Dov felt his face flush. "So why did you do it?"
"Tell you later. Maybe. If I feel like it. Now either get in or stay out there, eat my dust, and haul your sorry ass back to the airport. Me, I've got customers waiting and if I leave them on their own too long, there's always the danger that they'll wise up and go home."
"Customers? You mean the distribution network for the fetish animals and the dreamcatchers?" Dov had done his homework: Sam Turkey Feather was on the E. Godz, Inc. books as the Southwest's major mass producer of Native American merchandise with a "spiritual" subtext. "I thought you had enough sales reps to monitor that for you. How can we have an effective business meeting if you've got to futz around with a lot of piddling details that your subordinates should be handling?"
Sam looked at him as if he'd stuck a pair of chopsticks up his nose and started barking like a walrus.
"Kid, you ever get tired of chewing on that foot, you come to me and I'll spice it up with a little Earth Magic-brand salsa before you stick it back in your mouth. I've been running a successful organization since before you were born and dropped on your head, and that includes knowing how to get the most out of business meetings. You think I do a hands-on customer call when it's not completely necessary? Check the spreadsheets. That's not the way we drum up the big profits, no pun intended."
"What pun?"
"Whoa. You sure you're Edwina's boy? See, I said 'drum up the big profits,' and what I do is— Oh, the hell with it. That's what I wanted to show you right now, if you could maybe stop holding us up with a lot of stupid remarks and let us get started. So which is it, kid? You in or you out?
"In." Holding in his frustrated anger, Dov got into the Jeep. Sam didn't even wait for him to buckle up before flooring the accelerator and taking off.
Distances in the Indian territories of Arizona were best calculated using the same mind-set brought to understanding space travel. Folks from Back East who sighed like martyrs over having to face two-hour commutes each morning went into slack-jawed shock when confronting the southwestern concept of a "short" drive. Two hours on the road might get you out of the figurative parking lot. The day was young and the summer heat was still weeks away, but by the time they reached their destination, Dov was exhausted, sweltering, his eyes were full of grit, and he felt as though someone had run his kidneys through a blender with a handful of rocks thrown in to really get the job done.
As he climbed unsteadily out of the Jeep, Dov looked around. They had left the highway some time ago, heading over secondary roads and fifth-rate sheep tracks towards a distant prospect of tawny mountains, but the mountains still looked just as distant even though the highway itself was long gone.
This isn't even the middle of nowhere, Dov thought. It's the suburbs.
As for Sam, he'd jumped easily down from his seat and was now striding across the arid terrain, heading for a cluster of what looked like rawhide igloos. The brown humps in the distance reminded Dov of the coconut halves used in the old shell game at turn-of- the-century carnivals. Shills and sharpers knew that you didn't get a lot of milk out of a coconut, but you could use them to milk the suckers for plenty.
"Watch where you step," Sam called back to Dov.
"Snakes?" Dov cast nervous glances at the ground. Unlike Sam, he wasn't wearing boots; just designer running shoes.
"Nah; empties."
"Emp—?" That was all Dov had the chance to say before an ill-placed foot landed on a discarded bottle of high-priced mineral water. His legs shot out from under him and he landed on his rump.
"Ow! Get off me, you big hippo!" Ammi's muffled voice rang out loud and clear under the wide open sky. It should have reached Sam's ears as the yelp of a faraway coyote, thanks to the A.R.S.
It didn't.
Sam gave Dov a hand getting back to his feet, then said, "White man speak with surly butt."
"You heard that?" Dov was incredulous.
"Only part of me that doesn't work up to snuff's my teeth."
Slowly, almost shyly, Dov pulled the silver amulet out of his back pocket and held it up for Sam's inspection. The man stroked his chin and mused aloud: "You know, I could really use something like this." He tapped Ammi's nose lightly, making the amulet swing at the end of its chain. "How about it, friend?" he asked the amulet. "Ever thought of a career in show business?"
"What's in it for me, Turkey Plucker?" Ammi retorted.
"That's Turkey Feather," Sam said evenly.
"No, it's not." The amulet flashed a silver smirk. "I used to work for the boss lady, Edwina Godz herself, before she gave me to the kid, here. I was in on plenty of official correspondence, including all the paperwork that went through the office back in the days when you first joined the organization. Your real name is Sam Turkey Plucker, only you changed it to Turkey Feather on Edwina's advice, because it'd sound better for attracting the tourists."
"Is that true?" Dov gave Sam a questioning look.
Sam tossed his head back and laughed. "Yeah, Tex, he got me, all right. Pow, right between the eyes. Another one bites the dust. My true name's Turkey Plucker and when I met your mama I wasn't much more than that, except I was maybe starting to figure out that there was better money to be made plucking the tourists. Edwina and me, we were living together out here for a while—she said she wanted to be somewhere she could tap into the earth magic without hitting a telephone cable. Your mama, she was good for me, taught me to stop looking and start seeing, know what I mean? Seeing things like opportunities."
"You and my mother were—?" Dov couldn't believe it.
"Back when she was maybe eighteen, nineteen, around then. Why? Shocked? Scandalized? Grossed out? What?"
"Hey, I don't care if you and my mother slept together or not," Dov protested. "It's just that you don't look anywhere near old enough to have known her back then."
Sam picked up one of his black braids. "Hair dye. Better living through chemistry. And once my business got going I had more than enough cash to buy me my own private plastic surgeon, if I wanted, plus a carload of retin-A."
"Then why didn't you do anything about your teeth?"
Sam smiled extra wide on purpose. "Because my spirit guide Old Man Coyote told me that if I tried to make my mouth look as young as the rest of me, he'd make sure that all the words that came out of it were young too. Young and foolish. Gotta listen to your spirit guide, kid. Bad medicine if you don't pay heed."
Dov grabbed Ammi from Sam's hand. "If you're quite through yanking my chain?" he inquired frostily.
The older man clicked his tongue. "I can tell you're not gonna listen to me. Too bad. I expected more from Edwina's boy. Oh well, nothing to be done about it. Come on. I've kept the Seekers waiting long enough." He turned and started off for the cluster of brown domes again.
"Now just wait one minute!" Dov objected. "I think I'm entitled to know what's going on here."
"No, you're not," Sam said, never breaking stride. "Edwina always saw, always listened. Taught me to do the same. I'm not gonna tell you another word about who I am and what I do. You'll only hear the sounds my words make, but you won't understand a damn thing. If you're your mother's son, you'll catch on quick enough. If not, no charge."
"No charge? No charge for what?" Dov demanded, scampering after Sam.
By this time they were within a stone's throw of the brown domes. It was flat land, but tough going. The ground underfoot was thickly littered with at least two score of the same kind of bottle that Dov had slipped on before. Other detritis cluttered the earth: empty energy bar wrappers, used tissues and paper towels, toothpaste-stained twigs and one lonely, tapped-out tube of hemorrhoid cream. As Dov approached, he noted that the domes, which he had initially believed to be made out of hide, were actually cheap tents, their ripstop material painted to imitate leather. They were set up in a ring around a circle of cleared, beaten ground. All of the rubbish he'd been dodging was kept to the outer perimeter of the tent ring.