Chapter Twelve

Though he felt guilty for interrupting Oscar's vacation, Jack called his partner at seven in the morning.

“Hey, amigo,” a sleepy Oscar said. “You having fun in Santa Fe?”

“Not exactly,” Jack said. “See, the case has taken a couple of weird twists, and it's more than one gringo cop can handle. Now if I had a really smart Latino to help me out down here, somebody I could trust . . .”

“I must be going deaf in my old age,” Oscar said. “I just had an auditory hallucination that you asked me to give up my vacation to come down there and help you and your completely untrustworthy criminal girlfriend in a kidnapping case. I'm telling you, Jackie, I think I need to go to the ear doctor.”

Jack started laughing.

“There's nothing wrong with your ears, Osc. The next Southwest plane leaves at ten o'clock.”

“Oh, Jack . . . I don't believe you're doing this.”

“Okay, Osc, you don't have to. You enjoy your vacation, which you wouldn't be having anyway if I hadn't saved your ass that time in Cartagena.”

“I can't believe you're bringing that up.”

“I know it's a cheap shot, but that's how desperate I am.”

“Shit, amigo. That is so low of you. But I'll be there. You bastard.”

“Love you, too, Oscar.”

Jack hung up, ashamed of himself but greatly relieved. He had half the day before Oscar arrived, and there was a lot he wanted to see at Blue Wolf.

The Blue Wolf Lodge was a slick place, with modern steel and glass buildings and a medical wing where celebrities and CEOs got face-lifts and tummy tucks while they looked out at the mountains.

As Alex Williams showed him around the place, Jack saw people getting treatments called Adobe Mud Wraps, green-tinted Turquoise Facials, Cornmeal Wraps, and Volcanic Clay massages. Other people, mostly older women, were having their feet pummeled gently by so-called Mystical River Stones, and still others were having their lymph glands massaged.

The whole deal seemed like a giant hustle to him, and he wasn't getting any closer to finding Jennifer Wu.

“Look, Mr. Williams,” he said. “I appreciate your showing me around. But what I really need is to find the Holdens. Phil and Dee Dee.”

“Of course,” Alex Williams apologized. “Sorry, I got a little carried away.”

“No problem,” Jack said. “I wish I was here on vacation.”

“No, you're right. I'll get you to them right now.”

They walked across the “campus,” as Williams called it, and Jack saw the vast and otherworldly cactus gardens and the Desert Rose Meditation Center. Finally, he and his friendly host wandered out to the parking lot, where tour bus after tour bus arrived with old couples in them. They came with crutches, canes, walkers, fancy wheelchairs, and oxygen tanks. Soon they had formed a line and were trundling along to check in at the Soul and Spirit Center.

“Let me guess, my friend,” Alex Williams said. “You're a little skeptical about all of this?”

Jack laughed and admitted that he was. “I see a lot of desperate people, closer to the end of their lives than they would like to admit. They come to these places for some kind of mud-wrap miracle.”

Williams shook his head.

“No,” he said. “We don't promise them that. Just renewal. It can be long-lasting or it can be short-term, depending on how serious they are.”

“Or how much money they spend?”

“Yes, that, too. Healing doesn't come cheap. Nor do the therapies we use. People study years and years to learn the disciplines we teach here. A great native healer, for example, has to undergo a long apprenticeship under a licensed medicine man from his tribe. It's no less than the kind of education taken by a Western practitioner.”

Jack smiled as a stunning pair of pearl-colored clouds moved overhead.

“Well, let's just say I'm more of a fan of Western medicine than you are.”

But Alex Williams wouldn't give in.

“You're wrong there, too. I have a medical degree from Harvard. What we try to do here at Blue Wolf is integrate both traditional Western practices and the best of all the other traditions. Remember, Asian, Mexican, and Indian cultures were all around thousands of years before we were and know many things we've yet to discover.”

Jack nodded his head, though Williams had scarcely convinced him.

As the older guests trudged past him to check in, Jack felt that he could see the desperation on all of their faces, and a terrible fear in their eyes.

They must know, Jack thought, that all this nontraditional, spiritual “medicine” was jive. Wasn't it obvious that having their legs pummeled with rocks from ancient stream beds wasn't going to do a damned thing for their failing hearts and crummy circulation? And didn't they know that having their skin exfoliated, and their imaginary third eye filled with some kind of fancy, heated olive oil, was going to mean absolutely zero in a fight against cancer? They must know; but they did it anyway. They had mud baths and Cornmeal Wraps, and ate lizard skins ground up in capsules, and they knew that at least some of the staff was laughing at them behind their backs while they accepted their over-the-top tips, but they went on with it, because “what if?” What if it somehow worked? What if the Cornmeal Wrap broke through some kind of molecular twenty-first-century fucked-up dying-cell cancer, and somehow stimulated youth in them? What if it worked in spite of their cynicism? What if there was some particle of truth to it all and it made them young again? Even if just for a month, or a couple of weeks or, for that matter, one weekend?

Why not give it a shot?

They found Phil Holden at the Piñon Bar. He was standing at the bar downing a margarita. He wore a green silk shirt with blue parrots on it and white pants. He looked like an eighties refugee from Miami Vice.

Alex Williams introduced Jack, who noticed that Holden's face was bloated from alcohol.

“I understand you were up at the Tewa Pueblo yesterday,” Jack said. “Did you happen to see this girl?”

He showed Holden a picture of Jennifer Wu.

“Yeah,” Phil said, as he picked up his drink. “Yeah, I guess I did see her. She was standing over by the big round structure they got there. What's that thing called?”

“The kiva,” Jack said.

“Right, me and Dee Dee—that's my wife—we just come out of there and we saw this Chinese girl talking to some people.”

“What did they look like?”

“I don't know. Three or four guys. Not Indians, I don't think. They seemed to be asking her for directions. She kind of walked away with them . . . and she was pointing, you know, south, I guess. Like they were asking directions to Santa Fe, or someplace south of Taos, anyway.”

“You sure of this?” Jack asked.

“Yeah, I am.”

“Well then, yesterday, when the second Chinese girl came up and asked you where her sister went, why did you tell her you hadn't seen her?”

Phil shook his head.

“I don't know why I said that,” he blushed. “I just smelled bad news coming and I didn't want any part of it.”

“What do you mean, bad news?” Jack pushed. “We think that this girl, Jennifer Wu, was kidnapped and maybe you could have stopped it.”

“Yeah, I see that now,” Phil said. “I do. But I didn't know anything about that yesterday, right? I mean, for all I know, those Chinese girls coulda been in cahoots with the bikers. They get us to go somewhere with them and the next thing me and Dee Dee know is we're out in the desert somewhere, our money gone, and bullet holes in our heads.”

Jack sighed.

“You see what kind of rides the bikers had?”

“Couldn't be sure. Harleys maybe.”

“License plates?”

“Well, they were New Mexico plates, that's for sure. But I didn't get any of them.”

“Could you physically identify any of the guys who took her?” Jack asked.

“Not really. I didn't get that close and, you know, it's dark up there. Only moonlight. Now, if you guys don't mind, I'm going to order another drink and then take a nap.”

“Yeah, sure,” Jack said. “That's just fine. But I may want to talk to you again. Okay?”

“Sure,” Phil said. “Most exciting thing that's happened to me since I been here.” He took another sip of his drink and turned away from Jack.

“Does that help you at all?” Alex Williams asked, looking concerned, as they walked outside.

“Well, it confirms one thing. That Jennifer was taken by bikers.”

“Very unsettling, Jack,” Alex said. “Do you want to talk to any of her coworkers?”

“Yeah,” Jack said. “Anyone she worked with in the nursing department. Speaking of which—what kind of a nurse is she?”

“Surgical nurse and a damned good one,” Alex said. “I'll work up a list of all her coworkers. You can tackle it after lunch.”

“Thanks for all your cooperation, Alex.”

“The least I can do. First, you saved me from a beating, and second, this is one of our own. We think of Blue Wolf as an extended family. What happens to one of us happens to all of us.”

“Y'know, I'd like to see Jennifer's room, if that's possible,” Jack said.

“Of course,” Williams said. “She lived on the fourth floor of the medical building, in the dorm rooms. I took the liberty of getting you a key. The only thing is, I can't allow you to ask questions of the guests on the first and second floors. Many of them are well-known people who pay quite a bit of money to have their treatments with maximum security.”

“Really?” Jack asked. “But what if she worked with some of them?”

“You can talk to the surgeons she worked with. But not the patients. We wouldn't be open for a week if word got out that our privacy rules had been violated.”

“All right,” Jack said. “You're the boss.”

Alex smiled and warmly shook Jack's hand.

“Now I've got to get back to work. I want to thank you again for standing up to those bikers. That took real courage. I won't soon forget it. And I'm sure you'll find Jennifer. The only thing is . . .”

“What?” Jack asked.

“I'm about ninety-nine percent positive she isn't around here. And if one of the cycle gangs took her, maybe you should be looking at them and their brothels. If they grabbed her right off the street, well, they could be hustling her out of the state right now.”

Jack nodded. “I know. Trust me, I'm on it.”

“Good,” Alex smiled. He waved good-bye and headed across the parking lot.

There was a separate door that led to the dorm rooms on the third and fourth floors of the medical building, and a skinny, pock-faced guard who sat at a desk ringed with cameras. On hearing Jack's name he let him in at once and pointed to the elevator to the fourth floor, then went back to playing his computer game, Dr. Dinky's Death Camp.

Jennifer's place was a one-bedroom apartment, neatly kept. There was much more of an Asian motif than Jack had seen in any of her sister's merely functional apartments. There was a Qing Dynasty red Suzhou cabinet. It must be a knockoff, Jack thought. The real thing would be ridiculously expensive . . . unless, of course, it was stolen. Michelle had always maintained that her little sister was straighter than straight, but one couldn't really believe much of anything Michelle said. For that matter, Jack thought, as he opened the doors of the chest, Michelle herself could have stolen the chest and given it to her sister.

With Michelle Wu and any of her friends or family, pretty much anything was possible.

He looked at a golden ceremonial robe on the wall and a floor screen with cranes and pines on it.

Jennifer was much more into her Asian heritage than Michelle, who veered from punk rock to super goth depending on her mercurial moods.

In her bedroom he found a jade-inlaid desk, which Jack guessed was made in Shanghai perhaps a hundred years ago. He looked at the wood—elm—and then tried to open the drawer, but it was locked. Jack took out his lock picks, and within two minutes the desk was open.

Inside were piles of papers and receipts wrapped with rubber bands, and a book of photographs of Michelle and Jennifer when they were young and a woman who might have been their mother. She had the girls’ good looks, and was wearing shorts and a halter top. Very rare for a Chinese woman of that era to show so much skin. Jack found himself forgetting why he was here as he leafed through the pictures. Just seeing Michelle's photos did something visceral to him—one part protective, one part desire.

Reminding himself why he was in this room, he looked under the bed, then in the medicine cabinet, and found nothing.

Then he saw it. The outline of dust on the desktop where a laptop computer must have been.

Whoever took Jennifer had also been here and found her computer.

Which could mean only one thing . . . she knew something, something that could be bad news for her captors.

In all likelihood, Jennifer's kidnapping was not just a random crime, nor was it a simple, impulsive revenge play by Lucky and his crew.

Lucky was probably involved, though, in some way. Maybe Michelle and Jennifer were in cahoots after all, and they were threatening Lucky's enterprise. Jack was walking back toward the front door when he heard someone in the hallway. He quickly ducked back into the bathroom and waited until the footsteps subsided. Standing there, he saw a pack of matches that had fallen behind the sink.

He reached down and picked it up. The Jackalope Ranch. Interesting. He put them in his pocket and quickly headed toward the front door.

Outside, Jack was walking around toward the back end of the medical building, trying to figure out a way to get inside, when he saw a blonde he'd noticed earlier that morning as she had been taking people around the grounds. She was a stunning-looking thirty-something woman with a terrific body, a fantastic smile, and intelligent eyes. She wore tight blue jeans and a Blue Wolf T-shirt.

“Hello,” she said, as they crossed paths, “my name is Kim Walker. I do publicity for Blue Wolf.”

“Jack Morrison,” he volunteered.

“I know,” she said. “You're the talk of the lodge. You saved Alex last night.”

“Maybe,” Jack said. “But he's a pretty tough guy. I bet he could have handled Lucky all by himself.”

“I doubt that,” she said. “Where are you heading, Jack Morrison?”

“Need to grab some lunch,” Jack answered.

“Why don't you eat with me here at the Piñon?” she offered. “We have great food, and maybe I can help you with that girl you're looking for.”

“You heard about Jennifer?” Jack asked.

“Of course,” Kim said. “And I've got my own little theory.”

“Really?”

“Really. Come along, Jack. I think you'll be interested in what I have to tell you.”

As they waited for their food, Jack smiled and looked hard at her. Her skin had an almost luminescent shine to it and her eyes actually twinkled when she spoke.

“Okay, here's the deal. Lucky Avila lives in an old converted motel not far from Blue Wolf. Just below us, actually. Fortunately, there's no road between his place and ours, but every once in a while some of the drugged-out bikers and other lowlifes who live there like to drive their cycles up to our property line and hassle our guests. This all started about five years ago. It was irritating at first but Alex decided to ignore them. That worked for a while, until one day about three years ago, a teenaged girl named Ellie Kozack went missing. The cops were called in, then the FBI. For a while, maybe two weeks, there was nothing, not a trace of her. Then a witness stepped forward, an old guy named Charlie Huff who was out of it on various prescription drugs, so no one knew whether to believe him or not. Anyway, he swore he saw Ellie getting on the back of a cycle. He said the driver looked like a gang member. He also said they were headed down to El Coyote, Lucky's place. The police came and looked all around but didn't find anything. Which, of course, means nothing. Whoever took her had her for at least three days before the search at Lucky's place. They could have all raped her, slit her throat, and buried her out in the desert by that time. Trust me, Jack, people disappear in the desert all the time and are never heard from again. Just about the only way they can be found is if animals dig them up and somebody, a hiker or someone like that, happens to cross paths with the body before the animals devour it.”

“So you think maybe the same thing happened to Jennifer?”

“I don't know. From what I heard your missing girl was up at the Taos Reservation but Lucky and his boys do a lot of business up there. Selling speed to the Indians. They could have bumped into her, got her to take a little ride . . .”

“No,” Jack said, “she was not the kind of girl who'd take a joy ride with bikers. If they took her they must have knocked her out.”

“Sounds more and more like Lucky,” Kim said. “He might do it on a whim. The guy is very impulsive.”

Jack looked at her with a thoughtful expression.

“What?”

“I don't understand why Alex didn't mention this.”

“That's easy. The case is closed, and Lucky would love to sue Blue Wolf. He's the most litigious person on the planet.”

“I see,” Jack said.

“You want my advice, I'd say get a search warrant and some help from the sheriff's office and go over Lucky's property with a fine-tooth comb. Before Jennifer Wu ends up like Ellie Kozack.”

“Not easy to get a search warrant based on hearsay evidence. I imagine if Avila is like many other motorcycle gang leaders he's got some big-shot lawyers representing him.”

Kim Walker shook her head and picked at her salad.

“That's bullshit. That girl could be on his property right now. Maybe she's still alive, but if I know Lucky Avila she won't be for long, and once she's dead no one will ever find her bones.”

She dabbed a speck of blue cheese dressing from her mouth.

“I have a feeling about you, Jack. You seem like a very capable man who wouldn't let a technicality like a search warrant stop you from saving a girl's life.”

She smiled warmly at him and Jack felt it deep in his bones.