefan’s helping me. We’ll make out for now, until the databases are set up and we need some qualifiers to start sorting all the people. Nineteen months, I had no idea how many people don’t bother to see if the ATM they’re using is really an ATM. I mean, we’ve found a couple that were pretty much cardboard crates put in place over the existing machines, with a fake digital plate and a very real slot that took your ATM card for keeps. Rough guess, we’re tracking on twelve hundred people, past and present. Okay. Must be those two computers from last night.”

  “Any files on them?”

  “No. That’s the mystery. Ah, look at these.”

  More paper plates. Cecina, the salted beef wrapped in three flautas for each of us. Juanita set another place between us.

  “Try,” she said. “No pay, this time.”

  “No pay, yeah, right,” Alex said, poking at the cornhusks of the tamale. “For sure, once I get addicted. Oh, looky. Sprinkled with cheese and cream. So what’s this new job?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “Oooo, this is delicious.” The tamale disappeared in three bites. “Sorry, hadda eat it all. You want, I order some more?”

  “I’m already full.”

  “Dos, por favor,” she said to Juanita. “Probably already got them dished up.”

  “What’s the mystery?” I said. “What’s on the hard drives?”

  “Nothing.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Somebody ran a simple reformat of both hard drives.”

  “Somebody thought they were erasing data,” I said. “But they didn’t use a high-security program, they left tracks.”

  “Exciting tracks. I can retrieve most of the data, but not all. Then I’ll run a few software goodies of my own, see what I find. First new G5s I’ve seen, me being a Windows person at heart. Anything you want to tell me?”

  “Power went off before I could even boot up the machines.”

  “I mean, where’d you get them?” She saw my frown, studied the hard drives and my face, eyes flicking back and forth and settling on me. “You and Nathan? You and your daughter? Still problems?”

  I told her everything about Leon Begay and Green Valley.

  “Yuck. Lotsa old farts down there.” Alex seldom bothered with tact, but she saw my frown. “Sorry. Did you know him? Leon Begay?”

  “No.”

  “Jail time for Nathan. What’s up with you two, anyway? Don’t tell me. Okay. I’ll get on the hard drives, do some data crunching. I’ll get help from Stefan. You have any, I mean, any idea what I’m looking for?” Stuffing her mouth, she talked around the tamale. “Leon Begay.” The last forkful of tamale paused halfway to her mouth, thinking. “Might be just a coincidence, but the casino manager? Vincent Basaraba? I think he’s related to somebody named Leon Begay.”

  “Yes,” I said. “I met Vincent this morning. He’s invited me for dinner.”

  “Oooo. When?”

  “Tonight. About the data?”

  “Okay, okay. Let’s check something.” Pulled her cell from the shoulder bag, punched up a number. “Steffi. Yeah, don’t tell me I’m hot, not right now. Pull up any data you can find on a Vincent Basaraba. Check also on a Leon Begay. No. I’m not into that right now, Steffi. Pull up the file. I’ll hold.”

  “Steffi?” I said. “He plays tennis?”

  “Stefan’s bedroom name. What’s that?” Face twisted at a puzzle. “Thanks.” She held the cell in midair, studied my face. “Leon Begay is Vincent Basaraba’s brother. Did you know that Vincent used to be in movies?” Turning her head to murmur something to Stefan, probably what he should not say to me about their relationship. Handed me the cell.

  “Ya, Laura, okay?” Stefan sounded Russian. “Reading from the screen. Vincent Basaraba. Born Vincent Begay, Tuba City, Arizona, tenth day of March, nineteen hundred fifty-three. Nine years old, hired by John Ford as extra for a Western movie in Monument Valley…yada yada yada…moved to Hollywood at age of sixteen, took stage name Basarada, was in thirteen movies, starring roles in three. For sure, Laura, okay? How much detail you want?”

  “Everything you can find about the entire Begay family. They live near Monument Valley, probably don’t have telephones, good chance they don’t even have electronic records. Try Indian Health Service, the Navajo Nation records at Window Rock. Just upload it when you’re done. Alex will tell you where.”

  Alex watched me disconnect.

  “What aren’t you telling me?” she said. “You twist your lips around while you work on what you want to say or not say.”

  “Something’s happening to that family. Lots of death the past weeks.”

  “Meaning…what?”

  “Meaning I don’t have anything in focus. Nathan pulled me into this.”

  “You should go meet the guy for dinner. Vincent. He sounds kinda neat. Who was that, oh, Al Pacino is a Vincent somebody in Heat. People are saying Vincent, they push on that first syllable.” Juanita dropped a handwritten check on the table. “I got it.” Fumbling in her bag. “Gotta run.” Already standing up, she hesitated. “What’s this about, Laura? Murder-suicide? Nathan destroying furniture, ghosts?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Maybe just a coincidence. Oh. Got you some presents.” Dropping two packages on the table. “One of them’s a toy. Enjoy.” She blew a kiss, disappeared.

  I opened both packages inside my Cherokee. One a miniature Zen sand garden, five tiny rocks, a miniature rake. Chill out with some sand waves, Alex’s card read. The other with no card. Fifty yarrow stalks. A complete guide to the I Ching.

  Which was the toy?

  I drove the fifty miles to Casa Grande National Monument. Avoiding the back road where Spider and I almost wound up in a monster leaf-and-brush compactor. Stopped at a roadside table, alone, and threw the I Ching.

  23

  The bottom trigram emerged

  Kan. Water.

  An old method, using fifty yarrow stalks. I can’t remember when I first threw them, I was young, maybe early twenties, somebody knew the easy way, flipping three coins to get it over fast. I think I read the Wilhelm book, that’s where I got the yarrow stalks. Manipulate the yarrow three times to get one line, three lines form a trigram, six lines the complete ideogram, but separated into two parts, the upper trigram and the lower. A broken line is yin, a solid line is yang.

  Back in those days, it was only an entertainment, a pastime, an alternative to alcohol or dope or sex.

  A line of Gambel’s quail interrupted my concentration. Unusual for them to parade at midday, usually they’d head in one direction in the morning and come back in late afternoon. Something had startled them enough to move on. Strutting in single file, not even bothering to check for insects, cha ca go go on their way, half of them adults, I loved their waddling pace. A black head piece, the shape of a large apostrophe, wobbling back and forth from the rusty tops of the head, below a white stripe and black face, the younger quail with no head piece yet.

  Turning back to the yarrow stalks, I realized I’d forgotten my question.

  If the I Ching is to have any true meaning, you must concentrate on a central question and seek instruction and insight from the final ideogram.

  I had so many questions in my head, I had to run through them all again, as I did before starting. Not about Nathan, not about our relationship. Not about Spider? No, that troubled me, but my daughter and I hadn’t worked to any severe impasse.

  My gun.

  Or my reliance on guns, yes, a dilemma.

  Five separate incidents, over the past five years, all ending in violence and death, all involving in some way my shooting a gun.

  Yes. That was my question. Must I rely on weapons?

  I worked through the second trigram, and when I looked in the book for an interpretation, the total result staggered me.

  Water ove
r water.

  One of the worst of all the trigrams.

  The pit, the abyss.

  Darkness.

  I crushed all the yarrow stalks, threw the twiggy fragments under the bench, left the book on the table and drove to Casa Grande.

  24

  He came by at two-thirty, clumping an aluminum walker down the curving pathway toward our shaded bench. Alone, without Nathan, but this had to be Bob Good Fellow according to Nathan’s verbal picture. Several Rufus hummingbirds buzzed Bob’s head, momentarily fooled by the bright red bandanna he wore tight around his scalp like a gangbanger’s do-rag. A big man all around. Tall, chunky, muscled, with leathered skin below the do-rag. Sport coat hanging open, his Woody Woodpecker tie flopping over the checkered walnut grip of a Colt Python .357. He straightened the tie, didn’t bother covering up the pistol.

  A tour group of two dozen seniors, intent on hearing the history of Casa Grande Monument, shoaled apart just enough for Bob to slip through. Ninety-one degrees, surprisingly mild for late July, with breezes touching us in spurts.

  He hesitated in front of me. “Bob Good Fellow,” he said.

  “Laura Winslow.”

  “Nathan tell you how long we’ve known each other?”

  “Told me very little.”

  “That’d be his way. You know I’m with the Navajo Tribal Police?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hope this pistol doesn’t bother you. I feel naked without it. Moving so slow, I can’t outrun anybody anymore.”

  “No problem,” I said. “I’ve got a Beretta nine mil behind me. Nathan, now, he’s probably already said something to you about the gun.”

  “Enough of the killing ways, what he said. You use a belt holster, clip-on, nylon, what?”

  “Bent a coat hanger around it, slip that over my belt. I’d show you, but people with guns might freak out some of these seniors.”