Cyber Way

CHAPTER 4

By the time the shuttle crossed the Texas-New Mexico border, the air had become impossibly transparent, the views absurdly extensive. It remained thus as the shuttle commenced its descent from seventy thousand feet, falling like an amputated arrowhead toward the red-brown frying pan that was Northern Arizona.

Finally pausing in his reading long enough to glance out a window, Moody was appalled by what he saw. Gone was the fertile landscape of Florida, the reassuring tracts of homes and condos, the pale opalescent blue of the Gulf. Below lay earthtone gone amuck, reds and umbers and dirty pink and brown, sprawled from horizon to horizon like a Calcutta whore. In vain he searched for the signatory slash of the Grand Canyon, before realizing sheepishly it must lie too far to the northwest to be visible from his present position and altitude.

The barren emptiness of the terrain compared to that of population-swollen Central Florida was numbing. Like a drowning man nearing land, he began to breathe a little easier only when the support structures surrounding Klagetoh International Airport came into view. Fastech and light-industry manufacturing facilities clung to both sides of Interstate-40 like aphids to a rose stem.

It was a relief to leave the plane for the comforting bustle of the terminal, which was gratifyingly spacious and modem and full of color and life. Men and women from around the world swarmed like corpuscles through the corridors, bumping into each other while venturing apologetic phrases in half a dozen tongues.

They were drawn to this formerly isolated chunk of North America by the explosion of hi-tech manufacturing which in the past hundred years had radically transformed the Navahopi Reservations. The Koreans had arrived first, looking to steal a march on the Japanese, who hadn’t been far behind in their never-ending quest for skilled labor and benign tax structures. After them had come, in a rush, the Taiwanese, the Malaysians, the Thais, and the Indians and the Brazilians and the South American Community. Slow to recognize the potential of the Rez, the EEC was now trying hard to catch up. The shuttle had been full of Germans, Italians, and Turks.

“If you think this is bad, you should see Phoenix. They have needed a new airport for fifty years.”

Moody found himself eyeing a softly smiling man ten years his junior. He wore a long-sleeved cotton shirt and neatly pressed brown jeans. And cowboy boots, as if Moody needed any further proof he was no longer in Central Florida. Though probably in his thirties, he looked considerably younger. Slightly less than average height and slimly built, he tended to disappear alongside Moody. A lot of people did. His skin was as smooth and unblemished as that of a fashion model. The little half-smile—the comers of his mouth turned slightly upward, making the cheekbones even more prominent than they were naturally—seemed to be the only expression he had. He extended a hand.

“Ya-tah-hey. I’m Sergeant Paul Ooljee, NDPS.”

Moody shook the proffered hand. “Vernon Moody, Detective, Greater Tampa PD.”

The sergeant held the handshake a long time. His small fingers were like steel and Moody was conscious of the pressure of the thumb against the back of his own wrist. No doubt that meant something. Moody hoped he wouldn’t have to hang around here long enough to learn the local customs.

“I’ll tell you my theory if you’ll tell me yours.” The grin did not fade.

“Haven’t got one yet. ” Moody walked beside the smaller man, letting him lead. “Title aside, what do I call you?”

“Paul will do fine. I would give you my other name but I do not think you could pronounce it. If you have trouble with Ooljee, you can call me Moon, which is what it means. Or you can call me crazy, which is what some of my friends call me. Especially my mother-in-law. You can also say ‘my friend.’ That is what I will be calling you.”

“We’ve just met.” Ooljee turned a comer and Moody lengthened his stride to keep pace. They were in a restricted corridor now, having left the airport crowds behind.

“It is only proper. If you don’t tell someone your name and where you and your clan are from right away, then you mark yourself as a suspicious person. In Navaho it is more correct to ask, ‘What is this person?’ instead of ‘Who is this person?’ But since I can tell from the look on your face that everything I am saying is only confusing you, we can just call each other Ooljee and Moody for a while. If you do not object to the formality, my friend.” He looked thoughtful.

“Of course, if you prefer the translation, that could be fun. People would be able to look at us and say, “There goes Moon and Moody.’”

“I can manage Ooljee all right.” Here he’d expected the local yokels to be quiet, even taciturn, and the first one he met wouldn’t shut up.

They passed under the blower from a vid ad and his nostrils were awash for an instant in the tantalizing aroma of frangipani. He walked through it without taking the bait and turning to check out the ad.

An elevator took them to ground level.

“You know why I’m here or did y’all just come to pick me up and run me into town?”

“I know why you are here. We will be working together. I have been on this case for several weeks and in daily contact with your office, though not with you personally. Tampa and Ganado have been molly dancing for many days and I am quite familiar with the unfortunate details of the murder.”

“What were you working on before they put you on the Kettrick?”

“A local killing. And I was not ‘put on’ the Kettrick case. I volunteered to work on it. Fascinating business.” The elevator slowed. “Here we are.”

Moody followed him out into a covered parking structure. That’s when it hit him. The air. There was something not right about it. The lack of oxygen he’d expected and was prepared for. Klagetoh was nearly six thousand feet above sea level. But the dryness came as a shock. He was inhaling something cool and utterly devoid of moisture; oxynitro as pure as the symbology of a periodic table. Dizzy, he paused and tried to recover, convinced the potted plants lining the walkway were leaning hungrily toward him, about to puncture his moisture-rich form with hypodermic air-roots capable of sucking the water from his body.

“Hey, Moody; you okay?” Ooljee eyed him with concern.

“Just gimme a minute.” The detective straightened, breathing deeply. The dizziness went away.

He picked up his luggage and resumed walking. Ooljee said nothing about the delay, but did slow his relentless pace.

“I’m glad somebody finds the case interesting,” Moody wheezed. “Got everyone jittery back home. We haven’t made a whole helluva lot of progress lately.”

“I hope we can be helpful.”

“Yeah. Say, why do your friends call you crazy?”

“Everyone in my clan thinks I would be a plant manager by now if I had gone into commerce instead of police work. It does not matter to them that I happen to like police work. It suits my nature. What do you know about Navaho sand-paintings?”

“I know one guy got himself killed over one. That’s about it. In my department you don’t have to take anthropology to make detective.”

“Different departments. Why don’t we rest here a moment? Sometimes it helps, when you have just come up from sea level.”

Moody hesitated, checked with his heart and lungs, and gave in to their reply. He set his luggage down next to a bench and then gratefully let the hardwood slats cradle his weight. Ooljee remained standing.

“You will be seeing sandpaintings all over town, especially in the hotels and gift shops. It is a big business. Some are still done using colored sand, while others are just painted on canvas or board.” There was a twinkle in his eye. “The first thing you should know is that every one of them is wrong.”

“Wrong? Wrong how?”

“The colors, the tilt of a figure, the way it faces, the arrangement of plants or designs; one or all are incorrect. No one would make an accurate sandpainting to sell to a tourist, because the magic might get loose.”

So now I know why they call you crazy, Moody thought amusedly, suspecting he was being skillfully put on. “You’re not telling me anybody out here actually believes in stuff like that anymore?”

“Oh no,” replied Ooljee with exaggerated concern. “To do so would mark that person as an unrepentant primitive, a throwback, an apologist for ancient superstition.”

“Then why bother to change the paintings that are sold to tourists?”

“Many of the people here, especially the older ones, tend to adopt an unspoken agnostic-like position. They can be ninety-nine per cent sure there is no magic, but the remaining one per cent might make life unnecessarily complex. So those who manufacture the sandpaintings for mass distribution will tell you it is all old nonsense at the same time as they are making sure at least one small part of each painting they turn out is inaccurate.

“It’s easy for them, because only a trained hatathli, a medicine man, knows how to make an accurate medicine painting, and they do not make things to sell to tourists. So you need not worry if you buy one. There will be no real magic in it.”

“That’s a great relief,” said Moody. “Now I can embark on a life without fear.”

“Hold to the comfort of your skepticism. We may need it later. Do not forget that someone, and I concur with your department that he is most likely Navaho, has murdered two people and violated the security of a major multinational insurance firm because of a sandpainting.”

“But no specific suspects yet?”

“I regret not. It will come. Your cadcam portrait was very distinctive, and we have more to go on than that. There is, for example, the fact that the victim’s secretary heard the perpetrator make his request to acquire the sandpainting a fourth time. In our culture a request made a fourth time must be honored. I think it an unlikely ploy for a non-Navaho to try.”

“Any idea why he destroyed the painting after making such an effort to acquire it? The theory out my way goes that maybe he wanted to be the only possessor of the design, or something like that.”

Ooljee nodded. “A possibility. When we find him we will ask him.”

“Damn right we will.”

“There is a chance he could be Sioux or Kiowa or someone from another tribe masquerading as Navaho to conceal his true motives, but I tend to think not. I do not see someone from another tribe being so interested in a sandpainting.” For the first time, Ooljee appeared to hesitate before speaking. “Tell me, my friend, if you don’t mind: why are you here?”

“My department wanted one of its own on the scene. Lucky me got elected when he wasn’t looking.”

“I see. I was not told, and I was curious.”

“Shoot, who wouldn’t be? Look, I don’t want to step on anybody’s ego. It’s not that we don’t have complete confidence in you people out here. This wasn’t my idea. I’ll try to stay out of the way.”

“That would be nice. Are you feeling a little better?”

“Yeah.” Moody rose. The initial lightheadedness had left him. “Let’s go. But keep it slow, okay?” He bent to recover his luggage.