The Quality of Mercy by Katayoun Medhat

Author:Katayoun Medhat
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Leapfrog Press
Published: 2017-07-25T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“Here, you hold on to this.” Begay passed the piece of paper to K.

K glanced at it. “You’re kidding me. I’m supposed to read that? In a moving car? Looks like it’s moving all on its own.”

He stared at Begay’s spidery scrawl and had an idea for a parlor game: Match the Handwriting. No way would he have guessed that Robbie Begay, solid, easygoing, affable (mostly), wrote like a superannuated spinster after too many swigs of Southern Comfort.

“You can thank me for giving you some opportunity for skills training,” hissed Begay. He shook his head as if there was a hornet buzzing around it. “Shashlííyááde, what do they teach you up there? You damn near told the guy to zip it—just as he’s about to spill. Jesus H.! Care to tell me what’s going on?”

K sighed and told him.

“Who gives a shit about Carmen Miranda?” thundered Begay. “Piece of bílagáana crap! Down here we believe that you pay for what you done!”

He sounded not unlike a Tea Party brother.

Though K could see how Begay might be pissed at having to witness a potential perp bailed out by a fellow cop. So he tried once more.

“Yeah,” said Begay, “Far-sighted Mr. Social Conscience thinking of all those kids that look up to Benally.”

K’s contrition was beginning to wear thin. “OK. YOU tell me.”

“Easy,” said Begay. “Benally spills. We book him. We hunt down the other perps. They get sent to Federal and do sweet time, an example to all those folks doing things and thinking they got away with it, ‘coz they’ve been able to lie low for a bunch of time. This here would’ve been a chance to show ’em loud and clear, to demonstrate that justice sure has a long memory.”

“Show ‘em loud and clear,” mused K.

“Screw you!” Begay said.

• • •

South of Redwater the land opened up. The jagged rock, the feeder pipe of what had once been a larger volcanic landmass, rose out of the plain like a knuckled fist raised at the sky. They drove past a group of men in cowboy gear riding white-and-brown-flecked pintos, Stetsons set far back, coiled lassos suspended from their saddles.

“Look at those Indians playing cowboys,” Begay said.

At the intersection K said, “Mind if we stop here?”

Begay shrugged. He pulled over and parked near the solitary food stall that had pitched up there.

“How about fry bread and coffee?” asked K.

“You buying?” said Begay.

“Sure.”

“Don’t kid yourself that I’m that cheap to buy off.”

“I did not think so for a moment,” K assured him, “but I’m hoping that fat and carbs will have a soporific effect on you.”

“You want me to fall asleep at the wheel?”

“No, just something to cushion that anger that’s sitting in your belly.”

Begay grinned. “Cushion the anger that’s sitting in my belly? Go ahead, bro’. Get me some cushion.”

K walked over to the stall. It was a metal folding table, a two-ringed cooker connected to a propane bottle; on it sat a frying pan and a coffee-pot.

“Hi,” said K.

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