Slow Kill - Michael Mcgarrity [63]
“What else can you tell me about him?” Kerney asked.
“He’s part of the establishment now, a successful businessman. Chamber of Commerce member, museum foundation patron, and all that. Owns the Blue Mountain Restaurant on the Paseo and the Blue Moon Gallery just off the plaza.”
“He likes the color blue, I take it,” Kerney said.
“You’ve got that right. He lives in a primo old hacienda on a ten-acre parcel off Kit Carson Road. He likes to play the cowboy role. Wears his hair pulled back in a ponytail and dresses in jeans and boots. He’s divorced and has a Scandinavian girlfriend who teaches writing workshops and makes documentary films about oppressed women.”
“Is he into anything shady?” Kerney asked.
“As far as I know, Winger is a solid, upstanding citizen.”
“No trouble during his early days in town?”
“I know he smoked pot, but he never was busted.”
“How did he get started in business?” Kerney asked.
Pontsler rubbed his thumb and fingers together. “He likes to say he started out buying southwestern art for himself before the market for it took off. But it was really family money that bankrolled him. His father was a big-time New York City architect.”
Before leaving, Kerney got a rundown on a few more people Pontsler thought might be helpful. He locked his sidearm in the glove box of his unit, stuck his shield in his back pocket, and walked to Winger ’s restaurant.
Although it was touted as a mecca of Native American culture and had a long history as a famous art colony, Taos had never appealed much to Kerney. Parts of it were charming and the surrounding landscape was majestic. But the city was also a magnet for modern-day rogues and ruffians, frauds and fugitives, many of whom could be belligerent and nasty. Pontsler’s sterling character reference aside, Kerney wondered if Winger fit into any of those categories.
The Blue Mountain Restaurant occupied an old adobe house with a lovely tree-shaded outdoor dining patio and two small separate dining rooms with low ceilings, light blue walls with framed photographs of early Taos scenes, and Mexican tile tables. The hostess, a tall, rather aloof woman with a clipped English accent, told Kerney that Winger was never at the restaurant until late in the afternoon and could most probably be found at his gallery. He half-expected her to say “ta-ta” or “cheerio” when he thanked her and left.
He walked down the Paseo toward the plaza. Slow-moving road traffic with its incessant noise lurched in both directions as groups of shoppers wandered in and out of the retail stores lining the street. Many establishments had sale signs in the windows; others displayed rugs, apparel, and hand-crafted furniture in the front yards of old houses that had been converted to shops. Here and there a bored store clerk stood in a doorway watching the foot traffic pass by.
The hot, dry day had brought the tourists out in shorts, pullover short-sleeved shirts, and athletic walking shoes. Some were building up to painful sunburns, while others shaded their faces with newly purchased cheap straw cowboy hats or billed caps that proclaimed their visit to Taos.
The Blue Moon Gallery was an austere, modern space a few steps from the plaza. Overhead track lights and exposed heating and cooling ductwork hung from the ceiling, and the walls were filled with the works of the Taos Society of Artists, established in the early part of the twentieth century by a group of bohemian artists drawn to the area’s culture and landscape.
Kerney trailed behind two couples cruising the gallery and immediately recognized the distinctive styles of Joseph Henry Sharp, Eanger Irving Couse, and Ernest Blumenschein, three of the founding members of the society. Only the placards next to the smaller paintings displayed a price. There was nothing on sale below twenty thousand dollars until you got to the lesser-known artists who’d joined