Accustomed to the Dark (4 page)

There was a sculpted black plastic chair to my right. I picked it up, set it down beside the bed. I sat down on it and leaned toward her, my hands clasped together between my knees.

Only her face and neck were visible. Usually, even in winter, her skin was the color of café au lait. Now it was translucent. I could see a small blue vein throbbing gently at her throat.

“Rita?” I said.

She lay there.

A month before this we had been in California. We had spent a weekend on Catalina, a birthday present to Rita from Ed Norman, the head of a PI agency in L.A. We had become tourists. We had rented a golf cart to explore the narrow streets of Avalon. We had admired an art deco movie theater. We had strolled through a botanical garden. We had ambled along a shingle beach. We had ridden a crowded bus past a small herd of lumpish, impassive buffalo. At night, we sat at a restaurant by the edge of the sea and ate steamed clams and broiled swordfish while we looked out at the cheerful yellow lights of the small yachts lounging in the sleek black harbor.

She had loved all of it. But what she had loved most had been the moonlit ride in the undersea boat. Specially designed, looking from topside like a cartoon submarine, the craft had room for maybe sixty passengers. We sat on tiny, uncomfortable plastic seats along the walls of a metal tube beneath the waterline and peered out through portholes into the sea. Powerful lights from above us, on the deck, shot down through the darkness and showed us the slowly swaying fronds of kelp, the ragged rocks, the drifting golden motes of plankton.

And the fish.

“Look!” Rita had cried, and tugged me over to her porthole. “Joshua, look look
look!
What is that?” Her eyes wide, she tapped a finger at the glass.

“That's a shark.”

“Oh it is
not!
” she said, and laughed, and thumped her elbow against my arm.

“Okay,” I said. “It's a squid.”

“It's
not!
Wait! Wait a minute!” She flipped open the thin brochure we'd picked up at the dock. “It's a rock bass! It says so right here.”

“Well, Rita,” I said, sitting back, “if you'd rather trust some silly brochure than a trained professional investigator, you go ahead. But that's definitely a shark. Or a squid.”

She laughed again, and then the laugh became a smile and she slid her arm around my shoulder and leaned closer and she looked into my eyes. “This is fun, isn't it?”

I smiled. “Yeah,” I said. “This is fun.”

“We should do it more often.”

“Fine by me.”

Her glance slid away from mine and out the porthole and suddenly her eyes went wide again. “Oh,
look
, Joshua! Look at
that!
”

Now she lay on the small bed, silent and still, hooked up to machines, trapped within herself, her face wan and slack, drained of color and all animation.

“Rita?” I said again.

She lay there. In the background, the respirator wheezed like a rheumy old man.

I spoke to her with a voice that was as near to normal as I could manage. “I've talked to the doctor,” I said. “He says you're going to pull through this. I'd appreciate it if you'd do that pretty soon, because I'm not much good at all that computer stuff. Records and things. I'll make a mess of it all.”

I sat back against the rigid plastic chair and took a deep breath. “Okay,” I said. “Here's the situation. It was probably Ernie Martinez who shot you. The same guy who shot you six years ago. He and five other men broke out of the state pen last night. The state cops picked up three of them already, and according to Hernandez—you remember Hernandez? the state cop?—they'll probably get a fourth guy soon. He's not so sure about Martinez. Martinez is running with a guy named Lucero, a drug dealer out of Denver.”

I inhaled. “You remember Rosa Sanchez, Martinez's girl friend? I told you about her. The one who gave him to me? She got married a couple of years ago. Last night, someone, probably Martinez and Lucero, killed her and her husband. Martinez and Lucero, they've got some way to move around without being spotted. A utility van, maybe. I'll find out. But whatever it is, they used it to get close to your house this morning. They parked it on Gonzales Road, walked up through the trees, and one of them fired at you with a two-twenty-three. Probably Martinez.”

I took another deep breath. “Hector can't figure out why Martinez shot you, and not me. There was plenty of time for him to get off another shot. But I think I know why. I think he wants a replay of six years ago. He wants me to come after him again. He wants to pull it off this time, and he thinks he can.”

I leaned toward her. “Okay,” I said. “I know what you'd tell me, if you could. You'd tell me that I'd be a fool to go after him. And maybe you'd be right. But I can't do anything to help you right now, and this sitting around is driving me crazy. So I've decided to do what he wants. I'm going after him.”

I kissed her cheek. “But listen. I'll be fairly smart about it. If they've gone out of state, Martinez and Lucero, I'll need some way to stay in contact with Hector, so he can keep me up to speed on what the cops are doing. On what's happening here in town. And I'll need to stay in contact with the hospital, so these people can let me know when you're okay. I'll talk to Leroy about it. He's outside, along with the rest of your family. You've got cousins I never heard of. Seems like half the town is out there. I gotta tell you, Rita, it's a much better turnout than I would've gotten.”

I kissed her again. “Anyway. I don't want you to worry. I'll be okay. And I'll be in touch. I'll call here as often as I can. You just get better. I'll talk to you soon.”

I said a few more things, and then I kissed her again, and then I left.

5

W
HEN
I
GOT
back to the office, I saw that the red light on my answering machine was blinking. I slumped into the chair and I tapped the Play button.

A message from an insurance claims adjuster, who wanted to know if I was free to check up on a claim he suspected was fraudulent.

A message from a friend who hadn't heard about Rita, asking if I was free for lunch tomorrow.

Some messages from friends who had heard, their voices hesitant, made tight and awkward by worry.

A message from a reporter at
The New Mexican
who wanted to discuss “this awful tragedy.” His voice was coated with a smooth sincerity that didn't quite conceal his eagerness.

He had a job to do. But then so did I, and mine didn't include helping him do his.

I opened the desk drawer, tugged out the address book, flipped it open. Found the number I wanted, picked up the phone, dialed it.

At the other end, the phone was answered by a woman who sounded young and well educated. “The Montoya residence.”

I said, “May I speak to Mr. Montoya?”

“Who may I say is calling?”

“Joshua Croft.”

“One moment, please.”

I was put on hold. I swiveled the chair around, away from the desk. I looked up, out the window at the mountains. There was still snow up there, at their tops, startling white beneath the cobalt sweep of sky. Over the next few weeks and months, slowly, it would melt and trickle down the slopes, down the gullies and ravines, down the arroyos, until it joined the swollen brown surge of the Rio Grande and began its tumbling journey toward the faraway Gulf of Mexico.

The world was indifferent. It kept moving on, implacable, flowers growing, leaves sprouting, rivers flowing, no matter how badly you wanted it to stop.

“Mr. Croft?” The gruff, smoky voice of Norman Montoya.

“Hello.”

“I heard about Mrs. Mondragón. This is a terrible thing. How is she?”

I had met Montoya a couple of years ago, and now I pictured him as he had been then, sitting in an enormous hot tub, before a broad double-glazed window that looked out over a steep spectacular northern New Mexico valley. He was small and hard muscled and he had the profile of a Roman emperor.

“She's in a coma,” I told him. “The doctor thinks she'll pull through.”

“I am most pleased to learn that. Most pleased. I was in fact going to telephone you when I heard, but I felt that perhaps you would be too involved with other matters to accept an offer of help.”

“As a matter of fact,” I said, “I'm calling to ask for your help.”

“There is no need for you to ask, Mr. Croft. Any assistance I can provide is yours, of course, and with no reservations. I am in your debt. I have not forgotten what you did for my niece.”

“How is she?” For a second or two I couldn't remember her name. Then I did—Winona.

“Excellent,” he said. “She is excellent. And very happy where she is, I'm pleased to say. She received straight A's on her most recent report card.”

Norman Montoya was rumored to be many things—among them, the Godfather of New Mexico—and probably he was everything he was rumored to be. At any other time, the thought of his being so delighted by a young girl's report card might have been charming. But there was nothing in me, just now, that could respond to charm.

As he'd sometimes done in the past, Norman Montoya seemed to read my mind. “Forgive me, Mr. Croft. You have more pressing concerns. How may I help?”

“You know that it was probably Ernie Martinez who shot Mrs. Mondragón this morning?”

“So I understand, yes.”

“Martinez was in the pen for six years. There may be someone around town, someone who's out now, who knew him up there. Or someone who knew Lucero, the man Martinez is running with.”

“This is quite possible. You would like me to initiate inquiries as to who that someone might be?”

“If you could, yes. I'd like to talk to anyone who knew them. Either one of them, or both. Both would be better, if that's possible.”

“Very well. Consider it done. Is there any other way in which I might help?”

“No. Thank you. Not right now.”

There was a brief silence. And then: “Mr. Croft?”

“Yeah?”

“May I make a suggestion?”

“Sure.”

“I believe that at the moment you are perhaps operating almost entirely from your emotions. You are no doubt very distressed—and understandably so—about what has happened to Mrs. Mondragón. Is that a fair appraisal?”

“That's a fair appraisal, yes.”

“Mr. Croft, I commend to you the idea of meditating before you act. The tendency in your situation, particularly for a man such as yourself, a man inclined, I believe, toward action, is to respond physically, and with as much force and speed as he might possess. But I suspect that in this case such a response might prove counterproductive.”

“Uh huh.” Montoya was a Buddhist, and I suppose that this was the kind of advice a Buddhist would give.

“If you can, Mr. Croft, try to find some time to sit quietly by yourself. Experience your thoughts, your emotions. Let them fill you. Examine them quietly. And only then, after you have done so, permit yourself to act.”

“Right, Mr. Montoya. Thanks. I'll do that.”

“Ah, Mr. Croft,” he said. “I can hear the hunger for action in your voice. Well, so be it. But please, let me know if I can assist you in any other way.”

“I will. Thanks.”

“Where might I be able to reach you?”

“I'll be here at the office for a while,” I told him. “Later, I'll probably be at home.” I gave him both numbers.

“Very well,” he said. “Good-bye, Mr. Croft.”

“Good-bye, Mr. Montoya.”

While I waited for Leroy to show up, I made some more phone calls. Rita had been working on a couple of assets searches for Ed Norman, and I called him and told him what had happened. He was concerned. He offered to send one of his people to New Mexico to help—he couldn't come himself. I told him it wouldn't be necessary. He asked me if I were going after Martinez. I said that I was. He told me to be careful, and to call him if I needed anything. I said that I'd do both.

I called the claims adjuster and let him know that I couldn't take any new business at the moment. He hadn't heard about Rita, and I didn't tell him. I gave him the name of a local investigator who was good at claims.

Just as I hung up, someone knocked at my door.

“Come in.”

Leroy shuffled into the office, carrying a black leather briefcase.

Rita had once said that Leroy could make you rethink your position on evolution, whatever your position might be. Somewhere in his thirties, squat and dark, he moved in a simian crouch, his long arms dangling almost to his knees. His heavy forehead was ridged, his eyes were deeply set, his gaunt jowls were blue with a beard that couldn't be shaved away. He looked like someone who swung on vines, yet he knew more about electronics than most of the engineers at Sony.

He was wearing what he'd worn when I'd talked to him at the hospital, khaki work pants tucked into black motorcycle boots, a silk Hawaiian shirt printed with green palm trees and pink flamingos. He seemed as stricken now as he had seemed then.

“Hey, Leroy,” I said. “Grab a seat.”

He sat down in one of the client chairs and lay the briefcase along his lap. Sitting back, holding onto the case as though it were a life preserver, he shook his head. “This is a bitch, man. This is really a bitch.”

“How's the rest of the family doing?”

“Okay, I guess. I dunno. Most of them, you know, they haven't been, like, real close to Rita for a couple years. Since William died. They couldn't handle the idea of her running the agency, a detective agency, a woman and all, you know? They're like real traditional people, mostly. Women should stay in the house and cook and all. But they're hurting now, man. They're seriously hurting.” He frowned. “She looks pretty bad, doesn't she?” He shook his head again, remembering. “Jesus, I felt so bad for her. Useless. Helpless, you know?”