by Robert Ward
“Dr. Carlson?” she asked.
“Yes?”
“Can you come in a minute, sir?”
“Certainly.”
Jack quickly accompanied the old woman into her room. She moved toward her bed in a herky-jerky way, like a toy solder marching out of sync. She sat on the side of the bed and pointed to a chair across from her. Jack sat down.
“Hey,” she said, squinting at him. “You're not Dr. Carlson.”
“No, I'm taking his rounds tonight,” Jack said. “I'm Dr. Pillas.”
“I see,” the old woman said. “Well, I'm Mary Jo Thatcher from Baltimore, Maryland, and I hope you don't think I'm a nut! But you look kind of furtive.”
Jack smiled.
“Yeah, well, you are very observant, Mary Jo,” Jack said.
“That's right, I am. And I am not a nut at all,” Mary Jo responded.
“Though I am from Baltimore and we do have a lot of nuts living there.”
“Does Dr. Carlson think you're a nut?”
“He does. He thinks I am a great, big nut. Thinks I'm senile. That I have the Alzheimer's. Do I sound like I have the Alzheimer's to you?”
“Not at all. Why do you think he says that?”
“He says I lost my memory is why. But he's all wrong. I have never had a bad memory. In fact, along with my breasts, when I was younger, my memory was my best feature. You could say I had two really good attributes. My memory and my mammaries.”
She laughed in a contrived, hearty way, like it was a joke she had told a thousand times before.
“That's good,” Jack laughed. “Why does he think you're losing your memory?”
“'Cause he promised me something, which I remind him of, and then he says that I misunderstood his promises.”
“And what would that be?”
“Well, he said I would be . . . here, wait . . . look at this.”
She slowly opened a drawer in the table next to her bed. Then she took out a photo and handed it to Jack.
The old photo was of a strikingly good-looking girl, maybe in her late teens. She wore a tight V-neck sweater that showed off her figure to great advantage. She was smiling and leaning against a tree.
“That was taken by my boyfriend Jimmy,” she said. “Jimmy died ten years ago. I wish I had married him but this other guy came along, Herbert, who was wealthier and drove me around in his Buick. I got blinded by all the chrome in the Buick. I mean on it . . . and . . .”
Jack reached over and gave her back the photo.
“I'm sorry, but what has this to do with your memory and Dr. Carlson?”
“Plenty. It has plenty to do with it. See, I got old. I don't look like this anymore, but Dr. ‘Fake-o Promises’ Carlson said I could look this young again if I paid him a lot of money and came down here.”
“Really?” Jack asked.
“Yes, really. And it cost a lot of money. But then why am I telling you this? You work here, too. You must know all this.”
“No,” Jack said. “I'm new here. I'm an assistant. I haven't learned all of the ins and outs yet.”
“Well, you will, buddy. They tell you they're going to make you look and feel young again. They give you this juice and these D-35 injections and for a while it works. You look and feel a lot better.”
“But then it wears off,” Jack prompted.
“Yeah. I think they just give you speed and some other stuff to make you feel high. That's all. I should have realized they were all crooks but it sounded so good.”
Jack nodded sympathetically.
“Let me ask you something,” he said, pulling the photograph of Jennifer Wu from his jacket pocket. “Have you ever seen this girl?”
Mary Jo looked at the picture, squinted, and nodded her head.
“Sure I have,” Mary Jo said. “That's Jen. She used to be my nurse. Till she disappeared.”
“You have any idea where she is?”
Mary Jo looked at him in a suspicious way.
“I have a very good idea what happened to her but I don't know if I can trust you.”
“Come on,” Jack said, looking at her in his most sincere manner.
“Okay . . . see, it all goes back to Rachel.”
“Rachel?”
“Yes. She was another patient here. A young girl who shared this room with me. She was only about twenty-three, and she was getting a breast job. She told me she wanted to work as a model but they said she needed bigger boobs. That was why she was getting her breasts enlarged. Anyway, the next thing you know she decides she doesn't want to do it after all. She doesn't want the boob job.”
“Why was that?” Jack asked, moving over to sit on the side of Mary Jo's bed.
“I don't know. But she talked to someone, her girlfriend or somebody on her cell phone, and she got this terrible scared look on her face.”
Mary Jo Thatcher made a “terrible, scared” look.
“What happened then?”
“I fell asleep early one night. I swear I think they put something in my food. And when I woke up, she was gone. They said she went home. But it was all sudden-like and we were very close and she didn't even say good-bye. I tell you, something was all wrong about that, and I wasn't the only one who thought so.”
Her mouth twisted in excitement.
“You mean Jen . . .”
“That's right,” Mary Jo said, her eyes almost bugging out. “She thought there was something wrong, too. She was kind of close to Rachel and thought it very strange that she didn't say good-bye to her, either. And not only that, she left a couple of her blouses in the closet.”
“She did?”
“Yes, I saw them. Listen here, Doc. This girl didn't have a lot of money. She wouldn't leave perfectly good blouses hanging in there.”
“Hmmm,” Jack said.
“'Hmmm’ is right,” Mary Jo echoed. “Hmmmm and double hmmmm. And that's where the Alzheimer's and Dr. Carlson come in again. I told him that I saw the blouses hanging in the closet after she left and he tells me that's not true. He then opens the closet door and it's empty. But it wasn't before. I told him so, too, and then he tells me he thinks I might be losing my memory. You see?”
“I do,” Jack said.
“I think they did something to her, which is so sad because she was turning her life around.”
“Had she been in some kind of trouble?” Jack asked.
“Yes. She told me not to say anything but I have to tell someone. She had come from a terrible family and her father had done unspeakable things to her and she had so little self-esteem that she had become a prostitute and a thief for a while. In Dallas. But she had moved here to get herself straightened out and she wanted to be a legitimate model . . . until she didn't anymore, and then they took her away. Oh, it's awful, and this Jennifer you're looking for, she agreed with me that something was funny, and I heard her talking to Dr. Carlson about it kind of loud in the hall one day and then . . . boom, two days later she disappears. You see what I'm getting at?”
“I do,” Jack said. “Sounds like—”
“Foul play,” Mary Jo Thatcher finished his sentence. “You were going to say ‘Sounds like foul play,’ weren't you? I love it in old books when Sherlock Holmes says that to Watson.”
Two seconds earlier, her mouth had been twisted in fear, but now she was smiling like a happy lunatic.
“They're taking everybody away who knows anything,” she said with a melodramatic hiss. “I think I could be next!”
She grabbed the neck of her nightgown and crushed it up against her chin in a nineteenth-century version of girlish terror.
“That is most interesting,” Jack said. “Do you have any idea where Jennifer and Rachel are?”
“I sure do,” she said. “I think they're somewhere under a rock! Or more than one rock. A big pile of rocks out there in the mountains because of what they knew.”
“Ah,” Jack said. “And what might that be?”
Mary Jo looked around as though she was sur
e they were being spied on by minicameras, and then twisted up her mouth again.
“I think they were both killed because they might spill the beans that the treatments here aren't real!”
Jack nodded his head.
“I see,” he said. “I think you've discovered a real mystery, Mary Jo.”
“Thatcher,” Mary Jo said. “Mary Jo Thatcher. From Baltimore. Actually, from Roland Park in Baltimore. I knew I should have never left, to come down here with all these Mexicans and Indians. I'm afraid I'll be next.”
“I don't think so,” Jack said. “They're too afraid of you to hurt you. After all, you're Mary Jo Thatcher of Baltimore.”
“Roland Park,” she said. “The finest neighborhood in the whole world. And believe you me, once I get back there I am never going to go past the driveway again.”
“That's a good idea,” Jack said. “If I was you that is exactly what I would—”
“Hey,” said a voice at the doorway. “Who the hell are you?”
Jack glanced up. The man speaking to him was about six foot four and looked like a professional wrestler. He had muscles that popped from his forehead like turnips from the earth.
“I'm Dr. Perry Pillas,” Jack said. “I'm new here.”
“Where's your badge?” Turnip Head asked.
“I forgot it. First week, ya know?”
“Yeah, I know all right,” the man said.
He moved toward Jack in a way that bespoke serious disbelief. He reached his stubby fingers for Jack's lapels.
“You're coming with me, Pillas,” he said.
“That's out of the question,” Jack replied.
He reached down, picked up Mary Jo's glass of orange juice, and threw it into the attendant's face. When the big man blinked he kicked him hard in the shins, then grabbed his lapels and head-butted him in the nose. Blood sprayed out all over the floor as he fell.
Mary Jo laughed nervously as Jack stepped over the fallen man and quickly moved toward the door.
“I'm going to look into this for you. Don't worry about a thing, Mary Jo,” he said. “Go home to Baltimore as soon as you can.”
“I plan on doing exactly that,” she said. Then fell back on the bed with a little sigh.
Jack quickly moved into the hall and sprinted toward the steps.
Chapter Eighteen
After a speedy drive back to Santa Fe, Jack and Oscar went to breakfast at Pasqual's on Don Gaspar Avenue. Jack had a cheese omelet with black bean sauce and Oscar had a breakfast burrito with cheese, chicken, and green sauce. The food was terrific but Jack was too frustrated to enjoy it.
As he finished up his summary of his morning with Mary Jo at Blue Wolf, he shook his head.
“It doesn't add up,” he said.
But Oscar interrupted him.
“I don't know,” he speculated, “maybe that old senorita up there, Mary Jo, had it right. They sell capital-letter Youth and Vitality and maybe this girl knew it was all a bunch of jive. So they got rid of her.”
“No, no, no,” Jack said. “Look, resorts like Blue Wolf are all hype and everyone knows it. People come here to play at restoring their old batteries and everyone agrees not to mention that nothing works for very long. No one really believes they're going to get young again. They just come here to pretend and get pampered.”
“Wait a minute,” Oscar said. “This Mary Jo believed it. You just said so.”
Jack shook his head again.
“Nah. I don't think even she did. She's one of these rich older women who like to go someplace and find a mystery. She's playing at being Miss Marple. She doesn't really believe that they would kill girls to prevent them from telling the world that they hadn't discovered the fountain of youth.”
Oscar finished his breakfast burrito with gusto and took a gulp of his black coffee.
“I know the kind of woman you're talking about. My aunt Sharon is like that. She gets on a ship and two seconds later she thinks she's in some kind of Agatha Christie novel. She loves doing that. Makes the whole trip seem exciting.”
“Exactly,” Jack said. “She liked getting me involved in it, too.”
“But wait a minute,” Oscar said. “There's something she said that bothers me. She felt really, really good. From some shots they gave her. Too good, if all she had was B-12 or a few yoga classes. And they didn't want to admit that the girl's clothes were left in the closet.”
“If they even were,” Jack said.
“Si. She could have imagined it,” Oscar said. “But that part of the story . . . I mean the way you told it to me . . . it sounded like not only she believed it but you also believed her, amigo.”
Jack couldn't suppress a smile.
“You got me there, Osc. I did believe it.”
“So maybe her conclusion—that they're trying to hide the fact that they don't really do much for people—is off, but what she noticed, maybe that is for real. Maybe, for example, they're using speed to make people feel better, or shooting them full of some other kind of dangerous illegal drug. Maybe Jennifer and the other girl, Rachel, were going to report them, so they sold them off to the guys at the Jackalope to keep them from talking.”
“Yeah,” Jack said. “But there was no sign of them out there. And I checked every room. Did you get anywhere with your phone calls and e-mails to Juarez?”
“Nada. No sight of any Chinese girl. And I talked to some people who would know.”
“And then there's this other thing. How do the fat boy, Zollie, and his hog fit in?” Jack wondered.
But before Oscar could answer him, Jack's cell phone rang.
“This Jack Harper?” a tense voice asked.
“Yeah,” Jack said.
“It's me, Tommy. From Lucky's. I gotta talk to you.”
“Sure, kid,” Jack said. “What's up?”
“Can't talk long now. I think I know what happened to that girl you're hunting for.”
“You do?”
“Yeah. But they'll be walking in here any minute. You know the Red Sombrero? I can meet you near there. If Lucky don't catch me first. There's a big butte near the Sombrero. You take Dark Moon Road. I'll be back along there. Can't go in the restaurant. They'd find me.”
“I don't know the area.”
“Pull off at Dark Moon and drive north on the dirt road. When you get to the high rocks, wait. I'll signal you. Don't bring a bunch of cops, though, Harper, or I'm a dead man, and maybe you, too. Shit, they're coming. I gotta go.”
The phone clicked dead, and Jack turned and looked at Oscar.
“Man, this is getting weirder by the minute. That was Tommy, the kid from Lucky's gang. Says he knows where Jennifer is.”
“You believe him?”
“I don't know. But he sounded for real. And scared shitless.”
“Which makes him the perfect person to send us right into an ambush.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“We could use some backup,” Oscar said.
“Kid says we bring in backup, he dies.”
“I knew you were going to say that,” Oscar sighed. “Guess we play it down and dirty then, hey, amigo?”
“Guess so. I mean, why should this time be any different?”
He pulled out his wallet, laid down some bills, and they took off.
Chapter Nineteen
Jack and Oscar drove like lunatics toward the Red Sombrero. As they got near the place, Jack looked up and saw an overhanging butte just north of the restaurant. Hawks soared by on thermal wind gusts. Otherwise, the area looked deserted.
“That's gotta be it.”
“The only big butte around here.”
“Where's the road?”
They drove parallel to the butte, until Oscar spotted it.
“There, that's it. The sign says Dark Moon Road.”
Jack turned the car off the paved road, and seconds later they were headed down a dusty, bumpy road toward the rocks. There was a curve ahead and Jack slowed down.
Oscar felt
adrenaline coursing through his chest.
When they got closer to the butte, Jack pulled over and Oscar got out, rifle in hand.
“Be careful, partner,” Oscar said.
“You, too. And make sure you cover my ass ‘cause if they shoot me I'm going to come back and haunt you.”
“Just as I would expect, gringo dog.”
Oscar scrambled up the hill to the south side of the butte as Jack drove slowly down the road.
A few hundred feet farther he pulled the car into a natural parking space below the rocks. He looked up and saw what looked like a ledge, and suddenly a light flashed in his eyes. Tommy was signaling him with a mirror. Jack wished he had a mirror on him to signal back but he'd thrown his away when he stopped hanging out with coke dealers.
He looked to his left and prayed that Oscar was making his way toward the adjacent ledge. He started up the steep trail, making his way over massive boulders and along tricky paths that were mere sand and gave way when he put his weight on them. At one point he had to climb up by grabbing a half-dead cactus that threatened to come out of the ground. The needles stuck in his hand.
Finally, Jack climbed to a level spot and there, in front of what looked like a cave entrance, was Tommy, dirty, and frightened.
“You made it,” he said.
He reached down behind a boulder and pulled out a pistol.
“Come on, kid,” Jack said. “ You must be really afraid of something. Suppose you tell me what it is.”
“Can I trust you?”
“I thought you already made that decision.”
“Yeah, I did, but now I'm not so sure. I don't really know you.”
“So you're taking a chance,” Jack said. “ But one thing's for sure. You do know Lucky and his pals. They've got Jennifer, right?”
Tommy got up and walked back and forth in front of the cave.
“It's not that simple,” he said. “I need assurances, Jack.”
“Come on, Tom, we're wasting time.”
Tommy stopped, looked at him, and then shook his head and started pacing again.
