Charles Grant - Whirlwind

"Last night," she said. "I didn't see him clearly, but there was a man at the gate, watching me."

He checked the rearview mirror.

The man, face hidden by the bill of his cap, still watched.

There was no flip of a mental coin. Mulder swung the wheel around, made a U-turn, made another to pull alongside the stores.

The man hadn't moved.

Scully lowered her window. "Do you want something?" she asked calmly.

Leon Ciola swaggered over and leaned down. "You the feds?"

With one hand still on the wheel, Mulder leaned over, curious about the fine scars that swept across the man's face. "Special Agent Mulder, Special Agent Scully. Who are you?"

"Leon Ciola."

"You've been watching us. Why?"

Ciola spread his arms wide in a mocking bow, smiling impudently. "Always like to know who's in town, amigos, that’s all. It’s very dull around here, you know? Not much to do. The sun's too hot. Not much work for a man like me."

"What is a man like you?" Scully said.

"Ex-con. They didn't tell you that?"

No, Mulder thought; there's a lot they haven't told us.

Then he spotted a faint racial resemblance to Nando Quintodo. "You're from the Mesa?"

Ciola's smile didn't falter. "Very good, amigo. Most people think I look Apache." Fingers fluttered across his face. "The scars. They make me look mean."

"Are you?"

The smile vanished. "I'm a son of a bitch, Agent Mulder. A good thing to know."

He's not bragging, Mulder thought; he's not warning, either.

Ciola glanced up and down the street, then placed a hand on the window well. "Sheriff Sparrow will tell you that I have killed a man. It's true. Maybe more, who knows? He'll tell you, when he gets around to it, that I probably killed those stupid tourists. I didn't, Agent Mulder. I have more important things to do."

He tipped his cap to Scully and backed away, interview over.

Mulder nodded to him, straightened, and pulled slowly away from the curb. The man chilled him. What chilled him more, however, was the fact that Sparrow hadn't said a word about him. An obvious suspect, a self-confessed killer ex-con, and the sheriff had, conveniently or otherwise, kept Ciola's name to himself.

"Scully, do you get the feeling we've dropped down the rabbit hole?"

She didn't answer.

A glance at her profile showed him lips so taut they were bloodless.

He didn't question her. Something about the man, something he hadn't caught, struck a nerve. Sooner or later, she would tell him what it was. As it was, he had to deal with street signs he could barely read because they were too small, and the vehicles impatiently lining up behind him because he was driving slow enough to try to read the damn signs.

The sun didn't help.

It flared off everything, and bleached that which wasn't already bleached.

Everywhere there were signs of a town struggling to find the right way to grow — obviously new shops, shops that had gone out of business, houses and buildings in varying stages of construction or repair. It was either very exciting to live here now, or very frightening.

"There," Scully said.

He turned left, toward the river, and found himself on a street where lots were large and vacant, spotted only once in a while by small, one-story houses in either brick or fake adobe. A drab place, made more so by the gardens and large bushes flowering violent colors. No toys in the driveways. The few cars at the curbs seemed abandoned.

He parked in front of a ranch house whose front window was buried by a tangled screen of roses. A Cherokee parked in the pitted drive faced the street. As they got out, he saw a suitcase by the driver's door.

"Somebody's going on vacation."

"I don't think so," she said, nodding toward the two other suitcases sitting on the stoop. "Not unless she's planning to stay away for six months."

He knocked on the screen door.

No one answered.

He knocked again, and the inner door was opened by a young woman with a briefcase in one hand.

"I don't want any” she said.

Scully held up her ID. "Special Agent Scully, Special Agent Mulder, FBI. Are you Donna Falkner?"

It didn't take any special instinct to realize the woman was afraid. Mulder opened the screen door carefully and said, "We'd just like to talk to you, Ms. Falkner. It won't take a minute, and then you can take your trip."

"How did you know that?" Donna demanded, her voice pitched high enough to crack. Then she followed Mulder's gesture toward the suitcases, "Oh."

"Just a few minutes” Scully assured her.

The woman's shoulders slumped. "Oh, what the hell, why not. How much worse can it get?"

The air conditioning had been shut off. The room was stifling. The woman hasn't left yet, Mulder thought, and already the house feels deserted. Donna grabbed a ladder-back chair from in front of a small desk and turned it around. When she sat, shoulders still slumped, she held the briefcase in her lap, looking as if she wanted to hold it against her chest. Scully took a seat on a two-cushion couch, pen and notebook in hand; Mulder remained standing, leaning a shoulder against the wall just inside the room's entry.

It kept him in partial shadow; it kept the woman in full light.

"So," she said resignedly. "What do you want to know?"

"The Konochine” Mulder told her, and saw her gaze dart in his direction.

"What about them?"

"You sell their jewelry," Scully said, shifting the woman's attention back the other way. "We were told they didn't like the outside world very much."

"Hardly at all” Donna answered. Her shoulders rose a little. "I got chased off the res once, back before I knew what I was doing." She shifted the briefcase to the floor beside her. "See, they're not the only Indians I deal with, but they give me the most trouble. Or did, anyway. There's this man—"

"Nick Lanaya?" Mulder said.

"Yeah. He's one of the out-and-backers. You know, got out, came back? Well, we met at a party once, got to talking — he's very easy to talk to, kind of like a priest, if you know what I mean. Anyway, he knew his people needed money, and after he asked around, he knew I'd be able to get them a fair price for the work."

Scully moved a hand to draw her attention again. "How mad are the ones who don't want outside contact?"

Donna frowned, the understanding of what Scully meant slow in arriving. "Oh. Oh! Hey, not that mad. God, no. You think they killed those poor people?" She dismissed the notion with a wave. "Jesus, no. They talk a lot, yell a lot, but Nick just yells right back. He's—" She stopped, frozen, as though something had just occurred to her. "Tell you, though, the guy you should be talking to is Leon Ciola."

"We've met” Mulder said dryly.

"You're kidding." Her right hand drifted down to brush at the case. "You know he was in the state pen, up by Santa Fe? Killed a man in a bar fight." Her left hand draw a line across her throat. Slowly. "Nearly cut his head off. I don't know how he got out. A good lawyer, I guess."

"Where are you going?" Scully asked.

"Vacation," Donna replied instantly.

"You take more clothes than Scully," Mulder said with a laugh.

"I'll be away for a while."

"Who takes care of the business? Nick?"

She shrugged. "Mostly, yeah."

Scully closed her notebook. "You have no control over what you receive from the Mesa? Or who buys them retail?"

"Nope. Nick chooses the pieces, I choose the shops. After that, it's the guy who has the most money."

Mulder pushed away from the wall. "What if somebody who didn't know any better just drove onto the reservation?"

"Nothing." Donna retrieved her case. "No one would talk to them, probably. Sooner or later, they'd get the hint and leave."