Michael McGarrity - The big gamble

Clayton had two bits of information, the names and photographs of the prostitutes. He looked at the women's pictures. Both were young and very attractive. Not what Clayton considered to be typical street-walkers, although he'd only actually met one: Sparkle, the hooker who'd fingered Ulibarri in Albuquerque.

He decided to spend some time visiting the best El Paso had to offer in the way of expensive hotels. There were only a few, if the yellow pages were anything to go by. Maybe he could find out if Brewer had been holding something back.

After three stops with no results, he made his way downtown, which had one nice hotel near the plaza. The area looked like an urban redevelopment project that had gone down the tubes when the money ran out. Around the spruced-up plaza were old commercial and retail buildings in need of attention. One, which had obviously been a flagship department store, sat empty. Two public works buildings, a public library, and an art museum were nearby. Behind the plaza several Victorian homes sat forlornly on a small hill surrounded by vacant lots. There was no life to the place, few people, and Clayton didn't see many customers inside an eatery steps away from the hotel.

Modern in design, the hotel towered over the district in startling contrast to the bleak, shabby-looking street that cut a straight line to the Rio Grande and the Mexican border.

Inside, the lobby was empty. At the reception desk, Clayton asked for the hotel security chief, and was soon greeted by a slender man in a suit and tie who introduced himself as Bob Rigby.

"Yeah, I know these two," Rigby said as he looked at the photos of Victoria and Sandy, the two hookers.

"Have you seen them lately?"

"Yeah, a couple of weeks ago they were here in the restaurant dining with two of our guests. Then they went up to their rooms."

"You're sure of that?"

Rigby nodded. "I'm sure. Those two are in the hotel three, maybe four times a month, sometimes more. I know why they're here, but I'm not a cop. Whatever guests do in their rooms doesn't matter to me, as long as they don't cause a commotion, trash the place, skip out on their bill, or steal the towels."

"What about the cops?" Clayton asked.

"They don't care either, unless they get a complaint. We try to avoid that, if possible."

"Bad for business, I suppose," Clayton said, wondering what else Detective Brewer might have lied about. He handed Rigby the rest of the photographs of the women he'd collected at the motor vehicle office.

"All of them have been here at one time or another," Rigby said. "All of them are working girls."

"Including this one?" Clayton asked, pointing to Deborah Shea's photo.

Rigby nodded. "But I haven't seen her in quite a while."

"Do you know who these women work for?"

"That, I don't know."

Pumped by what he'd learned, Clayton left Rigby and drove past Rojas's house. In daylight it was even more impressive, probably a million-dollar property, which for El Paso was about as pricey as it got.

He cruised the neighborhood, trying to think of his next move. He still needed to locate Deborah Shea, but he wanted to do it without tipping off Rojas. All the houses-there weren't very many along the paved street-looked down on El Paso over a wide stretch of open desert. At both ends of the road, signs of a private security company were posted, citing twenty-four-hour armed patrol.

That gave Clayton an idea. A security patrol vehicle had passed him when he'd been on his way to talk to Rojas. Maybe someone at the company could shed some light on who came and went at the residence. Maybe they even had a record of who lived on the property with Rojas.

After finding an address in the phone book at the closest convenience store, consulting his map, and getting lost again, he finally reached the business, which had a small suite of offices in a building across from an adult bookstore.

The owner inspected Clayton's credentials, said that he was an ex-deputy sheriff himself, talked a little cop stuff, and pulled the file on Rojas.

"We've never had any problems at the Rojas place," he said.

Aside from Rojas, two residents were listed: a personal assistant and a live-in housekeeper. Clayton wrote down the names. An attached frequent-visitor list carried the names of what looked to be Rojas's friends and business associates. Shea's name was included, along with a description and license plate number of the car she drove.

"Do your people check on unfamiliar vehicles traveling through the neighborhood?" Clayton asked.

"All the time," the man replied. "It's policy."

"Can I look through your patrol logs?"

"How far back do you want to go?" the man replied.

"A week will do it."

The man pulled the logs and let Clayton use his office, a small, tidy space next to a room where a uniformed security officer manned a radio. He sucked in his breath and whistled when he saw the entry for Harry Staggs's car and license plate number. Then he checked the date, sat back in the chair, and smiled at the ceiling.

Staggs had been with Rojas just hours before Clayton had arrived to be fed a line of bullshit by Rojas and Shea.

A small copying machine stood on a rolling cart next to a file cabinet. Clayton checked with the owner for permission, and made a copy of the log and the frequent-visitor list, mulling over his next step. It was too soon to confront Rojas. He decided to stake him out instead. Maybe Deborah Shea would show, or someone else equally interesting.

He thought about the lay of the land in front of Rojas's house. There wasn't much that provided concealment, but he could make do. On the rez he'd stalked poachers through open fields, caught trespassers in vast meadows, and busted out-of-season hunters above the timberline. He had everything he needed in his unit to stay warm and comfortable when night came and it got cold.

The prospect of the surveillance pleased Clayton far more than the thought of spending the night in an El Paso motel. He checked the wall clock. There were two hours left before dusk. If he hurried, there was enough time to locate a place to conceal his unit at the bottom of the hill below Rojas's house, hike up it, and pick a spot to hunker down.

The architect and the survey crew left just before sunset. Kerney stayed on at the building site watching touches of color fringe the few stray clouds, shadows deepen in the canyon, and the mountains fade into gray ghostly shapes. He stood behind the stakes that defined the placement of what would one day be his living room, imagining the house completed-the ceiling overhead, the plastered adobe walls, the tiled floor, the picture window looking beyond the portal to the canyon and the mountains. All of it on twelve hundred and eighty acres of ranch land just a few miles off a highway, yet far enough away to be private and secluded.

The night was quiet. Hills a mile or so to the east blocked any traffic noise, and the air was still. He thought about his parents, now long dead, who had lost their ranch. He thought about Sara, who'd left her family's ranch in Montana to attend West Point. He thought about his best friend, Dale Jennings, who'd never done anything but ranch, and vowed that he wouldn't trade one day of it to live any other way.

Kerney understood Dale's feelings. There was a pride that came from being a steward of the land, a satisfaction that came from hard physical work outside in the natural world, and a richness of spirit that came from the beauty that surrounded you.

Once, the idea that he could ever have anything close to this land had only been a dream, totally out of reach. Now it was coming true.

It wasn't a big spread and would never be economically self-sustaining. Maybe he could break even with it. If not, it was his, free and clear, with enough money left over from his inheritance after all the bills were paid to provide a comfortable life for his family and pass it on to his son, and maybe someday a daughter.