Dying for Chocolate

15.

Marla wanted me to leave the van at the café. She would drive me home, she announced. I politely declined. In addition to hating cowboys, Marla could not abide the flood of summer tourists in Aspen Meadow. There you’d be with her behind a car from Kansas, Texas, or Nebraska going ten miles per hour on a mountain road. She’d let down the Jaguar window and yell, “Admit it! You’re lostl”

So I let her follow me back to the Farquhars. She wanted to make sure I could manage my vehicle. This was no easy task. My arm ached from the makeshift bandage, but I gritted my teeth. Something twisted inside my chest upon seeing the repaired Thunderbird in the garage. I invited Marla in, but she begged off.

“Adele and Bo haven’t asked me over once since they’ve lived here. I’m not going to traipse in uninvited. But the next time your neighbor has an aphrodisiac dinner, why don’t you get her to include me? I’ll think of some fellow to bring. And believe me, Goldy, I’ll make sure the food works.”

“How did you know about the dinner?”

She drew her puffy cheeks down into a scowl. “I’d be willing to wager the whole town knows, now.” Reluctantly, she reached into her capacious purse and pulled out the new issue of the Mountain Journal, then handed it to me with a dour look. “Don’t do anything rash,” she said before grinding the Jag around in a thirteen-point turn to get out of the driveway.

I tucked the paper under my arm and started up to the house for bandages and an aspirin. The wine had not killed the pain. My aches swelled like a chorus.

Before I reached the house, something caught my attention: the door to the magazine side of the garage was open. Its edge was just visible where the two walls met. Either somebody was in there or somebody had left the door ajar.

I walked through the garage, making as much noise as possible. Peering into the magazine’s near-darkness, I could see General Farquhar surveying rows of weapons arrayed over a banquet-size table. He had been alert to my arrival, and nodded to my knock on the open door.

He saw me holding my arm. “Don’t tell me that bastard—”

I said, “No, no. At least, I’m not sure.”

“What happened?”

“I sort of had an accident.”

“Another one?”

I told him about the shove at the café, although I did not tell him what the attacker had said. “It’ll be all right. The main damage was to the café, I think. What’s all this?” I gestured at the weapons on the table.

“Just doing some cleaning,” he said. “After all those flowers and shops in Vail, I needed to do something constructive.”

I didn’t know how cleaning weapons was constructive, but I let it go.

“May I sit down?” I asked tentatively. “Will I be buzzed by some electronic ray?”

“It’s all turned off,” he assured me. But he did stop to watch me enter. His blue eyes looked dark in the windowless room. Neon rectangles overhead lit neat piles of cardboard boxes pushed against cement walls. There were No Smoking, No Fires, and No Matches signs, along with an NRA poster. On the far wall was what looked like an antique gun cabinet with a glass front. It was a beautiful piece, probably mahogany. But no way would a gun cupboard fit Adele’s traditional decor, hence its placement in the magazine. I shivered and looked for a place to sit.

General Bo came around and helped me to settle on a sturdy wooden box.

“Where in the world did you get all these weapons?”

“Part of my research,” he said as he lifted one carefully and I shifted back. “Don’t worry, it’s not loaded. This is an AK-47, Chinese made. Favorite of terrorists. It’s getting hard to get over here. I got this one in Morocco.”

“Why?”

His brow furrowed. “I’m one of the few people in this country who knows the dangers of what we’re facing. If I can do enough research, maybe someone will start listening.”

Instead of treating you like an outcast, I thought.

“But why trek around the world looking for weapons? I mean, it’s not like recipes or furniture. You can’t swap them or take them to the flea market.”

He regarded me patiently, as if I were a dull child. “Because I wanted them, that’s why. It’s a dangerous world we live in, Goldy, in case you hadn’t noticed with that husband of yours. He’s the kind of person you want to look out for,” he added firmly.

“Ex-husband.”

“Like Adele,” he said as if he had not heard me. “I love her, too, and I was determined to get her. I thought they’d appreciate us in Washington, but they did not. So I built this house and this storage area. Through my research, the truth will be told.”

I resisted the impulse to ask, Truth about what? I was fairly sure the general and I did not share a world-view. Still, I liked the man. He was eccentric, but his heart was in the right place. Where his mind was I was not sure. In any event, I was not up to a political discussion. I merely nodded and looked around. Brilliant sunlight from the open door made it hard to see in the neon-lit room. The boxes bore stamps that were meaningless to me. On the open door were numerous admonitions to lock up. Which reminded me.

“Ah, General Bo,” I began. What was I supposed to call him, anyway? We had never quite worked that out. “Ah, I was wondering if I could talk to you about Julian. . . .”

The general squinted at me, continued his cleaning motion with the gun.

He said, “What about him?”

I felt uncomfortable complaining. But maybe he could give me some insights, since he and Julian did seem genuinely friendly.

“Tell me about him,” I said. It wasn’t just the hostility that bothered me. There was also Julian’s distinct discomfort at the dinner Saturday night. And someone had attacked me. Someone strong, perhaps wearing a wig. “He doesn’t exactly seem like someone who was raised with. . .” I tried not to say money or class, but couldn’t seem to find the right words.

“Doesn’t seem like someone who knew what all those little forks meant?” The general turned his back to me as he put the pistol back in its cabinet.

“Not just that. He’s so hostile.”

“To you, maybe,” the general replied.

“But why?”

“Because of the food! He helps me with the garden, as you know. Originally he claimed he could handle all the cooking, too. But Adele wanted a professional caterer. Ergo, hostility for the caterer.”

“I see. But there’s something else. He seems awfully uncomfortable around . . . money.”

“Stands to reason, Goldy.” General Bo eyed me before turning his gaze on another weapon and carefully picking it up. “Recoilless rifle,” he explained. “If it hadn’t been for our scholarship for science students, Julian would still be making candy and Navajo fry-bread down in Bluff.”

“Meaning?”

He turned the corners of his mouth down, shrugged. “You know how Adele gets a bee in her bonnet. Coordinating the church music conference. Raising money for that pool at Elk Park.” He shook his head. “We had sold our house in Washington and were planning this house, when she read a long sad story in the Post about a fellow down on one of those reservations who got thrown in jail for theft. Turns out he was a real bright fellow, just poor. She says, That does it, we’re going to set up a scholarship for some youngster.”

I squirmed on the box. My back and legs were beginning to hurt, I said, “Just like that?”

He nodded. “Of course, I wanted to do an athletic scholarship for a young man to go to military preparatory school and then West Point. But she was having none of it, said she’d like to see the person who won the scholarship. Watch his progress.”

I imagined a wealthy client coming out to the kitchen to watch my progress on beef Wellington. I wouldn’t allow it. Teenagers were a different ball game, however. Their resistance to control usually manifested itself as rebellion against authority. Or resentment of a more experienced cook. Julian’s hostility was beginning to be a lot more understandable.

“So she called her sister,” the general was saying, “and asked about this prep school over in Elk Park, since it was near her property. My only request, since it was my money, too, was that the boy be athletic.” He grinned. “I didn’t want to rule out the possibility of West Point.”

I assumed a polite tone. “Of course not.”

The general went on, “She called the school and offered the scholarship money. Ha! Took them about ten seconds to decide, although they made a great show out of taking it to their board of trustees and so on.” He laughed, remembering. “When Adele told them she was moving out here, they said, Well, we just happen to have a trustee vacancy here, how about it? And it’s been all pool fund-raising ever since.”

“How can they afford a pool but not afford a boarding department?”

The general moved over to his cabinet and retrieved a large weapon.

I said, “Gosh, General Bo, that looks like something you see in the movies.”

“Grenade launcher,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone. “You were asking me something about Elk Park. . .”

I said, “The pool. Why have that instead of a boarding department?”

“Attract more locals that way,” said the general. “Elk Park has learned it can’t compete with the eastern boarding schools for students. So many of those have gone out of business in the last decade anyway. What’s amazing is that Elk Park lasted as long as it did. Although I don’t think Adele was bargaining on the boarding department closing as soon as we moved out here.”

“Or bargaining on inheriting your scholarship student.”

“No,” he said thoughtfully, “that either.”

A sudden darkness billowed into the room. The general muttered under his breath as he peered outside. I followed his gaze. Dark clouds had swept eastward from the mountains.

“Don’t worry,” I said to him. “That means it’s officially summertime. Every afternoon melting snow in the high country to the west will form clouds, move east, and give us a shower. It’s only dangerous if there’s lightning and you’re out swimming or climbing.”

“Beg to differ,” he said, his voice crisp. “Lightning is dangerous if you’re sitting on hand-held surface-to-air missiles.”

I looked cautiously down at the box where I was perched. What exactly was under it?

He said, “Not literally, Goldy. It’s all over there,” and he pointed to a long cabinet built along the wall. In the dimness I had not even noticed it. Now I saw that the cabinet door had a bulky lock. “But,” he went on, “I would feel better if you closed that door. The building is grounded. Nevertheless, I don’t want to take any chances.”

I slid off the box. “I have to be going anyway. Arch forgot to roll the garbage can down.”

“I’ll do it,” he said. “You’re in no condition to do chores.”

I couldn’t exactly argue with that. I waited while he packed up the remaining weapons.

“What was that policeman’s name,” he asked with his back to me, “the one who helped you the day of the accident?”

I said, “Schulz,” and wondered if the general’s tone was just a tad too nonchalant.

“Did he mention anything about that explosion? I mean, afterward?”

“No,” I said, somewhat tentatively. “He just told me to be careful.”

The general drew his bottom lip up over his top teeth and brought his eyebrows together, a studious attitude of reflection. He said, “You didn’t tell him about the magazine, did you?”

“No,” I said. But I will, I thought. I said, “Why? What you’re doing is legal, isn’t it?”

He lifted the last of the guns and placed it in the cabinet.

“Oh, of course. It’s just that law-enforcement agencies can get so jealous of each other. I wouldn’t want the locals poking around here, you know?”

As usual, I did not.

“In any event,” the general said when he had locked the cabinet, “when you see him I’d appreciate your not mentioning this room. He’ll probably think I’m some kind of wacko instead of a bona fide researcher.”

As far as I was concerned, the jury was still out on whether the general was wacko. But I just said, “It’s going to start raining. If we’re going to do the trash, we need to hustle.”

The general locked and armed the entry door.

“Too heavy for a young boy,” he observed as he tilted the garbage cart back on its wheels. I tried to help guide it and overcompensated with my good arm. The cart tipped over with a resounding crash. Coffee grounds, orange halves, bills and letters, meat trays and plastic wrap, cans and bottles spilled, rolled, broke, and skittered across the garage floor.

Two catastrophes in one day. I wondered about the Guinness record for mess-making as I gathered up soaked envelopes from Utah, rifle shells, empty bottles of Adele’s Estée Lauder cream and Julian’s peroxide, as well as bits of cut rope and empty fertilizer bags.

I said, “Why do you suppose Julian dyes his hair?”

“Probably to disguise his upbringing among the Indians,” the general said, exasperated. “Although you’d think he’d choose another style.” He scooped up mounds of fruit peelings sanded with coffee grounds, old newspapers, and empty chocolate boxes. He lifted one of these and said, “Sometimes you can’t believe you ate this stuff in the first place.”

Large raindrops had begun to splat down on the driveway when he finally towed the trash wagon to the curb. It was not until we were walking into the house together that it even occurred to me to wonder how the general knew I was going to see Schulz again.