The Bisti Business Page 3

  “Missing.”

  “I seen them. ’Bout three weeks back, it was.”

  “Three weeks? Can you pin it down any closer?”

  “Yeah, it was the first weekend of the month when the guys come in and cash their paychecks. On a Friday night. That’s the only time we got trim little asses in this joint. Dancers, you know. Kids wanting to make an extra buck. Got a corporal from Kirtland AFB makes more in one night than he takes home in flyboy pay for a month.”

  “First weekend,” I said with a frown of concentration. “That would make it around the third.” Then his words struck me. “These two danced?”

  Sweetie laughed with pure joy. “Kinda like a lark for them. I told them they didn’t fit in with the clientele unless they wanted to shake their booties to music. Surprised me cross-eyed when they took me up on it. Skinned down to their skivvies and went right up on that stage in the back room. Wasn’t very good at it, but they sure was enthusiastic. That made it better somehow. Everbody knew they didn’t do it for real. You know, professionally. For the half hour they wiggled their little butts, I thought I was in love. Contemplated losing a hundred pounds and making my move.” The belly laugh that followed was all man, nothing feminine about it. “Everbody in the house bought them drinks. They got so pie-eyed we put them up in a room over at the motel. On the house.”

  “They okay?”

  “Sick as dogs the next day, but they took outa here under their own steam in the sweetest-looking bright orange Porsche a girl ever saw.”

  “Is it possible they were followed?”

  “Hell, honeybunch, anything’s possible. People go in and outa here all the time. As I recollect, it was pretty close to noon. They wasn’t broke when they left here, I can tell you. The fellas musta stuck close to five hundred bucks down their underwear. Got so bad, them two had to pull the bills out and pile them in the corner—paper cuts, you know.” He gave his belly-rumbling infectious laugh again.

  “You mind if I ask around about them?”

  “Have at it, but it’s a whole other crowd here tonight. Probably not more’n one or two of this bunch was here then.”

  “How about the help?”

  “Yeah. Some of the same crew’s here.”

  “Thanks, Sweet. Can I buy you one?”

  “Right courteous of you, Mr.… uh.”

  “Just BJ.”

  “Okay, just BJ, tell the bartender to send over my usual. And good luck. I sure hope you find them sweet babies walking around on their own two feet.”

  I spent another two hours talking to anyone who would give me the time of day, but I located only one trucker who was at the Continental Divide that Friday night. Three of the staff had also been there. After the four finished fawning over those two “damned fine-looking college kids in their BVDs”—in words more graphic than that—I left the bar to try the other establishments.

  Tia Maria recognized the pictures and went maudlin over those “cute kids.” She’d tried to plump them up with a man-sized brunch that Saturday, but all they could handle was black coffee. Lots of coffee.

  The crew at the truck stop was a little more reticent, or perhaps less observant since Orlando had not tanked up the car. By the time I left, I was convinced the two California men had left Chesty Westey’s Continental Divide Truck Stop just the way Sweetie described it—under their own steam. The real question was what happened after that? Could the two have incited one of the big bears at the bar to rape? And possibly murder?

  Since Orlando and Dana were still registered at the Sheraton, I took the overpass and picked up eastbound I-40 for the trip home. The truck stop alongside the highway at Acoma Pueblo lured me off the interstate. If the two men had not gassed up at Chesty Westey’s, perhaps they stopped here.

  The big modern station, seemingly made entirely of extruded aluminum and plate glass, sold every kind of fattening, artery-choking junk food known to man. A single attendant, a smooth-skinned, chubby tribal member of about nineteen or twenty, appeared to be managing everything on her own. Although preoccupied with chewing a mouthful of gum, the girl handled my ten-dollar fill-up efficiently enough. As I received change for a twenty, I handed over my photos and asked if she had seen the men.

  She lifted the glasses hanging from a black ribbon around her neck and peered through them.

  “Uh-uh.” She handed the pictures back to me.

  “Does that mean no?”

  “Yeah. I mean, no, I haven’t seen them.”

  “They would have been in a bright orange Porsche.”

  “Oh, wait. An orange car? Saw it the other day. Or one like it. I remember because this other guy asked if I’d seen a really bright orange car.”

  “What guy?”

  “Some guy filling his tank. He was just making conversation. Flirting, I guess.”

  “Do you remember the two men in the orange car?”

  “Let me see those pictures again.” After giving them a second look, she wrinkled her nose. “Yeah, I remember them now. It was them in that orange car.”

  “Would that have been the first Saturday in the month? Around the fourth?”

  The wrinkled nose appeared again, this time accompanied by a creased brow. “No, I don’t work weekends. This was last week sometime. Or maybe a couple of weeks ago. On a Monday, it was. I think they said they’d been to the ceremonial—you know, the big Gallup Inter Tribal Ceremonial—and were headed back to Albuquerque.”

  “How did they pay?”

  “I don’t remember. Who are you, mister? Did those guys do something wrong?”

  I shook my head. “No, just trying to locate them for a family member. Tell me about the man asking about the car. What did he look like?”

  The girl, who wore a nametag reading Loreen pinned atop a plump breast, shrugged. “Just a man. I don’t really remember him except he had a big forehead. Like I say, he was just making conversation. He didn’t really ask about that car—he was just talking about one on the road bright enough to blind a fellow.”

  “Was he here when the Porsche was filling up?”

  “No, he came in later.”

  Further questions failed to elicit any additional information, so I pulled back onto I-40 and sped toward Albuquerque. At least I’d learned that Orlando and Dana had made it out of the Continental Divide safely. They’d probably gone straight west to Gallup for the big ceremonial held the first week of August each year. After that they’d headed back to Albuquerque.

  Loreen’s inability to recall how they paid for the gasoline was a bad break. These days it took a subpoena to pry billing information out of credit card companies, especially if you didn’t have the card number. A quick look at his gas receipt, if there was one, would have helped a great deal.

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  Chapter 4

  UPON MY return to the office, Hazel pressed me to sign off on some other cases. My newly renovated guardian angel had a fetish about timely reporting to clients and prompt billing for our services. That was good, but sometimes it got in the way of important things—like pursuing a train of thought while it was still rattling around in my head. Yet what would I have done without her? Performed half of my services for free, most likely.

  When I took the pile of signed documents out to her desk, she turned to face me. “If you’re going to be tied up in this Alfano case, you might consider bringing Charlie in to cover for you.”

  “Okay, call him in.”

  Charlie Weeks again. For a brief second, I tried to imagine that pairing. My sometime associate was a spare man something shy of sixty with blue eyes and thinning gray hair who stood two inches over my six feet. He was easy-going with a spine of steel; Hazel was bossy but a pussycat underneath. Quite a pair. I wished them well. Maybe she’d devote some of her mothering to him and ease off on me.

  It was close to five before I was free to take the next step in the case of the missing graduate students. It was only four on the Pacific c
oast, so I placed a call to the Alfano Vineyards and was promptly transferred to a lady with the improbable name of Gilda Gistafferson who turned out to be Anthony P.’s executive secretary. Given that Alfano was a grizzly, I expected his secretary to reflect his sense of power, but she turned out to be courteous, helpful, and friendly.

  “Ms. Gistafferson—” I began.

  “It’s Gilda, please, Mr. Vinson. I know who you are and appreciate your efforts on Mr. Alfano’s behalf. I’m sorry he’s not available, but he has instructed me to give you my full cooperation.”

  “That’s good to know, but if I’m going to call you Gilda, you’ve got to call me BJ.”

  “Very well… BJ. What can I do for you?”

  “A couple of things, actually. Do you know if any progress has been made with the GPS coordinates on Orlando’s Porsche?”

  “Mr. Brasser—that’s Mr. Alfano’s attorney—is working on it. We’ll let you know as soon as the information becomes available.”

  “If it becomes available.”

  “Oh, it will. Mr. Brasser always delivers.”

  I tried to put a grin in my voice. “It helps to have money, doesn’t it?”

  “As I understand it, you should know.”

  So she had seen Alfano’s report on me and knew I’d inherited twelve million from my folks. Probably read the thing when she filed it. That’s okay. Prudent business on Alfano’s part.

  “There’s money, and then there’s money,” I said.

  “That’s certainly true.”

  “Tell me, Gilda, are Orlando’s credit cards personal or through the company?”

  “It’s Lando. Everyone calls him Lando.”

  “I gather you and Lando get along.”

  “Lando’s a great kid. He brings the sunshine when he enters a room.”

  “Okay, so does he get his credit cards through the company?”

  “He has a company Amex card, but he only uses it if Mr. Alfano asks him to represent the company at some function. He’s very scrupulous about that. Everything else goes on his personal cards.”

  “Where do the billings for the personal cards go?”

  “To his apartment in Los Angeles. Would you like me to get them for you?”

  “If you can.”

  “I think I can lay my hands on them. Have you found any sign of him yet?”

  “I’ve run across his trail, but it went cold.” I resisted the temptation to confess that her darling was last seen shaking his booty on Chesty Westey’s stage. “The trouble is, he collected brochures for points of interest scattered clear across the state, so I’m not certain where to start looking next.”

  “He was planning on seeing as much of New Mexico as possible. One thing about Lando, he has the energy to match his curiosity. They are both boundless. He’s a live wire.”

  “How about Norville?” Might as well test the water.

  “I don’t know him that well, but he seems like a very nice young man.”

  “Does he come from money as well?”

  “No, his father is an electrician. I can send you the report Mr. Alfano has if you wish.”

  “It wouldn’t hurt. Fax it when you have the opportunity. This might be a sensitive subject, but do you know anything about his… uh, living arrangements before he met Lando?”

  “Not much. Apparently he was in a two-year relationship with a man named Bruno Wills. Wills is a former student at UCLA. Now, I understand he’s a construction foreman for a company in one of the LA suburbs.”

  “Was it an amicable split?”

  “I gather not. Wills is older than Dana by ten years, and he took the breakup hard. At least, that’s what Lando told me.”

  “Did Lando share his travel plans with you?”

  “He didn’t really have any. He had talked about taking a trip but hadn’t mentioned it recently. Then he came in one day and announced he and Dana were leaving on vacation. That very afternoon, in fact.”

  “Sudden, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes, it was. Very sudden. Took me by surprise. As far as plans are concerned, the only thing I know is they were to stop in Las Vegas on the way to New Mexico. Lando’s not a big gambler, but he does like the slots. Then they were going to stop at the Grand Canyon on the way to Phoenix where they were to see an old classmate for dinner that night. After that, they had no plans beyond heading for your part of the country. He mentioned some of the obvious places. You know, Carlsbad Caverns and Santa Fe and Taos. Beyond that, I don’t know what his plans were or even if he had any.”

  “Mr. Alfano seems to keep his son on a short leash. In fact, I’m surprised Lando is at UCLA. UC Berkeley’s a lot closer.”

  “Yes, it is, and it’s quite a good school too. But I think Lando wanted to get away. You know, put a little distance between himself and the family. Mrs. Alfano’s been in ill health, and he didn’t want to stray too far.” She cleared her throat. “He always came back to the Valley during the Christmas and spring breaks. Took a few courses at Berkeley, but mostly he spent the summers here.”

  “Doing what?”

  I sensed she wasn’t comfortable discussing personal family matters with a stranger, but she didn’t hesitate. “Well, as I said, he took a few courses at Berkeley, although he commuted for those. And he worked off and on for the company.”

  “Doing what?” I repeated.

  “Mostly he worked in the lab. That was the only part of the business he ever showed any interest in. He liked to work with Tom trying out new recipes. Developing new blends… tastes. That sort of thing.”

  “Tom?”

  “Tom Scavo. He runs the Alfano labs.”

  “Has Lando been in touch with Mr. Scavo?”

  “No. I asked Tom about that just this morning. Tom hasn’t heard a word from Lando since he left on vacation.”

  “How else did Lando spend his time? Was he active in any organizations? Sports or civic clubs?”

  Her laugh came across the line like a bell. “Country club. He likes to play a little tennis, but he’s not avid about it. He isn’t on a team or anything like that. He does belong to the Napa Valley Historical Society. History is his passion.” She cleared her throat.

  “As far as Mr. Alfano keeping him on a short leash, Lando swore he would turn off his phone if his father was going to check up on him all the time. In a compromise, Lando promised to keep in touch.”

  “With you?”

  “Yes, and he did for a while. He’d call once or twice a week. But the last time I spoke with him was on the eighth. He was at some place called Isleta. That must be a casino because I heard slots.” She laughed again. “He was complaining about the rain. He didn’t expect rain in New Mexico.”

  “Haven’t you heard of the southwestern monsoon system?”

  “I don’t ever recall hearing the words monsoon and New Mexico in the same breath. Honestly, I’ve heard something of it, but I never related it to your part of the country.”

  “It’s real. When it behaves and shows up on schedule, we get about half the annual rainfall during July and August.”

  “Oh, dear. Lando didn’t do his homework very well, did he? Planning his trip in the middle of the rainy season.”

  “Has anyone else spoken to Lando since the eighth?”

  “No, and when he didn’t call again, Mr. Alfano started to worry.”

  There was a pause in the conversation before Gilda added, “Lando told me to call him on Dana’s cell phone if I really needed to reach him.”

  “Norville has a cell?” I noticed she didn’t volunteer the number. “Have you tried his phone lately?”

  “Several times. No one answers or returns my messages.”

  “You better give me the number, but we’ll keep it just between the two of us, okay?”

  Gilda gave me the cell number and as many details from her conversations with Lando as she could remember. She was a very precise person, so she recalled a great deal.

  After finishing with Gilda, I dialed Norvi
lle’s phone number and let it ring until a computerized voice invited me to leave a message. Out of an abundance of caution, I declined. This thing was beginning to look like something more complicated than two young men having so much fun they forgot to keep to their original time schedule. Until I knew the lay of the land, I wouldn’t leave any more blind messages.

  I consulted the notes from my conversation with Gilda and began building an itinerary on a pocket calendar. The two travelers had left the Napa Valley on Sunday, July 22. That meant they probably hit Vegas and remained there overnight. They would have had a good drive to reach Phoenix on the twenty-fourth, especially if they spent any time at the Grand Canyon, but that was apparently what they did. They first checked into the Sheraton in Albuquerque on the following Wednesday. The next day they talked to the gift shop clerk at the hotel and mentioned the Turquoise Trail. They probably drove the back road to Santa Fe that same day. Then they likely spent a few days seeing the local sights, such as Old Town and the gay bars, before taking off again.

  According to Gilda, Lando had called her from Carlsbad on the thirty-first. They had visited the Caverns and were going to Billy the Kid country—Lincoln County. My guess was that they also hit the ruins at Abo and Gran Quivira or perhaps swung west and took in the lava beds in the Valley of Fires.

  As I worked, Lando Alfano began to rise in my estimation. He lived life the way he saw fit. His relationship with Dana was open and honest and in obvious defiance of his father. He refused to take Alfano’s calls while on vacation. The kid had backbone.

  What puzzled me was the old man waiting until his son was overdue returning home before contacting a PI to hunt him down. If Gilda’s last contact was on the eighth, Alfano had waited twelve days before putting me on Lando’s trail. He phoned me the night of August 20, but maybe I wasn’t his first choice. Perhaps he had someone else on the job too. That girl at the Acoma truck stop—Noreen or Loreen—said a man asked about an orange car. She thought it was someone just making conversation about a flashy auto he’d seen, but maybe he was pumping her for information. If so, he knew the Porsche had been at Acoma.