The Albuquerque Turkey: A Novel by John Vorhaus

project?”
    “Not after I apply these bad boys,” he said, showing me sheets ofbutcher paper covered with sketches of primitive glyphs. “I’ll carve them in when I’m done.”
    “What do they mean?”
    Again that devilish light in his eyes. “Anything I want.”
    Credit the man with having fun inventing reality.
    So we said our good-byes, and I hit the road, heading southwest out of Santa Fe until I reached the valley of the Rio Grande and followed it down to Albuquerque. More Sharps; I set an over/under line on how many I’d see per mile. I took the under and lost.
    It felt odd to be on the road all alone. Made me nostalgic for my first full summer in the grift when I drove coast to coast, hanging bad paper and seeing the sights. I used to go into bars at night and represent myself as a member of whatever state’s Alcohol Control Board. That’s good for free drinks, but mostly I just did it for company. Now I had company—quality company, with love to boot—that I was leaving behind, but I couldn’t deny the rush of all that open space in front.
    I scarfed down some Cheetos and didn’t worry about my breath.
    The drive west out of Albuquerque was a brutal battle against the afternoon sun. Two hours of it left me drained, so I pulled into a rest stop west of Gallup to recharge my batteries. I hit the john, then walked around for a minute, waking up my legs. Returning to Carol, I noticed a white Song Sharp parked beside her. Yet another one; I wouldn’t have given it a second look, but for the gash in the hood. Deep. In the shape of a V.
    Okay, Radar, don’t panic. You said yourself these things are made of cardboard. What’s to keep two from being dented?
Even as I thought that, I knew I wasn’t prepared to buy it. A coincidence too far. My head jerked around toward the bathroom. Had the driver gone in there? Had I noticed? People come and go; you can’t notice everyone.
    On the spur of the moment, I decided to ping the target: create a situation to gain some information. I opened the hood of my Swing and propped it up on its prop rod. Then I grabbed a bottle of water and dumped it all over the hot engine compartment. A plume of white vapor spewed up, creating the reasonable impression of a cooked radiator.You see this dodge used all the time in gas stations by low-level snukes working the car-trouble scam. I’d long considered such short cons beneath me, but these were special circumstances. I bent over the engine, studying its parts with an air of concern while I waited for the driver of the dinged Sharp to return to his car.
    Here he came, smoking a clove cigarette, a black man with closely cropped salt-and-pepper hair atop a high, shiny forehead. Deep smile lines flared out from either side of his broad, flat nose, framing a gray moustache. A white polo shirt clung snugly to his broad shoulders and incipient paunch. He wasn’t fat, exactly, but had reached the age, roughly sixty, I’d say, where most efforts to stay in shape are a holding action at best. But with taut muscular arms and legs he looked casually strong and reasonably light on his feet. What struck me most, though, as I glanced at him from the shadow of the car hood, were his barn-owl irises, set against creamy ivory sclera, irises so dark that you couldn’t tell where they left off and the pupils began. These were intelligent eyes. They made me think,
This cat’s been around
.
    I stood up as he walked past. “Shit,” I muttered underneath my breath, then backed into him accidentally.
    He caught me without giving ground. I uttered some more frustrated obscenities in the direction of the fuming engine. “Engine trouble?” he asked. I’d made the question obligatory.
    “No, the engine trouble’s passed,” I said. “Now I got tow troubles.”
    “As in …”
    “As in how I’m gonna afford one out of this godforsaken hole.”
    “That broke?”
    “That broke.” I waved a distracted hand toward the Sharp, not indicating that