Part 8 (1/2)

”There's a way to find out.”

”Bring me one.”

”Anything to eat?”

”What do you recommend?”

”At noon, the chicken fajitas. But in the middle of the afternoon? Try the nachos.”

”Done.”

The nachos had Monterey jack cheese, green salsa, pinto beans, lettuce, tomatoes, and jalapeno peppers. The peppers made Decker's eyes water. He felt in heaven and realized that if he'd eaten this same food two days earlier, his stomach would have been in agony.

The margarita truly was the best he had ever tasted.

”What's the secret?” he asked the waiter.

”An ounce and a quarter of the best tequila, which is one hundred percent blue agave. Three quarters of an ounce of Cointreau. One and a half ounces of freshly squeezed lemon juice. A fresh wedge of lime.”

The drink made Decker's mouth pucker with joy. Salt from the rim of the gla.s.s stuck to his lips. He licked it off and ordered another. When he finished that, he would have ordered yet another, except that he didn't know how the alcohol would hit him at this alt.i.tude. Driving, he didn't want to injure anyone. Plus, he wanted to be able to find Santa Fe.

After giving the waiter a 25 percent tip, Decker went outside, feeling as mellow as he had felt in years. He squinted at the lowering sun, glanced at his diver's watch-almost four-thirty-put on his Ray-Bans, and got into the Intrepid. If anything, the air seemed even clearer, the sky bluer, the sun more brilliant. As he drove from town, following the narrow, winding road past more juniper and pinon trees and that sagebrushlike plant that he meant to learn the name of, he noticed that the color of the land had changed so that red, orange, and brown joined what had been a predominance of yellow. The vegetation became greener. He reached a high curve that angled down to the left, giving him a view for miles ahead. Before him, distant, at a higher elevation, looking like miniatures in a child's play village, were tiny buildings nestled among foothills, behind which rose stunningly beautiful mountains that Decker's map called the Sangre de Cristo range, the blood of Christ. The sun made the buildings seem golden, as if enchanted; Decker remembered noticing that the motto on New Mexico's license plates was ”The Land of Enchantment.” The vista, encircled by the green of pinon trees, beckoned, and Decker had no doubt that was where he was headed.

5.

Within the city limits (SANTA FE. POPULATION 62,424.), he followed a sign that said HISTORIC PLAZA. The busy downtown streets seemed to become more narrow, their pattern like a maze, as if the four-hundred-year-old city had developed haphazardly. Adobe buildings were everywhere, none the same, as if each of them had been added to haphazardly, also. While most of the buildings were low, a few were three stories high, their pueblo design reminding him of cliff dwellings- he discovered they were hotels. Even the city's downtown parking garage had a pueblo design. He locked the Intrepid, then strolled up a street that had a long portal above it. At the far end, he saw a cathedral that reminded him of churches in Spain. But before he reached it, the Plaza appeared on the left-rectangular, the size of a small city block, with a lawn, white metal benches, tall sheltering trees, and a Civil War memorial at its center. He noticed a diner called the Plaza Cafe and a restaurant called the Ore House, bunches of dried red peppers dangling from its balcony. In front of a long, low ancient-looking adobe building called the Palace of the Governors, Native Americans sat against a wall beneath a portal, blankets spread before them on the sidewalk, silver and turquoise jewelry arranged for sale on the blankets.

As Decker slumped on a bench in the Plaza, the mellowing effect of the margaritas began to wear off. He felt a pang of misgiving and wondered how big a mistake he had made. For the past twenty years, in the military and then working as an intelligence operative, he had been taken care of, his life structured by others. Now, insecurely, he was on his own.

You wanted a new beginning, a part of him said.

But what am I going to do?

A good first step would be to get a room.

And after that?

Try reinventing yourself.

To his annoyance, his professional training insisted-he couldn't help checking for surveillance as he crossed the Plaza toward a hotel called La Fonda. Its decades-old Hispanic influenced lobby had warm, soothing dark tones, but his instincts distracted him, nagging at him to ignore his surroundings and concentrate on the people around him. After getting a room, he again checked for surveillance as he walked back to the city's parking garage.

This has got to stop, he told himself. I don't have to live this way anymore.

A man with a salt-and-pepper beard, wearing khakis and a blue summer sweater oversized enough to conceal a handgun, followed him into the parking ramp. Decker paused next to the Intrepid, took out his car keys, and prepared to use them as a weapon, exhaling as the man got in a Range Rover and drove away.

This has got to stop, Decker repeated to himself.

He purposefully didn't check behind him as he drove to the La Fonda's parking garage and carried his suitcase up to his room. He deliberately ate dinner with his back to the dining room's entrance. He resolutely took a random nighttime stroll through the downtown area, choosing rather than avoiding poorly lit areas.

In a wooded minipark next to a deep concrete channel through which a stream flowed, a figure emerged from shadows. ”Give me your wallet.”

Decker was dumbfounded.

”I've got a gun. I said, give me your f.u.c.king wallet.”

Decker stared at the street kid, who was barely visible. Then he couldn't help himself. He started laughing.

”What's so f.u.c.king funny?”

”You're holding me up? You've got to be kidding me. After all I've been through, after I force myself to be careless.”

”You won't think it's so f.u.c.king funny when I put a f.u.c.king bullet through you.”

”Okay, okay, I deserve this.” Decker pulled out his wallet and reached inside it. ”Here's all the money I've got.”

”I said I wanted your f.u.c.king wallet, not just your money.”

”Don't push your luck. I can spare the money, but I need my driver's license and my credit card.”

”Tough f.u.c.king s.h.i.+t. Give it to me.”

Decker broke both his arms, pocketed the gun, and threw the kid over the channel's rim. Hearing branches snap as if the kid had landed in bushes next to the stream, Decker leaned over the edge and heard him groan in the darkness below. ”You swear too much.”

He made a mental note of the nearest street names, found a pay phone, told the 911 dispatcher where to send an ambulance, dropped the pistol into a sewer, and walked back to the La Fonda. At the hotel's bar, he sipped cognac as a countermeasure to adrenaline. A sign on the wall caught his attention.

”Is that a joke?” he asked the bartender. ”It's against the law to wear firearms in here?”

”A bar is about the only place where firearms can't be worn in New Mexico,” the bartender answered. ”You can walk down the street with one, as long as it's in plain sight.”

”Well, I'll be d.a.m.ned.”

”Of course, a lot of people don't follow the law. I just a.s.sume they're carrying a concealed weapon.”

”I'll be double d.a.m.ned,” Decker said.

”And everybody I know keeps one in their car.”

Decker stared at him as dumbfounded as when the kid in the minipark had tried to hold him up. ”Looks like there's something to be said for taking precautions.”

6.