The evening wind whistles through the abandoned gas station. You can see why the kidnapper chose it. Except for the long bluff of red rock a hundred yards behind you, there is nothing in sight but the high plains and the dusty road.

As you wait, you think. Who would want to kidnap Arnold Post? Glen Treater thinks it was Nabokov, a bookmaker from Albuquerque who's been expanding north, trying to dominate the part of New Mexico Post and Treater had carved out for themselves. His theory makes sense, but at this point you really donŒt have enough information.

You kick at a rock and frown. Could something have gone wrong? You arrived here alone, in Glen Treater's Explorer, dressed in his hat and rain slicker. John Night Sky had parked on another road, a good two miles away, and climbed the far side of the bluff. Even you wouldn't know he was there, wedged behind an outcropping of red rock.

You check the briefcase of money, then check your watch. No cops, they'd said. Or Post would be killed. It's 15 minutes past the drop-off time and the road in both directions is still empty.

And then a phone rings, the piercing sound echoing off the walls of the bluff. You curse yourself and dive for the interior of the Explorer, fumbling for your cell phone on the front seat. "Yes?"

A familiar whisper addresses you by name. "I thought that might be you, officer. That hat is very becoming. Remember what I said about no police?" And he hangs up.

The next day they find the Mercedes, abandoned just off the Old Taos Road. That evening, they discover the body of Arnold Post. It's 40 miles further north not far from the highway. A Pueblo shepherd stumbled across it in an arroyo and shooed away the vultures that had already started making a meal of the face.

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