“Back in Window Rock they think you’re dead,” Leaphorn said. “That’s what I was told.”
“Speak up,” McGinnis said. “My hearing ain’t what it was, and I can’t make it out when you’re mumbling. But I’m supposed to be dead, huh?”
“Dead and gone.”
McGinnis had put on his spectacles and was leaning on the back of his chair, peering at Leaphorn.
“Let’s see now,” he said. “You’re that Navajo policeman. Used to come out here years ago and drink my soda pop and get me to tell you where to find people. That right? You were out here a lot when Old Man Tso got murdered, I remember that. And I believe your granddaddy was that old fella they called Horse Kicker. Am I right? And your mother was a Gorman. One of the Slow Talking Dinee.”
“My grandfather was Hosteen Klee, and nobody ever called him Horse Kicker but you,” Leaphorn said. “And Mr. McGinnis, I want to say I’m glad they’re wrong about you being dead.”
“If you thought I was dead, what the devil brought you way out here? What are you after? You don’t come here not wanting something.”
Before Leaphorn could answer, McGinnis was hobbling back through the store toward the doorway that led to his living quarters.
“I’m going to make you some coffee,” he said. “Unless you broke that habit you had of not drinking whiskey.”
“I’ll take coffee,” said Leaphorn, following McGinnis. But he grimaced as he said it. After all these years he could still remember the awful acidic flavor of the old man’s brew.
McGinnis lit the propane stove on what passed as his kitchen work space, took a chipped cup and a Coca-Cola glass out of the cabinet above. He put his coffeepot over the burner and took a bottle of Jack Daniel’s out of a drawer. He opened that and carefully poured until the glass was filled up to the bottom of the red trademark C.
“Have a seat,” he said. “I’ll take a sip or two of this while your coffee gets made and you can tell me what you want me to do for you. Tell me what sort of favor you’re after this time.”
“Well, first I want to know how you’re doing. Looks like you’re still in business. Still grouchy as ever.”
McGinnis snorted, sipped his bourbon, sipped again. He held the glass up close to his eyes, studied it, picked up the bourbon bottle, and dribbled in enough to restore the liquid level up to the bottom of the C.
“Business?” he said. “Just barely. Customers all starved out, or they drive over to Page and do their buying there. Once in a while somebody comes in. Usually it’s just to offer to trade me something. That’s sort of what I’m doing now. Just getting rid of what I’ve got left. The giant oil company folks, they already quit bringing the gasoline supply truck out here. Said I didn’t buy as much as they burned driving the delivery truck out.”
They talked awhile about that, about how Old Lady Nez came by with her daughter every once in a while and baked him some bread and did some other cooking for him in exchange for some of the canned goods he still had on his shelves.
“Except for that, I don’t see many people anymore. And now we’ve got that covered, you’re going to ask me what you want to know.”
“All right,” Leaphorn said. “I want to know about that robbery you had.”
“Wasn’t a robbery. Robbery they point a gun at you and take your stuff. Cop like you ought to know the difference. This was a burglary. Broke in after I was sleeping, took a box of canned meat, sugar, stuff like that, and the money I had in my cash box. Mostly food, though. That what you want to know? I can’t tell you much. It didn’t wake me up.”
He gave Leaphorn a slightly sheepish smile and held up the bourbon bottle.
“I’d been watching that damned TV set and sipping a little more than I should. Didn’t even hear the son of a bitch. Didn’t know he’d been there until I noticed stuff gone from the grocery shelves.”
“Just grocery? They take anything else?”
“Took the blanket I had hanging on a rack in there, and some ketchup, and…” he frowned, straining to remember. “I believe I was missing a box of thirty-thirty ammunition. But mostly food.”
“None of it ever recovered?”
McGinnis laughed. “’Course not,” he said. “If the burglar didn’t eat it, you cops would have done that if you caught him.”
“You didn’t mention a diamond. How about that?”
“Diamond?”
“Diamond worth about ten thousand dollars.”
McGinnis frowned. Took another tiny sip. Looked up at Leaphorn.
“Oh,” McGinnis said. “That diamond.”
“The one you mentioned on the insurance claim report. You listed it as a ten-thousand-dollar diamond.”
“Oh, yeah,” McGinnis said, and took another sip of his bourbon.
“Did you get it back?”
“No.”
“Did you get your insurance money for it?”
McGinnis peered at Leaphorn, blinked his watery blue eyes, rubbed his hands across them, put down his glass, and sighed.
“I remember that time, years ago, you came in here trying to find a shaman. Margaret Cigaret, I believe it was—a Listener, as I recall her. And I told you who her clan was, and about a Kinaalda being held for one of the little girls in her clan, and you was smart enough to know Old Woman Cigaret would likely be out where they was holding that ceremonial and we sort of got acquainted.”
Having finished that statement to remind Leaphorn of his good deed, McGinnis nodded, signaling Leaphorn that he could comment on his helpfulness without violating the polite Navajo ban against interrupting.
“I remember,” Leaphorn said. “You also told me you knew my grandfather. You claimed they used to call Hosteen Klee Horse Kicker. It made my mother mad at you when I told her that. She said only a liar would say something like that.”
“Boys shouldn’t tell their mothers such things. Insulting your grandfather,” McGinnis said, choosing to ignore the implication. “Anyway, that day it got to be more like two friends talking. You and me. Not like you was a lawman.” He peered at Leaphorn, quizzically.
Leaphorn nodded.
“You still thinking that way?”
Leaphorn considered that. “When Captain Pinto told me you died, that didn’t seem right to me. I didn’t want to believe it. Too many old friends are dying. I didn’t really think I could learn anything about that diamond out here. I just wanted to see if I could bring back some old memories about when I was really a policeman. Maybe it would help me get into harmony with living with so many of my friends gone.”
McGinnis picked up his glass, made a sort of semi-toasting gesture with it and took a sip, hoisted himself from the rocker, and shuffled off through the doorway into his bedroom.
Leaphorn sipped his coffee. His memory of the chemical taste proved accurate. He put down the cup, grimaced, watched the dust float through the shaft of sunlight slanting through the window, remembering how this place (and his own life) had been when he’d been a young cop working out of Tuba City, learning the trade.
McGinnis emerged, lowered himself into the rocker, put the pouch on his lap, and looked at Leaphorn, expression stern.
“Now it’s time for you to tell me what kind of information you want to get from me.”
“Fair enough,” Leaphorn said. “You may have read about that robbery at Zuni a while back. It was in the papers. On TV. On the radio.”
“Fella killed one of them tourist-trap operators, wasn’t it?” McGinnis said. “One of those places where tourists buy all that Indian junk. Heard it on the radio. Fella got off with some money and a bunch of other stuff.”
“Right,” Leaphorn said. “Well, now they have a suspect in jail at Gallup. A Hopi who tried to pawn a diamond worth maybe twenty thousand and he wanted only twenty dollars in pawn. FBI thinks he must have gotten it in the robbery. But he claims a man gave it to him down in the Grand Canyon years ago. This Hopi’s name is Billy Tuve and he’s a cousin of Cowboy Dashee. You remember Cowboy?”