“How far?”
“Keep going.”
Ogden did. Now, off the back tracks and on the smooth and monotonous pavement, he began to feel tired and sleepy. He rolled his window down all the way and let the wet, cold wind slap his face. They rolled through the tiny blink Elizabethtown and Ogden realized that just a few clicks away was Eagle Nest.
“Here, turn left here,” Beetle said.
Ogden did. If there had been rain on this side of the mountains, it hadn’t amounted to much. The dirt road was more than decent. After three or so miles the house came into view and the road made sense; rich people enjoyed good roads, paid for good roads. The house was a beautiful, sprawling adobe with a wraparound portal that seamlessly connected the structure to the exterior planting of yucca, juniper, cacti, purple sage, and salvia.
“You know the people who live here?” Ogden asked.
“Yeah, he’s my buddy.”
“What his name?”
“Derrick.”
“Derrick what?”
“Derrick. His name is Derrick.”
Ogden asked no more questions. He stopped the truck in the clearly demarcated gravel parking area and looked at the heavy, antique front door set into a windowless seven-foot-high adobe wall. There were no other cars. Beetle climbed out and Ogden followed the mismatched flip-flops across the path of pea-sized stones through the garden. Beetle opened the door and they stepped into a courtyard. The house faced the yard on three sides and was all windows, even the bedrooms. A well-shaped and healthy pagoda tree was centered in the yard. There was no sign of anyone. Beetle walked to the glass door of the living room and slid it open, walked in without hesitation. Ogden followed him, but with, if not hesitation, reservation and even reluctance. He called into the house once standing on the polished saltillo tiles. The room was warm. He called out again, “Hello!”
“He’s not home,” Beetle said.
Ogden didn’t know what to do.
Beetle plunked himself down on a red leather sofa and pulled a Zapotec blanket over himself. “So, now we sit and wait a little bit. He’ll be here.”
Ogden walked around the room, looking at the photographs, looking for some face he had seen before, looking for a picture of a child, any child, looking for Conrad Hempel. He looked for magazines or letters, anything with a name on it and found nothing. There was a burning in his brain, a rage that wasn’t exactly new and that frightened him for its familiarity. He sat in the leather chair that matched Beetle’s sofa and before he knew it he was asleep.
There was no rain, only bright sunshine, late morning sunshine, cool air but hardly a breeze, the stream below the little dam but a trickle, a western bluebird saying nothing and Ogden standing there, leaning there on that tool, his shirt off, sweating and drying. Terry Lowell was there, too, looking concerned, looking worried, his hands held away from his sides, his breathing short and catching. He wore his Fish and Game uniform, his trousers creased, his shirt collar stiff and hugging his neck though his top button was not fastened, his eyes fixed, his gaze fixed, the frame behind him nothing but blue sky and a bit of the mesa’s rim, as he was standing on a boulder’s upslope. And he wanted to know, wanted to know, and Ogden attended to his business, his own business, his hands wet with his business and he was not the Ogden he knew, was not the Ogden that Terry Lowell knew, as he stood there, leaning on his tool, looking down and away from Terry’s eyes, finding a key somewhere and ready to lock or unlock, he could not tell which, waiting to turn one way or the other, the sky so blue and framing Terry just so and filling the deep gorge just so, just so, just so. Ogden moved his foot and he brushed against something. He glanced down, thinking it was the blade of the tool he held, but it was not. Sutures showed through the torn surface, ragged and torn and peeling back, layers. Ogden tasted bile and it burned in his throat, in his belly, in his head.
“Who are you?” the voice came into Ogden’s sleep, but it was not Terry’s and not his own.
Beetle was awake, straightening himself, a comic effort, stepping out of one his flip-flops. “Hey, Derrick, this here is my man.”
“What’s your man’s name?”
Beetle didn’t know.
“My name is Ogden.”
“What are you doing in my house?”
“Waiting for you,” Ogden said.
“I can see that.”
“What’s your last name?” Ogden asked.
“Fuck you,” Derrick said. “This is my fucking house.”
“I’m aware of that. My name is Ogden Walker, I’m a Plata County deputy sheriff.”
Derrick turned to Beetle. “You fuck, you brought a cop to my house?”
“Do you have a son?” Ogden asked.
“No, I don’t have a fucking son. What kind of fucking question is that? And this is illegal entry, you know that?”
“I don’t care what you’ve got here,” Ogden said. “Is your last name Yates?”
“I’m not telling you shit.”
“I can find out your name,” Ogden said.
“Then find it the fuck out, Sherlock.” Then, to Beetle, “Get your ass out of my house and take your man with you.”
“I came all this way. You gonna set me up, right?” Beetle did a little dance.
“Get out.”
“No, man, no no no, I need something, anything. I came a long way. I got here. You said if I ever got here, you’d set me up. You said it. I even got me some money.” Beetle pulled a wad of cash out his sweatpants pocket.
“Get out of my fucking house!”
“Where is the kid?” Ogden asked.
“There ain’t no kid.”
A vehicle crunched to a stop out on the gravel. Ogden looked out at the big door to the courtyard. He wondered if Warren had traced the kid to this house. When the door opened he saw that it was the flyweight from the meth lab. Ogden realized as he saw the small man approach that he, Ogden, was in fact afraid of him. Flyweight was hard, a seasoned criminal, and it showed in his walk and in the way he’d reacted when he’d had a pistol pointed at him. Of course the barrel of the weapon had not been in his mouth, but nonetheless he had remained calm, had measured the situation. Ogden had seen him do it. And now he was coming into this house. Flyweight leaned forward a bit as he walked, trying to see into
the house. It was clear he didn’t have a good view from outside, glare perhaps. Ogden turned his back on the room and walked to the kiva fireplace as the man entered.
“What is this, a party?” Flyweight said. “What’s that junkie doing here? How you get up here, junkie? Somebody was looking for you, Meth-mouth.”
Ogden could feel the man’s eyes on him.
“Hey,” Flyweight said, a note of recognition in his voice.
Ogden turned with his pistol out of his pocket and pointed at Flyweight.
“Again with the gun,” the small man said.
“Afraid so,” Ogden said.
“I see you found Meth-mouth. So, why the gun?”
“Because you have one,” Ogden said.
Derrick was now visibly frightened. He backed a couple of steps away.
“You stay with the pack,” Ogden said. “Stay close. I need you close. I need you to tell me where Willy Yates is.”
“What are you talking about?” Derrick asked.
“He’s loco,” Flyweight said.
Beetle fell onto the sofa and curled up in the fetal position, muttered to himself, saying, “Just a little, just a little and I’ll be gone. I don’t need to be here. Need some dope, man.”
“I’m telling you there is no Willy Yates, man. And there ain’t no kid,” Derrick said.