Santa Fe Rules

by Stuart Woods

  “Okay, you’re on. We’re arriving in Albuquerque at four o’clock.”

  “That’s terrific! I’ll meet you.” The hell with not leaving Santa Fe.

  “I assume I don’t need any hot dresses this time?”

  “All you need is jeans and a warm coat. It’s cold here.”

  “See you at four.”

  Wolf hung up the phone, elated. He had one hell of a lot to do before his guests arrived.

  By lunchtime, he had filled the Porsche with presents and Christmas tree decorations. The plaza was alive with shoppers, and he had exchanged greetings with a dozen friends and acquaintances. Every shop and house was decorated for the season; he had forgotten how lovely Santa Fe could be at Christmas.

  By one o’clock, he was shopped out and starving. He pointed the car toward Santacafé, and miraculously found a space in the parking lot. The place was jammed, and as he squeezed through the front door, he was greeted with a sight that struck him like a blow: standing at the reservations booth, talking on the telephone, was a woman who looked so much like Julia that he at first thought he was hallucinating. True, her hair was dark, where Julia’s had been sandy blond, but everything else—her gestures, movements, and above all her smile—were Julia’s.

  From behind, a large hand took his elbow and steered him into the bar alcove to his left.

  “Hello, Ed,” Wolf said, looking up at the lawyer.

  “Hello, Wolf,” Eagle replied, grabbing a barstool and shoving it under his client’s backside. “I’m glad I ran into you. I’ve got something to tell you.”

  Wolf was barely paying attention, craning his neck to catch sight of the front door. “There’s a woman out there who looks enough like Julia to be her twin,” he said.

  “Wolf, it’s Julia’s sister.”

  Now Wolf gave him his whole attention. “I thought she was in prison.”

  “She was unconditionally released last week. She turned up in Santa Fe and came to see me—I had offered to help her, never believing she would turn up here. I gave her a few names, and she got a job here; she’s keeping the books for the restaurant and working the lunch shift at the desk.”

  “Jesus Christ, she gave me a start,” Wolf said. His pulse was starting to go down.

  “I’m sorry about that. I was going to call you about her. I really had no idea the resemblance was so strong.”

  “It’s uncanny,” Wolf said.

  “I’d never even seen a photograph of Julia, so I didn’t know. I’m sorry if it upset you.”

  “It didn’t exactly upset me; it was more of a disorientation, like going back in time—Julia here, in this restaurant, where she had been so many times.”

  “I understand. Again, I apologize for not letting you know about her sooner. I don’t really have a good excuse.”

  “It’s okay, Ed. I’m fine.”

  “I was on my way back from the men’s room when I saw you. I’d better get back to my lunch group.”

  “Sure, go ahead.”

  Eagle stopped. “Wolf, would you like to meet her?”

  Wolf considered that for a moment. “I don’t think this is a good time, Ed. After all, she’s working.” In fact, he was terrified of meeting her, of being anywhere near her.

  “Sure, I understand. Another time.”

  “Sure. What’s her name?”

  “She’s known as Barbara Kennerly. She seems like a decent person, in spite of her past.” Eagle explained the circumstances of her imprisonment. “I think she was just caught up in something she couldn’t control. She had some therapy in prison; she’s all right now, I think.”

  Wolf nodded. “I hope so, for her sake.”

  “In my experience, the most ordinary people can get caught up in something extraordinary. Half the people I defend are just folks.”

  “Like me,” Wolf said.

  Eagle smiled. “Like you. And like her, too. Try not to hold her past against her.” Eagle excused himself and went to join his party.

  Resisting the urge to leave, Wolf forced himself to order some lunch at the bar and tried to keep his mind on it. He was still disturbed, though, and when he left the restaurant, he was glad she wasn’t at the desk.

  CHAPTER

  24

  Ed Eagle checked the contents of the refrigerator, then spent a couple of minutes arranging things. He took a head of romaine lettuce from the icebox, rinsed it, and set it aside to drain. He got down a wooden salad bowl from a cupboard, separated two egg yolks from the whites, and opened a can of anchovies. He looked around; everything else was at hand.

  The headlights of a car flashed briefly by the kitchen window. Eagle rinsed his hands and walked to the front door. Barbara Kennerly was just getting out of what looked like a brand-new Jeep Cherokee.

  “Hello,” he called.

  “Hello, yourself,” she replied, reaching back into the car for something and coming out with a large bunch of flowers.

  “Come into the house before you freeze.”

  “I like the cold weather.”

  “Then you’ve come to the right place.” He laughed, closing the door and helping her off with her coat. She was dressed in flannel slacks and a heavy, long-sleeved silk blouse. She was not wearing a bra, he noted. “It’s supposed to go down to ten degrees tonight.”

  “Fine with me,” she said. “Have you got something I can put these in?”

  He led her into the kitchen and found a vase, then watched as she expertly arranged the flowers. “They’re beautiful,” he said. “Thank you for bringing them.”

  “Well, if you’re cooking, it was the least I could do. I would have brought some wine, but it probably would have been the wrong thing.”

  “Don’t worry, we’re well fixed for wine. Would you like a drink, or can I force some champagne on you?”

  “Oh, yes, please, force me.”

  He got out two crystal flutes and opened a bottle of Schramsberg blanc de noirs.

  She raised her glass. “To freedom,” she said.

  He clinked his glass against hers. “I’ll drink to that.”

  “Mmmm,” she said, savoring the wine. “It’s delicious. French?”

  “Californian. The best, I think; equal to a lot of the French stuff.”

  “And the glasses—they’re Baccarat, aren’t they?”

  “You have a good eye.”

  “You have good taste, sir.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.”

  “I’m not old enough to be called ’ma’am,’” she said solemnly.

  “You’re right. How old are you, anyway?”

  “I’m thirty-two. Do you always ask women their age?”

  “Always. It’s an important question.”

  “Why is it important that you know a woman’s age?”

  “Knowing her age is not important. What’s important is if she will tell you her age. You passed the test.”

  She laughed. “I’m glad.”

  “So, no more ma’ams; I’ll call you Barbara.”

  “I’d like that better. I’m still getting used to it, you know. There’s a girl at work named Hannah, and I have a tendency to turn whenever somebody speaks to her.”

  “Why did you change your name?”

  “I would have thought that was obvious,” she said. “But it wasn’t just to get away from the ex-convict label. I simply didn’t want to be Hannah Schlemmer anymore. I didn’t like what she had become, and while I was inside I made a point of becoming somebody I liked better.”

  “So how do you feel about Barbara Kennerly these days?”

  “By the time I got out, I was liking her a lot. She’s changing, though. She’s reinventing herself, now that she has her freedom.”

  Eagle took some beef tenderloin from the refrigerator and began expertly trimming and slicing it. “Something I don’t understand,” he said.

  “What’s that? Barbara Kennerly is an open book; she’ll answer any question.”

  “You just arrived in a new car.” />
  “And I found an apartment today, too. It’s been a big day for Barbara.”

  “How does Barbara afford all this?”

  “Ever the inquisitor. I don’t mind telling you. I didn’t get anything from my husband’s estate—under the circumstances—but Murray was a generous man, in some ways. He was in the jewelry business, and he gave me a lot of jewelry. When I got out, I went to New York and sold some of it.” She pulled back her hair to reveal a very nice diamond earring. “Not all of it, but some. I’d been around the diamond business enough to know how to go about selling it without getting scalped, so I have enough of a nest egg to get me going again.”

  “Now, that’s very interesting,” Eagle said. “But you had a public defender at your trial. If you’d sold the jewelry then and used the money to hire a good lawyer, I don’t think you’d have done any time at all.”

  “You know a lot about my case, don’t you?”

  “Do you mind that I know?”

  “No, I don’t. Like I said, Barbara is an open book. I’ll tell you straight, I didn’t do that because I was stupid. It wasn’t until I was in prison that I learned from my…new colleagues what the score was, and by that time it was too late. And I’ll tell you something: I don’t regret what I did.”

  “You don’t regret going to prison?”

  She sipped her champagne and shook her head. “I don’t know what I would have done if I’d walked after the trial. I needed to get my head on straight again, and prison did that for me, gave me a chance to think about what I’d done wrong and what I was going to do to fix myself.”

  “That’s what prison is supposed to be for, I guess.”

  “Well, it worked with me. I’m never again going to break any law—I’m not going to speed, I’m not going to get a parking ticket, I’m not going to jaywalk.”

  “That’s a good resolution.”

  “And I’m keeping it forever.”

  Eagle dropped the sliced meat into some clarified butter and sautéed it. While that was happening, he took the salad bowl, crushed some garlic in it, added a few anchovies, pureed them with a fork, added the egg yolks, and began dripping oil into the bowl as he whipped the combination into a froth. He seasoned it with salt and pepper, added a spoonful of coarse Dijon mustard, then grated fresh Parmesan cheese into the mixture, whipping it up with a fork.

  “What is it?” Barbara asked.

  He dipped a finger into the bowl and offered it to be tasted. She sucked the dressing from his finger, and he liked the way she did it.

  “Mmmm,” she said. “I hate anchovies, and I got worried when I saw them go in, but this is terrific!”

  He tore the romaine lettuce into bite-sized pieces and dropped them into the salad bowl, tossing them until they were lightly coated with the dressing.

  “Caesar salad!” she said. “I’ve never seen it made before, just ordered it in restaurants.”

  He sprinkled some croutons on the salad and served it. They ate at the counter, while he kept an eye on the cooking.

  “And what’s that going to be?”

  “Beef Stroganoff,” he replied.

  “God, I haven’t had that in years!”

  He moved them to the small dining table in the kitchen and served the food. A bottle of red wine stood open and waiting.

  “This is wonderful,” she said, sipping the wine and looking at the label. “Clos du Bois Merlot,” she recited.

  “One of my favorites, and not very expensive.”

  “Murray liked sweet wines,” she said. “He was very Jewish.”

  “But you’re Jewish, too.”

  “Yeah, but I’m sort of a civilian. Not that Murray was religious, but he was culturally more Jewish than I was. He liked to eat and drink the traditional things his mother had brought him up on.”

  “And did you learn to make matzoh ball soup and gefilte fish?”

  “Not on your life. We had a cook who did all that. Murray knew from the beginning I was never going to be any good at cooking.”

  “What sort of life did you have with him?”

  “Confined. We never saw anybody socially but his family, who hated me because I wasn’t Jewish enough, or his clients, who always wanted to grope me.”

  “I can see how you might have wanted out.”

  “I didn’t, consciously, until I met Jimmy. Then I began to see another world.”

  “What sort of world?”

  “Oh, Jimmy was very smooth. He told me he’d made money in the stock market, and I believed him. He loved the best restaurants, the best seats at shows, expensive cars, the hundred-dollar window at the track. For a naive kid like me, it was like being in a movie, instead of real life. It was a while before I began noticing that everybody he knew seemed to have an angle. We’d bump into people at the track that I couldn’t believe he was friendly with.” She stopped talking for a moment. “Listen, I hope you don’t mind, but this is starting to get to me. I’d rather not talk about that life anymore; I want to put it behind me.”

  “Of course, I understand. I shouldn’t have pried.”

  “I’ll still tell you anything you want to know.” She put her hand on his.

  “I know enough,” Eagle said, leaning over and kissing her lightly.

  She kissed him back. “I think it’s time I did a little questioning myself,” she said.

  “Okay, shoot.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Well, uh…”

  “Your age isn’t important, but it’s important that you’re willing to tell me.”

  He laughed aloud. “Forty-eight.”

  “Ever married?”

  “Nope.”

  “Why not?”

  “Just lucky, I guess.”

  She burst out laughing. “What do you have against marriage?”

  “Not much. I just think marriage is something you should do when it’s the only alternative, when you can’t stand it if you’re not married. That never happened to me. Not at the same time it happened to the girl, anyway.”

  “You never found the perfect woman?”

  “Once, I think.”

  “What happened?”

  “She was looking for the perfect man.”

  She laughed again. “That’s a very old joke.”

  “It’s an old question.”

  They finished dinner and moved into the study, settled on the big leather sofa. The fire was their only light. She kissed him.

  Things moved quickly after that.

  In the middle of the night, Eagle got up to go to the bathroom. When he came back, he stopped and looked at Barbara. In the moonlight she seemed startlingly pale, sprawled across the bed, her hair in her face, her arms thrown out, her breasts free and beautiful.

  Eagle bent over to kiss her and was stopped by an oddly familiar sight. Tattooed onto the inside of her right breast was the shape of a flower—he didn’t know which one; he was lousy at flowers. The colors were bright, and even the moonlight failed to wash them out.

  CHAPTER

  25

  They came back from Albuquerque crammed into the Porsche, the three of them and a lot of Christmas presents. Wolf had watched the rearview mirror all the way, but the police didn’t seem to be on his tail. He relaxed when they crossed the county line.

  Sara, tucked into one of the tiny rear seats and walled in by packages, pointed at everything, asked about everything.

  “You’re talking too much,” her mother said to her.

  “I know, but I can’t help it,” Sara said. “I like it here.”

  “You’re going to like it even more in Santa Fe,” Wolf said. “It’s like something out of a picture book.” He avoided the strip-city called Cerillos Road and detoured through the East Side Historic District.

  “It looks real old,” Sara said, pressing her nose to the car window and taking in the adobe houses.

  “It is,” Wolf replied. “There was an Indian settlement here for centuries before the Spanish founded the town in 1
610. Santa Fe is the oldest state capital in the United States.”

  “What’s the Santa Fe Trail?” Sara asked. “There was a movie on television called that, with Ronald Reagan, but they didn’t say much about the trail.”

  Wolf laughed. “The Santa Fe Trail was one of the main routes west for the settlers,” he replied. “It started in St. Louis, Missouri, and ended right here, at the plaza. There’s a hotel right at the end of it.” He turned a corner. “In fact, we’re on the Old Santa Fe Trail right now.”

  Sara looked around at the restaurants and shops. “It doesn’t look much like a trail to me.”

  “I guess it doesn’t now, but it was once filled with covered wagons and trail herders, all making their way here. In some parts of it, east of here, you can still see the ruts the wagons made, and there are rocks with the settlers’ names carved on them.” He pointed at a small adobe house. “Look, see the sign? That’s the oldest building in the United States, put up about the year 1200.”

  Sara did a quick calculation. “That’s almost eight hundred years old.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Why are all the buildings made out of mud?” she asked.

  “People made their houses of mud because there were too few trees for building, and mud was the most available and cheapest material. Nowadays, houses are made of stucco, then painted to look like mud. A real adobe house has to have a new coat of mud every year, and that’s too much maintenance for most families.”

  “Don’t you get dirty living in a mud house?” Sara asked.

  Wolf and Jane laughed aloud. “Nope,” he replied. “It has a regular inside, just like a house in Los Angeles.”

  They were climbing up to Wilderness Gate now, and Sara took in the view. “You sure can see a long way,” she said. “Why don’t you get to have any smog?”