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  But Kerney wondered about Johnny’s drinking. He’d studied Johnny’s face carefully for any telltale signs of alcoholism—pasty gray skin, bloodshot eyes, the broken spider veins that showed on the cheek and nose—and had seen none. But that didn’t prove anything.

  He shrugged off his unanswered question about Johnny. Best to wait and see if he followed up and sent him the script. If he did, Kerney would talk to Sara about the idea of spending their vacation playing cowboys on a movie.

  Actually, to Kerney, in spite of his reservations about Johnny, the idea sounded like a total hoot.

  By morning the April snowstorm had passed, the sun had burned away the last traces of snow, and trees were greening up, about to bud. After a presentation to a civic organization at a breakfast meeting in downtown Santa Fe, Kerney hurried back to headquarters for a regularly scheduled monthly meeting with his senior commanders and supervisors from all shifts.

  Always on the lookout for new ways to combat and reduce crime, Kerney had recently instituted a computer-based system that identified patterns of criminal activity based on the types of offenses committed, the dates and times of each occurrence, and the specific locations of the crimes. Basic information from all incident reports and traffic citations were fed into the system, analyzed, and broken down into ten geographical areas within the city. The program allowed Kerney and his commanders to shift resources, set goals, coordinate case planning among the various divisions, and track progress.

  The department had field-tested the system over the previous holiday season and had reduced auto burglaries at shopping malls by fifty percent. Now that it was fully operational, each commander was responsible for establishing monthly targeted goals to reduce crime on their shifts or within their units based on the current trends.

  More than twenty senior officers were crowded into the first floor training room, filling the chairs at the large conference table and sitting against the walls. Kerney’s deputy chief, Larry Otero, ran the meeting as the commanders discussed the data, reviewed their current activities, and set new case plans and special operations to be put into place during the coming month.

  At the end of the table, a slide projector connected to the computer displayed the area maps of the city on a screen that highlighted high crime activity. In the downtown area, early evening, strong-arm robberies and purse snatchings were up, and in a public housing neighborhood near St. Michael’s Drive, criminal damage to property and residential burglaries had risen by ten percent on the weekends. On the southern end of the city, motor vehicle crashes were down on all shifts. But a perp had surfaced who was baiting patrol officers into high-speed chases and had yet to be caught.

  The meeting wound down with a report on the completion of the latest citizen police academy program, and a decision was made to run a DWI blitz on a Saturday night during spring break. The last bit of business was an announcement of the arrival of twenty new patrol vehicles, which were being outfitted and would be put in service within two weeks.

  Kerney thanked everyone for their good work and went upstairs to his office, where he reviewed the shift commanders’ reports from the last twenty-four hours that summarized all policing activities. A DWI arrest had been made on Cerrillos Road by a third-watch officer, and a male subject named John Douglas Jordan had been taken into custody.

  Kerney powered up his desktop computer, logged on, and found the officer’s incident report. Three hours after Kerney had left him at the hotel, Johnny had been arrested on Cerrillos Road two blocks from the city’s only adult entertainment club. He’d been stopped for making an illegal U-turn and had failed a field sobriety test. At the jail, he’d registered a 0.20 on the alcohol breath test, more than twice the legal limit.

  Kerney called the jail and learned that Johnny had been released on bail. His phone rang just as he was about to dial the hotel.

  “Hey, Kerney,” Johnny said cheerfully when Kerney answered. “You should have had that nightcap with me at the bar. Then I wouldn’t have gotten into a little trouble with one of your officers.”

  “I just read about your ‘little trouble,’ Johnny,” Kerney said.

  “Didn’t the officer call you at home? I asked him to.”

  “He had no reason to do that.”

  “I figured there were no special privileges for old friends,” Johnny said.

  There was static on the receiver. “Where are you calling from?” Kerney asked.

  “I’m on the road, heading home. Can you help me get out of this pickle?”

  “Get a lawyer to handle it, Johnny.”

  “Is it that cut and dried?”

  “In my department it is.”

  “I thought as much. No sweat. I’ll get that shooting script off to you. It will be on your desk tomorrow morning. Don’t let my little brush with the law put you off, Kerney. I don’t make a habit of it.”

  “I’m glad to hear that.”

  “I still want you in on the movie.”

  “I’ll give it some serious thought, Johnny.”

  “That’s all I ask, amigo. My reception is breaking up. I’ll talk to you soon.”

  Johnny disconnected, and Kerney spent time running a quick background check on Johnny, using the personal data contained in the officer ’s arrest report. In Colorado, Johnny had been cited for speeding twice but had no DWI arrests on his driving record. The National Crime Information Center showed no outstanding wants or warrants, and there was nothing on him in the New Mexico law enforcement computer system.

  Johnny had told him the truth about basically steering clear of the law, although a DWI bust wasn’t something to take lightly. But since experience had taught Kerney that Johnny could be untrustworthy, he decided to pay a visit to the New Mexico Film Office to see what he could learn about the movie project. Was it the real deal or a pie-in-the-sky fantasy?

  Housed in offices on St. Francis Drive, the film office had undergone a resurgence with the election of a new governor who’d made trips to Hollywood to court production companies to make pictures in New Mexico by offering tax incentives and loan subsidies. Kerney introduced himself to the receptionist, a young woman with light brown hair and plucked eyebrows, and asked if there was someone around who could tell him about a movie to be filmed in the Bootheel later in the year.

  Somewhat taken aback by Kerney’s uniform, the young woman cautiously asked why he was interested. She smiled with relief when Kerney told her he’d been approached to serve as a technical advisor on the project, and she passed him on to a middle-aged woman named Vikki Morrison, director of the agency.

  Trim and energetic, Morrison had short blond fluffy hair and high cheekbones. Her office walls were filled with framed, autographed photos of movie stars and posters of films shot in the state. A director’s chair at the side of her desk carried the name of one of Santa Fe’s best-known resident film celebrities. A bookshelf held a display of various shooting scripts that had been signed by cast members, along with a carefully arranged display of copies of a book, 100 Years of Filmmaking in New Mexico.

  Kerney explained his personal relationship with Johnny Jordan and asked about the movie project in the Bootheel. Morrison told him that Johnny had been a driving force behind getting the film shot in the state. He’d brokered a deal to use the nearly abandoned mining town of Playas as the production headquarters. In addition to serving as a movie set, the town would house the cast and crew during filming in the area.

  Kerney knew about the town through a recent article in a law enforcement bulletin. Built in the 1970s, Playas had once been a company town of over a thousand people. But when the nearby copper-smelting operations were shut down in 1999, it became a virtual modern-day ghost town containing over 250 homes, twenty-five apartments, a bank building, a post office, a fire station, churches, a community center, an air strip, and other amenities. Now the town had been bought with Homeland Security funds and was in the first stages of being transformed into a national antiterrorism training center
.

  Morrison further explained that Johnny had also been active in securing part of the financing for the movie through a low-interest state loan, and had just finished negotiating the final details of a contract that guaranteed the state a percentage of the profits from the film.

  Pleased to learn that Johnny’s proposition was on the up-and-up, he asked Morrison what she could tell him about the role of a technical advisor.

  “Well,” Morrison said, “it all depends on the project, the cast, and the crew. In some cases it can be a frustrating role, or it can be quite an enjoyable experience.”

  “Johnny said it would be a working vacation for me. I’m not looking to take on something that winds up being a heavy burden.”

  Morrison smiled. “I can certainly understand that. You should have an opportunity to meet with the producers and key personnel before filming actually begins. If what you learn isn’t to your liking, you can always opt out of the project. In fact, given your responsibilities as police chief, I suggest you might want to have a release clause written into your contract in case a situation requires your return to Santa Fe.”

  Kerney thanked Morrison for her time, and left with a copy of 100 Years of Filmmaking in New Mexico , which she insisted he should have.

  Johnny Jordan lived and worked in a late-nineteenth-century brick building in downtown Denver that had originally been a warehouse. The developer who renovated it had added a two-story penthouse with a wall of glass that looked out at the Rocky Mountains. It featured a large balcony, a media room, four bedrooms, two home offices, and a huge living room adjacent to the kitchen and dining area. This was where Johnny and his wife, Madeline, a partner in a law firm that specialized in corporate mergers and hostile takeovers, lived. Madeline had sole ownership, having bought the property prior to their marriage.

  Johnny loved living there, loved waking up to the city views and the distant mountains, and especially loved that it hadn’t cost him a penny.

  He didn’t expect Madeline to be home, and she wasn’t. Johnny always timed his trips out of town with other women to coincide with his wife’s travel schedule. It reduced the odds of discovery. This week, she was in Toronto heading up a team of lawyers negotiating the merger of two multinational lumber companies.

  Johnny cared about Madeline, maybe even loved her every once in a while when she wasn’t obsessing about her career. But like every other woman he’d been seriously drawn to and married over the years—Madeline was wife number four—she now bored him.

  With all his wives, he’d been faithful until the boredom set in. Then he went fishing for fresh talent. At the end of his second marriage, he’d tried to figure out why he became so easily disconnected from women he thought he loved. After pondering it, he’d decided most women were like well-presented but uninteresting meals: nice to look at but no fun to feast on, time and time again.

  When his third wife left him, Johnny had struggled briefly with the question of why he kept getting married. The only thing he could figure out was that he was too damned impulsive. With Madeline he’d thought he had chosen more wisely. In her early forties when he’d met her, she was stunning to look at, had a great sense of humor, and was extraordinary in bed. He liked the fact that she was mature, sophisticated, and successful. He dated her for a year, seeing no other women during that time, before popping the question.

  After the marriage, she’d held him at the banquet table far longer than any of his other wives. But that had all gone south a year ago.

  In his office, Johnny stuffed a copy of the screenplay in an envelope for Kerney, filled out the airbill form, and phoned to have it picked up. Then he called his lawyer and left a message about his DWI arrest in Santa Fe. Finished with the small stuff, he dialed the private office number of Bill Esty, vice president in charge of programming at a cable sports network in New York.

  “Is it wrapped up?” Esty asked.

  “The film office is drafting the final contract. We can move ahead.”

  “Johnny, we still have some issues to clear up.”

  “What issues?” Johnny demanded. “I’ve got a movie deal in the bag that will feature two ex-national pro rodeo stars, two up-and-coming Hispanic cowboys from the circuit, and a screenplay with a humdinger of a gut-busting rodeo in it.”

  “We know all that,” Esty said slowly, “but it’s been suggested that rodeo may already be nearing its saturation point. Bull riding is on cable almost every night, and the numbers aren’t moving.”

  “Rodeo is much more than bull riding,” Johnny said, “and right now everyone is presenting it in the same old way. Like we’ve been saying, this is a chance to do for rodeo what the X-Games did for skateboarders and snowboarders. We can take this sport to the next level on your network.”

  “If I didn’t think there was a chance of that, we’d have stopped talking a while ago. But I don’t have a completely open field here.”

  “This movie is going to generate a wave of interest in rodeoing and cowboys. Do you really want to be standing on the sidelines when I produce the first rodeo Super Bowl? I’ve got the talent already tied up, sponsors interested, and an agreement in the works with two pro rodeo associations.”

  “The project isn’t off the table, Johnny,” Esty said. “Now that I know you have the full funding, I’ll talk to the Spanish-language television people in Florida and Mexico City about taking the next step and formally bidding on a share of the rights.”

  “Why have they been dragging their heels?”

  “It’s human nature in the television business,” Esty replied. “No one wants to go out on a limb with a project that doesn’t already have the market’s seal of approval. But they loved the footage of your Hispanic cowboys, Lovato and Maestas. Now that the production financing is nailed down, I don’t think it will take too long to bring them on board.”

  Johnny had put every dime he had into developing the movie. He’d get a producer ’s fee for the film and an agent’s fee for the cowboys who had appearances in the movie, but he was out advances against the rodeo stars he’d signed up for the new circuit. Unless he could get corporate sponsorships and seal the deal with Espy, his super rodeo circuit would be dead in the water and he’d be bankrupt.

  “When do you expect a response?” he asked.

  “No telling,” Esty replied. “But I’d like to see us finalize contract negotiations by this summer. If it all falls into place, we can start preproduction right away, and you’ll have a contract.”

  Johnny heard footsteps in the hallway. “Okay, I’ll talk to you soon.” He hung up to find Madeline staring at him from the doorway with a composed look on her face. Five-three with narrow hips, dancer’s legs, and pert little breasts, she was built just the way Johnny liked them. Her jaw was set, her eyes were frosty, and she didn’t look at all happy to see him.

  “You’re back early,” he said with a grin. “I didn’t expect you home until tomorrow.”

  “I got home last night, just in time to find a woman named Brenda slipping a note to you in our mailbox.”

  “Who?” Johnny asked.

  “Brenda,” Madeline repeated, handing Johnny the opened note.

  “Did you talk to her?”

  “No, she left before I could approach her. But I read her little note. She wants you to call her when you get home because she was worried about you in Santa Fe. Did you really tell her that your father had a stroke?”

  “I don’t know what this is all about,” Johnny said, scanning the note, knowing full well that he’d been busted.

  Madeline scoffed. “From what Brenda wrote, she appears to be smitten with you, Johnny. Those earrings you gave her made quite an impression.”

  “I can explain everything,” Johnny said.

  Madeline stepped to his desk and dropped a business card on the table in front of him. “No, you can’t. The movers will be here in the morning to pack up all your personal possessions and get you out of my house. After you check into a hotel for th
e night, I suggest you start apartment hunting.”

  “Can’t we talk this out?”

  “We just have,” Madeline said, her hand outstretched. “Give me your house key.”

  Johnny smiled sadly, looked crestfallen, spread his arms wide in a gesture of supplication. “Look, sweetie pie, I’m sorry. I screwed up. It won’t happen again.”

  “You’re damn right it won’t. Pack an overnight bag, leave my house, and don’t speak to me again.”

  He dropped the key in Madeline’s hand, and watched as she turned on her heel and left. He checked his wallet for cash, pulled out his last bank statements for his personal accounts, and checked his balances. He could rent a place and get by for a month or two before he would be forced to use his credit cards to cover his business and living expenses.

  The thought struck him that maybe Brenda would put him up. She had an extra bedroom he could use as an office. That way he could his cut his overhead in half and save a chunk of money. He worked on a story to tell her as he dialed the phone.

  “Hey, sweetie pie,” he said when she picked up, “I got your note.”

  The following morning the script Johnny had promised arrived, and Kerney spent his lunch break at his desk, reading it. The story was a good one with some interesting plot twists. The climax to the film occurred during a working cowboy rodeo held at the end of the cattle drive, which turned into a free-for-all after the cops showed up to arrest the rancher and his neighbors for trespassing. Although set in present time, it had the feel of a classic Hollywood western.

  He put the screenplay away. Tonight, Sara, his career Army wife, would be flying in with their son, Patrick, for a long weekend break from her current Pentagon assignment, which was scheduled to end at the end of summer. For the past two months, they’d had been debating how to spend the thirty days of leave Sara would take before her next posting. Mostly, she’d talked about just wanting to settle in at their Santa Fe ranch to nest and relax. Would she consider giving up a large portion of her vacation time so that Kerney could work on a movie?