A Nasty Piece of Work Read Free Page A

yesterday my uncle asked me if I’d checked out the deed with the county records office. I’m new at this—I’m embarrassed to say it hadn’t crossed my mind. My uncle gave me the name of the clerk to call.”
    I saw where her story was going. “The deed turned out to be phony.”
    “I dialed the home phone number Emilio Gava left with me. I got a recorded announcement saying the line had been disconnected. I drove out U.S. 70 to East of Eden Gardens to look at the condominium listed on the deed. According to the concierge, Gava rented the condo from its owner, an Albuquerque real estate investment company. The condo itself was in one of those new communities that seem to spring up overnight—”
    “Replete with minimalls and minigolf and all-weather tennis courts. Been there. Seen ’em.”
    “The Gava-Leffler condo was dark. They’ve obviously skipped out on the bail. Look, I know it’s a needle-in-a-haystack situation, but I thought you might give it your best shot…”
    She let the thought trail off. I nodded at her beer mug. She nodded no. I thought about her problem, and mine. Here’s what I said: “The chances of tracking down a bail jumper in two weeks and bringing him back to court are slim.” Here’s what I didn’t say: I was having the usual cash flow problems, bills were piling up. With summer not far away, the air-conditioning unit in the Once in a Blue Moon could use reconditioning. My vintage Studebaker needed four retreads and a new suspension. The Afghan orphan I’d adopted, Kubra, was winding up her first year at a junior college in California that charged $5,500 a year tuition and another $2,500 for room and board. Then there was Friday herself, hunched forward on the couch, reaching down to absently massage the ankle of one naked foot. Touched by something in this cracked Wedgwood of a woman that was broken and needed mending, I heard myself say, “Why not?”
    Her face brightened and I caught a glimpse of what she might look like without the weight of the world on her shoulders. “You’ll try?”
    “I’m not guaranteeing results.”
    She thrust a hand into her astronaut knapsack and came up with an item clipped from the back pages of the Las Cruces Star about the drug bust and the arraignment and release on bail of one Emilio Gava. In the article, he was described as a retired businessman. “Too bad they didn’t publish a photo,” I remarked.
    “There was a Star photographer taking pictures on the courthouse steps,” Friday remembered, “but I guess they didn’t think Gava was a big enough fish to publish it.”
    I walked her through her involvement with Emilio Gava and Jennifer Leffler a second time, jotting down weights and heights and ages and hair colors, jotting down places and dates and the names of judges and bailiffs and officers of the court. I copied the address of the Las Cruces condo that she’d gotten off the phony deed. I marked down the various addresses and phone numbers where Friday could be reached. Her uncle ran his bond company out of an office on the second floor of a 1930s brick building around the corner from the Las Cruces courthouse. Ornella Neppi herself had a place in a fifties garden apartment community on the edge of Doña Ana north of Las Cruces. Suzari Marionettes operated out of a secondhand Ford van and a PO box in Doña Ana.
    I snapped my spiral notebook closed. Friday stood up. “Can I use the facilities, Lemuel?”
    For the life of me I couldn’t imagine what facilities she was referring to. My confusion must have been draped across my face because she looked me in the eye and said, “So, hey, I need to pee.”
    “Uh-huh. Sorry. I’m a bit thick at times.” I steered her to the bathroom at the back of the mobile home, then ducked into the bedroom to change into a pair of faded khaki slacks, a frayed but serviceable Fruit of the Loom and my running shoes without socks. I was collecting the empty beer mugs when Friday returned from the