When I
started looking around for something in THE
BISTI BUSINESS to talk about today, I came across the following scenes
early in the book. BJ has been hired to locate the son of Napa Valley wine
mogul and his traveling companion. Given that the two young men are gay and the
father’s attitude is definitely homophobic, BJ wonders if the two haven’t
disappeared on purpose. Nonetheless, he sets about doing what he’s been hired
to do. In the following passage from the book, he contacts his old partner at
the Albuquerque Police Department with the intent of picking his brains. I
chose this because it gives you a flavor of downtown Albuquerque and some of
the state’s other interesting points.
###
Gene
Enriquez, my old partner at APD, had recently made Lieutenant, and he sometimes
chaffed at the rein the promotion put on his field work. When I called, he
indulged in some bellyaching about being swamped but agreed to meet for a cup
of coffee at Eulalia’s in the La Posada on Second and Copper, a short walk for
each of us.
The
central core of my building opened onto an atrium soaring through all five
levels. As the elevator doors parted on the ground floor, my eyes automatically
swept the waxed tiles. A year ago, a man had died on those hard clay squares
when he went over the railing after attacking me on the landing outside of my
office on the third floor. Sometimes I still saw smears of blood on the floor,
but it was an illusion. The blue-black terracotta was scrubbed spotless and
polished to a high shine.
I
exited the building and headed east on Copper, pausing to say hello to the
“Sidewalk Society,” nine life-sized bronzes by the Santa Fe based sculptor,
Glenna Goodacre, that were grouped on the corner sidewalk outside the Hyatt
Regency. After greeting the cast figures almost daily for the past few years, I
had reached a few conclusions about them. The young woman with a briefcase was
said to be an up-and-coming CEO, but I’m convinced she was a 1950s lawyer. The
construction worker and his foreman, who sported a battered, old-style
broad-brimmed hat, represented the thirties or forties. It had taken me some
time to tumble to the fact the statues reflected different time periods in
Albuquerque’s more recent history.
Gene
yelled for me to wait for him as he strode briskly across Civic Plaza. “You
always talk to statues?” He was a little breathless after running to beat the
light change at the intersection. A stocky Hispanic with regular, pleasant
features that seem vaguely Polynesian, Gene always appeared slightly frazzled;
a consequence of dealing with the Albuquerque Police Department, a wife, and
five kids on a daily basis.
I
accepted both his hand and his ribbing. “Every time. Get some of my best
answers from them.”
“I
keep expecting one of the rookies to arrest the kid.” He motioned to the bronze
of a teenager with a skateboard.
We
entered the La Posada by the north entrance and stepped into another world. The
interior was done in Spanish Territorial with aged wood copings, corbels
highlighted in scarlet and turquoise, and heavily carved lintels. Nichos,
small shelves in the white plastered walls, held carved wooden Santos
and ornate Mexican tinwork. This hotel had once been part of the Hilton
chain—Conrad’s first in New Mexico, as a matter of fact—but had been recently
sold, yet again, and was scheduled for a makeover in the near future.
Gene
and I selected a heavy oak table stained ebony by the passage of time, and
claimed a pair of sturdy straight-backed chairs padded in green and gold. We
spent a few minutes bringing one another up to date on our lives.
After
making a brunch of the restaurant’s éclairs and a wedge of superb lemon
meringue pie dribbled with chocolate, Gene was through chitchatting. “Okay, so
what do you want?”
“What
makes you think I want something? Can’t I call a pal without having an ulterior
motive?”
“No.”
I
pretended to think for a moment. “Okay then, I’ve got a client looking for his
missing son and the kid’s traveling companion.” In less than two minutes, I’d
briefed him on the situation.
“So
they’re like that, huh?” He wiggled his hand back and forth, a gesture that was
supposed to convey something. Gene knew me too well to be sensitive about my
sexual orientation.
“You
mean are they gay? Yeah, I’d say so.”
“And
you want to get in their hotel room.”
“Seems
a logical place to start since one of their fathers hired me to represent the
family.”
“These
two, they’re emancipated, right? Adults.”
“Both
are twenty-one, according to Alfano.”
“Hmm.
Alfano gonna file a missing person’s report?”
“He
will if you think it’ll help.”
“Naw.
We’ve got enough to do without looking for a couple of kids who’ve run off to
play hanky-panky. But if they strayed across the border into Arizona, they
might be cooling their heels in some county sheriff’s jail as we speak. They
take that shit seriously over there.”
“Possible,
but not likely. They could be in real trouble, Gene. Alfano keeps a tight rein
on his boy, and the fact he’s looking for him is troubling.”
“Maybe
the colt got out of the family pasture and is feeling his oats. But okay, have
the old man file a report, and I’ll see if I can get us inside the hotel room.
Unofficially.”
I
picked up the tab to see what kind of damage Gene had done to my pocketbook.
Anthony P. Alfano’s pocketbook, actually.
Gene
caught me peeking at the check. “Come on, you can afford it.”
“Maybe
so, but it’s not my expense; it’s my client’s, and I don’t know how picky he
is.”
Gene
Enriquez is a good detective and a smooth-talker, at least smooth enough to get
us access to the room occupied by—or held in the names of—Orlando Alfano and
Dana Norville. There was little to see. The pair had taken their traveling bags
with them, leaving behind nothing personal except for two bundles of clothing
destined for the laundry, the only sign they intended to return. One set of
duds was expensive Abercrombie and Fitch, the other bundle was GAP. It wasn’t
hard to figure which clothes belonged to what dude.
The
breast pocket of one shirt held a carefully folded Chamber of Commerce brochure
extolling the virtues of El Moro’s Inscription Rock and the Ice Caves near
Grants. A rumpled pair of trousers—the expensive ones—gave up a not-so-neatly
folded tourist road map of the state.
The
bell captain remembered the two men asking his advice about the Enchanted
Circle in the Taos area. They had specifically asked about white water rafting
along the Taos Box.
The
clerk in the gift shop remembered the pair because, she blushingly admitted,
they were both so handsome. Shortly after checking in, they had picked up
several pamphlets from her, expressing interest in the Turquoise Trail, a
sixty-two mile National Scenic Byway up Route 14 to Santa Fe studded with
quaint, historic villages. Orlando and Dana had been especially curious about
Valles Caldera, the seventeen-mile wide crater of an extinct volcano south of
Los Alamos, the Atomic City. Unfortunately, they also asked about Lincoln
County and Carlsbad Caverns to the south and east, as well as Mesa Verde and
the Bisti Badlands in the northwest corner of the state.
###
How’s
that for a swift glimpse of our little piece of paradise. Thanks for reading. Please
let me hear from you.
Don
Next week: We’re back to “who
knows” again.
New posts are published at 6:00
a.m. each Thursday.
