"If the town keeps declining," I said, "there won't be any carcass."
Hawk was nodding his head slowly.
"But if somebody picked up a lot of the real estate, and got rid of the Dell, then they make a big profit."
"She said even if it were good the town couldn't expand because of water limitations."
"But if somebody discovered a new water source?" Hawk said.
"Bonanza," I said.
"What'd Mary Lou Buckman used to do in L.A.?"
"Water resource specialist," I said.
"Fancy that," Hawk said.
Chapter 50
I WAS BACK in Cawley Dark's office with the airconditioning humming steadily. Dark had on a blue oxford shirt today. With him was a red-haired guy with a big Adam's apple.
"This is Ray Butler," Dark said. "He's the water resource guy for the county."
Butler and I shook hands. We sat in the two chairs facing Dark's desk.
"I told Ray about your situation down in Potshot. He was real impressed that I was doing legwork for a Boston shoo-fly."
"Me too," I said.
Dark leaned back and made a go-ahead gesture at me with his right hand.
"What's the water situation in Potshot?" I said to Butler.
"The Arapaho Aquifer," he said. "Extends from around Salt City in the Sawtooths, maybe eighty-five miles down through Potshot."
"An aquifer is like an underground river?" I said.
"More like an underground sponge," Butler said.
He had a high, sharp voice.
"Which holds water, and can be caused to yield it through wells or springs. The water seeps through pores and fractures in consolidated rock, or through spaces between the particles if it's unconsolidated."
"Thank you," I said.
Leaning back in his chair with his fingers laced over his flat stomach, Dark might have been in a reverie, except that there was a hint of amusement in the way his eyes moved.
"There are, of course, confined aquifers and unconfined aquifers."
"Of course," I said. "Is the Arapaho Aquifer sufficient to the needs of Potshot?"
"Barely," Butler said.
"Does that limit development?"
"Of course it does," Butler keened.
Talking to the likes of me was clearly painful for him.
"What would happen if the water consumption exceeded the capacity of the aquifer?"
"It could not recharge at a pace sufficient to the need."
Everything Butler said sounded like sort of a high-pitched protest.
"So they'd run out of water."
"That's what I just said."
"Is there any possibility that there is another aquifer?"
"Of course there is. It would be presumptuous to suggest that we know everything about the substrata."
"Presumptuous," I said. "Is it likely?"
Butler paused. How to say this to an unscientific moron?
"It's possible," he said finally.
"And if there were an increase in the amount of available water," I said. "Then I assume it would support increased development."
"It would make it possible," Butler said, "where, right now, it is not."
"Anybody been looking for water down there?"
"No."
"How do you know?"
"In this environment, water is very precious," Butler said. "We cannot permit it to be exploited without supervision."
"So how would you know," I said.
"We'd know."
"How?"
Butler was silent. It was impossible that this rube had asked him a question he couldn't answer.
"Do you know how," I said to Dark.
Dark shook his head.
"There would be evidence of exploration," Butler said.
"When's the last time you looked?"
Again Butler was silent.
After awhile Dark said, "Well thank you very much, Ray, I don't believe we'll be needing anything else."
Butler stood and shook hands with me, sourly, I thought, and departed.
"Ray's never met a man he didn't like," Dark said.
"Be fun to drink beer with," I said.
"If you drank a real lot," Dark said.
"You able to get anyone to check the real estate?"
" 'Course I did," Dark said. "I'm the goddamned police."
"And?"
"And I had somebody go over to the county hall, like you wanted, and look up real estate transactions in and around Potshot. Here's a list."
Dark handed me the list.
"Recognize any names?" he said.
"Couple," I said. "Who's this Saguaro Development Associates?"
"Thought you'd ask me that," Dark said. He handed me another sheet. "Recognize any names?" he said.
"All of them," I said.
I took it and folded it over and tucked it in the inside pocket of my elegant toffee-colored summer silk tweed jacket, which I wore to conceal my somewhat less elegant, blue-barreled handgun.
Chapter 51
"We WALKED THROUGH it," Hawk said at breakfast. "Without the shotguns."
"Or the Heckler," Vinnie said.
"I have no shotgun," Chollo said.
"Artists are so self-absorbed," I said. "You see anything wrong with the plan?"
"It should be smooth," Hawk said. "Vinnie got a nice view of the street. We do it right we'll be right up against them 'fore they got any idea we there."
"I want to get a look at Pony," Tedy Sapp said.
"Be easy to spot him," Hawk said.
Sapp poured himself more coffee.
"For crissake, Tedy," Bernard said. "How many cups is that?"
"Six."
"Don't you get all jeeped up?" Bernard said.
"Sure," Tedy said. "It's why I drink it."
"You learn anything yesterday worth knowing?" Hawk said to me.
"Potshot can't get any bigger," I said. "Unless there's an additional source of water."
"Like somebody finds an underground river?" Hawk said.
I shook my head pityingly.
"It's a common misconception," I said, "that water flows underground like a river. Most aquifers are better thought of as a giant sponge, which holds the water. One such aquifer, the Arapaho Aquifer, supplies the water currently sustaining Potshot."
"Anglos are generally dull," Chollo said, "but you senor, you are truly so."
"So are there any other underground sponges beside the Arapaho thing?" Hawk said.
"My expert does not know, which makes him very unhappy, but he says it's possible."
"So if someone found one," Sapp said.
"And kept their mouth shut," Hawk said.
"And perhaps purchased some land, cheap?"
I took my list out of my pocket and spread it on the table. Beside it I put the list of names of people who comprised the Saguaro Development Associates.
Everybody looked at both papers while I waited, watching enviously as Sapp polished off his sixth cup of coffee.
"Appears that we employed by Saguaro Associates," Hawk said.
"J. George Taylor," Bernard read aloud. "Luther M. Barnes, Henry F. Brown, Roscoe B. Land, Mary Louise Allard."
"Read it again, Bernard," Tedy Sapp said. "It was like listening to music."
Bernard ignored Sapp.
"Who's this Mary Louise Allard?" he said.
"Our own Mary Lou," I said. "Allard is her maiden name."
Everyone was quiet for awhile.
Then Vinnie said, "So what the hell does that mean?"
"Means we're in the middle of some kind of very big swindle," Sapp said.
"So whose side are we on?" Chollo said.
"I'm not sure," I said.
Hawk said, "Preacher might know."
"Yeah," I said. "He might."
Chapter 52
HAWK AND I sat in the dark on the front porch of The Jack Rabbit Inn drinking coffee and waiting for the light. When it finally arrived it came slowly, from behind us, seeping up over the hotel until it splashed gray, barely perceptible, onto the street in front of us. Hawk poured some more coffee from the Thermos. On the street there was no movement beyond the pale creeping illumination of the morning.
"You figure The Preacher an early riser?" Hawk said.
"I wanted everything in place."