I started, caught my hat against my chest, and sat up with my weight on my arms. I stared into the small amount of light from the hallway, pulled my pocket watch out to read the time, and took a deep breath; I’d only been asleep for an hour or so. I could feel a cooling sweat at my throat and decided I wasn’t going to be able to go back to sleep so I reached down slowly to pick up my coat where it had fallen and placed my hat on my head. I was a little unsteady at first but walked out to the main part of the room and turned the corner to check on Saizarbitoria. He was still sleeping, and I had a brief twinge of jealousy; oh, to be twenty-eight, clear of conscience and young of body. “In the May-morn of his youth, ripe for exploits and mighty enterprises.” I wondered how the kid was with Shakespeare.
Dog followed as I made my way to my office and then curled up beside my desk and fell fast asleep; he didn’t have a care. Something was bothering me though, in the recent scheme of things, and the first thing I could think of was Isaac’s car. The old Mercedes was in miraculous condition; why had the brakes failed? In the few words that had passed between us, he had said that they hadn’t worked. It was crazy, but a lot of things were as of late. I got an empty Post-it from Ruby’s desk and wrote a note to Saizarbitoria to go over to Sonny George’s tomorrow and check the Mercedes’s brakes for tampering. I stuck the note on his handcuffs, still locked to the door.
I absentmindedly plucked Sancho’s Post-it from the doorway of my office, walked around Dog, and sat at my desk. It was the middle of the night, and I was too awake to sleep. I looked at the Post-it in my hands, noting that the last time Sancho had called the notorious Charlie Nurburn was at 9:32 P.M. The kid was courteous to a fault.
I looked at the phone and figured what the hell, he’d be home. As I dialed the number, I entertained the thought that there wasn’t anybody who better deserved to be woken up in the middle of the night. It rang four times and then picked up. I started to say, “Absaroka County Sheriff’s Department, I’m sorry if…” but stopped speaking when I realized it was the answering machine. Charlie Nurburn introduced himself, apologized for being unable to answer the phone, and then invited me to leave a message after the tone. All was as it should be, just another voice on another answering machine.
The only thing was that it was the voice of Lucian Connally.
7
The stamped plate made a god-awful noise as it clattered across the counter and came to rest beside the little chrome cradle that held the menus, ketchup, mustard, and salt and pepper shakers. “You know what that is?”
He looked at the rusted metal and the small amount of dirt that had shaken loose from its surface, took a sip from his cup, and then placed it back on the half ring of spilled coffee on the counter. “That is a license plate, an old one.” It was early in the morning, and it had taken me awhile to find him. There was nobody in the place, but I took the seat diagonal to him across from the cash register. I was very angry, and I thought that if I sat a little away, it might keep me from grabbing him by the throat. “You know where I got it?”
He took another sip of coffee as though he hadn’t a care in the world. “Off a car, I suspect.”
I got up, moved around to his side, and sat on the stool next to him; it would be hard to grab him by the throat from where I had been before. “You got a story to tell me?” I unbuttoned my sheepskin jacket and pushed my hat farther up on my head.
My own cup of coffee appeared to my right. “The usual?”
“The usual.” She disappeared, and I turned back to the old sheriff. He kept sipping his coffee and staring at the bee collection above the grill. “I wanna hear the one about an answering machine and a vacant room in Vista Verde, New Mexico. I wanna hear the one about your buddy Sheriff Marcos DeLeon down in Rio County, who’s been taking care of the W-2s and social security. I wanna hear the one about an abandoned Kaiser lodged in the embankment of the Little Powder since 1951.”
“52.”
I leaned back and breathed for the first time since entering the little cafe. “Keep talking, I’m all ears.” It got very quiet, and you could almost hear the water running below the frozen surface of Clear Creek, which flowed alongside the Busy Bee.
“Yer all nose not ears.” He sat the coffee cup down and swiveled his head around to look in my general direction. “What’s the ME say?”
“Not a thing until you tell me about Charlie Nurburn.” I pulled my pocket watch out of my jeans: 6:37 A.M. “I’ve got all day but, this being a Thursday, you’ve probably got an appointment.”
It took him quite a while to come out of the stillness that overtook him, get his coat on, and position his prosthetic leg. I waited as he zipped up an old Carhartt, far too light for the weather, and placed his hat on his head. “You… can go to hell.” The heavy glass door swept shut, allowing a gust of snowflakes to skitter across at my boots. I watched as they melted.
“I hear hell’s nice this time of year.” She reached down and studied the license plate as I stared at the floor. “Want some advice?” She continued on course and ignored my warning look as she always did when I needed ignoring. “Go easy.”
I took a deep breath. “I’m trying.” She had held off on the usual and watched me as I rebuttoned my coat. I took the time to sip my coffee; I figured I could catch a one-legged old man in a snowstorm.
When I got outside, he was gone. “Damn.” I watched the vapor of my breath whip past me as I looked up and then down. Nobody. The streetlights were still on, and there was only one set of tire tracks on Main Street. It was about then that I fell back on one of my old Indian tricks and followed the only set of footprints on the snow-covered sidewalk other than mine. I opened the door of my truck, which was parked outside the Busy Bee, and let Dog out. I figured I needed backup.
The tracks stopped in front of the Euskadi Hotel, and the snow was pushed back from the door like the broken wing of a fallen snow angel. I pulled the handle and saw him sitting there, filling his pipe from the beaded tobacco bag. The jukebox was crooning Frank’s “Ave Maria,” and he was at the table in the center of the room, looking very fragile and alone. “Get the hell outta here.”
I stood and looked at his silver belly hat that rested crown up on the white tablecloth; it was still in good shape and was probably the last one the old sheriff would buy. Dog didn’t move. We looked at each other and then back to him. “Dog is cold.”
He shifted his weight and turned away from the door as he zipped up the bag and laid it on the table along with the keys to the building. “The dog can come in, but you better damn well go.” He patted his leg, and Dog was there in an instant. The gnarled old hand gently smoothed the fur behind his ears. “You don’t care who you hang around with, do you?”
The door swung shut behind me as I walked over and sat at the other side of his table and adjusted the plastic flowers so that we would have an unobstructed view of each other. I unbuttoned my coat and waited for a good long time, breathing the warm air. I wanted to start asking questions again, but it was too close and raw. I sat the license plate on the seat beside me, looked at the keys on the table, and settled on another subject. “So, you’re the one who owns the Euskadi?”
It took awhile but, after lighting his pipe and taking a few puffs, he answered. “Hahhm.” After smoking for a while longer, he spoke. “Came up fer sale back in the sixties and bought it for a song. Brought Jerry Aranzadi in as the vocal partner and to run the place; only way to keep it on the up and up, and he doesn’t steal too much.” He took a deep breath. “Still the only place in town where you don’t get offered a blueberry beer.”
“Jerry’s Basque?”
“Yeah, he’s one of them high-altitude Mexicans.”
I smiled; it was a common phrase in these parts. “It’s always been a nice place.”