Falling Down (8 page)

“At least, okay, I can look at whatever is on your computer,” I said. “What is it that makes you so afraid?”

“The
maras,
” Mary said. “They're inside the park.”

Instinctively, I looked around. She put a hand on my shoulder.

“No. I mean, there's nobody here. No real person. It's on a website.”

“Maras,”
I said. “Until yesterday, I'd never heard of them. Now
every
body wants to tell me about them. Is it a threat, have you been threatened?”

“Not really. No.”

“Your daughter, this girl,” holding up the pink diary, “has
she
been threatened?”

Ah!
I thought.

“How old is she?”

“I'm not sure. Fourteen, fifteen?”

“Was she a heroin mule?”

That staggered her, she reeled against the sign describing the pupfish, she shuffled her papers, she looked
everywhere but into my eyes. “How did you know that?” she said.

“A lucky guess.”

“Just hearing about you,” she said, “just meeting you and your Beretta,” she said, “I don't think you make guesses of any kind.”

“Another case,” I said finally. “And it was really an educated guess. Is that part of why I'm here?”

“No, not really.”

“You're kinda hard to pin down, Mary Emich. Was the girl a heroin mule?”

“Yes. Once,” she said. “At least once. And I can't let it happen again.”

“You asked about whether I could create new identities.”

“Yes.”

“For your daughter.”

“For the girl, yes.”

“And?” Stunned at my insight. “You want a new identity for yourself?”

Mary fingered her religious medal, kept her eyes on me, nodding.

“If that's what it takes,” she said. “Yes. I'll give up my whole life here. We'll go somewhere, we'll start as a mother and her daughter.”

“And if they find you then?”

She stepped off the path, bent down to what looked like a dead twig, thrust in the ground and surrounded by a circle of foot-high chicken wire. The ID tag said
NIGHT BLOOMING CEREUS
, but soil fragments blurred the Latin name. A few yards away, she knelt beside a little legume vine with half-inch magenta flowers against a background of dark green leaves.

“The flowers will open a bit in the late afternoon,” Mary said. “When it cools down.
Galactia wrightii
. The flowers shine brightly, once they open. Our Curator of Plants says…this is a great landscaping plant for people
who work days, because it is at its best as they return home. The vines will form a low mound or climb if a shrub or trellis is provided to probably four or six feet.”

She stood up.

“Mr. Gates told me what you do best. You find people. Is that what you meant? That somebody like you, a scalp hunter, no, a bounty hunter, you'd find me even with a new identity.”

“Yes. Eighty percent certain.”

“Eighty percent. So you can fail.”

“To find somebody?”

“To find somebody, yes.”

“With a new identity, a false identity?”

“Yes.”

My cell rang. Caller ID showed it was Bob Gates.

“Let me check if Ken Charvoz is here. I'll be right back.”

“What?” Mary said, when I disconnected. “What's wrong?”

“You're so emotionally honest,” I said finally. “If I wanted to, I'd find you. They, whoever they are…they would, too. And what would you do then?”

“Then? If they still find me,” she said. “Then I'll get a gun.”

“And then?”

“I'd do anything to protect this girl,” she said finally. “I'm a complete pacifist. I can't stand senseless violence. But, to protect this girl, I'd do anything.”

“Even if you had to shoot somebody?”

“Even if I had to kill somebody. Yes. If that's God's plan. Yes. It would…it would be the end of my life, as I know it. But Ana Luisa's life is more important. She's the future.”

“I've never met anybody quite like you,” I said.

“What do you mean?” Mary said.

“Like I said. You're so…so…emotionally honest.”

“What do you mean?”

“We're not so different,” I said. “I'm not sure about
God's part in anything. But you and I, as people, we're really not so different.

“I asked what you would do to protect your child. You said you'd kill.”

“If that's truly God's plan,” she said. Hand on her religious medal, hiding it between thumb and index finger, I couldn't see what saint she admired, who would protect her, and why God would approve killing.

“Yes,” she said. Defiant, sad, determined. “Wouldn't you do the same?”

“D
id you know?” I shouted into my cell.

“Know?” Gates said.

“Did you know?”

“What? Laura, what are you talking about?”

“The girl.”

“Girl? Laura, what? I give up.”

“You didn't know about the girl,” I said. Trying to calm myself in the old way I'd calmed for years. Deep breath,
one Mississippi,
breath,
two Mississippi.

“What girl?”

“I just met Mary Emich.”

“Her daughter? Is that who you're talking about?”

“Yes, Bob. Her daughter, my daughter, my granddaughter. You played me, Bob, you fucking
played
me.”

“Laura, whoa, what, oh, no,” he said. “I did
not
play you.”

“Yah, sure. The dead girl at the crime scene. You knew about her when you came to see me yesterday.”

“Laura. I talked to you yesterday. I first heard about the crime scene not more than twenty minutes before I called you today. Besides. The dead child was a boy. Not a girl.”

“You
played
me, Bob. You've known these bastards killed children. You played on that, you knew I'd have a hard time saying no once I knew this
maras
business involved dead children.”

“No. I did not.” I waited, he'd something more to say. “Kligerman,” he said. “He thought, he calculated you'd have more interest. Knowing about the children. I told you, he's an accountant.”

“And you want me to meet him later.”

“If you can. Yes.”

“For drinks.”

“Just to introduce you.”

“To introduce me.”

“He's not all bad, Laura. He's divorced, got a young girl of his own, you know, he thinks about children's safety.”

“Children's safety. There's an inside hook there, Bob. He's using you in order to use me. And what's the story with this detective, this Christopher Kyle?”

“The story?”

“He told me, he said there were rumors, whistling down the lane, that I might be working for TPD.”

“Laura. He's guessing.”

“How would he even know what to guess about? How many people know about me, Bob?”

“Five. Me. Kligerman, and three of his most trusted staff.”

“Nobody else?”

“The chief of police originated the idea.”

“And Kyle? Is he a suspect?”

“Christopher Kyle? God, no. He's a legend in Homicide. Old school. Excellent at a crime scene, a disaster with new information technologies. Somebody tried to get him to work a computer, he finally pointed the mouse at the screen and clicked.”

“I like him,” I said. “If I decided to do this work for TPD, and I have
not
decided that at all, but if it happened, could Kyle be assigned to the team?”

“Not my decision. But I'll ask Kligerman.”

“Are you on a secure line?” I said.

“Ummm. What does that mean?”

“Find a pay phone and call me back.”

“A pay phone,” he said. “Geez, do they still exist?”

“Just do it.”

“What's the difference?”

“Because I can dump this cell number in a minute, but you're…you're not secure, where you're calling from.”

He hung up abruptly. My cell rang in seven minutes.

“What does that mean?” Gates said. “That you can dump your cell number?”

“Doesn't matter. I need to ask you a basic question.”

“About working for TPD?”

“Yes.”

“So ask.”

“I'm assuming this whole business with Kligerman is a smoke screen.”

Gates laughed into the mouthpiece, a real belly laugh. “I told him you weren't dumb.”

“But the real thing is to find some digital trace of this bad cop. Right?”

“Right.”

“So give me a direction,” I said. “Steer me so I don't waste all kinds of computer time for myself and my staff, looking at records of everybody who works for the Tucson PD.”

“Detectives,” he said finally.

“Have you got a name?”

“No. Absolutely not.”

“How about…I looked at the org chart for TPD. There are four basic substations. East, South, West, Midtown.”

“Could be somebody in any of those substations.”

“Bob,” I said. “Narrow the search for me. Please.”

“Violent Crimes.”

“That's definite?”

“That's a guess. Nothing more. Not even a guess. A hunch.”

“You're playing me, Bob.”

“No. I won't let my gut instinct steer you. Not yet.”

“Okay,” I said. “I'll meet Kligerman. I'll play along with him, about whatever I assume he thinks is the
real
reason for TPD wanting my help. Thanks.”

I flipped my cell shut, cutting off the call. I started to power the cell down, but it rang.

 

“I'm in Tuba City,” Nathan said. “I'll just wait for you here.”

“Tuba City,” I said.
Shit, shit shit.
“Umm, well, I'm just about ready to leave.”

“It's almost noon, Laura.”

“Yes. Noon.”

“It'll take you at least four hours to get here.”

“Tuba City,” I said brightly. “I'll show you where I used to live.”

“Well…I can't wait here that long.”

“Okay,” I said. “Okay, where do I go?”

“To meet me?”

“Yes. Where on the rez?”

“You haven't left yet,” he said finally.

“Just another half hour, maybe an hour.”

“The ceremony is at sundown.”

“What ceremony?”

“The boy,” Nathan said. His voice drifted in and out, I'd moved around and without knowing was between two different cell towers, the signal weakening. “The born-to and born-for clans are already assembling up near Monument Valley. There'll be many, many people there.”

“I'll make it.”

“No,” he said. The slow, almost toneless cadence of sadness. “No, you won't be here.”

“I might be late, but I
will
be there.”

“No.” A very
very
long pause. “Goodbye, Laura.”

“
Nathan!
Wait, what are you telling me, wait, I'll be there. I promise.”

“If you'd meant to come,” he said, “you'd be here already.”

“It's just not that simple.”

“Yes. It is.”

“I'll find you tonight, no matter how long it takes me to get there, I'll leave in five minutes. Where will you be?”

“I can't tell you.”

“You
can't
?”

“I'm sorry, Laura.”

“I'll find you.”

“That's just not really going to happen.”

“No, wait, Nathan, what does this mean?”

“I'm sorry, Laura.”

“Sorry? Sorry about
what
?”

Vibrations pulsing through the cell, just a technical thing where digital signals exactly match a resonance point on the cell phone chip, but the vibrations moving up my hand like symptoms of a heart attack.

“I'm driving through a flock of sheep,” Nathan said. “They're spilling across the road, probably thirty of them, nobody's watching them, they're just moving to find someplace to eat.”

“Fuck the sheep!” I shouted. “Don't do this to me.”

“I belong up here,” Nathan said. “I'm part of
Dinehtah.
Someday, you'll figure out where you belong.”

“I belong with
you
!”

“Goodbye, Laura.”

He disconnected.

 

Figure out where I belong? Figure out my identity?

I've been working on this forever, I thought I'd finally resolved my life.

Those of you who've known me over these years, those who've read my stories, you all know, my friends, you know I always talk about crossing borders. Drug addiction, yes, I crossed back and forth over that border.

Safe now.

Safe for good.

Computers. I've broken into so many computers ille
gally, I no longer could even estimate with any certainty how many computers or networks or websites. For several years, I used computers all over the world, against their will, against their owners' lousy security, I'd used those computers as drones. Mostly to hide my digital self from anybody. I rarely left traces.

Now any twelve-year-old boy with the will, the computer, and the impishness or malignancy, anybody could do what I'd done. At night, instead of playing with themselves, boys play with their computers. So I, personally, I no longer did that, I no longer crossed over the border between illegal and legal.

Death.

Now, there's a border.

You either are. Or you're not.

You can kill entire families, just because you can kill.

You can even kill Ena, kill Bambi's mother, with a hunter's bullet. You can also walk up and kick Bambi in the face, but he will grow up. Until he dies. That's the fate, the destiny of loving animals. They live just long enough to break your heart. Of course, people are animals, too.

Love.

I'd thought I'd crossed this border for good, once I'd met Nathan Brittles. And yet…and yet, here I am, he's…gone?

 

There's one final border I want to cross.

My name.

Over the years, I've had many names.
Many
names. For the past few years, I have been Laura Winslow.

That is not my real name.

My Hopi name is Kauwanyauma. A Hopi word.

Butterfly Revealing Wings of Beauty.

This is the irony of that last border I want to cross. I am an
ex
pert in tracking people down, in exposing false identities, yes, in creating them as well. At some time in my past, probably in those years of drugs and sex when
I lived in Yakima, I created a whole new identity for a woman named Laura…Laura…I don't even remember what last name I used at first.

Winslow is a small, decaying town in Arizona. I chose that name one day while looking at a map. I created my whole identified life from the name Laura Winslow. Social Security number. Driver's license, credit cards, even a major-league business in computer forensics.

You see the irony, my old friends? I can track down anybody. Eighty percent minimum. Guaranteed. I'd just been asked to create a new identity for Mary Emich and her girl. I could do that in thirty-six hours, bottom line.

But sometimes, creating new identities works. I'm the proof.

I don't even know my real name.

I was born on the Hopi reservation in a traditional village. I never knew my mother, never knew her name, never knew her life except for the singular fact that she was a prostitute working the southwest rodeo circuit. My father had a name. George Loma. But he left no written records behind that he ever existed. When I knew him, he didn't even carry a wallet or any kind of identification holder. I can distinctly remember when I was twelve, by then I had spent a lot of time in bars in Flagstaff, so I knew about ID cards and driver's licenses and social security cards. When I asked my father about these things, he pulled out an old cigar box filled with newspaper clippings of rodeo events that he'd entered and sometimes won.
Here's my identification,
he said then.
See my name? I circled my name every time
.

But in the dozens of newspaper clippings, the circled name varied from year to year, gradually stabilizing on George Loma. So I don't even know if that was his birth name, nor did he ever reveal his secret Hopi name.

I am nameless, as much as anybody can ever be.

But with my ability to create truly authentic-looking identity papers, I am now named Laura Winslow.

Do you see the irony of my life?

One of the best private investigators in the business, absolutely dynamite at finding people who don't want to be found. But I can't even find my own past!