Cactus Heart

21

It was nearly nine on Friday night and I stood at the office window, listening to carolers down in a nearly deserted Patriots Square. They sang “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” and then “Jingle Bells” before a fire truck went by with siren screaming. I picked up the phone on the second ring, but there was only a light buzz in the background. I was about to put it down when a voice said my name.

“You know who this is?”

“I don’t.”

“Everybody knows my voice. The damned president knows my voice. It’s Max Yarnell.”

I sat down in the wooden swivel chair. “How may I help you, Mr. Yarnell?” He sounded very drunk.

“I need to talk to you,” he said. “I need to see you. Tonight. Can you come out here?”

“Where is ‘out here’?”

He started into directions heading me into the McDowell Mountain foothills in the far north of Scottsdale. I scribbled them onto a sheriff’s office memo pad.

“Mr. Yarnell,” I said. “It’s late, it’ll take me an hour to get out there.”

“Goddamn it, Mapstone, you could do it in thirty minutes. I do. I really need to talk to you.”

“What about?”

“Not on the phone,” he slurred. “Out here, where it’s safe.”

“Safe from what?” I could hear “Frosty the Snowman” wafting through the open window.

“Never mind,” he said. “I’ll call you back.” The line clicked off.

It reminded me of an eccentric old professor at a university where I had taught. At work, he was distinguished and aloof, a giant in his field of research. But he drank alone at home and after the first few glasses, he reached for the telephone-sometimes he called female students he had a crush on, sometimes colleagues he was peeved at. He was quietly pushed into retirement after he made an obscene call to a dean’s wife. I made a note to call Max Yarnell the next day.

When I got the car out of the garage to head home, though, I felt differently. It was nothing as formed or sophisticated as a premonition. Just a murky anxiety. I pulled out the address and drove toward Scottsdale. I slipped onto the Red Mountain Freeway at Seventh Street and shot through the older neighborhoods of east Phoenix, cruising at seventy-five at treetop level. Then the freeway jogged southeast into Tempe, past Rural Road, and I took the connection to the Pima Freeway. That took me north into Scottsdale, the city off to my left, the Indian reservation off to the right. I got onto surface streets at McDonald, put the top down, and drove through north Scottsdale. The night was crisp but I was warm inside my leather jacket.

You couldn’t touch a house out here for less than a half-a-million dollars, and it was the older part of Scottsdale. I went through McCormick Ranch into the horse properties. Past Shea Boulevard, across the Central Arizona Project Canal, and into the estates running up to the McDowell Mountains. A discreet sign promised “gated canyon living.” Twenty years before, this had all been empty desert.

Before I got into Fountain Hills, the developments thinned out as the road climbed. I reached the scenic lookout for the city lights-we used to come up here in high school to make out. Then off to the left was a road named Cheryl. I took it and climbed deeper into the foothills until I reached a gate of black steel.

I slipped the car into park and it purred at idle, just the way the engineers in Munich intended. All around me, hills and mountains stood out black against the night sky, and beyond them the city glowed with a ghostly sheen. A small black communications box stood by the gate. I pressed a glowing red button. I waited and nothing happened. I shut the car off and listened. The hum of traffic on Shea, and farther away on Beeline Highway coming down from the Mogollon Rim. Closer in, the desert sounds: the breeze in the palo verde leaves, a rustling in the mesquite, the indescribable but very real sound of the emptiness. You could even see the stars out here. But I couldn’t see what was on the other side of the gate, and the communications box failed to return my affections. I gave another couple of tries and turned back toward the city. Apparently the booze had answered whatever questions Max Yarnell had for me.

He was right: It took about half an hour at this time of night. I exited off the Red Mountain at Third Street and turned toward home. It was around eleven-thirty, and I was suddenly feeling jumpy. The vastness of the city felt claustrophobic. I was too aware of every breath. I raised the top and didn’t feel better. When I turned onto Third Avenue and headed into Willo, I swear I saw that damned Ford Econoline van again, making the turn with me, on my tail. When I checked the mirror again, crossing Palm Lane, the street was empty behind me. Time to call it a day.

Back at home, Peralta was snoring contentedly in the guest bedroom. I closed his door, got undressed for bed and slid in the sheets naked to read. That’s when the phone rang.

I thought it might be Max Yarnell. But it was Gretchen.

“Did I wake you?” she asked.

“Nope, I was just reading.”

“I’m glad I didn’t wake you. How is your quest going?”

“Oh, not so good. There don’t seem to be any answers.”

“There are always answers, David. You just have to know where to look.”

“Well, you have the patience of the archaeologist,” I said.

“I’m not always patient,” she said. “In fact, I can be very impulsive.” She paused and I was very aware of the softness of the sheets against my body. “In, fact, I was calling to ask you if I could come over and be with you.”

“I would like that very much,” I said.

“I hoped you’d say that. That’s why I took the chance.”