Stealing Fire Read online

  I went to Wright’s cabin and told him his wife was here. He took on the spring of a young man whose date for the prom had arrived. He dusted himself off, shook out his clothes.

  “I must look like a hobo,” he said. “Please, do not let me anywhere near a mirror. I thought I looked like a hag on the train. I cannot imagine what I look like now.”

  “Good,” I said, “you look good. You’ve got pink in your cheeks, your skin has color. You look young and vital.”

  He stepped back, snapped his head up to look me in the eye, and he kept looking. “You’re not trying to butter me up.”

  “For what? So I can get into more hot water by working for you?”

  “Then, thank you for the sincere compliment.”

  “No problem. Let’s go get your sweetheart.”

  We walked to the main room of the trading post. He took one look at her. “Mother,” he said. “Life makes sense again.”

  Grandfather was kicked out of the aging boys’ cabin, and Mrs. Wright moved in. Harry Goulding rolled a twin bed into the room Iris and I were sharing.

  Grandfather looked around. “Well, this is cozy,” he said.

  Iris smiled and said, “If Yazzie and I fool around, you can stick a pillow over your head.”

  He tilted back his head and let loose a big laugh.

  “Grandpa, we’re not kidding.”

  “Gads. I should have known that.”

  I asked Grandpa to stay with Iris while I did my job. The job which had seemed simple to begin with, but wasn’t any longer. To take care of Mr. Wright.

  The Wrights were locked inside their cabin. I knocked.

  Two voices answered me as one. “Just a moment!”

  This place must bring the romance out in everyone.

  Olgivanna opened their door. Wright was scooting large, thin papers of notes under his covers.

  “I’m not going to steal your ideas, Mr. Wright.”

  “Yazzie,” he said, “I’m not worried about you stealing my designs. Someone already did that.”

  “Pardon me?”

  “They’re gone. Gone. We’ve been going crazy looking for them for the longest whatever minutes of my life. These goddamn sheets of paper are phonies.”

  I was stumped. “Mr. Goldman,” said Olgivanna in a sharp tone, “we have to take this situation very seriously. Do you know how much money those drawings could fetch from Frank’s enemies, or enemies of the project? Not to mention that there is a sizable check in the case with those drawings that could be cashed.”

  Wright put his head in his hands. “I should have checked every day to see the papers were the right ones. Oh, God, there goes my career.”

  “I should never have left you,” Mrs. Wright said. “The only people we can really trust are each other.”

  That remark made my blood simmer.

  I said, “Would both of you stand up?”

  They looked at each other. Mr. Wright stood first. Olgivanna followed his lead.

  “Follow me,” I said. I was going to take them to Goulding’s and show them the original Guggenheim drafts and the check nestled in Harry’s safe.

  “Why should we follow you?” snapped Olgivanna. “Let’s face it, you were there from the start—you’re the one element in this mess that is always in the middle.”

  “Because you hired me to be.”

  “We didn’t even know you when you confronted Mr. Fine’s goon at the railroad. This whole thing could be a setup.”

  “Mrs. Wright, you really need to do what I’m asking you to, and you need to show respect for me.”

  “I find that difficult considering the situation in which we now find ourselves.”

  “Okay, I’m gone.”

  “What do you mean, Yazzie?” said Wright.

  “I quit.”

  Forty-three

  I meant it. Respect was part of the agreement, and on that there was no wiggle room. Iris would be fine with it. I was ready to go to Santa Fe. My grandfather understood the meaning of respect.

  Harry could tell them where the drawings were later. I didn’t give a damn.

  Mr. Wright was stunned.

  “Olgivanna,” he said, “you can’t possibly understand what Mr. Goldman has gone through trying to keep me and my work safe. He has wrestled with the FBI, putting his own life in danger, because they were tailing me. We ended up in a small inn where a large Indian man was endangering the life of the owner. Goldman took care of me.”

  “My point exactly. Why would he put you in a dangerous situation to start with?”

  “Mother, Mr. Goldman doesn’t have a crystal ball. We were evading the Feds, a mess that I created by being myself.”

  Wright had more spine than I’d given him credit for. Good.

  “I don’t like it.”

  “He saved my life,” Wright said. “Do you like that?”

  “I suppose.”

  “Stop it!” Wright said. “His wife was even arrested for murder in connection with this. Helen Fine was also involved, and Mr. Goldman had to use John Wayne and go down to Flagstaff to get Mrs. Goldman released. It was horrible.”

  “Murder?!”

  “Yes.”

  “Who’s dead?”

  Wright turned inward. “Payton.”

  “Payton?!”

  “In Flagstaff. Helen was there. No one knows who did it.”

  “And Mrs. Goldman was arrested for it?”

  I spoke up. “When she hugged Helen, consoling her, some of Payton’s blood got on her blouse—that was taken care of. But Helen, or someone else, named my wife at the scene of the crime. Me and John Wayne had to drive down there and talk the police out of it.”

  Olgivanna looked long and hard at me. I couldn’t imagine what she was thinking. And then she crumpled a little.

  Wright said, “Please, Yazzie, reconsider. I do know everything you’ve done to ensure my safety and to safeguard my work. It is appreciated.”

  I looked at Mrs. Wright.

  Her face softened. Maybe something in me softened. I decided to play my ace.

  “Before you make up your minds,” I said, “and I make up mine, we’re taking that walk.”

  The Wrights held hands and walked, lockstep, beside me. I didn’t say another word.

  Harry was picking up the phone when we entered his office.

  I introduced Mrs. Wright. He said he loved her husband’s work, and would she like to look at their collection of Navajo art?

  No she would not.

  “Harry,” I said, “could you open your gun safe? I need that folio tube I asked you to stick in there.”

  “Oh, sure,” he said. “I covered it up.”

  He pulled the key off a ring that held what looked like enough keys for every door in southeast Utah.

  “Here you go.” Harry pulled open the heavy metal door, gilded around the edges.

  I rummaged underneath, plucked out the tube, opened it, pulled it out.

  The expression on Wright’s face was indescribable. His hands shook. He pulled the rolled drawings out. “My fingerprints, inky, and smudged!” His originals.

  He opened the end, and a check came circling down and fell to the ground, like a feather on a soft breeze. I picked it up and handed it to him. Then I handed Mr. Wright the sketches he’d made on the paper tablecloth.

  “Yes, yes, my blueprints, all of them … What in the world?”

  “They’ve been in Harry’s safe since we got here.”

  “Have I completely lost my mind?”

  “I can’t say, but the tube you’ve been carrying around?”

  “Yes?”

  “Some of Iris’s drawings and paintings, ones she liked but that were still in the shed, I rolled them up. She had some extra storage tubes for watercolor paper and her own sketches. I pulled one from the shed, rolled up your drafts, and had Harry stick them in his safe.”

  “I’ve been carrying your wife’s sketches along with me as if they were priceless objets d’art?”


  “You got it.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “You wouldn’t have been as careful with them. If there was a thief around, I wanted him to see you handling that tube like it was the most precious thing in the world.”

  “Well, I’ll be. Good job! That deserves a bonus.”

  “I’m racking up the bonuses, Mr. Wright.”

  “You deserve every single one.”

  “And I’m keeping track.”

  “Mr. Goulding,” Mrs. Wright said, “did you know what was in your safe?”

  “God, no.”

  “What shall we do with these now?” Wright said.

  “Leave them in Harry’s safe,” I said, “if it’s all right with him.”

  “Fine by me.” Wright carefully put the drawings back in the tube and handed it to Harry. He covered them with several rifles and shotguns, all with safety locks.

  Forty-four

  I settled the Wrights into their cabin and told them to stay put. Okay by them, they said, they both needed a nap. Wright looked like he needed smelling salts and then a nap.

  “I can combine the new drafts with the old, if I get right on it,” he said. “Yazzie, you have saved one of the most innovative designs ever created by the world’s finest architect.”

  Mrs. Wright half-shuttered her gray-blue eyes, deep and smart.

  “What is it?” he said to her. “You know I may stretch the truth, but I don’t lie.”

  “Whatever you say, dear.”

  I could see how living with Wright would make you an expert at all sorts of quiet exasperation. On the other hand, he was entirely charming. Likable. Being likable and exasperating at the same time—it’s confusing for the people who love you.

  “You’ll stay on, Yazzie?” Mr. Wright said. “Really, your idea of changing the plans for your wife’s work was sheer genius.”

  I looked at Mrs. Wright. “I have to admit I was hard on you,” she said. “Payton’s death, shocking … I thought he was off on a binge of women and gambling—that rarely comes to a good end. Still, there is no excuse for my behavior.”

  “Are you trying to say you’re sorry?”

  “I can do better,” she said. “Please stay with us?”

  “I’ll say yes, and trust you to do better.” On that note I went outside to take care of business.

  The tall guard said he’d keep an eye out for suspicious characters around the cabin. I told him that included everyone. He had his own duties, with bona fide movie stars, and taking care of Mr. Wright wasn’t on the list. But the cabin was on his rounds, so he said he’d check regularly.

  Down the hill by the mess tent I saw Finnerty’s ginger hair and full beard, and then he disappeared into the crowd. The tall guard said he’d pass the word to Finnerty to keep an eye on the Wrights, too.

  I hoped Helen was safe and sound.

  I walked up to the room in the Gouldings’ house that I now shared with my grandfather and Iris. She was lying on our bed reading a book. My grandfather was lying on his twin bed—it was made for someone about half his size—reading a book, too. I said hello to him; he waved and grunted, deep in the story and a little out of sorts.

  I climbed into bed with Iris and put my mouth on her belly. “Hello, Mose.”

  “Mose?”

  “After Grandfather.”

  “If it’s a boy, he’s going to be Matthew,” she said.

  “Why that name?”

  “Because I’ve never known anyone named Matthew, so it seems like it has real potential.”

  “Okay.”

  “You like it?”

  “Sure.”

  She would change her mind every day until the baby was born. Might as well agree with her.

  “Iris, want to help me out?”

  “On the case?”

  “This isn’t really a case. I’m a bodyguard.”

  “Yazzie, when someone dies, it is a case.”

  “She’s right about that.” Flip of a page, Grandfather’s twin bed creaked.

  “I’ll help with anything,” she said. “I am bored out of my skull.”

  Grandfather leaned up on his elbow, “Me, too.”

  “Grandpa, can you wander over by the Wrights’ and then go down to the mess tent? That Irishman is around there.”

  “Finnerty?”

  “Yes. Make yourself invisible while you keep an eye on him. Wright’s tube disappeared sometime after he left last night. Probably during the sheet-tucking, straitjacket, tarantula fiasco. I want to keep track of Finnerty.”

  “All right, boss.” He dove back into his book.

  “Sooner would be better than later, Grandpa.”

  “Right.”

  I wanted to stroll with Iris to Helen Fine’s new digs. It might have been a bad idea, but I was running out of good ones. When she saw Iris, it might start a ball rolling. If Helen had truly been lost in grief when Iris came upon her cradling Payton’s body—and most people would be—it wouldn’t get us far. Unless they were trying to squeeze Iris, the cops in Flag danced an awfully big fandango with Helen’s slim accusation that Iris killed Payton. I’d toss the ball in the air and see where it landed.

  “What’s going on, Yazzie?”

  “I have something up my sleeve.”

  “Sounds exciting. I can’t wait.”

  “I’m pretty curious myself.”

  “You don’t know?”

  I did know, pretty much, but I didn’t want to give it away.

  “Not exactly,” I said. “As a wise woman once said to me, ‘I’m going to wing it.’”

  * * *

  I was on guard duty, how ironic, when I saw the car drive in. Flaunting their money, always flaunting their money. Mrs. Wright was using Helen as a chauffeur and playing the queen in that fancy car. You can tell when people have been brought up without money. They can’t have it without showing it off.

  I circled around the edge for a better look at Helen. My sister didn’t look like the same person I’d seen when she left Flagstaff. She was pulled together. She was handling life’s details for Mrs. Wright, and she was dressed perfectly. Calm and collected. Mrs. Wright was a real lady, but Helen was a goddess. She got one glimpse of me and looked perplexed. Who wouldn’t? She recovered herself quickly. I was proud of her.

  I could not believe how well things were working out. I’d found the plans to the Guggenheim under Wright’s mattress, had them stowed away, and now Helen had arrived. Life really does work out perfectly when you just relax and let go.

  I saw only one problem, and that was the tall Indian again. This time he and Wayne were looking at me, huddled up, talking. And what was with that little bitch? She kept staring at me. Maybe she had a thing for redheads. I didn’t need any more trouble from her and the tall guy. Add John Wayne to the mix? No thanks. If her husband had any real guts, he’d notice and make her stop ogling me.

  But, all in all, no complaints. Life was going smoother than even I could have planned.

  Forty-five

  Harry was walking with Helen toward Shirley Temple’s small cabin. Iris and I joined them. Helen wrinkled her face a moment when she saw Iris, just a moment, but something was there. She looked up at me, and one straight line ran from the top of her forehead to the top of her nose. As life went on, and became more puzzling, the furrow would take on quite a depth.

  Harry made the introductions and took off at his amble. Shirley was about the sweetest girl you’d ever want to meet, and she said she was happy to have a roomie. She also made it clear that she expected to have her cabin back to herself when the Wright outfit was gone, and that it couldn’t be very long.

  Iris and I helped settle Helen in. Showed her how to lock up. Like the other cabins, the attic was now sealed and safe from intruders. The square tubes she’d brought from Taliesin were awkward. I got busy stacking them.

  I said, “Do you know which of these are most important for the Guggenheim project?”

  “Assuming it goes throug
h,” she said.

  “I thought it was a done deal.”

  “I hope so, but it has certainly been an exercise in frustration. Beautiful designs, changed a little here and there for structural reasons, I don’t know what they’re—”

  Shirley came out of the water closet, picked up a dog-eared copy of Gone with the Wind, and headed down to the costume lady.

  Helen stood on a chair, and I helped her stack the rest of the portfolios high in the closet. Her cotton skirt was hiked up and stuck to her skin—it was too hot in that cabin. She worked on pulling the skirt down. Nice legs. Nice legs with one long bruise down the outside of her left leg, and from her knee it climbed upward in a straight line. Maybe from the edge of a table, tripping on furniture, a harsh edge landing on her. Maybe the edge of a bureau mirror. Maybe just bad luck.

  “Mrs. Wright was lucky you could give her a lift up here,” I said.

  “I was happy to bring her. Always happy to discover new patterns the land makes in hidden places.” Another sideward glance at Iris.

  Iris was smart and didn’t say anything.

  Helen was unpacking a suitcase now.

  “Taliesin West,” I said, “must be hard for a single woman.”

  “There are too many men and not enough women at Taliesin East and West. It’s hard to fend the men off, married and unmarried.”

  “You’re a beautiful woman. I expect you’d have that trouble anywhere.”

  She finished up and turned to me.

  “Do you think it would be all right if I went down to the shoot and watched the movie being filmed?”

  “As long as you’re not alone.”

  “Why would anyone bother me?”

  “It’s a possibility,” I said. “And if you disturb the shoot, Ford will have your neck, and maybe mine.”

  “Listen, I grew up in Los Angeles, I enjoy movies, I am not impressed with stars, I have seen movies being shot, and I know how to behave.”

  “Yazzie, give her a little credit. She’s an L.A. girl.” Iris pulled out the .22 she keeps in her boot. “I’m from New York,” she said. “I can defend myself—bet you can, too.”

  I wondered why Iris had done that. Had even spoken. Knowing my wife, she had a reason.