Free A Flower in the Desert by Walter Satterthwait Page A

for a moment, hands in his pockets, looking out the wall of glass at the smudged red and yellow bands in the darkening sky. If you didn’t know what caused them, they might have been pretty—a soft, distant, impressionistic blur of color. The tide was out, and a few people, mostly couples in shorts or rolled-up trousers, walked along the smooth brown sand. Out on the water, some motorboats loafed across the gray. In the sky, some seagulls soared.
    â€œYou picked a fine time to visit Los Angeles,” he said without looking at me. “This is the worst smog I’ve ever seen. It never used to get all the way out here, to the beaches. You could stand here, anywhere along the coast, and you could see practically all the way to Hawaii.” He frowned. “It gets worse every year.” He was killing time, I thought, postponing a possible confrontation.
    He turned, stepped over to the entryway, pushed a button. Above us, a neon light flickered for an instant, then glowed, filling the room with that artificial brightness that seems, while there’s still some light in the sky, thin and paltry and sad. “Have a seat,” he told me.
    I sat down on the far side of the table and he sat opposite me, in the chair that held his suit coat. “All right,” he said. “You’re looking for Melissa Alonzo.”
    â€œThat’s right.”
    â€œAnd, according to you, you’re not working for her ex-husband.”
    â€œRight.”
    â€œThis story about Alonzo’s uncle. I hope you don’t mind if I tell you that I still find it a little difficult to believe.”
    â€œI don’t mind,” I said. “Sometimes I have problems with it myself. But like I said over the phone, you can call Martin Durham in Santa Fe. He’ll verify everything.”
    â€œI did call him, and he did.” He smiled a small, wry smile. “But I’m a lawyer myself, remember. I don’t necessarily have to believe everything another lawyer tells me.”
    I smiled. “Even when he used to be a governor?’
    He smiled back. “Especially then.” His face became expressionless again. “You said you intended to act only as a go-between, without telling Mr. Montoya where Melissa is. If you do find her, what will prevent him from hiring someone else to follow your trail?”
    â€œFor one thing, I’ll keep looking for her.”
    He thought a moment, then nodded. “After you find her, you mean.”
    I nodded. “I won’t contact him until I’ve moved on a reasonable distance from wherever she is.”
    A faint smile. “Is that ethical?”
    I shrugged. “I told Mr. Montoya that I’d do whatever I could to guarantee Melissa and Winona’s safety.”
    â€œYou’ll be charging him for work that you won’t actually be doing.”
    â€œI can live with that. So can he.”
    Another faint smile. “Are you always so relaxed about overcharging your clients?”
    â€œNot always,” I said. I smiled; I was careful to smile. “But then I’m not a lawyer.”
    He laughed. There was some surprise and some reluctance in the laughter. “Is that your standard technique for lowering a witness’s defenses? Insulting his profession?”
    â€œWhen I think it’ll work.”
    He looked at me, smiling thoughtfully. Then he nodded. “All right. What can I do for you?”
    â€œYou represented Melissa in her divorce, as well as the custody thing.”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œI imagine you got to know her fairly well.”
    He shrugged lightly. “Inevitable, given the nature of the case.”
    â€œWhat did you think of her?”
    He seemed surprised. “Why?”
    â€œI don’t know the woman. And knowing something about her, about the kind of person she was, might be helpful.”
    Another small, wry smile. “The psychological approach?”
    â€œYeah. They said in