Red Gold

by Robert D Kidera

  Not much traffic tonight, more bugs around the streetlights than cars on the road. An old man struggled past on a bicycle. His body lifted and dropped with each sluggish turn of the pedals. Fourth Street, just a worn-down path in a weary part of town.

  I peered down at the parking lot as the Camry pulled out with a squeal of its tires. A cigarette flew from the driver’s window, scattering a few sparks into the air. The car faded into the dusk, the salsa beat following close behind. Day was dying as the quiet of a high desert night descended.

  I knew the history of this place well. Fourth Street had once been El Camino Real, the Royal Highway from Mexico City to Santa Fe. Back then, in its unpaved past, it ranked as the most important road in New Spain. All the gold of Cibola was to travel this route on its way to the Viceroy in Mexico City, and then on to Spain. She was just a mean street now, shabby and grimy in the dusk. I looked into her shadows and pictured myself wandering along, tenuously holding on to newfound fortune the way others had centuries ago.

  I moved back inside, called for a pizza, and turned on the room’s old television—Turner Classic Movies and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. That would do.

  CHAPTER THREE

  April 2—9:00 a.m.

  The phone rang an hour after I woke up. The woman on the line identified herself as Rebecca Turner, assistant to the executor of Aunt Nellie’s estate. Her high-pitched voice made her sound about fifteen.

  “Mr. O’Connor said you wanted to see your aunt’s house this morning. He sent me to accompany you.”

  “Thanks, I’ll be ready whenever you get here.”

  “Actually, I’m parked outside in the lot. A gold Honda Civic.”

  We met there moments later. She looked to be in her early twenties, with shoulder-length blonde hair. About five foot eight, her four-inch heels brought a soft pair of light blue eyes level with mine. Her business suit matched the color of her eyes, but its full-length sleeves and high collar seemed an odd choice of clothing for what promised to be a very warm day.

  “Good morning, Mr. McKenna. Had breakfast yet?” A smile accompanied the young-girl voice, but her eyes never met mine.

  “Not yet.”

  We crossed the street to the El Camino Diner. Four ceiling fans spun above the single room, their hums almost drowned out by the clatter of dishes and silverware and the noise of a dozen conversations. The tangy aroma of cooking chile caressed my senses and stirred my appetite. A matronly woman in a colorful Mexican pleated skirt and white blouse met us at the cash register by the front door.

  “Table or booth?” She adjusted the pencil that nested in her teased black hair.

  I looked at Ms. Turner, who shrugged her shoulders. “Booth,” I said.

  The waitress motioned us to follow her, and I let Ms. Turner go ahead of me. Halfway across the room, she bumped into a young kitchen helper and almost fell to the floor. When I caught her from behind, she turned rigid at my touch and then backed away. Her hands trembled and she swallowed hard.

  “Are you okay?” I picked up the small clutch she had dropped. Rather heavy for such a little bag, I thought, before giving it back to her.

  “I’m fine.” She brushed off the shoulders of her business suit where my hands had touched her. Turner’s face was bright red; she appeared ready to cry.

  I tried to find something in that face, in those eyes, that could explain her behavior. I came up empty.

  “Ma’am,” I said to the waitress as she placed two menus on our table, “can you get this young lady some water?”

  “Sí.” She disappeared into the kitchen.

  I waited until Turner settled into her seat with the clutch in her lap before I sat down. “You okay?”

  She rubbed her wrists and nodded, but said nothing more until the hostess returned with the water I’d requested. The shaken young woman drank the entire glass in seconds.

  In an effort to change the subject, I moved on, “So why did they choose you to show me around?”

  “I’ve taken care of the house this past month.” She reached for the saltshaker, examined it, and returned it to the tabletop, doing the same routine with the pepper.

  “Thanks for keeping an eye on the place,” I said, as she concentrated on the sugar bowl.

  Turner glanced into her lap and shifted her arms. A clasp opened and snapped shut. She looked up only when the waitress came to take our orders.

  “Whole wheat toast and a small orange juice,” Turner said. She hadn’t even looked at the menu.

  “Would you like your toast buttered?”

  “I can do it myself. You have to bring me a knife, though.” Her soft, white hand pointed at the empty space next to her spoon. The waitress reached over to a table near our booth and transferred a knife from there.

  I ordered huevos rancheros and an Irish coffee. I had to describe the latter, but the place did have a liquor license, so I was in business.

  During our meal, Turner shifted around in her seat. We talked without purpose about the weather. Most of the time, she looked anywhere and everywhere except at me. The few times we made the slightest eye contact, her right hand mechanically touched her butter-smeared knife. A fly landed on her toast. Shuddering, she brushed it away, and didn’t take another bite after that.

  “We’d better leave soon. I have another appointment this morning.” She patted her lips with her napkin. “Do you know how to get to your aunt’s house?”

  “Last time I was here she lived near Nob Hill.”

  “You know she moved more than twenty years ago?”

  “That’s what your boss, Mr. O’Connor, told me.”

  “It’s not far from here,” she said. “Less than five minutes away.”

  “I’ll follow you then.”

  I tossed down the last of my coffee, left a tip, and carried the bill to the cash register by the door. I bought us each a thin mint from the fishbowl on the counter.

  “Thanks for breakfast, Professor,” Turner said. “You can call me Rebecca if you’d like.”

  “Thank you, I will. And you can call me Gabe.”

  The power of chocolate? I smiled.

  We walked back across Fourth Street to the hotel parking lot. I moved to open the door to my rented Fiesta Hatchback, but a white envelope stuck beneath the wiper blade caught my eye. A typewritten note on a single sheet of unlined paper lay folded inside:

  McKENNA—GO BACK TO NEW YORK AND STAY THERE. YOU WON’T GET A SECOND WARNING.

  I looked around the lot. No one, except for Rebecca Turner who had just opened her car door, met my gaze. My stomach tightened and my mouth felt dry. The sun slid behind a bank of clouds that cast a depressing gray pall over Fourth Street.

  Two honks from Rebecca’s Civic startled me. I crammed myself into my car, placed the note on the front seat, and waved her out into northbound traffic.

  As I followed, I had time to think. Who would want to do me harm? Why? How could anyone even know I’d be in Albuquerque now? Or that this rental car was mine?

  Five minutes and a few miles later, I followed Rebecca onto a narrow gravel road lined with soaring cottonwood trees. The houses became larger and more upscale, and the vegetation grew more dense as we neared the Rio Grande. Almost every yard had ankle-deep green grass, and some yards were even submerged in water from an irrigation ditch—what the locals call an acequia—that ran alongside the road.

  Rebecca turned through a weathered Spanish archway, onto the gravel driveway of a single story home. A waist-high adobe wall surrounded the property.

  The rectangular Pueblo Revival style structure had a flat roof and exposed vigas, wooden beams that protruded about a foot from the top located on the north and south walls. I expected to see a little burro or a few sheep rambling around the yard, but it held only a large piñon pine and a Texas red oak that towered over the house.

  Getting out of our cars, Rebecca led me along a ragged stone path toward an intricately carved wooden door—a Spanish-style work of art. We mad
e our way around a small, hand-carved rocking chair sitting to the left of the front door.

  A pile of firewood, left over from Aunt Nellie’s final winter, had been stacked in the corner of the porch farthest from the entry.

  Rebecca and I stood before the door. She removed a ring of keys from her clutch, but fumbled and dropped them. She looked at me, but this time I backed off as she picked them up. “Better watch your step,” she warned. “The threshold is a bit uneven.”

  The front hall had a stone floor and four, thick, wooden coat pegs on the wall to the left of the door. Rebecca turned on a light switch. A ceiling fan in the adjacent living room came to life. It hummed away, and the faint breeze it created brushed my cheek.

  A half dozen hand-carved, painted santos and a couple unlit candles filled the small alcove in the adobe wall to the right of the door. They appeared to have been arranged with great care. I didn’t recall that my great-aunt had been a religious woman.

  “I hope I get to live in a home like this someday,” Rebecca said, as she closed the door behind us. “I love the feel of this place.”

  She never strayed from my side as I walked through the house. One room held no furniture at all, just piled up boxes of Aunt Nellie’s things, packed and labeled. A wooden four-poster bed filled much of the master bedroom, with a matching nightstand at its side. The large, Spanish-style dresser on the far side of the room stood between two undersized windows. The high-backed rocking chair near the bathroom door looked like it might collapse if I sat in it.

  The largest room in the house, more spacious than the diminutive living room, was Aunt Nellie’s library. A solid oak antique desk with a dozen old photographs arranged on top sat in the middle of the area. I didn’t recognize anyone in the pictures. A pile of junk mail and circulars littered one corner of the desk.

  “We paid the few bills that came in over the past month out of your great-aunt’s estate account. I put a list of them and the amounts in the center drawer.”

  “That was very thoughtful. Thank you.”

  I circled the library and treated myself to an appreciative survey of the many books it held.

  The house lacked a formal dining room, but had an eat-in utilitarian kitchen in need of a major upgrade. A bowl of water and a dish of dry pet food rested on the floor near the refrigerator; a bag of Little Friskies sat on the wooden counter top.

  “There’s a cat?”

  She nodded. “His name is Otis. He stays inside and is quite gentle and shy. He’ll probably hide somewhere until he gets used to you.”

  We strolled outside and surveyed the grounds. What had once been a landscaped yard now stood overgrown, wild with rank gramma grass and tumbleweed. The large metal barn at the rear of the lot had clearly been a later addition to the property. Its windows were so caked with grime and dust that neither of us could see inside. A rusted padlock secured a long sliding door on the building’s right side.

  “I’m afraid we don’t have a key for that,” Rebecca said, nervously clutching her arm.

  “No problem. I’ll get a bolt cutter.”

  We ended up back inside the house, where Rebecca explained the vagaries of operating a swamp cooler and handed me a fresh set of house keys, and another to the mailbox.

  “You’ll find the mailbox several houses down on this side of the road.” She showed me the keys she’d dropped earlier. “Would you mind if I hold on to this set for the office?”

  “Why would the office still need its own keys?”

  “For when you go back to New York. We’ll need them to keep an eye on the place, just like before.”

  “Of course. That makes sense.”

  Rebecca glanced at her watch. “I’ll be late for my next appointment if I don’t leave now.” She handed me her business card after she scribbled her cellphone number on the back. “In case you need to contact me after hours.”

  I held the door open, as she swept past me onto the small front porch. She stopped and turned back.

  “That covers just about everything, Professor. Call me if you have any questions or difficulties.”

  I walked her to her car. As we shook hands, the sleeve of her blue jacket slid a couple inches up her arm. Scratches and ugly bruises ringed her upper wrist and forearm. I tried not to stare.

  After she drove off and the dust in the road settled, I checked Aunt Nellie’s mailbox. It was one of those aluminum communal affairs with a dozen locked little boxes. I found the one with the correct address and used the small key Rebecca had given me. A single letter sat inside, postmarked March 30th, three days before. It was addressed to me. How could the sender have known I’d be here at Aunt Nellie’s?

  The return address scrawled on the envelope read:

  Ricardo Ramos

  1142 Ybarra Place NW

  Albuquerque, NM 87102

  I didn’t know anyone by that name. I tore the envelope open and read the handwritten message:

  Professor McKenna,

  You don’t know me, but listen to what I have to say. People you should fear know that you are coming to Albuquerque. There is something about your family you need to know. Please talk with me. I think my phone is bugged, so better come see me in person. Soon! If we don’t get to meet, look behind you to find the secret!

  Ricardo Ramos

  I felt a sudden prickle of fear. The handwriting in the letter was not the same as in the note I’d found on my windshield. Puzzling. I suddenly needed a drink. I walked back toward the house to locate Aunt Nellie’s liquor supply. Before I reached the front door, a woman’s voice called out.

  “Hey there!”

  I looked around, but saw no one.

  “Over here!”

  On my right, a woman leaned over the low adobe wall that separated our properties. She was perhaps in her early-forties. Slender, her long and lustrous black hair looked like it belonged on a woman half her age.

  I walked over, and she extended her hand over the wall. “I’m Carmen. Carmen Flores.”

  “Gabriel,” I said as I shook her hand. “Gabriel McKenna.”

  “McKenna! Related to Nellie, right? Oh, she was something. Active up until the very end. You here to close out her estate?”

  “Not sure yet what I’m going to do. I was her only living relative. But the last time we spoke was more than twenty years ago.”

  “That’s a shame. She was sure worth knowing. Old school. Might have been the smartest woman I ever met. Enjoyed life. Didn’t mind a drink every now and then either.”

  That’s a family trait, I thought. I was pleased to learn there probably would be booze in the house after all.

  “What kind of work do you do?” Carmen said.

  “I’m a college professor, or I was. At Dumbarton College in New York. On a long-term sabbatical now. May or may not return, I haven’t decided yet.” A voice inside told me this was too much information to reveal.

  “I’m a cop,” she said. “Albuquerque Police Department for almost twenty years.”

  I was surprised, but felt relieved for some reason. “You like this neighborhood?”

  “It’s quiet. My husband and I moved in less than two years ago and we’ve enjoyed it so far.” The sound of a ringing telephone came through the open front door of her house. “I better go answer that. See you again, perhaps?”

  “Maybe. Thanks.”

  I leaned on the wall and watched her walk away. Graceful and athletic. Very nice legs. Then, feeling the gentle weight of the wedding band on my finger, I turned away.

  Once back in Aunt Nellie’s kitchen, I rooted around in the cabinets for some decent hooch. The Jameson’s 18-Year Blend surprised me. The old gal knew her booze. As I poured myself a snort, something brushed against my pant leg. I heard a baby-like cry and looked down as a small, black cat turned and ran from the kitchen.

  “Otis?”

  The food bowl on the floor was almost empty, so I tipped some dry kibble out of the bag on the counter.

  I poured myself
another drink and carried the glass to Aunt Nellie’s library. I sat in the big leather chair behind her desk. Eighteen-year-old whiskey should be given time and respect, so I sipped it and scanned the hundreds of books that surrounded me. Then I stood, closed my eyes, and picked out one at random: Apache Gold and Yaqui Fever, a collection of tall tales about gold fever written by J. Frank Dobie. I’d first read this book as a young boy. But this time I didn’t even make it through the first yarn. The letter from Ricardo Ramos and the note on my windshield wouldn’t let go.

  I checked my watch. Two-thirty in the afternoon.

  What had I stumbled into? The question gnawed at me. I couldn’t just sit there, so I walked back to the kitchen, poured what remained of my whiskey back into the bottle, locked the house, and squeezed into my compact rental car. I checked the Albuquerque map that came with it and drove to 1142 Ybarra Place, in search of Ricardo Ramos.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  3:00 p.m.

  Ybarra Place is a narrow stretch of pounded-down gravel that slices right through the heart of the Barrio. Number 1142 turned out to be a lopsided adobe house that appeared to be melting under the afternoon’s intense sun. I parked in front, banged a knee getting my six-foot frame out of my tiny car, and limped up the walkway past a gang of front yard chickens. They didn’t seem to notice.

  I flattened my thumb against the doorbell; it gave off a loud, irritating buzz. As the door creaked open, a muffled groan came from somewhere inside and a strong odor, like that of rendered fat, caught me by surprise.

  A woman in a once-white terrycloth bathrobe stood in the doorway—high mileage, fifty years of age, or so. Thin strands of frazzled hair were scattered atop her head, as if they’d been unable to agree on the proper way to fall. Her shaved eyebrows, redrawn in an unsteady hand, resembled a pair of small, mud-brown thunderbolts.

  “Waddya want?” She breathed alcohol hard in my direction. A bead of sweat dripped from her right earlobe and disappeared into the terrycloth.