Stealing Fire

by Win Blevins

  “I’m crossways with a pretty bad guy,” he said. “Probably started that rumor because he wanted me to think Helen was dead. Then I started thinking about why. How does it look to everyone else? What if it looks like I can’t take care of my own kid? Man, that’s bad, you know?”

  “Makes sense,” I said. I was waiting for him to wind down and get to it.

  “I killed that death-by-fire news story as soon as I found out she was with you.”

  This was baloney, at least in part. I’d wired Taliesin West myself, right off, and told the group on the train that their colleague was fine. But I said, “Good idea.”

  “Confusion works in my favor.”

  I nodded in agreement, playing wise in the ways of his world.

  “When I heard about Helen dying in the fire—she wasn’t supposed to be at Taliesin—I panicked, you know, for about ten seconds. Didn’t take long to get to the truth, but during those ten seconds I felt my whole life—business, family, everything—going right down the toilet.”

  He was a man who didn’t hold up well under the weight of silence. His glance was like warm chocolate covering a poisonous reptile.

  Fine said, “You’re one smart cookie, you know that?”

  “Thank you.”

  “I mean it. Great rule—get someone in your debt by doing them a favor—saving their kid, for God’s sake—and then they owe you, big-time. Is that your angle here?”

  “Sir?”

  “Don’t use many words, either. Smart.”

  I had nothing to say to that.

  “Okay, like I said, I just wanted to come by and say thanks,” he said. “No need to wake anyone up, Helen, the old man, your grandfather. No need. I’m satisfied.”

  I resisted asking how he knew—but didn’t know—who was in my house. It would have confirmed the info he wanted. No slips on my part with this guy. Wright being here was a pure guess, just like Helen being here was, that’s what I thought, and I wasn’t playing into it. What was he after? No idea.

  I settled for a change of direction in conversation. “How did you find me?”

  “I can find anyone. It’s like I have antennae, especially where my little girl is concerned.”

  He smiled. So many white teeth, all of them perfect. A contrast to his perfect tan.

  Fine shook my hand. “You ever want to come and work for the dark side, I’ve always got a job for a good man.”

  “Thank you.”

  “And I still owe you one.”

  “Yep.”

  He turned back around to face me. “Want to know the truth from someone who’s been in the protection game for a long time?”

  “Okay.”

  “It’s all the dark side.”

  “The dark side keeps your family alive? That’s a tough pill to swallow.”

  “I keep them alive however I can. I made peace with my soul about that a long time ago.”

  No words from me.

  He said, “It’s been nice meeting you.”

  “You showed up at my table. That’s more of an ambush than a meeting.”

  “I like you, Goldman, but remember—I will always be able to find you.”

  “That’s what this was really about.”

  “Partly. And when you take care of my kid, you need to understand it’s important. Very,” he said. “Thanks again.”

  I stood. “Mr. Fine, the desert is a very poor place for a fishing expedition.”

  He clapped me on the shoulder, smiled, and winked at me. Then he turned.

  I watched him walk out the door and head down the dirt road a ways. He climbed into a WWII jeep he must have rented in Flagstaff. It had probably been green before he’d maneuvered it through the desert sand and dust. He had a driver.

  I already knew his name, but now there was a face connected with it. That was a plus for me. He knew my name and where I lived. Well, one of the places I lived. That was a large minus on my balance sheet.

  I watched his tires kick up dust. Nothing else marked the sky except for two redtail hawks. “Well, great,” I said to the world. “I’m on a gangster’s radar.”

  He knew where Wright was, or at least he wanted me to think he did. He thought I was keeping his baby girl safe and sound, or least he wanted me to think he did. He said Payton owed him money and Wright had signed for it. I had no idea how this was going to play out, but none of the scenarios were swell.

  Twenty

  I tossed Fine’s miserable coffee out the back door and started over. Pure city boy, he didn’t have a clue how to make cowboy coffee. I thought about drinking something he’d made, then I thought of poison, then I felt my stomach lurch, then I thought, Pull Yourself Together, Yazzie Goldman!

  By the time Mr. Wright and Grandfather sat down, I poured them each a fresh cup of coffee and sat with them.

  “Gentlemen, I have news, and you’re not going to like it.”

  My grandfather said, “Yazzie! When we went to bed the world was in semi-order. Sort of. Anyway, what the hell could have happened between now and then?”

  “Jake Fine was here when I woke up.”

  “What do you mean by here?” Grandpa said.

  “I mean he was sitting at the kitchen table, having a cup of coffee.”

  “My place?” he said. “He was here?” He snatched his shotgun out of the corner.

  “Grandpa, don’t go all Duke Wayne on me.”

  “I’ll be damned if some guy, gangster or no, thinks he can just barge into my house, nice as you please, and help himself to a cup of coffee.”

  He was right about that.

  “We could have been murdered in our sleep.”

  “Grandpa, if he’s involved in anything like that, he’s not the one who does the killing.”

  “Gosh, that’s a comfort.”

  “Let’s slow down,” said Wright, in an unusual display of calm and sense. “I take it you’ve met Mr. Fine sometime in the past, then.”

  I don’t know why I’d never thought that maybe it wasn’t Jake Fine. Could have been anyone, except his information was generally correct. So was the attitude.

  “Before I’d only heard about him,” I said, “never met him. How about describing Fine to me?”

  Wright did.

  “Something iguana-like about him?” I said. “Like a giant lizard or fat snake?”

  “Exactly. Under a too-smooth exterior.”

  “Fine was here, all right.”

  I told them Fine had waltzed right into the house, made coffee, and waited for me at the kitchen table. We had a puzzling conversation, and a few of the cards he played were threats. Then he drove off, and I thought he was in the car alone.

  “The main question,” I said, “is how did he find this place?”

  “Got any ideas?”

  “No, but I intend to find out.”

  “How?”

  “I haven’t figured that out yet.”

  “But you will,” Wright said.

  “Most likely. There’s lots of gossip on the rez, but this specific place and all the dirt roads…?”

  “You worried?”

  “If I was worried, it would make me nervous,” I said, “and I’d be no good at my job. I am, however, on high alert.”

  “You think we’re safe here?”

  “Compared to Chicago? Absolutely. Compared to Taliesin West? Most likely.”

  “Santa Fe?”

  “After what happened to Frieda? Not an option.”

  They looked at each other. Finally, Grandpa said, “I’m not going hungry because of that crook. Let’s eat.”

  I got up, poured them more coffee, and started a pan of bacon.

  “Oh, by the way, Mr. Wright?” I said. “He thanked me for keeping Helen safe here.”

  “Here?”

  “Also for keeping you safe here. He was looking for information, I guess, but I just said uh-huh to everything. Can’t trust that man any farther than a breeze could blow him.”

  “Fine brought up Helen
himself?”

  “He did. And you.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “One of two things. He was just playing with my head, or … he was just playing with my head.”

  “He was showing us that he can find us wherever we go,” said Grandpa.

  “That’s right.”

  “And that’s all there is to say. Let’s eat.”

  I got up and fixed us biscuits, bacon, eggs, homemade peach jam, the whole works. I made another pot of coffee—we wouldn’t be able to sleep for a week. I steered breakfast talk away from anything but the here and now. I needed quiet time to think. Quiet to roll the characters, and what they wanted, through my mind.

  Wright and Grandpa started talking about art and buildings and rocks and cement. Wright talked about what materials they used to build the walls at Taliesin West, native materials, much like ours, how they poured the cement, mud, and rocks into molds. I tuned out.

  This day would be one of rest. Wright and Grandpa weren’t getting any younger, and I had gained about ten years since we got on the train at Dearborn Station. Chicago may as well have been on a different planet, centuries ago.

  “All right, Mose, time to go!” Wright said.

  I tuned back in.

  “Go where?” I said.

  “Out and about. I want to see the country. Your grandfather told me there is some extraordinary rock art just down the wash.”

  “Down the wash.”

  “Yes. I hear from your grandfather that this was heresy, but we used some rocks with petroglyphs to build the walls and foundation of Taliesin West.”

  “I don’t think it’s heresy, Frank. I told you some people would say it was.”

  “Mose, you intimated that it shouldn’t have been moved.”

  “Well, there’s different ways of thinking about that.”

  “We should have hired you as a consultant!”

  “Frank, what I said is that it’s like art. If you find it lying around, why not use it as art and stick it on a wall? That’s different than in a wall.”

  “Some is visible. Quite. And you’re right, it does work as art.”

  “What?” I said. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Rock art for the base of a building?

  “And that’s the thing, Frank. You used it to make a wall. Good.”

  “Look,” Wright said, “we’re going to go nuts if we hang around the cabin all day. We have some beautiful weather to get out and explore. I have to breathe.”

  “I’m with Frank on that,” my grandfather said.

  He was right about going nuts, but I didn’t like the idea of them wandering around. On the other hand, they were grown men and they had a right to decide their own lives. Mostly.

  Grandpa had suggested taking Wright partway down the wash to see the River House Ruins and walking the rest. I agreed. I could drive them more than half the distance. No city guy could maneuver it. From there they could walk easy enough. Even most locals didn’t know this route.

  Grandpa was a good guide. Hell, he’d taken Harry Goulding’s clients, and his own, all over the countryside. He hadn’t guided dangerous people, but he’d taken care of plenty who’d never been in the wilderness before. A place often less predictable than bad guys.

  “And I’m taking my pistol,” Grandpa said.

  Good idea. I was almost sure Fine was gone, but almost isn’t good enough.

  “And you are bringing my plans,” said Wright. If he’d been a foot taller, he’d have been in my face. “Look, here they are.” He led me into his bedroom, lifted the side of the mattress next to the wall, and plucked them out. “The only three people in the world I trust with these plans are in this house right now,” he said. “So be sure, especially with Fine around.”

  I told them to be back at three o’clock, no later. I wasn’t going to hunt for them in the dark because they’d come upon some ruin that had the effect of hypnosis—which was just like something one of those two would do.

  I packed them food and plenty of water. Grandpa would drive them as far through the sand and over the rocks as the truck could go without complaints from the tires or axle. I repeated, “No later than three o’clock.”

  And we were off. I wish I’d had a camera. Two old men, both in their second prime, one six and a half feet tall, the other a foot shorter. One with gray hair flapping in the back, held together by twine. The other one with white hair flowing beneath his hat brim. There was something magnificent and touching about them. Both of them. The togetherness of them.

  There is only so much you can do to protect people without them losing their dignity. In the middle of nowhere with Mose Goldman was as close as you could get to security.

  After a while, I said, “This is as far as the truck goes.”

  Wright looked out the side window at me. “Don’t go anywhere but home,” he said. “Those drafts of the Guggenheim must be watched.”

  They meandered off into the great unknown while I babysat some drawings for a building.

  When I got back, I put the tube of blueprints back in Wright’s hidey-hole. Then I checked the cabin, every inch of it, and every foot around it, before I opened the door. Once inside, I checked again. Under beds, behind curtains, inside closets.

  Then my mind turned to taking a nap in the rocker with a shotgun at my side. I was dead tired. Last night’s sleep had been good, but some people take the energy right out of you. It’s like your life is a sponge, they find the spot to suck, and there you are—brittle, dry, and worn. The nap worked for about twenty minutes, then I jerked awake.

  Carrying the shotgun, I wandered around the home place and saw that Eno was keeping up his end of the bargain for a free place to live when the heat was on at home. Sheep pens were empty, but they were in good shape. The shed that was Iris’s studio? I took particular time in there. Rescued some paintings I thought she might like to have in Santa Fe, some art supplies that were in good shape—a few that I might even be able to use—and sketches she’d drawn during the last movie shoot. Roofs all looked tight. Plenty of tar. The pump at the well was working, and judging from the winter they’d had, there would be good water. Locks were new and solid on the sheds and cabin doors. If Eno and his wife ever cleaned up their marriage, we’d be out of luck.

  I wondered how in hell Jake Fine found us. And wondered. And quit. Sometimes if you can’t figure something out, and you let it rest, it will come to you.

  I sat down at the table to write my mom a letter about how our home looked. I could have called her in a couple of days, or told her in person later, but she would appreciate the letter. I listed everything in the house that she loved and what shape it was in. Told her I hadn’t heard any gossip—that would be a disappointment. Everything seemed to be smooth sailing. Soon we’d get Wright to his home in Arizona, and I would be looking forward to her famous peach cobbler.

  Knock on the front door. I groaned. I wanted no one, and I didn’t want anyone to need me. Turned out it was the one person I’d be happy to see, Harry Goulding from the big trading post at Monument Valley. A determined man and rugged, Harry had big ideas and a radiant personality.

  We were both more than happy to see each other—it had been almost a year. And he’d been buried then, taking care of the movie business plus Howard Hughes plus helping me save my family from my so-called father. There hadn’t been time to sit back and chew the fat.

  We talked like old friends do, picking up as if no time had passed. He said he was real busy and asked how Santa Fe was. I told him security for the railroad was a good job, and this bodyguarding job came from that. At my grandfather’s and great-aunt’s ages it was best to have medical care handy. He was sorry, but he understood.

  “Harry?” I said to him. “There are a few people I’d trust with my life. You’re one of them.”

  “That serious, Yazzie?”

  “Yes. I’d like to tell you a story and get your thoughts.”

  “I’m all ears.”

  I gave
him a five-minute summary of everything that had gone on with Wright, aiming toward what I needed.

  “All of this happened in the course of less than one week?”

  “And that’s not all.”

  “I think I need a notepad or a scorecard.”

  “How about a beer?”

  “Sounds good.”

  I opened a cold Oly for him.

  “Here’s the hard part, Harry. When I woke up this morning, Jake Fine was sitting at our kitchen table. He’d even made a pot of coffee.”

  “Holy macaroni!”

  That was Harry’s way of cussing.

  I went through the rigmarole Jake spun about me hiding his daughter here, which was BS, and hiding Wright here, which wasn’t.

  “The whole thing with Fine? Harry, he didn’t know where his daughter was—he was here on a fishing expedition and he hoped I’d bite. Same with Wright. Had a man with him, but he just seemed to be a driver.”

  “Doesn’t seem like he’d come with muscle,” Harry said.

  “It wouldn’t surprise me,” I said. “He’s the kingpin of the operation. Kings don’t do their own dirty work.”

  “Where are Wright and Mose now?”

  “River House Ruins. I drove them as far as I could, then they walked. Two ancients hiking in the desert, one with a walking stick with a carved ivory head. But Wright was crazy to see it, and Grandpa was crazy to be his guide.”

  “Mose is armed?”

  “Of course.”

  Harry relaxed some. “Don’t worry about them. Out in the wilds, Mose can take care of anything and anybody.”

  “And no one could stop him from doing something. Wright’s the same way.”

  “Which is why they’ve both lived so long.”

  “Wright is older than Grandfather, around eighty. Hard to believe Wright is more stubborn.”

  “Those two old soldiers are not going to be herded. That won’t make your job any easier.”

  I wanted to tell Harry about the plans for the Guggenheim, but I was afraid he might ask if he could take a look at them, and that would feel like a major violation, a betrayal of the promise I made to Mr. Wright. Plus, where they were hidden, that was something only I wanted to know. My own peace of mind. Plus I wasn’t going to risk moving them. Anyone could be looking through our windows. I pulled out a few teaspoons of Alka-Seltzer and stirred it in a glass of water. Harry got a kick out of that.