“No more trying to make you a powerful person?”
“Not since then. Not hardly any.”
“Well, let’s go then and see if we can find Mr.
Delonie.”
Two pickup trucks and an aged Chevy sedan were parked at the Torreon Chapter House, but the owner of one truck was leaving. No, he hadn’t seen Delonie today THE SHAPE SHIFTER
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and wasn’t sure where he would be. The other truck, on closer inspection, proved to have been left there with a blown rear tire, and no one was inside the building except Mrs. Sandra Nezbah, a sturdily built, middle-aged woman who greeted them with a warm smile. But no, she wasn’t sure where Delonie might be found now. She looked at her watch. Probably at home. And where was that? She took them to a side door and pointed eastward, toward the slopes of Torreon ridge. His was the little house with the flat roof and the big barn behind it, and that vehicle by the barn looked like it might be his. “That great big Dodge Ram truck,” she said admiringly. “Has diesel power, four-wheel drive. Quite a truck.”
17
The truck was still there when Leaphorn pulled up by the driveway, turned off the ignition, and waited the polite Navajo moment for the residents to recognize his pres-ence. Short wait, because Delonie had heard them and stood by the barn door looking out at them.
“Ya eeh teh,” Leaphorn shouted as he got out. “Mr.
Delonie. We are happy we found you at home.”
“Well,” said, Delonie, still standing at the barn door and looking uneasy. “Is it Lieutenant Leaphorn? What brings you out here? You working for my parole officer these days?”
“I want you to meet Tommy Vang,” Leaphorn said, gesturing to Tommy, who was climbing out of the truck.
“We want to provide you with some information, and see what you think about it.”
Delonie considered that. Produced a skeptical-looking grin. “I’ll bet you’re not about to tell me you found all the 204
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loot Shewnack took from the Handy’s robbery. Did you dig that up?”
“More important than that,” Leaphorn said. “We want to tell you some things and see if you will agree with us that this fellow we’ve been calling Shewnack is still alive.
In fact, still in operation.”
Delonie took a deep breath. “Still alive? Shewnack?
You telling me that son of a bitch didn’t burn up at Totter’s? Who was it then? What do you mean?”
“It’s going to take a few minutes to explain what we’re talking about. You have some time?”
“I’ve got the rest of my life for this,” Delonie said. He ushered them into his house, gestured around the front room, said, “Make yourselves comfortable.” Then he disappeared into what seemed to be the kitchen. “Got about half a pot of coffee in here, and I’ll warm it up a little and see how it tastes.”
A glance around the room showed Leaphorn that Delonie was not better than most in bachelor housekeeping.
For seating it offered a massive old sofa, its sagging cush-ions partly hidden by an army blanket; a recliner chair upholstered in cracked black plastic; a rocking chair with a well-worn square cushion; three straight-backed wooden dining room chairs, two waiting at a cluttered table and the third leaned against the wall. The floor surface was a linoleum sheet patterned with blue-green tiles, but the effect was marred by too many years of hard wear.
Beyond all this, a double-width sliding glass door looked out into a walled patio.
“Take a seat in there,” Delonie said. “This java is a little stale but drinkable and I’ll have it hot in a minute.” Leaphorn was looking at Tommy Vang, hoping to use THE SHAPE SHIFTER
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that available minute to plan how they’d communicate with Delonie. But Vang’s eyes—and his attention—were focused on the view out the window, where a busy squad-ron of hummingbirds was zipping, drinking, pushing, and waiting around a cluster of feeders hanging from the patio rafters. Maybe a dozen of them, Leaphorn estimated, but they were moving too fast for an accurate count. But he thought he recognized at least three species.
In the little yard beyond the dangling feeders, a larger gaggle of birds were at work. Delonie, or whoever was responsible, had converted the patio into a disorganized forest of fence posts, each topped by grain feeders.
These were augmented by a variety of others, some hanging from the limbs of pinyon trees, some attached to the yard wall, and the largest one—a log partially hollowed to hold more bulky bird food and fitted with a birdbath of cast concrete shaped to look like someone’s version of an oversized clam shell. At the moment, two doves were drinking from it. Above and behind and all around the air was aflutter with avian activity.
Tommy Vang was grinning at Leaphorn, pointing at the aerial show.
Delonie emerged from the kitchen. On his right hand he was balancing a tray that held a can of condensed milk, a sugar sack from which a spoon handle emerged, and three cups. His left hand held a steaming coffeepot.
He put the tray on the table and poured the coffee.
“Grab one and doctor it up the way you like, and then I want you to tell me how this son of a bitch Shewnack has raised himself from the dead.”
Delonie chose the recliner as his spot for this conversation, but he sat on the chair’s edge, making no attempt 206
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to get comfortable. He had poured a bit of condensed milk and a dollop of sugar into his cup, and now he swirled it around. He glanced at Vang now and then, but mostly kept his eyes on Leaphorn.
Leaphorn was drinking his coffee black. He took a sip, suppressed a startled reaction, and smiled at Delonie over the rim. It was stale, but it was hot. And it was the first coffee he’d had for a while.
“First, I want to tell you about Tommy Vang here,” he said. “He’s a part of this story, and he brought you a present. He’ll give you that later, after we do some explaining.
Tommy has got to tell you about his part, and that goes all the way back to the Vietnam War.”
Delonie nodded at Vang, took a sip of his coffee, and waited—still on the very edge of the chair. “Yes,” he said.
“Go ahead, Tommy,” Leaphorn said. “Tell Mr. Delonie about the CIA agent, and how he was working with your family in the mountains, and about his taking you out of the refugee camp. All that.”
Tommy Vang did as he was told. Hesitantly at first, and in a low voice that grew louder as he began to see that Delonie was interested—even in hearing about his cooking lessons and his valet duties. When he reached the times when he was often left alone and his boss was away week after week, he hesitated, glanced at Leaphorn for instructions.
“Now we are getting to the time when you are about to be involved. About now this fellow has disappeared from San Francisco and a fellow who calls himself Ray Shewnack has showed up out here. You remember?” Delonie’s expression had changed as Leaphorn was saying that. He bent forward, eyes intent.
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“Damn right,” Delonie said. “I remember that day.
Cold day. Ellie and me had been over to the Sky City Casino. Having some lunch, talking to some people, and Bennie Begay saw us, and Bennie brought this Shewnack over. They’d been playing seven card stud in the poker room, as I remember it, and Begay introduced us. Said Shewnack was from California, was a detective with the Santa Monica Police Department. Out here on vacation.
Just looking around.”
Delonie nodded to Leaphorn. “How about that? A policeman on vacation.”
“I guess it sort of fits into what we’re going to be telling you. Changed names, changed places, never the same twice.”
“Evil son of a bitch,” Delonie said. “Like those worst kind of witches you Navajos have. The shape shifters.”