Day of the Dead - J. A. Jance [75]
She went to the gallery opening with her friend and roommate, Marcia Lomax, who worked for the Department of Justice. They went on a pair of free tickets given her by Delia’s boss. They expected to show up, have a few drinks, nosh on the free food, and then go to a movie.
Delia and Marcia were standing and chatting in front of a massive full-length oil portrait of a handsome Indian man with much of his face obscured by a pair of mirrored sunglasses. He wore a tattered straw cowboy hat—a Resistol—and an equally tattered American flag wrapped around him like a toga. The piece was called Promises.
“Well, ladies,” a pleasantly deep male voice said. “Have you figured out what it means?”
Delia turned from the portrait to the voice and did a double take. The painting seemed to have come to life, reflective sunglasses and all, although the straw hat had been replaced by a huge black felt Stetson and the flag by a designer tuxedo. As far as Delia was concerned, the affectation of wearing Ray•Bans inside meant two things—trouble and phony.
“I take it we’re looking at a portrait of the artist as a young man?” Delia asked.
He pretended to wince. “Not that much younger, I hope. But yes, I’m him, or vice versa. The name’s Philip Cachora. Where are you two from?”
“Justice,” Marcia replied.
“BIA,” Delia chimed in.
“I mean, where are you from?” Philip insisted. “Or is Justice the name of a little town somewhere in the middle of Tennessee or Missouri?”
“I work at the Department of Justice,” Marcia answered. “I’m from Milwaukee.”
Delia shook her head. “Forget it,” she said. “Nobody’s ever heard of where I’m from.”
“Try me.”
“Sells, Arizona,” she said.
Philip Cachora’s jaw dropped. “No shit!” he exclaimed. He tipped his hat. “If you’ll pardon the expression.”
“How about you?” Delia asked.
“Vamori,” he said.
Delia and Marcia exchanged glances. “Okay,” Delia said. “We give up. Where’s that?”
“About twenty miles southwest of Sells, actually,” he replied with a grin. “Obviously you’re not up on Tohono O’odham geography. What’s a nice Indian girl like you doing in a place like this?”
“I’m a lawyer,” Delia answered. “For the BIA.”
“Where’s your family from?” he asked, moving in on Delia in a way that effectively edged Marcia out of the conversation. She shrugged and then obligingly strolled on through the exhibit, leaving Philip and Delia alone. “I mean, from what villages on the reservation?”
“My father came from Big Fields originally,” Delia said. “My mother’s family came from Little Tucson. That’s all I know. I left the reservation when I was seven and haven’t been back.”
“That’s a long time,” he observed.
“Twenty years,” she agreed. “What about you?”
“I wanted to be an artist. Halfway through high school I opted for a boarding school in Santa Fe. I’ve been there ever since—in Santa Fe, not in boarding school. Twenty years more or less, too, but who’s counting? I make a good living. I paint Indians wearing flags and sell them to guilt-ridden limousine liberals. One guy who paid ten thousand bucks for a painting very much like this one asked if I’d ever been on the warpath. I told him I’d never been off it.”
They both laughed at that. “And then,” he added, warming to the topic, “there are always a few rich babes who figure if they buy one of my paintings they also qualify for a roll in the hay. The trick is to pry them loose from their money without getting dragged into beddy-bye.”
“You look more than capable of fending them off,” Delia observed. She glanced down the gallery and caught sight of Marcia standing near the doorway entrance into another room, chatting with someone she knew.
“Do you have plans for dinner?” Philip asked.
“Yes,” Delia said quickly. “My