“Excuse me,” I said from the doorway. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.” Although that’s exactly what I had meant to do.
“You’re not,” Kiefer said, and went right on packing.
“I think I met you at Carl’s party. I’m Neil Hamel.”
“Kiefer—Kiefer the asshole. You won’t be seeing me around this place anymore. I’m outta here right now, taking nothing but the tools I brought with me. That’s okay. There’s a lot of land in this state that don’t belong to Peter Esterbrook. Maybe I’ll get some rich old lady in Santa Fe to give me a job. Excuse me if Esterbrook’s a friend of yours. He’s still a chingarra."
“No friend of mine. I do some legal work for his son-in-law, that’s all.”
“You a lawyer?” He stopped packing for a minute, took a good look at a rusty spade. “You want this, José? It’s yours.”
“Ai, no, gracias,” said José.
“Go ahead, take it. You deserve it. You need all the help you can get if you’re gonna work here. He’s a coldhearted son of a bitch. Here’s something for you too, Paco.”
“Muchas gracias.” José and Paco looked as if they were going to cry. No one is as sad as a sad Mexican.
“A lawyer, huh. Well, whattaya think about this? Criminal negligence. He says I left the gate open and that’s how the kid got into the pen. I was criminally negligent and he intends to prosecute. Do you believe it, after all I done for that guy? This place was the desert when I got here. And for peon wages, too. Excuse me, José, Paco, but it’s true. The pay here is shit. Well, I can get by without Peter Esterbrook, and he is going to have to look a long way if he thinks he is going to prosecute me.”
“It would be a very hard thing to prove.”
“Damn right—and you know why? I didn’t do it, that’s why.”
“Any idea who did?”
“How the fuck would I know? I just work here—or did. I don’t no more.”
“My number’s in the book. Give me a call if you have any ideas. Maybe I can help. And I wouldn’t go too far away if I were you. You’ve got a real feel for the area. It’s the grounds that make this place.”
“Yeah, well, thanks.” He threw some work gloves into the bag and zipped it up.
I walked back the way I’d come and let myself in through the front door. The house was very quiet. I remembered there was a bathroom down the hallway, from which I’d seen Carl emerge at the party. I walked down the hallway and pulled open a door that let me reluctantly into the dining room and then swung slowly shut behind me. The dining room continued the medieval theme with a gargantuan wooden chandelier and table and chairs to match.
A swinging door let me into the kitchen, the one room where Peter recognized the twentieth century. Everything in the kitchen was the latest in culinary technology: microwaves and Cuisinarts. I saw the door that opened onto the herb garden, and another door, which opened into Lupe’s room, right next to the kitchen, naturally. In this room I was a voyeur, and I walked through it quickly and out the other side. I couldn’t help but notice how bare and temporary it seemed. There was nothing but a bed, a bureau, a color TV; the walls were painted an institutional green. The only personal touch was a beautiful hand carved wooden cross on the wall.
I was back in the hallway and turned the corner into the children’s wing. Undoubtedly there would be a bathroom here. There was also a room done Little Girl, pink and ruffled with dolls on the bed but no little girl inside. Little Boy was right next door. Since I was there anyway, I looked in.
The decor was Latin American, with brilliant fabric animals and trees on the wall. The little boy was in bed, sleeping, his head wrapped in a large white bandage, surrounded by pillows and a teddy bear. Perhaps Celina had taken to her own bed with something stronger than vodka—she probably had a room here somewhere, too—because Eduardo was alone with Lupe, who sat in a chair next to him, a turquoise Mexican chair with a rush seat too close to the floor for a gringa to be able to get into. The blood on her uniform had dried and turned brown. Her hair hung in a braid down her back; her cheekbones were high, dignified, Indian. She was very still, very erect, infinitely patient. She would sit by this bed for a lifetime if that would do Eduardo any good. Mexican servants can seem invisible, they move so quietly around a house, but there are moments when everyone else is sleeping or gone and you wonder who is really in possession of the place. They are the ones who sweep the evil spirits away from the door, who light candles to keep the benevolent ones within.
I paused, perhaps for too long, in the doorway, and Lupe looked up. Her eyes were steady and unsurprised. They said nothing, except that she knew who I was and possibly why I was there and that she could outwait and outserve and outmystify me any day of the year.
“Is he all right?” I asked.
“Sí,” she replied. “Gracias a Dios."
“I was looking for the bathroom.”
“Allá,” she motioned me down the hallway.
“Thank you,” I said.
“It’s nothing.”
But once that was finished, I still had to get my purse, so I crossed the courtyard to the den. The fountain seemed subdued, as if even the water knew it was time to shut up. Someone had thrown a cover over the parrot’s cage. The deer and goat flowerpots stood erect, and their horns and antlers made shadows on the tile floor. The bougainvillea had climbed another fraction of an inch. The carpet swallowed my footsteps as I walked toward Peter the Great’s study—there probably was a Russian room in here somewhere, too; the bedroom, maybe, draped in furs. The thick walls muffled the sounds in the study. I could hear voices but not words, only, at the last minute, “I honor my contracts even when they don’t turn out to my advantage, I have given my word; those papers will be signed,” spoken with icy control.
“Forty years I’ve been with you and it ends like this.”
“If it is so important to you, I will give your money back, and let me say that I consider that a more than generous offer. Now I suggest you let go of it, Anders; it’s over. There are other businesses you can run, other things to do in life.”
By now I was only one step away from the doorway. I heard the French doors slam and the glass rattle in the frame, I saw the svelte Peter Esterbrook watching the unsvelte Andrew Monogal clomp across the lawn. I waited what seemed like a decent interval to me and knocked at the door. “Beg your pardon,” I said.
If looks could do it, his would have turned me into something hard and unpleasant on the spot. “Forgot my purse.” And, just to prove I wasn’t an eavesdropper or a voyeur, there it was, exactly where I had left it, on the floor in front of Peter’s desk. By now I could see Monogal passing the dog pens and heading for the barn. I noticed that Peter had hung his whistle back on the wall.
“Time to feed the dogs?” I said.
“And what is that supposed to mean?”
“Is he one of your loyal employees, too?”
“As a matter of fact, he is,” Peter replied slowly, lingering over each word like it was sour candy and he liked the bitter taste. “He runs some of my business ventures. He also manages the animals and property when I’m not here, among other things. And yes, so you won’t need to ask, I keep my guns in the barn. Anders had a perfectly good reason to be there. It was very careless—it was more than careless, it was criminal for the gardener to leave that gate open. Shep was a recent addition, here on a trial basis. Quick, but high-strung and nervous, the one dog I wasn’t absolutely sure of around the children. Kiefer knew that, and I should know better than to hire hippies, no matter how well they care for my plants. And I have nothing further to say to you, Miss Hamel, not now, and with any good fortune, not ever again.”
17
I WAITED UNTIL noon the next day. Since Carl hadn’t called me, I called him.
“Hey, Neil,” Angie said, “how you doin’? I’ll get him.”
Carl came on the line. “So glad you called, Neil. That was a terrible thing yesterday, terrible. Very upsetting for C
elina. For all of us.”
“How’s Eduardo?”
“He’s still sedated, but the doctor says he’ll be all right. Peter fired Kiefer, the gardener.”
“So I heard.”
“You may not have heard everything. Kiefer, it turns out, was active in the anti-WIPP movement. As a matter of fact he spent some time in jail for protesting at the site.”
“So?”
“So I come out in favor of the WIPP project, Kiefer talks Peter into hiring him, I get threatening notes, and someone leaves the door to Shep’s run open when they know Edward will be nearby. Peter thinks the anti-WIPP forces are using Edward to intimidate us.”
“Why?”
“Well, because they don’t want WIPP to go through and I’m the only candidate who’s for it.”
“And why else, may I ask?”
“Possibly because Peter owns the Mother Lode. Maybe they thought if they got to me they could prevent him from negotiating with the Department of Energy for WIPP, but it’s too late now.”
“Then why was Menendez-Jimenez murdered?”
“Maybe there was no connection. As you said, I’m not the only client he ever had.”
“I said that?”
“Yes, you did.”
“And what about the file that was stolen from my office and the fact that I came very close to being squashed in the parking lot after I left Bailey’s?”
There was a pause, a long pause, while Carl floundered around for his least offensive words. He didn’t flounder long enough. “Maybe the file was mislaid and the Bailey’s incident was just an accident. It is a possibility, isn’t it?”
No, it wasn’t, because if it was, what did that make me? A paranoid who kept a messy desk. “Andrew Monogal has a knack for showing up at the opportune time.”
“Andrew? Andrew saved Edward’s life. He manages the mine, he is Peter’s most valuable associate. They go back a very long time to their childhood in Austria.”
Esterbrook and Monogal, the oldest of friends, the chairman and the CEO, the greyhound and the bulldog. “If Monogal manages the mine, I assume there is some sort of management contract between him and Peter.”
“I’m sure there is, but I’m not that familiar with it.”
“Why not? Lovell Cruse represents the Mother Lode, don’t they? You’re Peter’s attorney.”
“I do their legal work, but that particular contract was drawn up years ago, before I came aboard. I don’t know all the terms.”
“Didn’t it ever occur to you that it might be a conflict of interest to be campaigning for the WIPP project when you represent the Mother Lode and your father-in-law owns it?”
Carl went into recorded message mode, candidate voice. “No, it didn’t. I happen to think it will benefit an economically depressed area. Besides, polls have shown fifty-four percent of the voters in Bernalillo County are in favor of it.”
“Spare me.”
“As a matter of fact, Peter won’t own the mine after today, and I won’t be representing it much longer, either,” he said. “The agreement with the federal government will be executed tomorrow. It is important to get the documents signed quickly so there will be no question of conflict of interest in my campaign. The Department of Energy had some money available for acquisition, so now, whether WIPP goes through or not, the government owns the mine and Peter doesn’t make any more money. The feds are confident that WIPP will pass, but if it doesn’t, the mine will be leased and the land will be added to the national forest.”
“And the national debt.”
“Those are the facts, Neil.”
“I don’t suppose you’d like to hear the facts I found on my trip to Mexico.”
“Peter owns the adoption agency, Los Niños de los Angeles. He said he told you that.”
“He couldn’t have told you himself somewhere along the way?”
Carl shrugged. I couldn’t see him, but I knew he was doing it, shrugging. “That’s the way Peter is. Maybe he should have told us, but he didn’t, and I can’t complain that he found us Edward.”
Who could?
“Peter doesn’t think I should let this incident intimidate me or make me back out of the campaign. We’re not going to tell Celina about the notes, of course; she couldn’t handle it. I wouldn’t have gone to Peter without her knowing, but the way things turned out, maybe it’s for the best that he and I are out in the open.”
And just who did he have to thank for that? Me, Neil, a.k.a. Nellie.
“There’s someone else out there who calls me Nellie. Did you know that?”
“So you said. But I don’t think this is the time or place to discuss your lovers.”
“It’s not my lovers I’m talking about. It’s someone who has been following me.”
“Why would anyone do that? I’m afraid I must be going, Neil. It’s a very busy day, and I have to be out of here by one. I’m putting in a campaign appearance in Bernalillo, and then I’m meeting Peter at the mine at six to work out some details of the contract.”
“I’d like to suggest that you don’t go there today. I don’t think it would be wise, and I also don’t believe that Kiefer is the solution to your problem.”
“Neil, I hope you won’t feel this is none of my business, but you’ve obviously been working much too hard. Maybe you should take some time off and go on a little vacation. Send me the bill for your fees and I will take care of it immediately, if that will help. By the way, I want you to know how very much we’ve appreciated your efforts.”
And I wanted him to know how very little I appreciated his patronization. “Don’t mention it,” I snapped, and hung up.
I had other matters to occupy my time besides Carl Roberts. Judy Bates, for example. Suppose I got Ken to make the payments on the trailer and Judy to keep the dog with no visitation rights. Then Judy would recommend me to all her friends for their divorces and they would recommend me to their friends, a geometrical progression. On the basis of one contact with Judy I could spend a lifetime negotiating divorces. On the other hand, if Ken got extensive visitation rights and Judy had to pay for the kibble, he’d refer me to all his friend’s wives. Either way, the highway would be littered with wrecked marriages. I didn’t see any corporate mergers or patent infringement suits speeding by.
I wandered out to the front room, where Brink was hanging around talking to Anna, too busy to take on divorces.
“What’s everybody doing for lunch?” I asked.
“We’re going to Baja Tacos,” said Anna. “Wanna come?”
Baja Tacos was a hole-in-the-wall with gut-wrenching New Mexican food. “No, thanks. I don’t feel like going out.” “We could bring something back if you want.” What did I want? A cold burrito with hot salsa? “How about a Grande Mac? Could you swing by there?”
“McDonald’s?” asked Brink, raising his eyebrows, implying maybe that someone with my enlightened political views didn’t eat at McDonald’s. What was the difference, a lumpy burrito, a Big Mac? Cold meat was cold meat.
“I like to have a Big Mac now and then to stay in touch,” I said.
I sat at Anna’s desk while they were out just in case any new clients happened by. She had a bottle of Hold That Red nail polish in her desk and white-out in shades of white, buff, pale yellow, mint green, and pink. What she did with all those colors I didn’t know; all I ever saw was the white that dropped like bird shit on my letters. I’ve heard that high school kids get high by sniffing the stuff. I opened the bottle, gave it a sniff, didn’t like the smell, didn’t get any higher. A woman in Texas invented white-out in her kitchen—I read that in People magazine. She mixed up a lot of batches on her kitchen stove before she got it right, but when she died she left forty million dollars.
After Anna and Brink got back I had my Big Mac, green chile, small fries, and large Coke with them just to be polite; then I went into my office and closed the door. There was a bunch of papers, records of phone calls, in an insurance folder on my desk. Carl had
arranged them in chronological order: April 7th, May 8th, May 15th, June 3rd, and June 14th. He’d like to believe that May followed April, the 8th the 7th, a led to b, b to c, c to d. I rearranged them the way I remembered them: May 8th, May 15th, June 3rd, June 14th, April 7th. April 7th wasn’t the first entry in Menendez’s file, it was the last, and it wasn’t four years ago either. April 7th, 2:30 P.M., twenty minutes, Señor Menendez to Esterbrook Farms. I flipped through my desk calendar. On April 7th I called Juárez and made an appointment with Menendez. On April 9th he was murdered. On April 13th Carl had his coming out party; on April 7th, when Peter Esterbrook was in Dallas buying the greater work of a lesser artist, Menendez-Jimenez called Esterbrook Farms and talked either to Lupe or to someone who watched the property when the master was away. The last entry on Menendez’s desk calendar on April 9th had been el perro dogo, the bulldog, the dog who sunk his teeth in and wouldn’t let go. What was it he wouldn’t let go of?
The time had come to pierce the corporate veil.
I waited until I was sure Carl was clear of his office and then I called Angie. In Mexico you get by on bribery, here it’s friendship. Sometimes it’s easier to come up with the money. Angie had known me for a long time. It takes years to build up that kind of credibility, an instant to lose it. It was a rotten thing to lie to her, but I was willing to take the blame.
“Has Carl left already?” I asked.
“A half an hour ago.”
“Damn. When I spoke to him earlier he said he would send Andrew Monogal’s contract with the Mother Lode over by messenger before he left. I guess he forgot.” It sounded like bullshit, even to me.
“You and Carl are working together again?” It was a question that hung on the wires.
“I’m looking out for Monogal on this one.”
“That must be a treat. Just a minute, let me see if it’s here.”
“It’s probably way in the back of the file; it was drawn up a number of years ago, before Carl joined the firm.”
“That may take a little longer.”
I listened to commercials while I waited: it was time to Stop & Shop.
North of the Border Page 13
