by Joseph Kanon
“They’re women’s pieces?”
“Oh, yes. You see the fineness of the settings? Not at all appropriate for a man. The concha—I suppose you could stretch a point there, but the other two are definitely ladies’. But I gather he kept them?”
“Yes. Do people ever buy these as an investment?”
“These, yes. Ordinarily, no. Turquoise isn’t a fine gem-stone. There’s a lot of it around, and I have to say, the tourist trade has devalued it. The Indians just stamp these out now, and who can blame them? No one seems to know the difference. But a piece like this—” He held one up. “Look at the workmanship. You’re not likely to see this sort of thing again. There’ll always be a market for this.”
“But why not diamonds or rubies or something?” Connolly said, half to himself.
“Perhaps it was his price range,” Chalmers said, trying to help. “You can’t get really first-class stones, not really first-class, for two hundred dollars. Turquoise is something else. These are top of the line.”
“How long ago did he buy them?”
“The first? Last fall sometime. Before Christmas, anyway, because he came in again at Christmas.”
“And the last?”
“A little after that. I can tell you exactly if you give me a few minutes.”
“Please.”
Chalmers brought out a black account book and leafed through the pages. “Yes, here’s one. I’ll jot down the dates for you, if it’s important,” he said, taking out a piece of paper. “November. Well, I wasn’t far off.” He made a note. “Was he the poor boy who was killed in the park?” he said, not looking up.
Connolly said nothing.
“A terrible thing. So young. And you think it might have something to do with the jewelry?” he asked gently.
“Frankly, no. But we need to check everything. It’s a lot of money.”
“Yes, I wondered about that too. He had all that money, and yet he didn’t seem the type. Of course, since the war—”
“He paid in cash?”
“Yes, always in cash.”
“Is that usual?”
“Usual? At that price? In Santa Fe? No, indeed. Still, I must say it was a convenience, not having to wait for a check to clear.”
“But you didn’t think there was anything wrong?”
Chalmers looked up at him.
“Wrong? There is never anything wrong with cash, my friend. Where he got it was his business, not mine. He wasn’t a gangster, not that I could see. Maybe he gambled. Maybe he sold tires on the black market. Maybe he just preferred cash—some people do. I don’t ask customers for bank references when they’re handing me cash. I didn’t know he would be killed.”
“I didn’t say he was.”
“No, you didn’t. But who else could it be? Maybe that explains it, carrying all that cash. And to think of such things in Santa Fe—robberies in broad daylight—”
“We assume it happened at night,” Connolly said. “We don’t know it was robbery. He may have been meeting a friend.” He held the jeweler’s gaze. The store was now very quiet.
Chalmers stared back at him, then spoke slowly and distinctly, as if he were using a code he did not want Connolly to misunderstand. “Perhaps. But I’ve never heard of such meetings. Not there. In Santa Fe, friends see each other in their houses. In private. It would be a shame to have anything disturb that. People get along because they keep to themselves. You wouldn’t want to disturb that peace. Not here.”
4
AT FIRST HE didn’t recognize her. She was walking toward him across the plaza, still dressed in the blouse and riding pants of the night before but with her hair down now, swaying lazily behind her, and her face partially hidden by sunglasses. She was carrying a few books under one arm, leaving the other to keep time with her long stride, and stopped short when she saw him on the curb.
“Oh God, it’s you,” she said. “Now I don’t even have time to think what to say. I just hoped—you know, a few days and you’d forget.” He looked at her, not saying anything, and she took off her sunglasses, as if he needed to complete the identification. “Don’t tell me you have forgotten. Hard to think which would be worse. Emma.”
He smiled. “Yes, I know. How are you feeling?”
“Not too bad, considering. Look, I am sorry. I don’t know what got into me. You must think—well, I don’t know what you must think. Quite an introduction, being sick all over you.”
“No, you kept your distance. Don’t worry about it.”
“That’s something, anyway. How does one apologize? Do I send round flowers or something? Believe it or not, I’ve never done that before.”
“You could have lunch with me.”
“A bit early. Or is that a line?”
“No, it’s an invitation. I hate eating alone.”
She looked at him for a minute. “All right. I could do with some eggs. Been to La Fonda yet? Oh, I forgot, you’ve just arrived. Better see it, then. Come on,” she said, turning to her left, “it’s just up the street. They say it’s the best hotel in town. Which wouldn’t be hard. They also say the barman’s a spy—you know, one of your lot. FBI or whatever you’re calling yourselves these days.”
“Is he a good bartender, at least?”
“I suppose so. Actually, he’s probably just some nice little man. Everybody looking and pointing and putting their hands over their mouths—probably doesn’t have the faintest idea. Almost worth it to stick around after the war to see if he does go back to Washington or just keeps wiping down the bar.”
They had huevos rancheros at a table near the window, flooded with sun.
“Where will you go after the war?” Connolly said.
“You mean, where’s home? London, I suppose. It really depends on Daniel—my husband. Maybe he’ll stay here, assuming there’s anything to stay for. I don’t know. He could go back to the Cavendish, but perish that.”
“Why? It’s the best lab in England.”
“Yes, and think of all those lovely Sunday lunches on the Maddingly Road. Dreary old dons and watery sprouts and one glass of bad sherry. Sounds like I’m obsessed with drink, doesn’t it?”
“Sounds like you’d need it there.”
“You’re right. Not Blighty, then. Where?”
“But your husband’s not English.”
“He is now. By marriage, anyway. You mean the name. He was Polish. A Polish Jew. That’s twice nothing now, so he’ll have to be English, won’t he?”
“Where did you meet?”
“In Berlin. He was at the KWI.” She answered his unspoken question. “Sorry. I forgot you’re not an ‘engineer.’ Kaiser Wilhelm Institute. He worked with Lise Meitner.”
Connolly raised his eyebrows appreciatively.
“Yes, he’s quite a boy,” she said. “Look, did you ask me to lunch to talk about my husband? I’m not fishing, but I could think of a hundred more flattering things.”
“Such as?”
“Well, you could say you wish I didn’t have one, for a start.”
“Does it matter?”
“Yes,” she said evenly.
He looked back at her. “At least we have that established.”
“Deftly, too, I hope you noticed.”
“I don’t miss much.”
“Then don’t miss that.”
“I suppose that’s by way of letting me down gently?”
She smiled. “Is there such a thing? Look, I’m a hopeless flirt. I can’t help it, I was brought up that way. We all were, in my set. Here I am now, being blinded by this light and still hung over, and I wouldn’t dream of picking up these sunglasses. It wouldn’t be polite to the man, you see. But you’ll have to settle for the charm. It doesn’t go any further.”
“Got it. It’s just eggs, you know,” he said, gesturing to the plate.
“It’s never just eggs. Now, tell me about you.”
“That’s not even subtle,” he said, smiling.
“Tell me anyway.
What did you do before the war?”
“Newspaperman. In New York.”
“Real news or agony aunt or what?”
“I guess you could call it real news. City desk. Police blotter. Nothing very special.”
“And after the war? You just take up where you left off?”
Finished with the eggs, he lit a cigarette. “Sure. But where’s that? You spend most of the war wanting to get back before you realize it won’t be there anymore. It’ll be something else. But you don’t know what, so you just wait it out.”
She looked at him thoughtfully, lighting her own cigarette. “They don’t think that on the Hill,” she said finally. “They’re having the time of their lives up there.”
“And that bothers you?”
“No, I envy them. They’re not filling in time and wondering what’s next. You’ve got that right. They’ve no idea how boring it is for the rest of us while they beaver away.” Then she brightened. “Still, they’re happy. Daniel’s happy.”
“So you’re jealous of the project?”
“Bloody stupid, isn’t it? No, I’m glad for him—it’s what he was meant to do. They’re making history. Oppie keeps saying so, anyway. You can’t ask more than that. I just wish I knew what I was meant to do.” She stubbed out the cigarette with some of her old fierceness.
“So what do you do, while you’re waiting for the call?”
She looked at him, then laughed. “I’ll have to watch you. You catch me out, making a fool of myself, and I don’t mind. Why is that, do you think?”
“Maybe I don’t scare easily.”
“Oh, scare. That’s what it is, then. I’ve always wondered. I thought it was my charm that sent them all packing. But not you.”
“No, I’ll stick around.”
“I give you that. After last night I thought I’d seen the last of you.”
“Don’t apologize again. We’ve done that.”
“So we have. What’s next, then?”
“I wish you weren’t married.”
“We’ve done that too. Look, I’d better go. Let’s get the bill.”
“Now I’m scaring you. I’m sorry. I was just being cute. Don’t run off—here, look, I’ll stay on my side of the table.”
“I still have to go.”
“I thought you were going to show me Santa Fe.”
She laughed. “You’ve seen it.” She stopped and looked at him, as if trying to make up her mind about something. “I tell you what, though. If you really want to see something—the country, I mean—I was just on my way to a friend’s ranch. Out past Tesuque. You could come along. Would that interest you?”
“Yes.” He paused. “If I ask you something, will you answer me honestly?”
“No.”
“Would it interest you?”
“Honestly? Well, if memory serves, darling, you boys in G-2 are rolling in coupons and I’m always running out. It was your car I had in mind. Honestly.”
They drove north on the Tesuque road, past old adobes settled in cottonwood groves, shady and cool, but when the outskirts of town were behind them, the landscape opened up again, miles of country stretching off to the Jemez Mountains on their left. He stared straight ahead, concentrating on the road, but he could feel her next to him, one leg pulled up away from him on the seat as she blew smoke out the window. She was leaning back, her sunglasses on against the glare of the day. He couldn’t tell whether she had her eyes open, but he imagined them closed, so he could take her in with quick side glances without her knowing. He could smell her skin.
“I thought you weren’t allowed to fraternize with the locals,” he said.
“Oh, Hannah’s different. The project used her ranch before they built all the housing. They had us stashed all over the place in the early days. Before the fences went up.”
“So she was your landlady?”
Emma laughed. “Well, a landlady. I never thought of her in that way. You’ll see what I mean when you meet her.”
“A local character?”
“Hm, but not local. She lives in Los Angeles. Something or other in the movies—sets. Here she’s an artist. Quite a good one too, actually. Daniel and I kipped in her studio—the others were in the main house. So I spent my first few weeks here surrounded by corn.”
“Corn? The vegetable?”
She laughed again. “Yes, maize. Giant ears of it on these whacking great canvases. She calls it her corn series. Says she spent two years living in corn. I can well imagine. Anyway, so did we, at least for a few weeks. In some ways, it was my favorite time here. I think that’s when I really fell in love with the place. All this space. She lent us her horses, and you could ride for hours and not see a soul. I thought it was about as far from England as you could get.”
“And that’s what you wanted?”
“Oh, no one wants to get away like the English. Unless you’re one of those who don’t want to go anywhere at all. I couldn’t wait to get away. And this,” she said, opening her hand to the view. “You can breathe here.”
“But your family’s still in England?”
“Yes. I couldn’t wait to get away from them either. Still, I suppose it’s a bit hard on them—I mean, they haven’t a clue. Box 1663, Santa Fe. That’s all they know. It can’t possibly mean anything to them. We’re not supposed to make any reference to the place or the work or anything, really.”
“So what do they think you’re doing here?”
“Haven’t the faintest. They know I go riding and they know Daniel’s a scientist, but since that doesn’t make sense, they’ve probably given it up as a puzzle. Of course, Mother’s been puzzled for years. She just rattles around this barn of a house while my father drills the locals in some awful Home Guard practice, and everybody’s happy in their own dotty way. God, it’s lovely to be here.”
“Brothers or sisters?”
“You can read my file, you know. Yes, two sisters. Thoroughly satisfactory. Deb balls, good marriages, dogs—the lot.”
“Which leaves you.”
“Yes. I’m not satisfactory at all.”
“You’re delighted to say.”
She glanced over at him and nodded. “I’m delighted to say.”
“Anything else I should know?”
“Better save something for another day. You can peel me away, like an onion.”
He grinned at her.
“It’s a turn of phrase, dear,” she said. “Nothing more.”
After a few more miles they took a right, up a dirt road that paralleled the base of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.
“How big is this place?”
“Not very. Hannah’s got horses, but it’s not a working ranch. You need thousands of acres for that. She started with just the adobe and then added the studio and the stables when she could put the money together. She’s been here on and off for ten years or so.”
“How did she end up in Hollywood?”
“Well, actually, she ended up here. She started there. She left Germany early, in ‘thirty-four—there was a whole group that went straight from UFA to California. I don’t know how she got here. You could ask her.”
“Is everyone around here foreign?”
“Careful.”
“I didn’t mean you.”
“I know. Sometimes it does seem that way, doesn’t it? Packing us all away here. Odd they should have picked a place that doesn’t look American, though, don’t you think? I mean, you’ve got all these expats thinking America’s like—”
“Spain.”
“No, not Spain,” she said, slowing down. “I’ve been there. It’s nothing like that. Awful place. Of course, there was a war on, which didn’t help.”
“What were you doing there? Driving an ambulance or something?”
“Mostly just sitting around hating the place. Lots of little men strutting about like stout Cortez. You can’t imagine the dreariness of it. Not like here at all.”
“Why Spain?”
�
�Oh, I don’t know. It was the thing to do, like some finishing school for English girls. The unsatisfactory ones, anyway. All sorts of us went out—you know, fight the good fight against fascism. And take a Spanish lover into the bargain.”
He looked at her, interested. “But not you.”
“I didn’t say that. I just said they weren’t my cup of tea. Maybe it’s the mustaches—too silly.”
“I’m glad I shaved.”
“You’d have made a hit with Hannah. She loves a big mustache. Well”—she giggled—“big everything. Wait till you see Hector.”
“Her husband?”
“Her foreman. Hand. Lover, according to everybody.”
“He’s big?”
“Hm. They should have called him Ajax. I love the way the Mexicans use these classical names. Anyway, he’s strong as an ox—he can move anything. He’s got a construction job on the Hill now that she’s closing the ranch, and Hannah claims she’s heartbroken. She dotes on him, but he won’t go to Los Angeles. I don’t know, maybe it suits them both. Hannah says he’s an Aztec god, but then she treats him like a servant. I can’t imagine what they talk about. Maybe they don’t. I’m fond of Hannah, but every time I see them together I have to laugh. They look like one of those adverts for sex clubs in Berlin.”
“The things you know,” Connolly said.
But in fact she was right—the odd pairing was almost comically sexual. Hannah turned out to be a slim, petite woman still wearing the short-cropped bangs of the 1920s, as if she had just stepped off Pabst’s set. Next to her, bending over a tub of mud, was a large Mexican, stripped to the waist, his back rippling as he stirred the wet earth with a paddle. When he stood up at the sound of the car and wiped his forehead, his frame seemed a wall of muscle. Ladders had been placed on the side of the house, and two Indian women, entirely covered in long skirts, were applying the wet mud to the walls, smoothing it over with their hands in long, regular strokes. They moved with a sure, unbroken rhythm, practiced for centuries. Against this background, Hector seemed even more a primitive figure, a builder of ancient cities.
“Emma!” the woman shouted happily, extending her arms. “You came!”
Her voice was German, deep and thickened by years of smoke but not at all heavy. It seemed to float instead with an ironic playfulness.
