Chapter 15 Another Gypsy Tale

The following evening Harold staggered to his feet and insisted on going along to pick up Julia at the airport. If I wasn't so worried about leaving him alone again, I'd have refused. I helped him into the car, and we drove the hour over to Cedar City. There was no easy way for Julia to fly in from Virginia, and it took most of her day on a circuitous route through Atlanta and Salt Lake City.

She appeared from the air-conditioned plane looking only slightly ruffled, and still beautiful, despite an arduous trip. She gave Harold a warm hug, and I watched with a twinge of jealousy as she gave Rex a kiss on the snout to stop his bark. Then came the awkward moment when neither Julia nor I knew what to do, whether to hug, shake hands, or kiss. I resolved the issue by reaching for her flight bag and giving her a smile. "Thanks for coming," I said.

It was ten o'clock before we reached camp. My offer of help to Julia was dismissed with a laugh: "Even we English know a bit about roughin' it," she said. Within ten minutes, she'd sorted through her luggage, pulled out her tent, and erected it in the dark. She unrolled her ground pad and sleeping bag, and stowed her gear.

Harold went to bed and I waited by the picnic table for Julia to finish. Despite her earlier sparkling appearance, I could see she was starting to fade. Looking at her, so tired, I recognized the depth of her sentiment, and commitment, at least to Harold. I realized, once again, that I desperately wanted her to feel that way about me. Despite my best efforts, I'd grown more emotionally dependent on Julia than I'd been able to admit. Would I have the courage to tell her?

I got out my new bottle of Drambuie, which, by precaution, I now kept locked in the glove box of the car, and poured two glasses. "I've got just the thing you need to unwind," I said softly, holding a cup in her direction.

A half smile drifted off her tired face like a leaf dropping from a tree. Then she waved, disappearing into her tent. I drank one of the glasses, staring into the moonless sky. It seemed to stare back. After a while, though I rarely ever allow myself more than one, I sighed and drank the other glass as well.

* * *

Julia slept late the next morning. I fixed eggs and bacon which sat and got cold. When she appeared, she put her hand on my arm, saying, "Sorry about last night, I was too tired to be sociable." She gave me a smile, and reached for a plate. She was famished, eating enough re-heated eggs for two.

After an initial euphoria at seeing Julia the previous evening, Harold woke in that foul mood which had plagued him since his "return." Dark circles ringed his eyes, and his skin was pallid.

With Julia there, I felt stronger about insisting, "Harold, let's go see a doctor."

"Nah. Nothing a doc can do about this voice inside."

"You can't help anyone if you go and die on us," Julia said, winking. Eventually the three of us began to chortle, causing other campers to look in our direction. The levity must have been good for Harold, who finally took a bite of eggs.

"Tell us about your family," I asked him. "You've got just one sister?"

He nodded. "More, but only one I know. Timisoara is the town where I was born, in western Romania. Six kids, and I was the youngest. My father was a salesman, traveling on the road. We had to flee during the last year of the war." He swallowed a chunk of bread, quiet for a moment. "My mother and sister and I got separated from the family during an evacuation. There was so much shouting and pushing, Nazis everywhere in the train station. We wound up in a refugee camp, and I was ten years old when they brought us to Ellis Island. The immigration officer asked my mother's name, but she didn't speak English. She gave him the name of our city." He put his teeth together and hissed the pronunciation, "Ti-mish-wahra."

He went on. "The officer was busy and didn't know how to spell that, so he just wrote 'Timms.' My mother couldn't read, and after what she'd been through—losing my father, my other sisters and brothers, all probably dead—what difference did a piece of paper make?"

"Couldn't you do something?" Julia asked, drawing her fists up to her chin. "There were committees to help find family members after the war."

Harold laughed ruefully and shook his head. "Gypsies don't go to authorities for help, we're always accused of stealing or fighting. No, we keep to ourselves." He sighed. "I had my wife, now I have no one besides my sister in Oakland." He took a pinch of salt and tossed it over his shoulder. "Like this—we were all thrown to the wind."

After eating Harold seemed in better spirits. "I'm sore from lying around," he said. "Think I'll go over to the nature center. You love-birds enjoy a quiet moment without me. Back in a bit." He ambled off, looking remarkably fit for a man who'd collapsed just a few days before.

His absence gave Julia and me an excuse to burrow into my tent, keeping the flap open to catch whatever afternoon breeze arose. It occurred to me that the two of us hadn't been this alone since our last dinner in Fredericksburg. Yet today we accepted Harold's moniker of "love-birds" with just a slight glow of red cheeks.

We lay on the air mats, an awkward gulf separating us. We were silent a few moments, then both began speaking as if the curtain had risen on a stage. The resulting mishmash made us laugh.

"You first," she insisted.

I no longer hesitated. Foremost, I wanted to apologize for doubting her, and I wanted to thank her for getting me together with Smith. There was so much to say about our trip West, the two murder attempts on us, Smith's wonderful ramblings, the WorldChemm formula, and now, our hiding from Lattimer, the feds, and POP. I could see a growing warmth in her eyes that was missing at our last dinner.

A half-hour later, Julia said, "You know, your professor, Lattimer ... he sounds an awful lot like your father."

"It's crossed my mind. I'm jumping through hoops for someone I want approval from, but who is totally incapable of sharing any emotion I might want. Yes, that's occurred to me." I breathed out heavily. "That's the reason I left Cambridge. Hearst College isn't on a par, but it represents a break, an independence I had to assert."

Julia's eyes examined mine. "There's something I don't understand. This formula you're working on for Lattimer: why give it away to WorldChemm? If it's worth what you say, why not sell it?"

"I don't know," I said, stumped for a moment. "It's just the way we do science—we share our findings at meetings and publish our discoveries. Knowledge is pooled, which is why there are huge externalities to academic activity. That's why society supports us." I went on, thinking about it as I spoke, "I guess nowadays, many academics start their own private companies, to internalize the benefits of their research. I guess I'm more traditional."

"Hmm. And Adam Smith—what have you learned from him?" she asked.

I glanced at her. "I'd always assumed that my mind could guide me," I said, "that being highly rational would help me make all the right decisions. Among the things he's taught me, Smith showed me that's only part of wisdom, that feelings are also real and also matter. I finally understand a quote from Hume that one of my teachers posted in high school: 'Reason is the slave of the passions.' I finally get it."

"There's more," I said, telling her of the landscapes I'd painted in my mind while thinking of her. When I was done, she kissed me, and I felt more relaxed and happy than I could remember, just to hear her breathing next to mine.

When we awoke from a catnap I remembered Harold's sardonic reference to gypsies. It hit me that Smith as a child had been kidnapped by gypsies—the "Romany wanderers"—and now he was channeled through a gypsy from Timisoara! Pure coincidence? I turned to Julia, whose eyes fixed on me.

"Has it occurred to you..."

"Timisoara," she said. "That's the key, isn't it? Where the Romanian revolution started in 1989. I remember the television news of Ceausescu trying to repress those brave demonstrators. His brutality led the army to rebel and join the people. It was the beginning of freedom in Eastern Europe. That's symbolism Adam Smith could hardly pass up!"

We drifted back to sleep, a puzzle solved.

* * *

Julia and I woke to find an empty campsite.

"You don't think?" she asked.

"I do think."

Harold had been gone since one o'clock in the afternoon. It was now past six and there was no sign of him. He'd disappeared, and we imagined the worst. I glared at Rex, sleeping by the tent, as if I expected him to have made Harold his charge.

"Get up, lazy dog, and get to work!"

The first thing I checked was my new bottle of Drambuie. It was undisturbed, locked in the glove box. We ran through the campground, checking the nature center and every bathroom. No Harold anywhere. The docent at the nature center was solicitous, offering to watch Rex for the evening, which made life simpler. I left a note pinned to the tent and Julia and I piled into the wagon. The few miles into town flashed by as I kept the car gunned.

The sheriff's department was a brick annex attached to a much older courthouse. The only person inside at this hour was a round young man with thick black-rimmed glasses. He wasn't wearing a uniform, which probably made him the dispatcher. He looked up from a desk that held the radio, a computer screen, and a couple of other gadgets, and removed his hand from a family-sized bag of potato chips. He looked at Julia, then me.

"I'd like to report a missing person," I said.

He didn't reach for a form or act interested. "Missing since when?"

"Since this afternoon."

"You've gotta wait twenty-four hours," he said, glancing away from us toward a wall clock, then to the computer screen. He reached for a handful of chips.

"The sheriff—where can we find him?" Julia asked. Her tone had the terse hardness of a Brit keeping a stiff upper lip. It was lost on the fellow, whose eyes said he'd seen tougher, and more interesting, cases than ours.

"Down the street at Lotta Mama's." He watched us leave with all the animated interest of the machines surrounding him.

The sheriff's cruiser was indeed parked in front of the diner. The sheriff sat in a booth where he could look out on the street, and, although he'd watched us enter and head right for him, he didn't rise. His brown uniform fit his lean build, suggesting he was aware an elected official had an image to maintain. His white hair was clipped short, and the tanned lines on his face placed him at sixty. He wasn't anyone you'd take lightly.

In front of him, a platter held the remains of a meal. He pushed the plate aside, and waved us to sit down. We introduced ourselves, and in rapid sentences outlined the problem of Harold's drinking and his sudden disappearance. The sheriff's eyes were alert without showing emotion.

When we were done, he spoke quietly, working the thick white porcelain cup of coffee between his hands. "You're from Virginia?" he asked.

We nodded.

"Well, I can see why you folks are worried, but there's not a lot I can do. Law says, if a grown man wants to go out for a few beers, not much I can do to stop him."

"But it will kill him!"

He nodded. "Might. He wouldn't be the first. Look, I'd like to help, but unless he's been missing a day, my hands are tied."

Pleading seemed pointless. "Where's the nearest bar?"

"None real near. This here's a dry county." He took a sip of coffee and set the cup down. Then he took out his pad and pen, and pushed them toward me. "You can write this down. You go up to Rocky Flat, there's the Bird House, that's twenty miles. On the south side is the Lonesome Dove Cafe, about twenty-five miles. Going west, you'd reach the Silver Mine Bar, oh ... figure thirty-five miles."

His eyes narrowed. "Course, a lot of guys like the Old Durango Saloon, that's about thirty miles on past the Silver Mine. Out West, thirty miles is nothing, and the girls are friendlier." His left eye flickered, which one could almost have taken to be a wink.

"Durango?" I said. "Where those two kids were orphaned in a fire?"

"That's the place."

I tore off the sheet of paper and handed the notebook back, thanking him. When we were almost to the door, he called out. "Thought you said he was on foot?"

I turned and nodded.

"Well, I reckon he could have hitched any which way he wanted then."

* * *

Afternoon turned to dusk as we emerged from the Silver Mine Bar. Julia leaned against the outside of the car and flung her arms on the roof. She groaned. We'd spent the last three hours crisscrossing the region, checking the closest bars first. The odometer had spun 130 miles and we'd found no trace of Harold. It was hot, my lips were cracked, and my body felt like a bag of wet sand.

Julia held out the three-by-five inch snapshot of Smith she'd taken the day we left Virginia. None of the bartenders or waitresses had recognized it. She put it back in her purse. "Is it worth going on to Durango?" she asked.

"Looking for a needle in a haystack?" I waved my arm across the road. "He could be anywhere. Could have caught a ride with any of these truckers and be in LA before morning. Could be halfway to Oakland. He could be back in camp fixing dinner."

I hated to give voice to my worst fear, but I did anyway. "Could be kidnapped by Max Hess, taken down one of these back roads, and buried without a trace."

We sat in stony silence. The sun headed toward the horizon, and evening sounds emanated from the desert.

"What did that sheriff mean," Julia asked, "'the girls are friendlier' in Durango?"

I pulled an atlas from the front seat and spread it on the hood. Durango. It was just across the state line.

"Nevada!" I exclaimed.

"Oh, God, gambling and prostitution!" Julia's eyes widened. "You told me that woman in camp kept saying she reminded Smith of his old girlfriend. In Nevada there'll be a woman to fit any delusion he wants."

In a moment, we were speeding west again. I hit my hand to my head. "I've been a dope. I think you're right that Smith has taken over Harold's mind again, but I don't think it's a women he's after."

I pointed to the newspaper that was left in the front seat of the car, and which I'd pushed aside in my rush to drive into town. "Smith left that, thinking I'd see it," I said. "It's the story of that fire in Durango. Two people were killed and the handyman charged in their deaths. That's what's been bothering Smith, and he must mean to do something about it." I remembered those odd mutterings Smith made about wanting me to meet his contemporaries "if it wasn't too late," and I worried what he would do. My apprehension scarcely prepared us.

We reached the sign welcoming us to the State of Nevada. In a few more minutes we pulled into the parking lot of the Old Durango Saloon, sending a billowy cloud in the air. The dust settled over the pickup trucks, and a smaller assortment of cars and sport utility vehicles. We could hear the wail of a country band. I looked at my watch: it was nine o'clock.

The saloon could have been taken from a western movie set. A garden of prickly pear cactus circled the building's entrance. Sidewalks of seasoned timber led from the parking lot to the front of a bleached two-story structure, from which a large wooden annex extended. We stood on the porch taking in the horns and antlers adorning the entrance. The music was loud and shadowy forms danced inside. I felt out of place, but pushed through the door with Julia at my heels.

A massive bar sprawled the length of the room. Waitresses hovered by a workstation, loading trays with drinks before disappearing into the crowd. At the other end of the room a band played a fast two-step. Solid-built men in blue jeans and short-sleeve shirts filled the room, their women in short skirts and tight blouses. To the left an archway led to gaming tables and slot machines in the main hall.

Julia squeezed my hand. "I'm going to the loo. Get me something to drink?"

"Sure."

I edged to the bar, jostling for a spot. The line thinned and I placed my order. A leggy blonde wearing a cowboy hat perched on a stool near me. Lips the color of a fire engine parted.

"Howdy," she said, feasting mascara eyes on me.

I nodded politely, feeling my face flush.

She crossed her legs, displaying a patch of thigh under her miniskirt. Her calf rested against my leg.

"By yourself tonight?"

"Not really. Got the wife." The words tumbled from my lips, surprising even myself, but they seemed to do the trick. The woman shifted away. I picked up our drinks and edged back from the bar. I found Julia near the entrance and recounted my adventure with the cowgirl. Could Smith stand the pressure of this sales pitch? What of the booze that flowed like water?

"I checked the big hall," Julia said. "Even popped my head into the men's room. No Smith, anywhere."

We found an empty table from where we could survey the room and sip our rum-and-cokes in temporary despair. We were numb, listening to the plaintive music, too tired to face the next step. We'd come all this way, sure to find him. What now? It was possible, but most unlikely, that Smith had simply returned to camp. Unless he was upstairs with one of these cowgirls—which would be completely out of character—our options had just about run out.

When the waitress arrived to take our dinner order, Julia took out the picture of Smith. The waitress glanced at it and shook her head. She stopped to pick up a glass at the next table and asked, "Tammy, you seen this guy?"

The woman "Tammy" had white hair piled into a bun six inches high. Behind wavy glasses, her eyes bulged like oversized marbles. Stacks of quarters lined her table, and she was fingering them into paper rolls. She reached for the photo with one hand, studying it.

"Sure, I've seen him. He was here tonight." Her husky voice gave a clue that smoking, as well as slot machines, was a pastime. "Sitting right at the bar. Don't know where he got to." She looked around the room. No Smith.

We plied Tammy with questions, but she had no more to offer. "Easy to miss someone around here if you're playing, or drinking," she said.

"Doesn't look like the watering ever stops," I said, surveying the packed room.

Tammy nodded, "It's on account of those folks that got burned up in that fire last week. Randy and Sue Takoda." She leaned toward us. "His two brothers are sitting right over there."

I looked with interest toward a long table near the back, where eight or ten men hunched over bottles of beer. The two men in the middle had thin lips and uncombed blond hair. There were plenty of empties on the table, but the two brothers weren't smiling.

"The man who started the fire's locked up over at the jail," Tammy said. "That's why we've got a full house tonight. The circuit judge's coming tomorrow for an arraignment. Then they'll have a hearing for the kids." She added, matter-of-factly, "Ever see what drunken cowboys do to a lawbreaker?"

Just then the band finished its set and the crowd dispersed from the dance floor. A waitress with a tray of drinks walked beyond the bandstand and stood before a wood panel wall at the far end. As if by magic, the wall parted and she walked through into a darkened room. The door slid shut behind her.

"Look at that," I said. "A private room. Let's check it out."

A stony-faced man with a thick neck parked his torso in front of the door. He was wearing gray pants and a white shirt emblazoned with a drawing of Old Durango Saloon. "You can't go in there," he said.

"We're just looking for someone," I said. "It'll only take a second."

He didn't budge. "You can watch the open tables if you want to see some action."

Julia frowned. "Can't we just peek?"

He didn't reply, and his impassive eyes suggested we'd better move on.

Behind the closed door to the private room we heard the murmur of voices and laughter. The waitress reemerged with a tray of empties, and as she did so, the tones grew louder. Julia and I gaped at each other.

We heard Smith!