 
ELDITHA P. WARNER, VIGILANTE AT LARGE

Copyright 2020 Lorraine Ray

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CHAPTER ONE

Carnage Canyon, nine tenths of a mile from Deprecation Incline, and still the car accelerated, easily exceeding seventy-five miles-per-hour on its way to the dark and piney summit of Massacre Mountain.

"Forester," called Mrs. Warner, spinning herself around, "our time has come. It's him. Davidson's on the way! We're going to get our chance tonight!"

"Yes, madam," replied her out-of-breath chauffeur who struggled to follow his employer up the steep ridge trail. His arms flailed as he slipped on the loose flakes of granite. "Tonight, perhaps, will be better than usual." Forester made an effort to sound hopeful in between strenuous puffs.

The excited old lady nodded. She tapped the glowing screen of her cell phone, which was crowded with text messages. "Isn't it grand?" She faced forward on the trail and tottered up the moonlit slope. Forester followed half-heartedly.

"I've got him where I want him," the scrawny little woman confided, "and I'm reeling him in. He's walking into my trap. Well... not walking...driving like the devil himself from the look of it. But ever so soon he'll be here, just as I wished."

Mrs. Warner's phone beeped and flashed a blue light to let her know a new message had arrived, and she stopped under a ponderosa pine in order to read it. Forester joined her there and halted, propping himself with one hand against the tree trunk and bending slightly at the waist to catch his breath.

"Davidson draws closer," she croaked, consulting the small screen.

"Are you sure, madam?" asked Forester.

"I have good sources of information. And I've got a detailed description of his vehicle." She stared at the screen a moment. "And now he's going faster, the naughty devil."

"Maybe he'll crash before he gets here," Forester said in a moment of idle speculation.

"Are you trying to ruin my fun?" asked the impish old lady sharply. "Well, I forgive you. No doubt you'd rather be safely at home above my garage tonight. Watching some absurd cake baking competition. You know, you're quite the fuddy-duddy."

"Yes, madam," Forester agreed.

"However, I can't really expect you to feel the way I do about Davidson and his son," said Mrs. Warner, starting to resume her climb, "The father and the awful son. I don't know which of them is worse. They deserve all the bad things I have heading their direction."

"Yes, madam."

"And so, we must hurry." A merry Mrs. Warner staggered ahead over some sharp rocks and around a splintery log. "We need to get to the big rock. I do hope we have enough time. To drop it."

As he followed his employer on an even steeper section of the trail, Forester grimaced, thinking again that his employer was a very odd lady from the soles of her pointy boots to the top of her towering blonde hair. With all her wealth, she rarely wasted money on clothing, except for vintage boots. This evening's pair were white and very pointy. Giovanni D'Mentia's best, not made in fifty years. She owned hundreds of pairs of exotic vintage Italian and English boots, and kept her maid on the look-out for more on pBay. Above her boots, Forester could glimpse the threadbare back of her raggedy coat, barely covering her thin shoulders. Decades ago, that coat might well have graced the catwalk; now it looked like something the cat dragged in. Another of her obsessions was Indian jewelry and she paid well for the very best, always buying from reservation stores. There was little danger of losing contact with her in the dark; her turquoise and silver bracelets clanked together like cowbells. Finally, on the top of her head a coiffed mass of blonde hair wobbled uncontrollably as she climbed. In fact, she appeared to be in danger of bursting her threadbare seams and collapsing her hairdo at the effort of stepping, when suddenly she pulled up.

She planted the tall heel of her boot on a flat spot on the edge of the mountain ridge. Above her, the overhanging boughs of a great ponderosa pine began to churn like the surface of a shadowy sea spun upside down. A fierce gust of wind arose. Ponderosa after ponderosa bounced the sound of her clanking bracelets down the slope as though each tree were eager to get rid of it.

With her heel there, she could lean out, which was something she needed to do, for her sharp eyes craved a better view of the teeny approaching headlights. She scrutinized those lights as they swerved around the windy lookout points and pioneer cabins, overtook an overloaded minivan and zoomed past a plodding snowplow.

Old Mrs. Warner, being enthralled by the car's approach, leaned further forward. But with her full weight set so far out, her heel sunk through a mat of pine needles, crunching through something quite solid at the end of its downward thrust.

Thrown off balance and tipping dangerously edge-ward, Mrs. Warner yanked her sunken boot up. "Gad, great galloping Gila Monsters. What have I gotten into here?" she muttered.

"Watch yourself!" yelped Forester, stepping up quickly to rescue her.

"Heavens," she said, staggering backward. Her arms made windmills which walloped Forester several times before he successfully grappled her and pulled her back from a potentially deadly fall.

He propped her up as though she were a cardboard cutout; her back rested against a rock.

"Thank you, Forester."

Then with a masterful gaze outward, and no regard for her near miss, she continued her survey of the ridge and the winding road a hundred feet below.

And what a survey the old lady made. No one else could project such command of territory. Some wit of the Southwest once remarked that wherever Elditha P. Warner stood she appeared to own the property beneath her. But that didn't do the picture justice. Truthfully, Old Mrs. Warner stood like she owned the world in all directions, your backyard as well as mine, although that evening the effect was marred by a large, muddy and half-squished pinecone skewered on the heel of one of her expensive white boots.

When the headlights disappeared momentarily behind a bend, Mrs. Warner speed-dialed Herman, her butler and additional aide-de-camp. She lurched along the rocky and root-crossed ridge, holding her phone to her ear, unconscious of the large pinecone that clomped along like some cloddish country relative underneath her fifty-year-old footwear. She spoke briefly and then listened.

"Good grief!" she yelled into the phone. "Call me back."

"It's as I suspected all along, Forester," she told her chauffeur. "That is not Davidson's car." She swiped the screen to clear the call. "If you'll remember, we determined that his SUV is a Mercedes. This is an Isuzu. You can tell the difference by the headlight shape. The Mercedes has two lamps and is shaped like a teardrop." Of course, she had conveniently repeated Herman's information as though it were her own after her phone conversation.

"I don't know what I was thinking. An Isuzu, you say?" answered Forester mildly. "How could I be so mistaken?"

Mrs. Warner started up the path again. "You're a little overanxious tonight, Forester, aren't you, a little keyed-up?"

Forester tucked his arms behind his back and assumed his subordinate position behind her. "I suppose I am, madam," he said, playing along with her. "My nerves are causing me to make mistakes." He shook his head and tut-tutted himself.

"Don't be too hard on yourself. You're distracted," she said. Making her way up the mountain path, her heels were wobbling wildly in the loose pine needles. "I suppose it's because of all the fun we're having."

"Mrs. Warner, if you don't mind my saying so, this situation has begun to remind me of...other situations." Forester's words, though full of meaning, were measured and carefully crafted.

"Other situations? Whatever can you mean?"

Forester cleared his throat. "You see, there is a trend here," he said, pacing behind her. He wore a black suit with a yellow sweater vest underneath, but the cold cut right through him and he shivered slightly.

"A trend?" Mrs. Warner croaked.

"Problems. We keep having terrible, terrible problems. And accidents."

"Nonsense. I won't focus on the negative. This night is better planned all around. Now, what's going on with this path?" she asked irritably. "The footing is atrocious. Didn't I ask you yesterday when you put the lever in to bring a shovel up here and clear the path?"

From the pained look on his face and the quick glance downward, it was evident that Forester was struggling to decide whether it was worthwhile to draw her attention to the pinecone stuck on the heel of her boot. "Well, Mrs. Warner there's something stuck to your—"

"Never mind. If you're with me, then get yourself up there behind the rock. Otherwise I'll do it myself," she said stubbornly.

"Yes, madam," said Forester, gasping slightly at the prospect of climbing the perpendicular slope behind him in darkness, "right away." They had arrived at the part of the plot he'd been dreading.

He began a cautious crawl up the dark narrow ridge—the barest of footholds—working his way toward a massive boulder. A cold breeze blew in his face as he scaled the ledge, and he was glad for the warm woolen cap on his bald head. Wisps of his blonde and gray handlebar moustache gave him a winged look, and facing the night's strong gusts this last bit of hair on his head threatened to sail off, perhaps snatching away his large red nose.

Above him, long thin clouds crossed the face of a full moon. Forester knew from the look of the sky that within hours the desert peaks would receive another powdery white bounty. The strung-out clouds were the harbingers of a storm, which would soon be brought down upon the Arizona desert by the winter's cascading jet stream; this year the stream had dropped far into Northern Mexico. During their drive into the Massacre Mountains from the valley floor earlier that evening, Forester had spotted piles of crisp snow, which had been left during the prior storm, and had been tinted shades of delicate pink and saffron by the Technicolor sunset. That snow was still pristine in shady spots on the lower mountain: the northern side of boulders, prickly pear cacti and the skirts of yucca plants. And there were banks of snow up higher on the mountain where Mrs. Warner and Forester now waited.

Feeling the wind and surrounded by snow, he did wish he were back in the Old Pueblo in his rooms above Mrs. Warner's garage. Perhaps enjoying a cake baking show, as Mrs. Warner had teased. Or at the very least, he wished he had his back against the leather of the driver's seat of Mrs. Warner's Rolls Royce Corniche, the substitute car when her Bentley needed the shop.

But for now, he had to be satisfied with creeping miserably in snow and icy wind toward the dangerous rock.

When approached from the east, the boulder Forester climbed toward resembled an ancient and bearded miner with bugged-out eyes (perhaps an old '49er who had been maddened by gold fever). From the west, the rock resembled an exploded baked potato. But from any angle it looked ominous. There was a large cleft behind it and a deep fissure underneath. In other spots on the same slope it was possible to see fresh gaps where rocks had broken away, brought down either by forces of wind or ice or the blasting efforts of the highway engineers. It was a wonder that this one had been missed.

Mrs. Warner, with the cell phone inches from her face, glanced up briefly and regarded her lackey's wary progress. "Forester, I must say that from the rear you are about as agile as a Pleistocene ground sloth," she remarked.

"Very good, madam."

"Can't you move those massive legs of yours any faster?"

"I will certainly give it a try, madam." Though he hated to lose a handhold, he self-consciously placed a shaky hand on his backside, and tried to leap adeptly over the root of a ponderosa, but his feet slipped, and part of the rock shelf shattered beneath him.

Forester yelped, stifled himself, and flattened his bulk against the slope. His big hands scrambled to secure grips. Unable to move forward because of a sudden weakness in his knees, he lay plastered against the mountain, gasping in fitful and fearful breaths.

Mrs. Warner looked up at her factotum without comprehension. "Forester, I don't think you will obtain an advantage from assuming that position. I recommend you rise immediately."

Casually then, Mrs. Warner tottered upward in her spiky high-heeled boots with the pinecone stumping along underneath. The whole time she punched numbers into the phone's calculator program. "According to the equations I'm using, he will round milepost 24 in eighteen minutes and forty-nine seconds," she said, consulting the glowing dial of the phone for the stopwatch in the corner of the display. "Yes, that is correct. Precisely correct. This plan is perfection. The perfect slope. The perfect rock. I love it when I'm perfect! I never cease to amaze myself. How do I do it?"

Forester, having recovered from his blunder and now moving cautiously along the perilous shelf again, rolled his eyes upward in exasperation. How did she do it? Why would be a better question. Why lob boulders down on people? Why dig pits for them to fall into? Why fire flame-throwers at their cars? Why do any of the ghastly things she regularly tried?

A few more faltering steps, each more gut-wrenching than the last, and Forester reached the high rock. He leaned against the sheltering mountainside. Safe, temporarily.

"Here he comes!" cried Mrs. Warner, who was intent on the car that was taking the sharp turn beneath them.

Forester's fingers discovered again the odd contraption Mrs. Warner had ordered him to wedge into the crevice the day before. It was a specially designed cantilevered arm controlled by a simple lever, which was meant to pry the boulder loose. Forester grabbed the controlling lever and snapped to attention in anticipation of his employer's command.

The boulder let out a long creak followed by several short pops and crunches, all coming from the fissure at the base below his feet. Though the sounds were hardly louder than the whistle of the night wind through the pines, to Forester the effect was terrifying. More so, when flakes on the lower face of the rock peeled off and the shards showered the dark slope below, their impact betrayed by small clattering echoes.

"Oh, God," he whispered to himself. "It's going to go down on its own! And take me with it!"

"Mrs. Warner—" he began.

"No talking now, Forester," ordered the old lady sharply.

Forester waited, shivering. The moon slipped completely behind a cloud, and then reappeared brightly, revealing a beautiful world spread out below him. Snow patches piled on the rocks. A twinkling between the patchwork of pines from the lights of a small town far below.

"He's late," Mrs. Warner said suddenly. "He must have gotten trapped behind another snowplow. Damn denunciations!"

She checked her watch and leaned forward, straining to see around the closest mountain bend.

"What can be happening? What's holding him up?"

She scowled at the empty highway, craning her head out so far that her heavily-piled hair flipped forward as though it were the hinged lid of a beer-stein. "Most extraordinary. Is another perfectly good idea spoiled?"

Forester, who was hoping for just such an outcome, kept quiet.

She stood on the ledge swaying in the wind.

"Here," she cried, pointing at a tiny pair of lights. "My luck has turned! Here comes the dirty thieving bastard! Get ready." Mrs. Warner's enthusiasm recovered and she pranced along the ridge, kicking her spiky boots and pumping her frail arms. The crashing bracelets were setting up an awful din.

"I'm ready," said Forester, who lied because he was still looking around for a likely, safe place to leap to if the ridge suddenly gave way.

Mrs. Warner studied the murky pair of beams. As she did this, she began another, more cheerful, conversation with herself. "What I lack is confidence. I have to get my backbone up. Everything is coming my way if only I keep my head. I sense my good fortune this winter. I'm going to make my mark on the Old Pueblo. And first this gentleman gets his due."

"Get ready," she added.

"Ready," he replied.

"Wait, wait," she said, holding a hand out, "Wait...and..."

Up went her shriveled fist, her bracelets falling together with the noise of railroad cars coupling, and she glared at the glowing screen of her cell phone held close to her ancient face.

"Now!" she screeched, dropping her scrawny arm. "Pull it now, Forester!"

Fearful and full of prayer, he did as he was told. Back went the lever in his large hands. And it was rather amazing to see what happened.

Because the boulder didn't budge.

Several seconds lapsed in silence.

"You pulled it?" she asked, her arms outstretched in astonished dismay.

"I did. It doesn't work!"

"Well, wiggle it!"

He did as he was told, but still nothing happened. "It's no good! Nothing happens!"

Mrs. Warner charged up the ridge toward him, her scrawny legs wobbling wildly. In seconds she had clattered her way up to him. "Shake it back and forth!" she yelled. "Give it a good yank."

"No response, madam. I'm afraid—"

"I'll do it!" Knocking Forester aside, she seized the lever and shook it herself, all the while grimacing furiously at the approaching headlights.

"Gad!" she exclaimed. "Nothing! Let me see...I'll have to—"

To Forester's considerable amazement, she attacked the boulder with her own frail body, landing against it with a tremendous force, and when she made impact a noise came out of her chest that sounded like WOOMPH!

The boulder teetered and let out the loudest crunch yet.

"That ought to do the trick," said Mrs. Warner, rubbing her hands together and pulling herself back with satisfaction. But as she did this, the mashed pinecone finally loosened on her heel. She stepped on it, toppled sideways, and was thrown hard against the side of the boulder.

"Madam!" yelped Forester, seeing her predicament. Instinctively, he stepped forward, reaching for her elbow, but her luck had run out.

CHAPTER TWO

CRACK! Without warning, the massive boulder split from the mountain and turned over as though the great head had been summarily chopped from the body of the mountain.

And to Forester's horror, Mrs. Warner turned upside down with it.

She had the foresight to scream: "Stop this rock!"

His heart beating like a terrible tom-tom, Forester watched and listened as the boulder took another rumbling turn.

He looked for a moment and glimpsed in astonishment the unsubstantial silhouette of Mrs. Warner straining to hold the rock still, then as an added measure actually trying to roll the boulder back up the slope! If ever there were a real-world Sisyphus (heaven help her!), Mrs. Warner at that moment fit the bill.

But the task was too much even for her indominable spirit. She only lasted an instant before the rock took her down again. Forester heard the boulder crash against the cliff face and could see its bulky shape slamming over rugged outcrops and pounding over the many small snowy pines that dotted the slope. These rolled-over pines popped up and whipped back and forth spewing snow every which way after the boulder squashed them.

It was an awful crunching sound that rock made, and although he could no longer see Mrs. Warner, he imagined his employer turning cartwheels down the hill on the rampaging stone, spinning head over heels, turning over and over, all the way down as it tumbled.

"Good heavens!" Forester exclaimed with real emotion at witnessing this unexpected catastrophe which had just struck his employer. Though he was uncomfortable with his position on the loose rock, he leaned forward instinctively and propped his body up on his hands, trying to see the distressing fate of the old lady. "Poor, poor Mrs. Warner! Is this the final tragedy? I suppose..."

Forester's bright blue eyes fearfully sought out the road that the banker's car would be traveling.

And just then, a pair of headlights zoomed around the bend at the cliff base. The Mercedes took the turn at the highest possible speed and roared away. A second later, he heard what sounded like the mighty boulder tumbling over asphalt.

"Good. She rolled right past," judged Forester, fairly certain the fierce old woman had hung on. If anyone could hang on, Elditha P. Warner would. He breathed a sigh of relief. From the dim glimpse of movement there, he believed the boulder had dropped off the asphalt onto a small clearing and rumbled to a stop on the far side of the highway.

He had one thing left to do before he went to her aid. He gathered his nerve and crabbed his way carefully down to where the device had fallen. And, as the moon disappeared again behind a cloud, he could be seen slipping a wrench out of the pocket of his jacket. He locked the wrench onto a nut and his wrist made three quick turns. Only then, taking the device with him, did he start to clamber down the series of ridges and cliff paths they had taken to their place of ambush.

The path was precipitous, dark and unstable, and a few times, as his feet slid out from underneath him, he marveled that they had managed to make it up there in the first place, how she had done it in stiletto boots and how he had managed it with his vertigo. Through switchbacks and tight turns, he gritted his teeth and hoped no more ledges were about to disappear beneath him.

At the cliff base, he worked his way around several small, snow-topped boulders and stomped a path through a tangle of sodden weeds toward the highway.

"Madam, Madam," he called out hesitantly, even though he had yet to locate her, and was only just dashing in a reckless fashion across the snow-fringed road. "Shall I phone for an ambulance? Do you require an ambulance?"

He reached the clearing and peered in all directions. Anxious to look for her, he leaned the large lever against the side of what was, thankfully, her undamaged Rolls.

"Mrs. Warner?" He approached a small Western juniper.

But the boulder hadn't landed there.

"Mrs. Warner, are you here?" he asked, heading for a small area of manzanita scrub and a rounded, half-buried knob of weathered granite.

"Can you answer? Just make any noise at all and I'll come to you."

The wind whistled in the pines. The juniper's dense needles bowed and shook.

"Are you somewhere, Mrs. Warner?" he shouted to the wintry sky.

At that, a far bush behind him rattled faintly. Forester swung around and around, looking everywhere for the source of the sound. "Where are you?" he asked.

Mrs. Warner, or the thing now approximating her, parted the red branches of a large manzanita and staggered out.

Clomping into the moonlight, Mrs. Warner traveled slantingly, her crazy hair bent at a forty-five-degree angle over one ear, so that it resembled the Eiffel Tower after having been hit by a F4 tornado. She listed over a clearing, inscribing an imprecise path through the snow-stiffened grass, and, as she grew closer, she stumbled over clumps of muddy snow. Strangely enough, she still dragged the pinecone under the shattered heel of one boot. Her glazed eyes turned toward her chauffeur and she rallied. Her direction improved and she steered her mortified advance toward him.

"No, Forester..." said Mrs. Warner in rasping gasps. She stopped to spit a sharp incisor tooth into her cupped palm. "I do not require the services of an ambulance...get that damn thing away from the side of my Rolls. Put it in my trunk immediately. I shall inspect it later. I don't understand how it failed." She tried to throw an arm in the direction of the lever leaning against her precious Corniche, but succeeded instead in slapping her own chin.

"Very well, madam." Forester obeyed. He scurried back to the Rolls and carried the device to her trunk, all the while watching Mrs. Warner apprehensively.

Mrs. Warner trudged slowly in his direction. "We'll leave no clues for the prying park rangers to find. Tomorrow we begin a complete and careful debriefing of all the known facts. But I already have the answer. It's quite plain. Our failure is the result of mistakes in planning. I'll do better next time. In fact, I may give you a mission to hire an armaments expert."

As Forester secured the contraption in her trunk, he winced; there was going to be an armaments expert? Things could get worse! But if there were a bright side to what had happened, perhaps this new interest in planning would take Mrs. Warner's mind off her unhealthy obsession with her many targets.

Forester hurriedly closed the trunk lid and scrambled to open the rear door of the Corniche for her.

"...there is a saving grace," she was saying as she tried to arrange her disarranged self before falling onto the seat, "no modicum of moderation to evil, no forgiveness, and I'm telling you today that anyone who is doing evil in this state is going to regret the day she met and failed me and I...um...but we must not forget the real estate developer, Wilson, who's the root of the problem and we've got to come up with something really spectacular and first-rate to deal with him."

Forester slid in behind the wheel, listening to her continued speech. He'd gotten used to her speeches, and the hours, and the conditions. Old Mrs. Warner gave every indication of being nocturnal, a sort of vampiric Southwestern social-justice socialite, creeping around the tables of moonlit canasta and canape soirees, enjoying open-air operas until midnight, and dark evenings spent dropping rocks on people. But it was this last part that he would never get used to, her nefarious plots.

Eventually, he interrupted. "Madam, I must point out that this night has a great deal of similarity to another canyon. Do you remember Cactus Canyon in the Huachuca Mountains and a certain Dr. Reilly?"

"I don't want to talk about this, Forester."

"Madam—," in an exasperated tone.

"Oh, that awful dermatologist? The one who announced at that party that he'd never work on black people's complexions? Was that Dr. Reilly?"

"No, Mrs. Warner. I think you might have misunderstood that. I don't think he was talking about black people. And that wasn't Dr. Reilly. He was the psychiatrist."

"I know, I know. He was the one who refused to help the indigent at El Rincon Hospital. What happened then? I don't recall."

"You were knocked unconscious by the blast."

"Oh yes," she answered vaguely.

"You lay in a coma for three days in St. Fidelis Hospital. Intensive care."

"I suppose I do remember that. I had a very considerate surgeon and he did a good job mending my skull."

"And, if you'll humor me and try to remember a little more, there was the incident at the Oasis Dry Cleaners."

"They wouldn't think of donating unclaimed clothing to the poor!"

"And do you remember what happened?"

"The fire we set gutted my car," she said blandly.

"That's right."

"I'm not likely to forget about my Bentley, Forester, no matter what you think of my failing memory. And don't bother protesting, I know your opinions. But you'll be happy to hear it's going to be fully restored in September."

"Of which year?"

"Two years hence." Mrs. Warner chuckled ruefully. "Those Bentley's are expensive and difficult to repair, Forester. I have a weakness for fine vehicles. But let's don't focus on the past. Difficulties, yes, we've faced them. I appreciate you and Herman being there to help me. But have no fear; this next one is better planned all around."

"Begging your pardon, Mrs. Warner, I think you might have said that before. In fact, I know you've said it before."

"Possibly, possibly, Forester. Don't be such a kill-joy! But it is truer today than before because I have really begun to apply myself to technical aspects. I will use superior engineering and planning in this next mission."

"I'm asking for a realistic view, though, madam."

"I am a realist! Davidson must be stopped! He's a menace to banking. I overheard him laughing about repossessing a home from a young widow. If he's going to laugh about how he treats people like that in front of me, his largest depositor, imagine what he does in private! Imagine what he's actually doing!"

"Why not contact the authorities?"

"I've told you before, they never do anything!"

"Mr. Davidson is a very bad person, that much is certain, and it's a pity he's in any position of power at any bank anywhere, but I do think the history of these incidents is telling. I don't think you ought to imagine yourself as a punisher, like that TV show. You see, Mrs. Warner, nothing you try to do to right these wrongs ever works!"

"I don't imagine myself as being like anyone on a TV show! How can you suggest such a gauche thing? And remember, on this next mission I will be using the services of an engineer!" said the old lady triumphantly.

"About that..." Forester began.

"Let's don't waste time worrying. If you feel you can't participate, I'll excuse you indefinitely."

"You don't have to go that far, madam," Mr. Albert Forester replied again, "I'm with you."

"In that case, there's a little letter for you to deliver to that snobby engineer, Dr. Gorp. But after that, I've been thinking along the technology line. I was right on track with the flame thrower idea; we've got to start utilizing modern weaponry. We need to target the yacht that Humphreys character floats around on down in the Sea of Cortez. He's got a berth in the harbor in Guaymas, I think. And the perfect way to sink a ship, it seems to me, would be mortar rounds fired from a safe location..."

"Does she own a mortar shell?" Forester wondered with alarm. And if Mrs. Warner and mortar rounds were going to be brought together in the same place was there likely to be a safe location?

Just then, another great gust of wind caught the boughs of the surrounding ponderosas and tossed them about furiously, dropping snow everywhere.

"What could have happened to ruin this? Who sold me that stupid contraption? What a scam! It seems my first use of the dark web has been a flop!" A vexed Mrs. Warner pondered aloud. "We plotted this so carefully. I'm very disappointed. Forester?"

"Yes, ma'am?"

"We're far from home. Google the nearest hospital!"

CHAPTER THREE

About a week later, on her first public foray since her dangerous ride on the boulder, Mrs. Warner entered a beauty salon and lurched to the counter. A cast encased her left arm. A large flesh-colored bandage covered part of her forehead, while the rest of her face displayed a crisscross of cuts, bruises and scrapes.

With a wrinkled knuckle pressed on the glass to steady her wavering stance, she glanced around the plant-filled salon looking for her stylist. That characteristic pile of blonde hair on Mrs. Warner's head, about which she fretted endlessly, had been combed into place after her mountaintop fiasco nights earlier, but it needed a professional redo, thus the urgent noon appointment at Mujer Dorada, the women's spa at Dorado Resort.

Two women in tennis outfits approached from behind the counter from behind Mrs. Warner.

"The Mexicans here are as rude and as ugly as the Syrians in Austria," said one woman in a thick Teutonic accent to the other. "I did not thinking it was possible."

"Oh, you haven't seen what Londoners have to endure," answered the other, ignoring the grammar mistakes. "Filth of the earth arriving on our shores. Invading our sceptered jewel, our precious isle. I wish they'd go back to their colonies. We spent a month at our home in Thailand this October and some of the people living there are simply ghastly looking. Horrible doesn't describe them."

Mrs. Warner stood quietly at the counter, pretending to be fascinated by a display of small nail polish bottles, but her sly eyes shifted sideways so that she could size up these rude visitors. Tall, tan, tennis players, both brunette, one who visited Austria recently, evidently, the other from London. Perhaps she should remember them and throw a little trick their way.

"And very stupidness about the English language, I supposing," said the clueless woman with the German accent to her companion as they stood beside Mrs. Warner.

"Oh yes. Stupid people are positively invading London. No one here to greet us! Americans are useless people, but we'll just go in." The objects of Mrs. Warner's wrath disappeared into the inner recesses of the spa.

"Mrs. Warner! How long have you been standing there?" yelped a stylist when she came out of a doorway behind the counter and discovered her scrawny client at the salon counter.

Mrs. Warner slowly swung her damaged face toward the voice.

"And you, poor dear, with your injuries!" the stylist exclaimed, coming around some greenery to greet her. She stared in appalled horror at the old woman's arm in a cast, the big bandage on her forehead, and the various scratches and contusions from her night of boulder riding.

"An accident," snapped Mrs. Warner, following the stylist toward her station in a slow stagger. "My hair was utterly ruined."

"It does look a bit iffy," her stylist agreed, sneaking a glance at the whorl of ratted locks piled aimlessly on her head. "Less than par," she added with a reference to her favorite pastime. She often discussed her golf game with patrons; only Mrs. Warner feigned mild interest.

"I can't do anything with it," Mrs. Warner croaked, patting her hair gently with a gnarled fist.

"Dear, dear," the stylist commiserated. "Let's start with a good wash." She picked up the pace and headed for the sinks at the back of the salon.

"I'm a little slow today, dear. It seems my arm isn't cooperating." Mrs. Warner flopped her cast in and out from her side, setting the bracelets on her other wrist clanking and clanging.

Glancing back at her client, the stylist detected the absence of Mrs. Warner's chauffeur, whose bulky figure was usually squeezed into a chair near to the door. "Did you drive yourself up the canyon alone?" she asked.

"Forester insisted on having a day off, which is most irregular. I've only just gotten my driving license back. I've gotten several tickets for driving too slowly in the foothills. But I'm a sucker for a sob story. And he tells me he has had some private troubles. I don't believe him at all. I can't imagine what he would have to do that was so important and so private. And he's entirely too mysterious about it all."

"Oh?" The hairdresser ushered Mrs. Warner toward a chair in front of a sink and waited as the old woman backed up to the wash basin and lowered her emaciated body toward the chair. She landed awkwardly, rocked about, and scooted backward gingerly. Then the stylist swept a silky robe over Mrs. Warner and buttoned it in the back. "We'll put this right in a few minutes, won't we?" she said, referring to the towering rat's nest atop Mrs. Warner's head.

The stylist lifted, with some thinly-disguised horror, the snarled back of Mrs. Warner's make-do coiffeur. She wrapped a white strip of starchy cloth around her client's turkey neck, securing the loose end with a careful tuck.

She patted Mrs. Warner's bony shoulder and lowered the chair. "Lean back."

As Mrs. Warner's neck approached the towel draped sink, she continued talking about Forester. "He has no personality. I can't even say he has a bland personality. No, Forester is devoid of any defining characteristics. Despite this, I'm rather attached to the dull man. He's quite loyal. He tells me he is searching for a friend in town. I don't really think he has any friends. As I said, he hasn't any interesting traits to attract others. Not at all."

The stylist was inclined to agree. "He does say dull things sometimes." she replied as she fiddled behind Mrs. Warner with hoses and taps. "And too many 'yes, ma'ams.'"

"Yes. Boring, by nature. I think he wants me to believe it is a woman he's searching for," Mrs. Warner continued. "A woman by the name of Debra."

"Oh?" said the stylist, disappearing under the sink, "Debra?"

"He claims to be married and to have lost her. No doubt she left due to the extreme boredom of living with him. He's obsessed with cake baking shows. Frankly, I correlate that with mental deficiencies, but I would never tell him that to his face; it would crush him. He has a sensitive soul, poor devil. And as to this Debra, he claims, he's traced her here, to the Old Pueblo. A likely story. He can be quite rude with people, you know. No one would ever marry him. I can't let him do any of my delicate negotiations because he botches everything up. I told him if he was going to go gallivanting around Southern Arizona, he'd better take something out to a little town for me."

"And what was that?" The stylist came back up, turned a tap, and held the flowing nozzle to her wrist to check the temperature of the water.

"A notice of employment."

"Oh, are you hiring?"

"I require the services of a professional bodyguard."

The stylist questioned who in their right mind would bother such a weird old lady.

"I'm planning a little trip to Mexico," Mrs. Warner continued. "A bodyguard is needed there, I'm told, if you happen to be a person of substantial wealth who could be kidnapped."

One look at Mrs. Warner, the stylist reflected, and any Mexican kidnapper might avoid messing with her, but rather than be disagreeable, she responded sagely: "On the news they're even taking dogs!"

"How despicable," replied Mrs. Warner.

"Yes, it's bad," said the stylist, shaking her head. "Puppies even."

For another minute, the stylist let the water flow onto her wrist. "Was it in the bathroom?" she asked Mrs. Warner suddenly.

"Excuse me?" said Mrs. Warner, frowning.

"Did it happen in the bathroom?"

"To what are you referring?" Mrs. Warner's scarred face addressed the ceiling in horror at this mysterious inquisition.

"I mean your accident. Did it happen to you in your bathroom? They say that's the most dangerous room in the house. Why, I'm afraid to go into mine—almost."

Mrs. Warner squinted at the ceiling, considering the possibilities.

"Yes," she lied. "It was a dreadful, dreadful accident in my master bath's grand foyer as I was reaching for..."

"Hot water," warned the stylist, starting the jets and deluging Mrs. Warner's blonde minaret.

Mrs. Warner's story sputtered to a standstill as she felt the monumental nest on her head begin to disintegrate in the stylist's hands like cotton candy in a child's mouth. "That's all right. You go ahead," Mrs. Warner said, raising a shriveled finger to indicate her acquiescence.

Within seconds, the result of all the spraying was a Mrs. Warner who resembled a drown rat, and a cut-up drown rat at that. The stylist squirted a large gob of mango-scented shampoo on her palm and slathered it over Mrs. Warner's head. She began a vigorous lathering. Mrs. Warner bit her lip as the bandage on her forehead slipped back and forth, rubbing the fresh wound. Although she was irritated, she reminded herself that this lady really could do a good style.

The hairdresser rinsed Mrs. Warner's hair and added conditioner.

"All done," she said of the washing stage.

"I feel refreshed!" Mrs. Warner exclaimed after she had risen stiffly. She stumbled away from the sink with the hairdresser cupping her elbow.

Several women seated in other chairs beheld slight movements of the palm fronds and jungle growth only to catch frightening glimpses of Mrs. Warner passing behind the large potted plants of the salon. The stylist walked beside the slow-moving Mrs. Warner like some attendant ministering to a newly mobile monster or a keeper with a tyrannosaurus out on its morning jungle stroll.

Eventually, Mrs. Warner staggered back to the cutting station and let her scrawny body be assisted into the chair. The stylist swung her around to face the mirror.

"How do you want it today?" the stylist asked, boldly removing the towel.

"Something new. I think going outward to the side, perhaps suggesting a page boy effect," said Mrs. Warner, twiddling a stray strand of the soggy mass.

"Page boy style. With bangs? Wintour style?"

"I think so. Wouldn't that be cute? With thick bangs."

The stylist reasoned very thick and very long would be just the thing—to cover up that bandage and the bruised and scabby face! The stylist began combing out Mrs. Warner's thinning hair.

"I was wondering," Mrs. Warner began, adopting a simpering manner, "if you knew who those lovely tanned European women are. The ones playing tennis so much? They were brunettes and the tallest woman was particularly friendly to me outside. I want to send her a present."

The stylist could hardly imagine anyone being foolish enough to be particularly friendly with Mrs. Warner. "Oh, some very tanned ladies? I think they're from France..."

"No. she spoke German," said Mrs. Warner curtly. "I mean she was most definitely of the Germanic persuasion," she added, returning quickly to a gracious manner.

"There is one. From Stuttgart. The other who is with her is English. I did a cut for her. You could look them up on the guest board in the lobby. They're together, I believe."

"Oh, I'll do that! Stuttgart, you say, and England? And it will say their names and where they're from on the guest board?"

"Yes. I think so."

"Well, I was telling you about my accident," Mrs. Warner began.

"Yes, tell me all about it," the stylist agreed.

"I was in my master bathroom's grand foyer reaching for a spare towel. I use only the finest Turkish toweling and keep it in a European airing cupboard that I ordered exclusively to be manufactured by hand in a small workshop in Belle Courage, France. Unfortunately, this cupboard was installed too high for me to reach conveniently."

"Workmen," said the stylist disdainfully.

"Yes, yes. Don't I know. A slippage therefore occurred. A most horrible slippage. It's etched in my memory forever and I will have nightmares to contend with. Imagine having unknown ambulance workers enter your boudoir and assist you when you are arranged in a terrible...arrangement. My limbs were completely akimbo." Mrs. Warner acted the part of a traumatized accident victim.

"Akimbo," the stylist repeated. "You have the most interesting vocabulary, Mrs. Warner. But I don't suppose I've ever told you about my experience in my brother's bathroom, have I?"

"No," said Mrs. Warner, her head down on her chest as the stylist parted and clipped her hair at the back of her neck. "You must tell me sometime." By this, Mrs. Warner clearly meant some other time, but her cutter did not take the hint.

"It was much worse than what you describe. Much, much worse." The stylist expertly clipped a second section of hair.

Mrs. Warner's hidden expression hardened. If this lady weren't so kind, and the best hair stylist in Southern Arizona, Mrs. Warner would have done something about her bragging long ago. When she took on people, however, they had to do actual evil to others, not merely be braggarts.

"It was an absolute nightmare. The fall I took was so severe my doctor said it was a miracle that I still walk. He was talking about fusing my spine, can you imagine? Fusing my delicate spine. I could have been crippled for life by a glitter bath bomb."

"Imagine," said Mrs. Warner with no enthusiasm.

"You see my sister-in-law had used one of those bombs the night before and it left the tub slippery with the glittery oil. There I was, stepping in as big as you please. It was like an ice rink the minute my tiny foot hit the enamel. I didn't any more than get inside the thing when my feet flew out from under me. I tried grabbing the shower curtain. That was my error." She lowered another clipped section of hair and began combing and snipping it.

"An error, hmmm," said Mrs. Warner, feeling close to being comatose from the boredom of this narrative.

"Critical, almost. The curtain held me up but swung me around so that I popped the fluid out of my right knee. My left shoulder hit the soap dish, dislocating it, and I fell toward the waterspout. My forehead cracked that." Snip, snip. She brought another section of hair down and combed it far off Mrs. Warner's head. Curls of wet blonde hair dropped to the floor around Mrs. Warner.

"Oh," said Mrs. Warner, perking up. She rather enjoyed the idea of decorating this talkative lady with a waterspout through her forehead. "That must have been painful."

"Painful? That doesn't half express what I endured. Agony would be more like it. The blood simply spurted. Then the workmen my brother had laying carpet heard me screaming in pain and opened the door. Naked, with three carpet layers. I don't know what was worse."

"Yes, I know the feeling," said Mrs. Warner, who could genuinely fake commiseration at times.

"I learned from the emergency room doctor that the bathroom is nothing but hazards. Why, did you realize that each year more than 50,000 accidents occur right there?" The haircutter was combing Mrs. Warner's hair over her face and estimating the bang length.

"No? 50,000 accidents? That's interesting."

"That's right. But you'll get over yours, dear. You must get a bar installed, though. And no slippery tile. Banish tile entirely from your home." As the hairdresser said this, Mrs. Warner's face emerged from under the long bangs.

"I have flagstone," she said in a snappy rejoinder.

The stylist, seeing her client's error, jumped right in. "Oh, rock can be dangerous too. I've seen some terrible injuries from rock!"

Mrs. Warner folded her arms defiantly over her chest. "You're telling me."

Since joining Dorado Resort three years earlier, Mrs. Warner had afflicted the place, too often in the staff's opinion. She preferred the summer to the winter because the winter was when, to her great distaste, large numbers of offensive rich Europeans and Easterners cavorted in the various interconnected pools, speaking disparagingly of Mexicans and monopolizing the best salon appointments. Upon entering a small hall off of the central lobby of Dorado Resort, one could read on a slick dry erase board all the names and hometowns of these annoying interlopers who dared patronize the same place as Mrs. Warner.

On that wintery day, after sitting under the dryer and having her wide pageboy hairdo revealed, to the great acclaim of several amused patrons, she strolled to the resort lobby instead of going directly to the valet stand. She was able to slip into the small hallway without attracting attention. There she used a marker to commit an outrage. Discretely and quickly, using her body as a shield, she altered the data on the dry erase board so that Mr. and Mrs. Harold Bright-Fullington from London, England became Mr. and Mrs. Bright Full-of-It from Beast Hound, England and Mrs. Manfred Wilhelm of Stuttgart, Germany morphed into Mrs. Handy Freddie Willwhelp of Sluttfart, Germany. She applied her changes and then replaced the marker on the whiteboard ledge.

"Ta-da," she said under her breath as she celebrated her handiwork and shuffled off to retrieve her Rolls from her favorite valet. Poor, terrified Raymond spoke rudimentary English and rarely had any idea what Mrs. Warner was saying.

Later that day, when the resort manager had the alteration brought to his attention by the shocked guests whose names had been defaced, the staff pled ignorance. The resort prankster had struck again, but who was the culprit and what was their motive? Three times in the last six months, similar odd things had occurred to guests and yet there was not a clue to the identity of the perpetrator.

That evening the valets began a discussion among themselves about the awful Mrs. Warner. They all expressed amazement that she was such a horrible woman, thinking that only old rich people in their own countries were so scrawny and frightening. Then a heated argument ensued among them as to which country in the world had the worst rich old people. This argument was won hands down by a Puerto Rican valet who described the jungle strangulation of a Chupacabra at the hands of a hideous, bilious billionaire from San Juan.

CHAPTER FOUR

The laboratory of Doctor Gertrude Gorp was a ramshackle affair, a one-time garage, which could only be reached after traveling obliquely through an odd, sun-drenched garden. First, you detoured around a rickety picnic table overflowing with cacti planted in coffee cans. Next, you skirted a tree well containing a small dead fig tree. Crossing the garden's center, you crunched yellow weeds underfoot while nearly tripping on an overturned wheelbarrow, the back of which rose out of those weeds like some terrible tortoise. Finally, you zigzagged around a Volkswagen's axle and the steering column of a truck. During all this, you might come to believe no one had entered this yard in living memory until, bending your body to fit into the only opening in a towering Indian Fig cactus hedge, you nearly collided with that dilapidated outbuilding. A knock at the louvered glass door elicited no response.

Forester, who had been a visitor to many odd places before at his employer's instruction, pounded a long barrage until a woman's voice could be heard muttering: "The force on the woodpecker's peak exceeds thirteen point three kilos per centimeter yet..."

Forester sighed.

It had already been a long drive from Villa Escorpion and his apartment above Mrs. Warner's garage to The Tale of the Fish restaurant at the tailing pond in Pima Ruins, Arizona. There, under Mrs. Warner's instructions, and with the permission of the lump-necked owner, he had hurriedly tacked a small lined notecard to the notice board. In a snaky hand the old woman had written her want ad: "High pay for assistant knowledgeable in armaments, tactics, special ops in offensive applications. Contact Cobra at 520-690-8453."

According to Mrs. Warner, whose family had resided in Arizona for more than a century, though the dark web might offer the most dangerous criminal minds, some decently frightening cut-throats could be found in rural Arizona. And she might have been right. When Forester went out the door, a despicable person, a stringy-haired, gap-toothed man had slid languidly off his stool and abandoned a slice of apple pie to peruse the new help-wanted card.

Now, hours later, Forester found himself back where he had hoped to be before noon, in a deserted garden looking longingly at the morning sun, at the cheery blue desert sky and the puffs of clouds about the sugar-topped mountains. Yes, the storm a few days ago had brought snow to the higher altitudes, just as he had predicted when he was hundreds of miles away on the boulder mission with Mrs. Warner. The storm had come and left behind the clear and sunny kind of winter day on the desert floor, a day one wished to spend beside a resort pool with a Pilsner in hand, studying said sugary mountains and young ladies in bikinis. But, alas, he had other chores.

Forester tried the door and found it unlocked. He leaned in on it and it led him forward with a long squeal.

The path the door took shoved a pile of papers across a cold concrete floor. Forester stepped across the dusty papers and the lint covered carcass of a beetle. Around a tower of file cabinets, he could see light from a wall of small paint-smeared windowpanes. He trod moth-eaten Persian carpets that took him around canyons of file cabinets to an opening, a valley in the seeming labyrinth. "Hello?" he said.

Doctor Gertrude Gorp's enormous brown eyes stared at the intruder from behind a pair of glasses with coke-bottle lenses. The tops of tables, cabinets, and chairs around her were crammed with instruments, books, a portable heater and a large glowing computer screen.

"Yes?" she grunted irritably.

"I'm sorry to interrupt your work, professor."

Doctor Gorp sensed her visitor was a man, not from seeing him, for her vision even with the glasses was truly terrible, but from hearing Forester's voice. She adjusted the collar of her shirt, which poked out awkwardly from her pink sweater and she smoothed the back of her frizzy hair. "Yes, what is it?" The tone of her voice was now remarkably docile, but why, she pondered, was this man's head so shiny? Perhaps, an overdoing of hair tonic? In fact, she was not looking at Forester's head, which was bald, but a reflection of light from the louvered glass door.

Forester reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a stiff fold of legal looking paper.

"What can I do for you?" asked the professor, sitting up taller. "I'm so surprised to have a visitor today. I'm afraid my kettle is too deeply encrusted with calcium to heat properly. I meant to buy another, but foolishly bought a package of tea instead." She laughed crazily and stopped herself before snorting. "No kettle and a new packet of tea. What a joke, yes? But it's very good herbal tea. A peppermint and cactus mixture from Oaxaca. Sounds healthful. I only wish I had something to heat water with..."

"No tea, thank you. I have a letter to read you."

"What? A letter? Who is writing me? Goodness, this is extraordinary. What a mysterious business. This morning is proving to be so different. Here I was busy with my drawings and the calculations going rather oddly and then someone is writing me. Well, it can't be my mother she's very busy with her prancing exercises. May I dare to ask if it is a commission?" When she said the word "commission" her voice quavered and dropped an octave.

Forester squared his shoulders. This act was difficult because after six months in Mrs. Warner's employ he had the slightly stooped shoulders of the permanently downtrodden. He cleared his throat and held the document in front, readying himself to read it.

"'My dear professor,'" he began.

"Oh my, it seems I have the inklings of a commission," said the woman, beaming up from her bench. "I must hear this! Are my engineering skills being acknowledged by someone? It begins, 'My dear woman.' Now don't tell me—it must be from that lovely man I met in Honolulu at the convention for Western Women Engineers. What was his name? I'm terrible with names."

Forester began again, "'This is to inform you of my plans.'"

"Plans? Well, it must be an engineering commission that I'm getting. My guess was correct. They always have 'plans.' I'm not sure what this is about, but it sounds interesting."

"'And my bitter disappointment,'" Forester continued.

"Oh," said Doctor Gorp sadly, "Perhaps not a commission. A complaint about a job? I have so few."

"'And to serve as the most potent warning—'"

The professor's face registered shock. "Huh? A warning? What is this about?"

"'That you are perilously close to being considered an enemy of mine.'"

"Heavens, what is this? Who is writing this thing?" Doctor Gorp chewed her pencil nervously.

Forester continued reading the document. "'You have failed to serve your community in an adequate fashion. You have insulted the poor people of this great city. Your engineering skills are used on subpar activities for the extremely rich and I do not think you have given even a shred of those skills for the poor. You refused to consider working on a housing project for the indigent of this community—'"

"Refused work!" Gertrude interrupted. "Who is casting aspersions on my industry and my charity? I defy them to prove what they say!"

"'Accepting only wealthy people's commissions—'"

"Utter nonsense. I should have known it was an odd sounding beginning. Vindictive words. Stuff and nonsense. Wealthy people in Arizona are invariably off their rockers. I would no more be afraid of what this madman vaguely threatens to do than I would be of the idle chatter of monkeys in the zoo."

Forester fought off the urge to grin at the idea of Mrs. Warner as a primate. "'Therefore, you are under notice that I will have to take action to put you out of business.'"

The professor threw down her pencil. "I am really peeved now. The nutty person who wrote this letter thinks I will put up with bad things being said about me. This shows they are ignorant of my character."

"'Sincerely Yours, Unknown.'"

"What nonsense," said the professor sharply. "How impertinent. To think someone would threaten me. You must tell me who this is! But I may have unintentionally been rude. This I admit. I am often brusque with people. It's my personality."

He laid the letter on her desk. "I'm afraid to say it isn't nonsense," Forester informed her gravely. "I work as a chauffeur and assistant for the lady who wrote this. Her name is not important. She sent me here to read this to you."

"What claim does she lodge against me? That I work only for the wealthy? What does she—? Oh," the professor's matted eyebrows rose, "I know!" She pointed at Forester and snapped her fingers. "I told a very odd old woman at a party late one night a few weeks ago that I wouldn't do the El Rincon Health Center remodeling. She was peculiar, with blonde hair piled a mile high on her head and pointy vintage boots. Raggedy old clothes. I might have said I didn't care to do such low paying jobs. I said that in a fit of pique. I regret what I said. I hardly have any commissions anyway. And I wasn't offered the job for El Rincon."

Forester cleared his throat again. "My employer is not often logical. She may not have realized that you were not a prominent engineer. If I may be so bold as to venture a suggestion..."

Professor Gorp ignored him. "People who put me down as hating the poor need to have an adjustment in their attitude. Do you think I should try and get through to her?"

Forester had prepared for just that prospect. He pulled another set of papers from the same inside pocket of his jacket. "Exactly my idea! What I have done is taken the liberty of printing up several notes of apology. I believe we might try delivering one of them. You can read them and sign the one you like best. With a little work on my part, a little persuasion, I think we can avert any disaster."

"All right." Gertrude took the three letters and spread them out to compare. "This makes me angry, but I'm a reasonable person."

"I believe it may work," Forester continued, "though I don't know for certain. If this will work with her, if I can divert her from you, she'll forget about you, because she has disputes with many other people. More than I can keep track of."

"She would actually try to make trouble for me without this?" said Dr. Gorp, shaking her head.

"I know it sounds odd, but she's a very odd woman. Or she might forget about you."

"I think this apology is the best of the three." Dr. Gorp tapped one of the letters.

"Then it shall be that one. Sign it and I'll testify that you typed it yourself in front of me," said Forester as happily as possible.

Doctor Gorp signed and then sat up in her chair. She handed the letter back to Forester. "This is really quite mad! But if it's going to make the woman happy. I don't want any troubles. I've only begun my engineering business, and it has been the dream of my life. I don't want any troubles from this old lady."

"I agree. I certainly hope it works." Forester tucked the letter in his inside jacket pocket.

"If she harms me, she will be messing with one of the city's only female engineers!"

"I have every reason to believe this will work. At times she is a reasonable person," he pointed out. Forester began to make his departure.

"A retreat like this, though, is alien to me!" The professor rose to her feet and came around a table, bumping into it with one thigh as she followed Forester out. "If she employs a chauffeur, isn't she a wealthy woman? Couldn't she find better ways to help the poor?"

"Well, ma'am, I have made just such an argument—" Forester began.

Gertrude charged blindly around her lab. "In the face of adversity, I have fought those who would deny me the right to work—" She jostled the corner of a file cabinet and caught the sharp edge of a falling book on her shoulder.

"You haven't fought my employer—" Forester offered.

"—and those who deny women the right to be engineers and as such I will defend my property from such villains!" She stumbled awkwardly into a paint-splattered Windsor chair.

"Yes, but—" Forester began.

"Please, sir—" Doctor Gorp began, holding up one finger for silence.

"Yes?"

"Be gone and know that I did agree to apologize. But I protest! Yes, I protest!" Doctor Gorp pointed in the general direction of Forester with a perturbed look on her face.

"I understand," Forester left hurriedly with the signed letter. He rejoiced knowing that he had talked her into apologizing, but his day off was rapidly ending. He fled toward his car. And with a pang of disappointment he recognized that he had yet to do any real searching for Debra on his first day off in weeks.

Mrs. Warner was wrong; there was a Debra who was very important to Forester.

But she wasn't his wife.

CHAPTER FIVE

Escorpion Estates, the three hundred acres of prime desert foothill property, studded with saguaros and millionaires, hosted several parties that Friday night, two weeks after Elditha's boulder ride. At the Shapiro mansion little Bobby Shapiro suffered through a pre-Bar Mitzvah party and awkwardly greeted hordes of his parent's friends whom he was forced to speak to and recite the Torah in front of! At the Morgan-Chase estate a small soiree of three hundred of The Old Pueblo's most famous, toasted the tenth wedding anniversary of George Chase and Monica Morgan Chase. Burt and Maggie Flagg, at Villa Flagg, mourned their lack of social success at the Skybow Country Club by getting smashed together on their huge bloodstone balcony and by talking baby talk about their betters to one another and their unimpressed terrier, little Wavy Flagg.

But at Villa Escorpion, the home of Mrs. Warner, there was no party or drinking or cute terriers enduring baby talk. That spooky concrete mansion, of a brutalist architectural style, and which many felt resembled a bunker on the Siegfried Line, was characteristically dark and creepy.

A long narrow window sliced through the plain concrete on an edge of the enormous home. At one corner of this immensely tall window sat the old crumpled-up figure of Mr. Salomon Warner, Mrs. Warner's ninety-five-year-old husband, and beside him, at the other corner of the window, the even more ancient remains of Mrs. Warner's mother, Maud Gash, referred to as Mother Maud. Mrs. Warner's husband and her mother were both wheelchair-bound invalids whose care had been given over to a team of nurses. Mrs. Warner still visited them many times each day. Sometimes twice in the middle of the night.

And, in fact, Mrs. Warner stood in between them that evening. The three curious co-dwellers looked straight toward the border with Mexico and enjoyed the effects of the sun sinking in the west on the upright army of saguaro cacti outside the window. Some cacti flamed orange, and others candy apple. Beyond the foothills and below, a hazy lavender city twinkled with the first of many lights.

Mother Maud nodded and crossed her hands on her chest. The matriarch of the family was a corpse-like invalid whose death many in the Old Pueblo had mistakenly celebrated in May of 1986. For forty years she had goaded her daughter into committing bizarre hopelessly bungled vandalisms that had bewildered generations of detectives in towns throughout Arizona. The stroke she had suffered ten years earlier had left Mother Maud unable to remember anything but bloody battles and revenge. Scrawny and desiccated, her white flesh crisscrossed with blue veins, she viewed the world through filmy eyes, remembering only the past of her grandmother's life when Arizona ranches were under continuous attack by Apaches and atrocities and savage reactions reigned. She never got enough of warfare and at times it was hard to tell, frankly, which side she rooted for. Perhaps she promoted the massacre itself, like the Keres, goddesses of Greek legend, who delighted in the slaughter of the battlefield, goading it on and taking pleasure in the general air of alarm and murder. Certainly, she thrived on images of death, and like some frightening robot issued continuous commands to her daughter for the destruction of whole groups of people. Mrs. Warner, who should have stopped taking her mother seriously ages ago, often retrieved commands from her mother's wild ramblings the way that a soothsayer finds the future in tea leaves or innards.

"Miscreants. Come down on them like the wolf on the fold," Mother Maud urged, discussing nothing in particular.

"Hmm," Mrs. Warner concurred, nodding absentmindedly. She was frowning at the figure of Forester where he stood below on the drive. Very puzzling activities from her aid. "We'll give it our best effort," Mrs. Warner promised with lackluster enthusiasm. "I can't for the life of me understand why Forester is down there with a pair of binoculars, though. He is a most peculiar employee. What does he have to be peering at? The birds have all gone to bed, and he's no bird watcher. There is nothing that I want him to do that involves utilizing a pair of binoculars. Most odd. I cannot understand the man sometimes. Perhaps he's become a Peeping Tom. Cheap thrills. Where there's life, there's hope."

"Punitive expeditions?" asked the old woman, sending up a trial balloon.

"I'm about to complete one, mother, you'll be happy to hear. The whole thing is planned down to the millisecond. I will finally be able to do something about that Davidson fellow I've been pursuing. I had a set-back with that boulder, but I haven't forgotten him. He's a rotten one and I'm finally dealing with him. I'm just about to leave."

Mr. Salomon Warner said nothing in response to all this; Mrs. Warner peered closely at her husband for signs of illness.

Mr. Warner's rheumy eyes in turn studied his scrawny wife critically. "An old dry well," Mr. Warner concluded, folding his veiny hands together meaningfully on the plaid lap rug that draped over his legs. For a moment the legs quivered. Then he added, "A three-hundred foot well. Dry to the bottom."

Mrs. Warner squinted back at him. Sometimes, since the onset of his dementia, Mrs. Warner didn't much like Solomon and his vaguely sexual utterances. Luckily, most of his physical advances involved the poor nurses. That reminded her; she must add some extra money in Yaretzi's pay for her up-coming birthday.

"We are a little pointed with our comments tonight, my dear," she grumbled. Nevertheless, she kissed them both good-night.

She noted that the nurses had begun preparing the invalids' lifts, starting the long process of putting them to bed. The humming sound of activated hospital beds sitting up accompanied her out of the room.

Leaving their floor, Mrs. Warner shuffled through the eerie mansion past the artifacts of her family's ranch life: stuffed bears with gaping mouths, giant bull whips, and rusty cannons. Hers was a prominent ranch family of the southeastern corner of the state. Used to dealing with bandits, revolutionaries, and bands of marauding Apaches, they held out during several frightening sieges using their massive arsenals and hired guns. In many ways, Mrs. Warner followed perfectly in her family's steps.

She stood and scrutinized the work of her pale young butler, Herman, who was polishing the brass on a Mexican blunderbuss. "Excellent job. I must put a little something extra in your pay packet."

"Thank you, madam." When she'd hired him, Herman had had a great deal of pimples on his face, but they were healing nicely now, the scars were almost invisible after Mrs. Warner had paid for the services of the best dermatologist.

It was precisely 6:34 and Mrs. Warner used her cell phone to summon Forester.

"Execution time," was all she needed to say.

And when the headlights of a dark blue Rolls came down the drive and exited her tremendous gate with its twin wrought iron scorpions, that was the first sign of life in the mansion that night.

Forester brought the Rolls down the hillside in his inimically smooth driving style. He rounded the corner of Puerto de Lobos and swooped onto Rio Sin Agua. There big silver hubcaps spun to a halt reflecting a swirling curb and a mailbox in the alien pink glow of the foothill drive's sodium streetlights. He glanced in the rearview mirror at a cell-phone distracted Mrs. Warner.

Forester looked ahead and smiled. As he had anticipated, Rio Sin Agua, the only way down from Villa Escorpion, showed a flurry of activity around a truck at a certain mansion ahead. Forester gave the Corniche a bit more gas and drove directly toward the blockage. As soon as he was close to the truck, he stopped short.

"What is it?" asked Mrs. Warner from the rear seat. She looked up sharply from the open webpage of her favorite online magazine, the recent issue of American Combat Handguns and Weaponry. "Why are we stopping?"

"A blockage, madam."

"What? What sort of blockage?"

"I can't tell for sure. It seems this oversized truck is delivering an object. I think perhaps it is a tent. Yes, a large party tent. It's rather late in the day, isn't it? Perhaps it won't take long. Shall we phone ahead?"

"I have to be there! If I miss the rendezvous, there won't be anything done! We have a very small window of opportunity. I know I told you that, Forester. I don't know what you're thinking! And my helper tonight doesn't trust amateurs. I told you that, too!"

"That's right, you did. I'll see what I can do, madam," said Forester bravely. He put the car in park and reached for a plaid cheese-cutter cap on the seat beside him.

"Delivering a tent? What are they doing? They must put it back in the truck immediately. I need to utilize the road. I can't be late or I'll miss the gentleman, my new helper, and nothing will be done to that horrid Mr. Davidson, the odious developer. He can't get away with what he's doing. He's despoiling the oldest adobe in our city! And it was once the territorial capital."

"Well, all I can do is try..." Forester set the brake and opened his door, preparing to confront Mrs. Warner's neighbor.

"Tell them they must clear the path immediately for me to get on my way," Mrs. Warner squawked.

Forester stepped out of the driver's seat. As he did so, his legs which Mrs. Warner was so fond of calling fat hocks, merged with the bulging front of a short torso. Under his black jacket, the waist of his slacks was clearly visible ending somewhere inordinately high. The plaid cheese-cutter cap he donned made him that much more ridiculous when paired with a handlebar moustache.

Mrs. Warner threw the cell phone down and slid over in her seat. "No, on second thought I think I'll deal with this myself. Come back, Forester."

"Very well, madam." Forester, who had only gone a few steps forward, spun on his heels and returned gladly to the Corniche.

Mrs. Warner lurched out of the backseat. "The man who owns this particular mansion, has been most courteous to me on several occasions. He's going to be cooperative; I can sense it. He always is with a little honey spread on top. You can attract more flies with honey than vinegar, Forester. You need to make note of that."

"Very true, madam."

"Yes, you don't know how to be solicitous to others. You're very good at spreading around the vinegar, I've noticed."

"I do apologize, madam. I shall learn from your example. No more vinegar. Shall I wait in the car?" Forester asked.

"Yes. We'll be on our way in a moment when I've explained things to him. I think he's the one in the black turtleneck sweater. Mr. Falcon." Mrs. Warner stared at the couple.

"I believe so, madam." Forester, who was well informed about the other residents in Escorpion Estates, knew who Mr. Falcon was and he knew exactly what the tent was doing there. As he got back in the Corniche, he rolled the window down so that he could receive her instructions.

"I don't know the woman," Mrs. Warner remarked.

"No, I don't think she goes with the house," agreed Forester.

Looking more like a new species of wasp than any human woman, her large black eyes and skinny waist matching well with her grasping arms and her jutting jaw which snapped when she talked like an insect's mandible, Mrs. Warner descended upon the couple and the crew of workmen. That night her Navajo jewelry consisted of an oversized yoke-like squash blossom necklace that sunk between her flat breasts like some medieval cleric's instrument of torture. Several sinuous silver and turquoise bracelets slithered up her right arm like cold, clanking snakes. The left arm was still in a cast.

The man and woman frowned as this odd woman abandoned her Rolls and approached them.

"Isn't that the creepy woman who lives in the dynamite factory above you?" The woman tilted her head in the direction of Mrs. Warner's hilltop home. Because Villa Escorpion had been constructed in a brutalist style from slabs of concrete, many people in Escorpion Estates did assume it was a county pumping station or the wreck of an alien death star.

"Stop what you are doing and put that tent back in the trunk!" Mrs. Warner shouted to the workmen. The astonished deliverymen stared as she performed abnormally flamboyant waves of her arms, which indicated her general displeasure and a desire that the tent, which was partially out, be slid back in the truck bed.

"Huh?" asked one astounded mover.

"Excuse me for being so presumptuous, but are you the homeowner?" Mrs. Warner ignored the bewildered workman and directed her honeyed question to the man on the curb. The tall woman in a caftan standing beside him had a horrified look on her face. It wasn't clear whether it was the spooky sight of Mrs. Warner descending on them or Mrs. Warner's brusque manner with the workmen that caused such surprise.

"Yes? Can I help you?" asked the man.

"I want to pass through. Could you possibly move this mammoth truck out of the way? My business is rather urgent, you see. There is only one way out, as you know."

"I'm terribly sorry! I sent everyone in our community a notice of the time of this tent's arrival. I never intended to inconvenience anyone. You must accept my sincerest apologies. Of course, we must put the tent back in and get you on your way. It should only take a moment."

"Stop! Alto!" called Mr. Falcon. "Listen to her. Go on," he told the men forcefully. "Put the tent back in quickly and move the truck."

Mrs. Warner exhaled and spoke to her neighbor. "My man Forester who is driving me tonight is so horribly incompetent. No doubt you sent such a flyer about your delivery and no doubt Forester read the flyer and still scheduled my appointment at such a time that I would be traveling urgently on the same road at the exact time of your tent's arrival!" She smiled a strained smile, and swiveled her head toward the workmen.

Mr. Falcon shouted: "Put the tent back in the bed of the truck immediately or you will answer for the consequences!"

The men began moving slowly.

"Please hurry," said Mrs. Warner, glancing at her cell phone. "I have only a quarter of an hour!" Mrs. Warner, descending on the workmen, swatted around in anger as though she were under attack by an annoying fly.

Several of the besieged men abandoned the tent and cowered from the charging figure of Mrs. Warner.

"You are blocking my exit from this drive," she told the other, now frozen men, who looked back at her with fearful, rolling eyes. "I cannot proceed on my way and I have an important gift to deliver tonight."

"Go on," said Mr. Falcon, coming off the curb energetically to speak to the men. "Listen to her! Put it back in. We have to get her on her way as she says." The wary men who had run off began edging toward the tent again, but without taking their eyes off the deadly dame.

"You have helped me before, many times," Mrs. Warner said, swinging her skinny body around and moving back to her neighbor. "I love cooperators!"

The barrel-chested lady in the caftan who was still standing on the sidewalk spoke up. "I'm terribly sorry that we've inconvenienced you. You see I'm a winter visitor here. My name is Mrs. Jones." She stepped cheerfully into the street and held her hand out for a neighborly shake, although she was rather horrified to see that Mrs. Warner's black pantsuit had tattered cuffs.

Mrs. Jones found her gesture ignored.

"I love meeting you," said Mrs. Warner snappily. She stared at her cell phone time. "My gift will be too late!"

"Oh, this is terrible," exclaimed Mr. Falcon.

A flabbergasted Mrs. Jones gulped at the unbridled rudeness, but went on despite the ugly and disappointed look on Mrs. Warner's horrible face as she glared at the time. "I used to manage financial funds in New York. I have the pleasure, Saturday evening, of hosting a small soiree at this gentleman's home to raise funds for the needed upkeep and maintenance of the precious little chains of Sonoran missions, Cocospera, Oquitoa, Caborca and those little lovely out of the way religious sites that I have just discovered in this unique corner of the globe and I sincerely hope you will be able to—"

"Yes," added the man in the turtleneck, jumping in adeptly to augment what he hoped might be about to escape Mrs. Jones's lips, namely an invitation to the party, the classic method of shutting up an annoying, complaining neighbor. "It's a joy to invite you. A real joy. We're all hoping to do what we can to preserve this region's history. At eight o'clock tomorrow, Saturday night. Please say you'll come to our party."

"At eight?" asked Mrs. Warner. She drew herself up and the effect was to create an even more startling wasp, a wasp about to smile. "I'd be delighted. It's an odd coincidence that I try to protect history. Animals, historical buildings, and indigenous people."

"Yes? You'll come then? How wonderful." He suddenly discovered that the group of leery movers were moving nothing, but were instead staring fixedly at the extra-wide hairdo on Mrs. Warner's head. "Keep going!" he shouted.

"What can you do with workmen these days?" asked Mrs. Warner primly.

Mrs. Jones winced. "Yes—"

"I've said that so many times," said Mr. Falcon quickly to Mrs. Jones. "We've all got to be patient."

"I have my Forester, my man in the car," hissed Mrs. Warner. "As I said, he's so very incompetent, but I suppose I've been put here on earth to help him. He has so many faults. I didn't let him talk to you because he has a very nasty tendency to be rude. He loses his temper at the slightest provocation. I simply can't have him deal with any of my little problems or he will make them much, much worse."

"Your driver?" Mr. Falcon said, appealing to Mrs. Warner and the movers who despite his orders were absolutely immobile, staring intently at Mrs. Warner.

"She's in a hurry!" he called to them.

Then to Mrs. Warner. "This is a complete disaster. All my fault, of course."

"Why don't you get to work?" he demanded of the men.

"So, you have a husband and mother?" Mrs. Jones asked.

"That's right, but they're both invalids. I have nurses to care for them. However, I am a slave to their needs."

"You're all on your own then? In essence?" asked Mr. Falcon.

"Yes." Mrs. Warner checked her phone again. "Oh, drat! I'm absolutely too late, I think!"

At this point Mrs. Jones' melodious voice came in. "If we had only gotten this done earlier! I hate that we have inconvenienced you. Frankly, I don't know why this wasn't unpacked in the afternoon as I had planned. Someone phoned the moving company and using my name delayed the delivery. It was not done under my authorization, I assure you. Please, you must believe me when I say that I am terribly sorry, but—"

"And I'm terribly sorry, as well," said Mrs. Warner. "Now I am too late!" She charged out to where the workers had succeeded in putting the tent in.

The lady in the caftan followed. "But you see our predicament. We must begin setting out tables for this weekend party and the tent has to be there so—"

"Go on," said Mr. Falcon to the workmen. "I said go on and put it back in the truck."

"Stop!" shouted Mrs. Warner, wheeling in all directions.

The men threw up their hands.

"Go on," urged a frustrated Mr. Falcon.

"Don't move that tent one inch further. Pull it out again. That's right, you may take it out again," Mrs. Warner proclaimed.

"But your important appointment!" Mrs. Jones exclaimed.

"Too late," Mrs. Warner sighed.

"Don't say we have made you give up!" said Mr. Falcon.

"Regrettably," Mrs. Warner told Mr. Falcon. "I must be realistic. Some of my charitable actions are timed down to the millisecond. But I don't blame you."

"You are so kind," he said, "Do you think you can possibly attend tomorrow? We need more charitable people like you."

"I'm most intrigued. You see, I love late night parties with the best people. I find out so many interesting things. I do get a lot of little ideas. Creative endeavors...I'll do what I can to come."

Mrs. Jones swept toward Mrs. Warner. "I hope we see you tomorrow. To restore these missions—"

"Yes," Mrs. Warner cried. "I have such similar interests!" Then, pointing her sharp finger at Mr. Falcon, she said, "I have formed a great opinion of you both." A happier-than-usual Mrs. Warner returned to her Rolls.

"Back to the house, Forester," Mrs. Warner ordered as she dropped stiffly onto the car seat. "As soon as we get our little program against Mr. Davidson and Mr. Wilson completed, I must help these neighbors with their charitable enterprises. Perhaps someone or something is holding them back and I can be of service there. Also, I understand we were given a flyer announcing the arrival of this tent. I wonder why my little job tonight was set to start right as this tent was arriving. And when our job was delayed, someone also phoned to delay the arrival of the tent. Very suspicious! I wonder if we haven't attracted some person, some nemesis!"

"I certainly don't think I read such a flyer, madam," Forester lied quickly, "if that's what you're thinking."

"Perhaps not. It could be an innocent mistake."

"It is, madam. I assure you."

"It must never happen again, Forester."

"Very good, madam," said Forester, wondering wearily if their busy schedule of revenge plots could possibly accommodate another nemesis! Poor Mrs. Warner was finding enemies under every woodpile! And with every enemy she received another wound. But thankfully, for tonight, his phone call to the neighbor's party planners had delayed the tent and ended her mission against Mr. Davidson. That evening's plot against Mr. Davidson, that was. New plots came barreling out of her like a flash flood out of the mouth of an arroyo.

"Don't become dejected, Forester. Perhaps another night will be luckier for us with Davidson. And we'll make that Wilson character sing a different tune as soon as I get the information that I want. He knows a lot about the worst developers in this town. He's connected to very evil people. It's a group. Called the conquistadors."

"Madam, if I may interject, I believe that is a harmless group of real estate agents—"

"I don't want to hear about it, Forester. I'm very busy. I have a costume to prepare."

CHAPTER SIX

A golden platter of mini-chimis and red chile dip arrived on the arm of the waiter who wended his way among those grouped in the corner of the green and white striped tent. Mr. Falcon and his lady friend Mrs. Jones were hosting the picture-perfect tribute/fundraiser for the Sonoran mission chain to which Mrs. Warner had been invited the prior night when the tent's arrival blocked her exit from Escorpion Estates. In this corner near a large heater, some of the most exclusive people in The Old Pueblo huddled together, discussing their various interests. Mrs. Warner made certain she landed in their midst.

Though, was it actually Mrs. Warner? If Mrs. Warner had one startling weakness among her bevy of human frailties, it was the notion she had formed years earlier that she was a master of disguise. Having studied only a slim volume entitled Oldest and Best Kept Secrets of Stagecraft, written by a notorious French charlatan, she was certain she understood the production of a multitude of clever disguises. She had ordered an entire kit of numerous beards and wigs and spirit glues and fixatives. She had assembled an amazing amount of makeup: liquid, cake and bar. One closet in Villa Escorpion held women's dresses of many cultures and styles. She believed she could successfully disguise herself as a widowed pampas ranch wife, a Finnish schoolteacher and a retired German barmaid! Nothing could be further from the truth: her disguises were the most inexpert creations imaginable.

Anyone, even very young children who are often easily confused by costumes, could recognize Mrs. Warner as Mrs. Warner in one of her many getups. The shrunken nature of her face and her peculiar way of holding her hands in front of her like a T. Rex, even her silver and turquoise jewelry, had not been altered. And she made no attempt to disguise her raspy, croaking voice. The wigs were so obviously fake, being usually much too large for her or of extraordinary hues. She invariably attached the eyebrows incorrectly or failed to glue the brows on adequately. People examined her face with looks of startled confusion whenever she tried to fool them. Not that her normal face was much more attractive; many people were startled by that as well.

The Falcon party was just another instance of this terrible costume predilection. Upon arrival at Mr. Falcon's soiree, she had greeted her host and hostess, but soon thereafter she had disappeared into one of the mansion's many bathrooms. With Forester's help delivering a small sack of clothing, padding and a wig, she'd assumed her disguise. Then Forester waited outside the bathroom and received her original clothes in the bag he'd brought in. He took those clothes outside to the Rolls where he waited.

She had assumed a fairly simple disguise. She had replaced a short pink dress with a lime green pantsuit. In addition, she had padded her pantsuit in an outlandish fashion so that she sported an even larger than normal dowager's hump, and enormous breasts. Her wide Anne Wintour blonde hair had been replaced by a glossy, shoulder-length black bob. If her reason for assuming the disguise was that she feared attention (as she always claimed), the effect on people had been the opposite. In her costume, she was riveting. Many eyes couldn't stop staring at her and she was openly mocked. Mr. Falcon and Mrs. Jones nearly fell over laughing at her reappearance and they didn't know what to make of it. Oblivious of all this, Mrs. Warner in her weird disguise joined the group in the corner.

This intimate group of partygoers discussed the glamor and excitement of digging up the city's old presidio wall, while ignoring the real scalping, pestilence and filth endured by the stalwart residents of the city's buried presidio two centuries earlier. Among the group of boosters for this project, a certain Mr. Gutman suddenly blurted: "How long have pack rats been the bane of civilization out here? I think I've explained the demise of the Hohokam." Mrs. Warner had met Mr. Gutman prior to assuming her present disguise.

"Explained the what?" said a tall woman. She drank her mojito rapidly and chewed its sprig of mint proudly, rather like a goat.

"What did she say?" asked another thin blonde woman in a red blazer who was a prominent real estate agent.

"Explained the demise," roared a fat man, "Yes, yes, they disappeared, didn't they? A great mystery, my dear," he leaned down to his teeny wife. "He means to say that we can lay the blame for the disappearance of the Hohokam on the doormat, so to speak, or better yet, so to squeak!, of the lowly pack rat! How amusing! Lay the blame on the doormat! Pack rat! Get the joke, my dear? A pack rat laid on the doormat!" He dissolved in outlandish guffaws; laughter generally shared by the intimate crowd.

"Lay the blame on the doormat! I say, that's a scream," someone exclaimed.

"Very clever," added his wife, bowing slightly. "I don't know how you think of the funny things you say."

"Yes, it's such a mystery about the Hohokam disappearance. You think the pack rats ate up their grain?" asked the tall woman with the mojito.

"Or everything they owned, I should think," said Mr. Gutman. "Baskets, grain, leather. And then they started on their clothing."

Mrs. Warner's brain searched her mental files of prominent personages. She was certain this Gutman character was an important person to know if she wanted to discern the real power in the town. He was a wisp of a man, tall and shriveled with powdery brown stains around his eyes.

"Do you have a rat infestation?" asked Mrs. Warner greedily of Mr. Gutman. In areas around her sideburns her pancake makeup melted like butter on a hot waffle.

"Yes, in both my garages," answered Mr. Gutman in a guarded voice, his eyes searching for the explanation for why the face of the woman addressing him disintegrated, "I find they are destroying my car wiring and they have practically come to live with me in my garages. No keeping them out!"

"Dear, dear, that sounds horrible." Mrs. Warner, sensing his acquaintance might be useful to her, could not help but sound overly interested, and Mr. Gutman was glancing away.

"Are you thinking of extermination?" asked the thin real estate agent.

Mrs. Warner turned eagerly to hear the reply.

"Pardon me, but don't I know you?" asked a woman, coming up to Mrs. Warner's side and offering her hand. She was a severe woman dressed in cream mohair with a large dachshund brooch threatening her shoulder. Mrs. Warner recognized her as Mr. Gutman's wife. She had been introduced to the couple by Mr. Falcon.

A flustered Mrs. Warner spun around quickly. "Um, no, no. I haven't had the pleasure. I'm ... Henny...um...Henny Penny." Mrs. Warner grasped by the chortles around her that she had said something amusing. She quickly changed the last name. "Have you met someone called Henny Peony?"

"No," Mrs. Gutman shook her hand warily, "Mrs. Peony. I thought you said Henny Penny at first. That would have been a most ridiculous name."

"Oh, yes. That would have been. My bridge must be slipping. Dental work. It's a plague. I should have listened to Mother and brushed my teeth before bed." Mrs. Warner sucked her teeth.

"Surely, you... look so familiar. Didn't I meet you a few minutes ago?" asked Mr. Gutman, interrupting his description of pack rat extermination methods he had tried.

"I can't imagine what...are you thinking of someone in New York? I've done that myself," Mrs. Warner, or Henny Penny, or Henny Peony offered.

"Yes, me too," chimed in the large woman.

"No, it was here in the Old Pueblo," said Mrs. Gutman. "Let me think..."

Mrs. Warner felt herself sweating under her black wig and makeup. The Gutman's didn't realize they had met her as Mrs. Warner at this very party moments before! She supposed her disguise had worked, but perhaps not that well. Time for a departure. And here she was talking so merrily with the important Gutman characters!

"Excuse me a moment," Mrs. Warner muttered, turning tail and fleeing.

Sending black brainwaves toward Mrs. Gutman, Mrs. Warner's mind conjured diabolical, but completely impractical plans in which trebuchets hurled burning projectiles at her, a bear trap snapped her ankle as she stepped out of a vehicle, cannons fired continuously at the mansion windows, boiling oil cascaded down mountain highways directly to her backyard pool, and elaborate towers and battering rams simultaneously assaulted Casa Gutman, wherever it was, pulverizing it to smithereens. She hated it when people saw through her disguises.

She phoned Forester. "Be at the front entrance. Emergency departure due to costume failure and alias confusion!"

CHAPTER SEVEN

Mrs. Warner's foot in its bright pink, pointy-toed Franco Scarroni boot pawed the air where she expected the rocky path to be. Without her knowing it, she stood at the dangerous precipice above Arroyo Armejo, her scrawny body beginning to tilt.

Only at the last instant did she notice, through the thick gobs of mascara on her lashes, the lights of the town twinkling far below. This told her that something was terribly wrong. Unless it had been moved in the last twenty-four hours, the home of Mr. Bruce Wilson snuggled against the hillside. "Forester, where am I?" Mrs. Warner asked.

She didn't expect a response. She had distinctly heard Forester say that while he would carry the Arsenal Ear listening disk and accoutrements up the steep path to their spying spot, she would find a safer path if she turned left at the big patch of Santa Rita prickly pear cactus. And there ahead on the path was what certainly appeared to be a patch of dark cactus, but turning left led downhill into a small valley and the spot they had picked for spying was uphill. Forester was often an idiot, but after her own run-in a few months earlier with the ring-tailed cat, which had demolished her hair, and the month-old boulder mishap, she was becoming rather tired of calamities. She decided to follow his recommendation. She turned left, and almost immediately regretted it.

The path he'd sent her on declined for thirty feet to a sunken area where she encountered numerous thick rushes and thistle-like weeds. He had landed her in a muddy quagmire! It really was a swamp he was making her walk in, an enormous soggy puddle. The further she went, the deeper the mud got!

Soon her expensive boots were coated in goopy clay. An injury of her left leg during the boulder ride didn't help; she had a great deal of difficulty picking her leg up each time she tried to go forward through the mucky glop.

Finally, following a row of towering saguaros up a hill, she found herself looking at the mansion again.

She stopped in her tracks. The silhouette of Forester could be seen above her holding the disk. Gathering her strength, she flung herself up a muddy embankment, stabbing her heels wildly into the soft earth in order to maintain forward motion. Swaying wildly at the top of the slope, she turned toward the mansion and collapsed on a convenient rock seat. "Ouff," she said when her thin bottom landed on the lump of unpadded limestone.

"Forester, you daft oaf, did you know that path you picked led into the most god-forsaken morass?" asked Mrs. Warner. "Some reconnaissance work!"

"What was that, madam?" replied Forester.

"The way down there was nothing but mud!" Mrs. Warner tried to knock the caked earth off her precious vintage boots.

"I assure you, madam, when I checked it last night it was dry as ever could be."

"Well, something obviously happened in the meanwhile," she retorted, "I have never walked through such goop. The mud on these boots of mine must weight twenty pounds. Give me the damn disk. I think your mind is somewhere else these days."

"Very well, madam."

Mrs. Warner sat with the headphones on her ears and a frown on her face. She listened and selected record on the phone app that controlled the Arsenal Ear. "One of the most evil people! Wants to chop up the desert. A Mr. Feen. Where have I heard of that man? Yes, he was the instigator of some evil. I don't remember what it was. If I find out about Feen, I will know where to go next." She listened with the disk for another half hour. Her mind began to recall names from the society pages of the Arizona Times. "I know that name. I'm really on to something here. These people know people, big developers and brokers, and they are irritating half-wits." Mrs. Warner had been waiting for many years to find a way to know the most evil people in town. She believed it was quite possible that these Feen people were very, very significant. The name of someone or a group who was powerful. Of course, not well known by Mrs. Warner who was really only beginning to understand the relationships between the best, richest, most evil people. Yes, this Wilson fellow knew people. Wilson appeared to have found favor with this man Feen almost the instant he arrived in the Old Pueblo! They had made plans to dine together! He might even know Mr. Davidson, the banker she'd tried to drop the boulder on, who was the most prominent member of the town's most exclusive clubs and, of course, completely evil. It was a fabulous find she had blundered into, all because she had tried to get information on these shady Wilson people!

She rose to her feet, jammed the headphones into their case and latched the lid with a loop of wire still hanging out. After handing the mutilated box to Forester and indicating that he should take the disc to the trunk of the Rolls, she began marching down the hill, pink boots moving faster and faster.

Forester followed more slowly, the big disc in front of him and the case tucked under one arm.

"I thought I never would find the source of evil power in the Old Pueblo, Forester. It seems I have the answer now, and the name might be Feen. I might have found the gentleman behind so much that is wrong in Arizona and Mexico. Feen might just be a really nefarious man. And I know a Mr. Kevin White is another terrible person. And there is that group of people in red jackets. They are apparently some organization dedicated to doing evil."

"Madam, if I may interject again, I believe those people in red jackets are real estate agents. A red jacket is received when a certain dollar threshold of real estate contracts close," said Forester, struggling mightily with the case and disc.

"Nonsense. I like it when you're looking on the bright side, Forester, but you're very innocent. Those red jacketed people have some evil intent. By thwarting them we may be doing some real good for the town. I can see things shaping up our way, though. This might be a most successful spring and I wonder if..."

Mrs. Warner woke from her enchanting reverie to discover that Forester wasn't behind her anymore and she wasn't heading for her car. Excited by what she'd heard, she'd blundered off the path which she'd taken to her spying spot.

Mrs. Warner wheeled back in the direction she'd come.

"Wrong. Wrong trail. I need to be careful back here," she advised herself. "My heels are not on solid... there seems to be quite a number of ground squirrel holes everywhere. Pesky rats. Or are they snake entrances in the rock? I'm on that cursed ledge again."

Mrs. Warner peered at her feet. What she looked down at—the black splotches surrounding her on the bedrock shelf—were grinding holes. Hohokam women, wintering for centuries in the Catalina canyons and foothill slopes, had carried their baskets full of mesquite beans and their pestles to this outcrop for a community grind-along. "Holes," said Mrs. Warner, "Everywhere. Forester," she called quietly, "the hillside is perforated like Swiss..."

Before Mrs. Warner could say 'cheese,' her right foot slipped down into one of the ancient mortar holes. Cold rainwater splashed out as her boot slipped in.

What very bad luck she had there, for her foot had dropped into a hole with an entrance just wide enough, with the force of gravity behind it, to let her pink booted foot in. But not out. And when her foot dropped into the hole, she dropped her phone. Out of reach.

Her skinny knee wrenched upward, trying to pull her boot free. Nothing happened.

She barred her teeth and attempted to jerk her boot. Again, the boot didn't budge.

"Ack," she said, "Lord! Forester, you are needed here to remove me from a hole!"

She looked around for his dark figure. Nothing.

"Forester, I need you! Come here, you enlarged specimen of inarticulate and inept manhood!"

Forester did not appear. She strained forward toward her cell phone, groaning. Then, making an extreme effort, Mrs. Warner heaved mightily. Her foot shot out of the boot, sending her sprawling backwards and jamming her arm as she fell against the ledge.

From her supine position on the soggy slope, Mrs. Warner moaned softly. She raised herself on her good elbow and rubbed her sore wrist.

"Ah, now I can get the boot," said Mrs. Warner, always one to look at the bright side of a bad situation.

She crawled back to the hole and grappled the trapped boot.

"If I bend it this way..." she began.

"Now, if I turn it and pull...have I done something to my wrist?"

And again: "Surely, if the toe goes down, then there will be room..."

"Maybe I can bend it... the leather is pliable enough...in the way it needs to go..."

But no matter how she turned it or twisted it or squashed it, the valuable boot remained firmly wedged.

She didn't dare holler again, so she walked away from the hole a few feet, picked up the phone, dialed Forester and spoke loudly.

"Forester, come here right away! I have a shoe emergency!" She peered down in the direction of the street for any sign of his helpful bulk.

"Yes, madam," he replied. She could see him getting out of the Rolls.

"Forester, you must come up here quickly."

Finally, Mrs. Warner stared at the trapped boot in resignation.

"My favorite," she sighed, struggling to her feet, "Eight-hundred dollars of the finest Italian leather. Franco Scarroni. Forester is coming back to retrieve you," she promised the boot.

More tight-lipped than usual, she limped away. Unfortunately, in the darkness, she headed straight for the frail, green superstructure of a chain cholla cactus. At the last minute, she swerved, but her wide blonde hairdo brushed a single green finger of cholla, detaching a segment of cactus, which dangled at the back of her neck by a few strands of bleached blonde hair. Down the hill Mrs. Warner inched, the segment of cactus swinging happily from her hairdo, her favorite boot on one foot, its mate stuck forlornly in the grinding hole.

"Mustn't tread on any cactus in the dark," she reminded herself as she walked.

"Take heed here," she said upon entering a particularly dark patch.

Down, down, down the hill to her Rolls waiting at the curb of the cul-de-sac, she minced. With nylons only protecting her unshod foot, she squelched cold mud and endured the sharp prick of the hill's rocky surface.

"Almost there," she said, urging herself on.

When at length she could see the slab sides of her Rolls and Forester climbing toward her, she crowed: "I escaped the worst!"

"Very good, ma'am."

"Go up the hill to some holes on the rock ledge and see if you can get my boot out!"

"Right away!" Forester rushed past her and up the hill.

"I am intact," she promised.

But this favorable slant on the evening was a bit premature.

Several years earlier, a foraging pack rat had discovered curious little seeds, rough white seeds like miniature cat's tongues, in a floral display on the patio of a mansion, and on the way to her nest, this rat mislaid one of the seeds on the ground where Mrs. Warner headed. The funny seed sprouted and, over the years, a pretty little hillside of pumpkin-like plants resulted. Each summer the white flowers appeared and afterwards, the fuzzy green fruit, ripening in the autumn, split open to reveal peculiar black pods, hellish things, known as Devil's Claws.

Hundreds of the pronged pods stretched upward, ready to snag the unwary walker, whose name, that night, was Mrs. Warner.

Her thin, ugly foot, protected only by nylon fabric, stomped directly on one of them.

"Arrrggg!" she yelped when the two needle-sharp tips, after a million years of evolution, flexed as intended for grabbing a desert bighorn sheep's hoof, and closed instead on Mrs. Warner's bony extremity. The claws ripped the soft flesh of both sides of her ankle and an instant later the sole of her foot land on the sharp barbs of the claw's central rib.

"Gwack!" she cried.

With every movement an excruciating pain shot up her leg; the sharp black claw bit harder. She winced and put her hand on the claw and as she did so her fingers touched the sharp central spine.

"Ugh!" she exclaimed while trying to tear the thing away from her shredding nylons. "Damn!"

She floundered and reeled about. In a reflex action and for more support, she stomped her foot down.

Mrs. Warner suffered, a millimeter away from the last wound, the painful rake of two more sharp tips on her ankle's flesh. The injured foot had found another claw. "Oh! Now what?"

She hopped forward throwing her foot around frantically and stepping down again on a third claw. "Oh, biddle boddle!" She fought to tear the claws off the foot of her nylon. "Oh ouch, oh! Devil's Claw! Who planted these here?"

Before she made it to the smooth sidewalk, and the Rolls, an agonized Mrs. Warner collected two more claws on her foot. Just then, Forester arrived with the mangled Scarroni boot. Repairing it might be impossible! And in all the exertion the piece of cholla cactus hanging in her hair fell into the gap at the back of her vintage dress, a genuine Barfacio Bellasamio creation, circa 1972.

She discovered the cholla piece when she leaned back in her car seat.

"What was that?" exclaimed Mr. Bruce Wilson from the kitchen sink when he heard Mrs. Warner's scream. "I heard a yowling sound outside. Just beyond the pool."

He hurried to a narrow window and twiddled a blind control rod ineffectively.

"Oh God," exclaimed his girlfriend, sliding off her bar stool. "I know what it is! It's a mountain lion! I saw a story about it on the news last night. They're coming down from the mountains because of climate change. Bruce, cuddle me!" she demanded, her arms outstretched toward him. "Do you think we ought to fly back to New York!"

CHAPTER EIGHT

Mother Maud's wheelchair had been parked on the rear terrace of Villa Escorpion in the foothills above The Old Pueblo. From the terrace, Mother Maud had a close-up view of the rocky crags and the cactus covered slope of a hillock in February. Sun streamed over the needles on the cacti creating a plush, haloed look to the nearest slope and to a series of hills stretching as far as the eye could see toward the east.

Occasionally, at the edge of the terrace, a brown thrasher with crazed yellow eyes popped to the ground from a cactus near her and dug furiously, throwing dirt and dropped cactus pieces from side to side in a relentless search for tasty bugs. "Remorseless war," commented the dotard from her wheelchair suddenly. She managed a sly smile at the bird.

"Goody-goody," said Mrs. Warner, half-heartedly. She slurped a beige liquid, Cowhand's Herbal Bundle, and then cast a sad look out across the flagstones in the direction of the glowing dawn, which warmed a big barrel cactus and a sharp boulder with reddish streaks and spotty lichen growth near its crevices. "If anyone deserves it, mother, it's them." She let out a great sigh.

Her mind churned with theories about her position now, the danger of Davidson, Wilson, Feen and White. What if they discovered that she was on their tail? How could she manage to get them to stop their evil plans? What could she do that would drive them out of The Old Pueblo? Mrs. Warner's mind was full of plans, but no confidence. She'd lost her pluck. All her spoiled plots and injuries had dampened her enthusiasm for her important missions.

"Vilified and stamped out upon the plains of Babylon," Mother Maud proclaimed suddenly.

"I don't feel much like stamping this morning," muttered Mrs. Warner. She touched her bandaged ankle. Following a day of rest and recuperation, she still wasn't herself. Two nights prior when she'd arrived at Villa Escorpion after her disastrous spying venture behind Bruce Wilson's mansion, Mrs. Warner had ordered her mother's nurse to snip the thorns from the cholla cactus segment so that it could be lifted from her spine. After the cactus piece was off, the nurse had plucked the big barbs from Mrs. Warner's skin with tweezers and then used a magnifying glass and tweezers to find the minute, glochid prickles. Afterwards, she'd swabbed the painful spot with stinging iodine and bandaged Mrs. Warner's angry-looking ankle wounds. Mrs. Warner had visited her doctor very early the next morning to have her severely sprained right wrist wrapped. The other arm was still in a cast.

"A dry well," Mrs. Warner sighed. "It might be," she added bitterly and sipped more of her tea.

"Despoil the body," chirped the older crone.

"I'll give it my best," answered her daughter automatically, but without much enthusiasm.

"Food for cats, wildcats of the desert hills. Their claws shall rake the remains and defecate on the skeletons," the old invalid said with a lyrical lilt.

Somewhere in the back of Mrs. Warner's gruesome eyes, heavily curtained with mascara, a flickering gleam appeared. "Mother, I love it when you're picaresque," Mrs. Warner shook her head to clear her doubts as she put her cup down. "But let me push you back inside. I'm meeting Mrs. X at the spa."

"A carnival of murder and plunder!"

Mrs. Warner took hold of her mother's wheelchair and propelled her toward the house. "Where there's life, there's hope," replied Mrs. Warner. "But not tonight. Your little girl is too tired tonight. Going to stay home and do some late-night planning after the spa day. I need to gather my inspirations."

"Cut them down and waste them like the dogs they are," Mother Maud cried emphatically.

For a moment, Mrs. Warner's solemn expression didn't register what her mother had said. Then she started and brightened considerably. "Dogs? Shall we focus on dogs? I believe Mr. Wilson has several poodles. He brought them with him from New York. But with the coyotes he keeps them inside."

"Coyotes eat their hides," said Mother Maud happily.

"Certainly, they do. They eat the little doggies with scandalous and disgusting regularity...Perhaps we can help them to eat more! Is that what you had in mind? Let some doggies out accidently? Or release the coyotes inside? How terrible though! A pack of coyotes loosed into his home! Mother, your thinking is...! You give me so many ideas, and so much enthusiasm! And coyotes need to eat too. But ...no...on second thought I'd never hurt a poor innocent animal. That's a path to moral bankruptcy." She gave her mother a kiss on her head, and humming a tune, pushed her mother's wheelchair toward the hospital-like bedroom.

After depositing Mother Maud with Yaretzi, Mrs. Warner creaked along a dark passage and into the spacious foyer with its water fountain wall and giant potted pothos. "A carnival, hmmm," she chortled as she went out. She stopped at a console and collected her cell phone. She spoke into the phone, recording the carnival plot idea as a reminder for later. "Must look into carnivals. Has potential for something."

"Wonderful, absolutely wonderful," she said, saving her message. "Mother, you're a genius!"

Pulling open the front door and passing across the threshold, Mrs. Warner speared the welcome mat with the heels of black Henry Jumble boots, fumbled behind her for the knob, and lugged shut the enormous copper-patinaed front door of Villa Escorpion.

She crossed her biggest flagstone terrace. A landscape architect who had been deciding the placement and color of an immense concrete pot ducked behind a jojoba bush, keeping his eyes fearfully on her shriveled figure while he fled through an open gate. Forester hunched over and scuttled around the back of her Rolls and into the garage; he didn't want to remind her that he'd taken a day off after the late night of espionage. And at the edge of the terrace, the gardener named Manuel, knowing that a list of Arizona's cuddliest creatures ought to end with tarantulas, Gila Monsters and Mrs. Warner, tossed aside his shovel and sprinted down the hill nearly colliding with the sharp spear of an agave rather than encounter her.

Unaware of her employees darting this way and that toward hiding spots in the cactus-clad landscape, Mrs. Warner stood at the edge of the terrace and surveyed her property, her 49 near-vertical acres, which were covered with an impressive stand of mature saguaros. The most fashionable canyon, the largest property, the tallest mansion, the whole of Villa Escorpion's concrete stolidity vaguely vexed her thin cranberry-colored lips.

"No one working," she grumbled, ticking off a list of complaints, "A gate is swinging wide open. A new shovel has been abandoned on the ground. The light is on in the garage and the garage door is left up. A dozen pack rats could have waltzed in and started nibbling the wiring of my Jag and my spare Rolls again. My employees take advantage of my generosity. I'll have words with them when I get back." She drew a scarf securely beneath her chin as she continued on, making her way more slowly down the sweeping steps to her cobblestoned drive.

When at last she reached the cobblestones, with her gloomy mansion looming above her, she scooted across the drive and slithered behind the wheel of her polished Rolls. Away the Rolls rolled down a private stretch of road, through her gates and finally through the outer gates of Escorpion Estates.

Through a dense forest of gangling saguaros, on a twisting stretch of road, she crawled the Corniche. Guiding her car up Puerto Lobos Hill, Mrs. Warner barely flinched as a sleek Mercedes rocketed past and disappeared over the next summit, pell-mell, shedding altitude faster than a roadrunner of roller blades. With the craggy gray forerange of the Catalina Mountains as her back drop, she rolled past more Goliath green cacti, which, to Mrs. Warner, suggested only a dumb surrendering army.

She crept her car over the last hill and up the long drive of Dorado Resort, the exclusive complex that melded into the mountainside among the canyon mansions above the Old Pueblo.

Upon hearing an approaching vehicle, the attendant in the club's gatehouse bounded out of the door, eager to meet the arriving guest, ready with his cheerful greeting and a smile sent beaming down the long, cactus-lined drive. However as soon as he spied the irascible Mrs. Warner and her notorious dark blue Rolls-Royce Corniche creeping toward him, the poor boy dove for cover. Desperate to stop her from smashing the wooden barrier to bits, he remembered before he bobbed down below the kiosk window to punch the button that raised the barrier. When he took the job at the resort earlier that month, he'd expected to meet some brusque dentists, or gruff stock brokers, who had overslept past their tee-off time, but he never, never had imagined he would have to deal with anyone as dedicated to being grossly offensive as Mrs. Warner; she made his life a misery. True to form that morning, her Rolls swept past the booth and as it moseyed under the slowly rising barrier, missing it by the barest margin, the prominent socialite turned her head to glare at the empty guardhouse. "Guard missing! Again!"

Near the top of the drive, and beyond the resort's lush eighteenth green, she veered the Rolls toward the valet parking, thumping her car energetically over the yellow speed bumps, and mangling with her large bumper the bedraggled silvery foliage of an overhanging hedge of desert marigolds. Another of her favorite valets, Raul, smiled wanly at the sight of her. She stopped the Rolls and struggled to get out. As she handed him her keys, she muttered some incoherent English gibberish at him and handed him twenty dollars, which he greatly appreciated.

Ten minutes later, dressed in a spa robe and slippers, Mrs. Warner entered the trendy inner sanctum of the Mujer Dorada Spa Tearoom.

"This is MY table," Mrs. Warner announced to a pair of women who had inadvertently seated themselves at the table that Mrs. Warner believed she owned.

"Excuse me?" said one of them timidly. "We don't understand." They both stared at the horrifying visage speaking to them. Mrs. Warner's face had not yet healed from the scratches and bruises. Her jaw jutted forward like a pike's. Her mascara was matted and each cheek had an outlandish swipe of bright pink rouge applied to the hollow. The broken arm and bandaged wrist added to the overall effect of a monstrous broken doll.

"I always sit at this table and there has never been a mistake about it. There will be no mistake." Mrs. Warner clicked her fingers and a waitress hurried over. The nervous employee explained that the ladies must have overlooked the tipped over 'reserved' sign.

The frightened pair scrambled away to another table under Mrs. Warner's brutal gaze. The scene elicited an immediate, shocked silence from the other patrons who had been enjoying the tearoom's panoramic view of the muted green, saguaro-studded desert and the winsome, piped-in Peruvian flute music Mystic Mountain Morn.

Mrs. Warner lowered herself into one of the small black chairs at the table. She ordered a pot of tea for herself and her guest.

"Hello, Mrs. Warner," whispered a petite woman who had eyes like a deer mouse and who scuttled in and leaned over the polished surface of the small ebony table that Mrs. Warner occupied. "I have the info. All of it!" She practically squealed in delight. "I found it out for you in the most devious manner."

"Oh, there you are, Mrs. X," Mrs. Warner replied. "Sit down and don't say anything about it until we get served. I ordered a pot of Magic Desert Bloom for us to share. Someone was trying to take my table. Part of an overall trend in bad behavior." Mrs. Warner squinted at the table where the two ladies had retreated.

Mrs. X sucked in her breath. "How's that?"

"We have been taken over by the most appalling sort of snow birds. They are running us into the ground," Mrs. Warner declared.

"Oh," said the little lady significantly, "those awful people. I do not cater to them. When they try to throw their weight around in my dress shop, I show them the door. Well. I have my shop girls do the actual expulsion. Eastern money doesn't mean I have to bow and scrape."

"Very correct."

Moments later, the clear pot of tea with its blooming cactus flower and something resembling a matted bird nest landed in front of Mrs. Warner. Their two cups were also clear and shaped like tall tulips. Mrs. Warner inspected the hot water, grunting when it had obtained a faint gray tinge, and then attempted to pour, but with her sprained wrist and broken arm, Mrs. X immediately took charge. "Let me! Whatever happened to your arm and your wrist?" inquired the teeny, nervous woman.

"I was involved in a little espionage of my own against our friend Wilson last night."

"Heavens!" The little lady put her hand to her mouth. "Did he," the little woman touched Mrs. Warner's cast gently and spoke sotto voce, "do that to you?"

"Yes. Indirectly."

"Wilson? Or one of his group?" Mrs. X slurped her gray tea slightly and grimaced at the weird flavor of some poor bird's attempt at home construction.

"Exactly." Mrs. Warner sipped her tea. "This is said to heal bones."

"I already feel better. Thank you for ordering it. But, about this Wilson group, are these dangerous people?" asked the teeny women with real concern in her quavering voice. Her eyes rolled around the spa restaurant.

"Most dangerous," replied Mrs. Warner, leaving a vague impression of sinister adventures as she said: "but secretive. One does not have to see who hit them with a tire iron in order to cast blame." Mrs. Warner winked knowingly. Her matted mascara glued the winking eye shut until she fluttered it compulsively and finally yanked the skin at the edge of her eye with a bony finger.

Mrs. X sputtered while sipping her tea and gasped when she swallowed. "A tire iron! Can you imagine it! Bravery is your middle name, Mrs. Warner. You absolutely are the strongest, most determined woman I know!"

"Something like that," said Mrs. Warner in pleased humility. "I do try. I find my mother is my greatest inspiration. She is a well-spring of ideas. I don't know what I'd do without her."

"Mother Maud is a marvel. I simply can't imagine it, though," said the little lady shaking her small head of dyed red hair. "The risks you are taking. I couldn't do what you're doing."

"Imagine it. And worse." Mrs. Warner was triumphant. One of the resort employees walked toward them with two shiny aluminum space slankets draped over her arm. "But drink up. It looks like our spa cave is ready."

"Of course," Mrs. Warner's little companion squeaked.

The woman spa employee ushered them toward the entrance to an artificially created cave environment. "Ladies, please step in. For your Deluxe Spa Cave Encounter we need you in these space slankets. You can hang your spa robes on the hooks at the side of your therapy table. Have you done The Cave Wrap before?"

"Many times," said Mrs. Warner.

"Not me!" squeaked Mrs. X eagerly.

First, their legs were rubbed thoroughly with jojoba oil and chili peppers and herbs. Mrs. Warner grimaced horribly at the effect when some landed in the fresh wounds on her ankles from the Devil's Claw two days before.

"I feel like a Thanksgiving turkey," Mrs. X commented. "You aren't going to cook me, are you?" she asked the attendant.

"No, you'll feel only a little heat, but your skin will improve elasticity. Noticeably."

Mrs. Warner actually laughed, a sound which frightened the spa employee. Then each leg was tightly wrapped in cling wrap.

"Now we're leftovers!" exclaimed Mrs. X.

Their feet were thrust into sacks filled with aloe gelatin and acidic volcanic mud from the lower depths of the Grand Canyon. The spa employees helped situate them on their stomachs and several hot magnetic rocks were strategically placed on their upper backs by two employees who manipulated each muscle and vertebra. Flute music wafted from unseen speakers in the false cave ceiling and they were left alone in semi-darkness with a diffusor scenting the room with Heavenly Hopi Cedar Balm.

"And so," began the little old bird conspiratorially when the spa employees left them, "You want to know all about the Feen wealth, do you?"

"Yes. That's right."

"They are from Chicago. I found that out for you. They come to the Old Pueblo every winter to throw their weight around."

"Just what I surmised. Mobsters?" Mrs. Warner asked.

"They are good friends to mobsters," Mrs. X replied.

"But I believe I told you that."

"But now I have confirmed it. And do you want to know more about them?"

"Yes, yes, what else do you know?" Mrs. Warner frowned.

"They are friends of members of the Candeloni and Cortez Mob and they have a new passion: to dedicate themselves to murder! They know people in Idaho."

"What are these murders? Don't you mean Mexico?"

"Exactly, a three-hundred-year-old chain of unsolved murders. Very historic. And they're starting a new killing spree. They've just begun!"

"Where?"

"It is a city called El Guebobavi. This is where they are centered in Mexico. It is the agave region where tequila is produced. They plan to murder there. It is connected to the Old Pueblo, but besides the Feen fellow, I don't know the other connection. Some family, perhaps?"

"Do you know anything about this place? In Old Mexico?"

"Know about it!" crowed the little old lady excitedly. "Why I'm working on getting you enough information to destroy the power center there! If you chose to do so."

"Excellent," replied Mrs. Warner. "I had planned a mortar attack on a certain yacht in the harbor of Guaymas. I'm itching to get going on that plot."

"Yes? I'll soon know everything you'll need to know and perhaps you can combine the two missions."

Mrs. Warner pressed her lips together. "My thinking exactly. I hate to leave mother, but the current nurses are excellent. Forester will come with me, which will help me immensely. But how can I—"

"Yes?"

"Ever hope to infiltrate their ranks."

"I have found out. Can you pretend to be a lover of Spanish Colonial Architecture?"

"Yes."

"And amateur opera... if necessary?" asked Mrs. X in a tremulous voice.

"Why not?" replied Mrs. Warner gamely.

"You're very brave indeed," the little dress shop owner replied. With her eager deer mouse eyes, she venerated Elditha P. Warner, drinking in her resolve, for in her estimation amateur opera was almost a bridge too far.

CHAPTER NINE

That evening Mrs. Warner retired early to let the spa day work its wonderful magic on her many painful wounds. By later that night, she already found her mood improving, and her wrist could close cabinets and twist doorknobs again.

Forester for his part had finally used his day-off wisely.

He'd found the house he'd sought in a corner of a dusty lot in a ratty part of the Old Pueblo. Forester stalked around the back wall of the property, squeezing past the abandoned frames of an evaporative cooler and standing on a rusting box to see over the wall.

Forester scanned the yard. A filthy piebald pit bull slept in the ruined yard. Near the dog, there was a weight-lifting center with a White Power Skull and a Waffen SS insignia pasted on the sides. Strips of sharp metal were half-buried in the yard. Barrels with floating garbage decorated the shade of the house. Shattered bottles were scattered on the dirt almost the way others would have spread gravel, and cups from fast food restaurants had collected on the chicken wire fence. Gunshot holes decorated the side of the shed. Everywhere there were death head figures on grim half-burned candles and plastic ornaments. Pieces of plywood had been stapled to the windows of the house; a few daubs of paint clung to them. A bong and a scale sat on the table on the porch. Drug paraphernalia was visible on the windowsill of the kitchen. The trucks parked on the side of the house were filthy things with the side windows smashed out and the headliners falling into the driver's line of vision.

In the middle of the horrid yard on a saggy cardboard box there sat a small girl, about four years old. She colored in the bright desert sun and hummed to herself. She wore a plaid navy-blue skirt, a small navy-blue sweater and shiny black shoes with pink socks. She was about as out of place in that yard of horror as a javelina at a square dance.

"How do I spell my name?" called the little girl.

Only the wind in a nearby tamarisk tree answered with a vague sough.

"Kevin! How do I spell it?" she called again loudly.

This time the pit bull whimpered. The swing set creaked in the breeze.

"Kevin! My name!"

She sat there stumped in the afternoon winter sun with her head in her hand, looking at her paper forlornly.

"D," called Forester from behind the wall.

The girl frowned at the filthy pit bull. "You never talked to me before," she said accusingly.

"E," added Forester.

"D and then E?" She took up her crayon and wrote a big D and then an E.

"B."

"B?" she asked.

"B and then R."

"R next?"

"A."

"And an A?"

"That's Debra. Debra come here," Forester called. "Here," he said frantically, "to the back wall! Quickly! Come back here."

"Who's there?" the small girl asked. She looked at the pit bull. "You aren't the one talking." The pit bull rolled on its side and snorted.

Debra looked around. At the shed. And the gate. And the back wall.

"Debra, get yourself in here!" screamed Kevin suddenly from the backdoor. He was large and covered with tattoos.

"Okay, Kevin," Debra threw down her crayon, and then picked it up again with the picture. "Does mommy want me?"

"Don't you be asking if your mommy wants you. You just better be doing what I say!"

Debra glanced back once at the part of the wall where she knew the voice had spelled her name. But there was no one there.

CHAPTER TEN

Everywhere under the great dome of San Xavier Mission rows of blazing votive candles flickered and guttered in colored glass so that Scarpia's apartment shivered, fuliginous and sultry. The small audience and a very large camera, videotaping the dress rehearsal for a public television broadcast, followed the movements of Floria Tosca as she lurched across the transept in the last, highly dramatic and nearly wordless moments of the second act of Puccini's masterpiece.

"Cut!" screamed Mildred Monica Carpenter. "Again! Do it again." She looked down at a page in a large black loose-leaf notebook and jotted something. Her black half-glasses slipped forward on her nose as she wrote. She couldn't seem to find a comfortable spot on her stool.

"Two weeks from this Friday I'll be here again," whispered someone behind and to the right of Mrs. Elditha P. Warner and her mother, "for the Livestock Association Meet and Greet. It's going to be held in the side garden outside the gift shop."

At the front of the church, Tosca made her slow lurch for a second time. The camera panned to follow her faltering steps. Mrs. Carpenter screamed, "Stop! Now action from Scarpia," she ordered. "Henry, back in your spot. Where is he?" Henry stumbled down from the roped-off staircase with the prop knife protruding from his chest. As he returned to the spot of his murder, a makeup artist scampered to his side and dabbed blood splatters on both cheeks. "Down, Henry," said Mrs. Carpenter, indicating his spot.

Mrs. Carpenter examined him. "More blood on his face!" she shouted.

The actor moaned: "Oh, I'll have to work so hard to get this off my skin."

"Don't you mean the garden at the north?" someone in the same pew whispered back about the Livestock Meet and Greet. "Several members are really prominent, too. I mean you told me about them once, didn't you?"

"At the east. Do you think you can come?" the first someone asked.

"I don't know."

Statues of saints and angels peered from crevices and corners, their wooden eyes trained on the awful corpse of Scarpia, which sprawled on the floor with the knife still protruding from his chest. A makeup artist dribbled more fake blood around his cheeks. The video camera zoomed in on the corpse and a photographer took a publicity photo.

"Okay!" called Mrs. Carpenter loudly. Next, she shot video of a blood-splattered and wild-eyed Tosca sprawled against the table where candelabrum and a water bottle stood. The cameraman swung around. "Move, move slowly, slowly. Creep your hand toward the bottle. Creep it, creep it. Good. We'll use that. But again." The actress repeated the creeping movement. "Are we getting the candles?"

"We are," said the cameraman.

"Again!"

The second person in the pew behind Mrs. Warner responded: "I want to come, but I only know of them. I don't actually know any of them personally."

"It won't matter. Come anyway."

Mrs. Warner, sitting stiffly in her pew, allowed a small smile to play at the corners of her mouth. What she was hearing was valuable. It was all good information, very useful. But what was this Livestock Owners Association? How did Davidson, Feen, Wilson and White relate to the Livestock Owners... or did they? Was this another group of ne'er-do-wells?

"So, about the Livestock event, do I need an invite?" asked the person behind Mrs. Warner.

"No."

"The whole thing is too drawn out," someone in the pew in front of Mrs. Warner commented, criticizing the amateur opera.

"Shhh," said Mrs. Warner, leaning forward and delivering an imposing frown at the whispering onlookers on the wooden benches in front of her. If they continued commenting on the opera, she wouldn't be able to hear the people behind her talking about this horrible Livestock Meet and Greet! "Excuse me, but my mother is trying to enjoy the murder!" Mrs. Warner snarled. After a momentary glare, she slid back in her seat and plumped the pillows at either side of her mother. She swiveled her head around and looked at the pews at the very back of the cathedral. Forester's huge handlebar moustache twitched at the back pew. She gave him a slight wave.

But it was all too, too wonderful!

"Now the napkin. Sop up the water," said Mrs. Carpenter to the actress playing Tosca.

"Like this?"

"Yes, exactly." And then to the prop man: "Get her another. That's it. No, your wrist is wrong now. You did it like this the first time." Mrs. Carpenter sopped the water. "Another take!"

Using a large white dinner napkin, she sopped the water onto the fabric.

"Make it look very disjointed. Good. Now, we'll pan up and you wash his blood from your fingers...do those...good...your neck...and now up to her face. Excellent. I want your face more dramatic. Pull down to your neck. The angle will be here. No, I wanted to change it. Where are my notes?" Mrs. Carpenter clicked her fingers. She said: "Read me my notes."

Her assistant huddled near her and whispered.

"What we have is perfect. Now, steps. Trembling steps. Desperate steps must carry you to that mirror. As we rehearsed."

The actress prepared to repeat her steps and the people behind Mrs. Warner began chatting again.

"I don't need an invitation?"

"No, you may not need one. They thought there would be marchers, bloody body parts, and they wanted to control who could come, but now it seems the protest is drying up."

"A protest?"

"It's all because of the stupid quote that went out."

"What do you mean?"

"The head of the Livestock Association said that penning pregnant cows didn't hurt them. It blew up in the press."

Mrs. Warner's face, one row in front, hardened, then smiled. This Livestock Association reckoned that penning pregnant cows was fine? Now the protest wasn't happening? Maybe she could arrange something to wake them up! Yes, maybe she could...

"Oh, I didn't hear about that. How did I miss that?" continued the voice behind.

"Caused quite a ruckus among the animal lover crowd, you know. PERA? Was going to be a big protest out here, people flying in, the whole shebang, but I think it's off for now."

"Oh, they're idiots. They all love their hamburgers."

"Well, not all. Some of them aren't hypocrites, but I agree that it is stupid to protest."

Body parts! She must remember that! To really hurt these hideous slaughterhouse supporters all she would have to do was arrange for some flying body parts! Perhaps to impact near their party. She would have to get her new assistant, the stringy-haired, gap-toothed man working on that idea right away!

"So, anyway," began the people behind her, "the Meet and Greet of the Livestock Association is two weeks from this Saturday and there are some really important people coming, so you might want to be there if you want to meet some influential people of Southern Arizona."

"Oh, I think I'll come. Thanks for letting me know. But who are these Livestock people," asked the other voice.

"Just about the most important group in the region, that's all. Oh, she starting."

The actress took her halting steps to the mirror.

"Yes! Wide eyes. Widen those eyes! Can't you get those eyes wider! Terror-filed eyes. Now, brush back the hair. Cut! Another shot. Straighten your dress. Like this. I always did it like this." Mrs. Carpenter illustrated the effect she wanted, a sort of waddling wiggle.

The singer imitated her.

"Very good," Mrs. Carpenter praised her. "Very like me. I think I'm seeing myself."

"I think that looks silly," the person in front whispered again.

"Shhh," said Mrs. Warner, leaning forward. "Why can't we enjoy this murder in silence!" She held up her hand to signal a demand for silence. When she sat back a large smile played on her thin lips. She rejoiced at the words of the people behind her. They were giving her really good ideas!

It had been quite a struggle to murder Scarpia. Too much, everyone agreed. The way Mrs. Carpenter staged it the whole thing looked as though Scarpia killed himself! The knife movements were all wrong and Scarpia appeared to be lunging for the knife instead of the knife coming at him!

The final scene of Act Two continued.

Staggering about again, Tosca reached Scarpia's desk.

"Feverish," said Mrs. Carpenter.

"Like this?" asked the actress.

"More feverish. Remember the rehearsal. You're losing it completely. A nutcase. Nothing's going your way," said Mrs. Carpenter.

"She looks stupid," muttered another person in the same pew as Mrs. Warner.

"Quiet!" said Mrs. Warner, whipping around at them angrily. "If you continue talking, she will have to close the set! My mother is enjoying herself on her little outing!"

Tosca dove into the prop desk.

"No. Tear through it. Get tearing. Pull it all out. Throw things around. You're looking for the safe-conduct letter. For the letter. Good." Mrs. Capenter hollered, "Quiet on the set! It isn't here! You see how I do it?"

Tosca clung to the cluttered desktop.

"You turn, in terror! Let's see the turn the way we rehearsed it. Well. That could be better. What's happening with the dress? Where is wardrobe? This dress isn't ..." Mrs. Carpenter took hold of the two sides of the actress' dress and yanked it around to center the front. "Again. Yes. You see the letter! Where is it? Ah ha! It's in the clenched fingers of the man you have just murdered! Look over there as if you are searching and you see it. Let's get a close up of her eyes. Hmm. Lovely. Mark that in the book. You are repelled by what you are about to do," said Mrs. Carpenter to Tosca. "I want to see the revulsion. I want to feel it coming out of you right here." Mrs. Carpenter indicated a spot on her belly. "Fight with it! Battle yourself! Fighting all the way. Good. Cut! Raise his sleeve. Cut! Try again"

"Raise it! Cut! Better! Let's try it with you holding up here. A little higher up. We've got to see the paper. Cut! Try again! Raise it! Now we're going to pull the paper from his lifeless fingers. Think about how you're going to do it. We need a close up here and this we'll shoot from several angles."

"Despoil the body," muttered Mother Maud.

"Yes, mother," whispered Mrs. Warner, reaching over to pat her mother's shoulder. "You're having such fun, aren't you, hmm?"

"Tuck it into your cleavage," said Mrs. Carpenter. "A shot over the shoulder and from the front. Think about how you're going to do it. We need a close up here and this we'll shoot from several angles again. Tuck it into your cleavage. A shot over the shoulder and from the front. Yes, slide it right in there securely. Cut! Again. Now, we work on dropping the arm. No, no. It must fall better. Lifelessly. That is comical, Henry. You must do better."

A convulsive shuddering forte from the small contingent of the orchestra told of her horror at watching that arm fall.

"In rasping tones Tosca now addresses the audience," said Mrs. Carpenter.

"And before this man all Rome trembled!" cried the actress.

"No, I want it like this 'And before this man all Rome trembled!' Emphasis on this, not trembled," declared Mrs. Carpenter. "Now, you leave the scene. Prepare to depart. She seizes the two candles from the desk, Seize them. Turning slowly, you use the table candelabrum to light him."

As weak and lifeless as Scarpia himself, the orchestra played Scarpia's motif in the softest tones while Tosca bent down to place one candle at the right of Scarpia's head, the other at the left.

"Look around. You see the crucifix hanging on the wall. You take it down. You carry it with religious reverence. You kneel. Put it on Scarpia. There. We'll put a roll of distant drums here. It accompanies you as you rise and depart out the western door. And the lights dim. Cut!" called Mrs. Carpenter.

"Bravo!" shouted several women in the small audience. Everyone else applauded politely at the end of the videotaping.

Mother Maud's keen eyes woke at the sound of the applause and she turned and jerked rigidly upright at the sight of the supine figure of a saint in his glass box. His bulging wooden eyes stared upward at the dome of San Xavier in utter indifference to the spectacle.

"Stupefied in battle," she mumbled.

"Bravo!" Mrs. Warner called after several lengthy seconds. She struggled to her feet in the pew, clapping, her head swaying, quite transfixed by the scene. Beside her, propped up in her wheelchair with rolled blankets and bolstering pillows, the crumbled remains of Mother Maud drooled on the back of one of her hands.

"Adjourn to the fry bread," Mrs. Carpenter shouted. "Rehearsal of Act Three at the castle of Sant' Angelo commences at two o'clock. And we must be out of here before the evening Mass."

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The small dispersing crowd chatted quietly. Mrs. Warner listened and the expression on her face grew brighter and brighter.

"What a nice murder," Mrs. Warner gushed to someone nearby on the pew. "I can't wait for the suicide! I never knew amateur opera could be so invigorating."

From her wheelchair in the aisle, Mother Maud shared her daughter's enthusiasm. "Fought like fiends."

"They did, didn't they, mother? I'm glad you noticed that. Stab, stab, stab," Mrs. Warner said affably.

"Quell and drive forth from our assembly," ordered the kooky old invalid.

Mrs. Warner responded by rising quickly and propelling her mother's wheelchair toward an exit.

"Hey," said a man with large sideburns when Mrs. Warner rammed the chair into his bare ankles.

"Oh, forgive me. My arm is entirely out of control. My cast, you see." Mrs. Warner brandished her injured arm up for a moment.

"Return at two o'clock sharp!" shouted Mrs. Carpenter.

"Echoes of war-whoops," said Mother Maud to her daughter.

"Only the rehearsal announcements, Mother. They do have to shout." Mrs. Warner nodded pleasantly to other audience members.

A dark figure from the first-row pew stepped forward.

In an instant, the formal, prune-faced Mrs. Gutman had swept by Mrs. Warner and her mother.

"Hello," said Mrs. Gutman nodding once at Mrs. Warner, "It's good to see you again."

Mrs. Warner was floored by the great lady's acknowledgement.

When Mrs. Gutman had gone, Mrs. Warner began shoving the chair forward to follow her. "Mrs. Gutman!" she called.

"Ow!" cried a woman when Mrs. Warner slammed the wheelchair into her tendon.

"Did I hit you?" asked Mrs. Warner coyly.

"Yes, in fact you did."

"Maybe you should let someone else push the chair," a man suggested as he hopped out of her way.

"Mother wouldn't tolerate that," said Mrs. Warner, trying to hit him as well. "She throws fits if anyone takes her in the wheelchair."

"Say!" the man cried in indignation when Mrs. Warner aimed for him.

"I need to clear a path," Mrs. Warner responded, poking someone else with the wheelchair footrest. Mother Maud's head was whipping back and forth with the violent moves her daughter kept making.

She pointed to her cast when the next victim protested. "Entirely out of control," she explained. "It feels as though my arm is there one minute and the next, I lose all sensation."

"Oh, you poor dear. Was it a bad break?" asked a lady walking beside the chair.

"Unlikely to heal for months."

"Oh, what a pity."

With the help of a nearby gentleman, Mrs. Warner lifted the wheels of her mother's chair so she could exit the cathedral's wooden threshold. She shot her mother down the sidewalk and out of the mission walls. No sign of Mrs. Gutman bar a long black limo, leaving!

Outside, the whole freaky landscape of desert mountains and valley radiated with the suffused, ineffable and indescribable glory of a spring desert day. Cactus wrens swooped out of the mission tower and between the barbed lengths of closely spaced ocotillo branches that rattled in a stout breeze.

A disgruntled Mrs. Warner pushed the chair through an array of white-painted boulders and crossed the street and a dirt parking lot.

Forester stepped up quickly from behind. "Do you require my assistance, Mrs. Warner?"

"Mother's getting tired and hungry. I'm buying her some fry bread and we'll eat in the ramada. Buy yourself some, too. We'll meet you back at the Rolls."

"Very well, madam." Forester headed back to the Corniche.

Mrs. Warner pushed Mother Maud's wheelchair toward the white plaza and the Indian shops and fry bread stalls.

Under the awning at the south end of the plaza, she shoved her mother's chair beneath the end of an aluminum picnic table.

"I think this will suit us," said Mrs. Warner with resolve.

"Good cover for an ambush," complained her mother.

Mrs. Warner shuffled toward the line. Heavy heishe and animal fetish earrings bobbed around her neck seeming to dance with her own shadows, the animal shapes growing to immense size against her thin forward-thrusted neck. She rubbed her hands in glee at the sight of a crackling fire and tacked around it twice, at one point even seizing an iron in her good arm to poke a log in various places. Up went the licking liquid light, cracking and popping the red-hot mesquite.

Nothing like the scent of mesquite burning to happy up a person's mood and if they happened to be happy already, well, it did wonders for them, Mrs. Warner held. No wonder the cowboys of old had had such merry times on the trail if they smelled this particular scent.

Tending the fire, wasn't that a homey picture? She spread her skirt out a bit and warmed it. Then she laughed her creaky chortle, exultant over the operatic information about the Livestock Association Meeting.

All around her she could hear them saying it: Tosca at San Xavier Mission had been fabulous. A triumphant success. Yes, it was wonderful of the Arizona Amateur Opera Guild to have agreed to use San Xavier Mission. And truthfully it had been a triumphant operatic experience. Brilliantly acted. These words made Mrs. Warner's pulse jump. All around her Mrs. Warner heard things worth knowing.

And Mrs. Warner could feel herself gaining knowledge about the very important and the very evil. And the key just might be attacking this Livestock Association meeting. She ordered the fry bread and waited.

Meanwhile, Mother Maud slumped alone at her table.

CHAPTER TWELVE

An enthusiastic, well-connected opera-goer named Girt Granges plunked down on the far end of the same aluminum picnic table where Mother Maud vegetated. He cut with noisy relish (and a plastic knife) his drippy, honey-covered fry bread, slicing it in long shreds and steadying a new camera which hung around his neck whenever it threatened to bang the table edge.

Under Mother Maud's untidy brows, which were exactly like a pair of fuzzy caterpillars on a forced march toward each other, her milky eyes shot a demure glance in Girt's direction.

She was rather pleased that General Miles, commander of Fort Lowell and head of the territorial forces of Southern Arizona, sat with her, of all the ladies at the Spring Fandango. A handsome man, how wonderful that he was able to take time off the important Apache campaigns and entertain ladies. And she, of all the girls there, he had chosen. Perhaps to converse with? Perhaps only to commune together in silence? How honored she ought to feel. But where was her mother to see all this glory?

Was he about to ask her to waltz?

No, it was something more serious. She supposed he had come to ask for her hand from her father. Wherever was he in this crowded cotillion?

Mother Maud stretched her crepe-paper neck this way and that in a search for her wayward parents. No use waiting for either of them, they were invariably late for the fort balls.

"They fill bloody and unmarked graves," she croaked, rising up slightly in her wheelchair, "on the dry banks of the San Pedro. A stink in the nostrils of honest men."

"Excuse me? What did you say?" The pleasantly unperturbed Girt licked one-by-one his sticky digits and leaned forward in the old lady's direction blinking solicitously. He waited, watching the drooping invalid for signs of an impending conversation.

Girt went on a foray. "Did you happen to say something was stinking? Perhaps you meant those unpleasant, overfilled garbage cans situated over there under the other mesquite tree? If so, I agree wholeheartedly. Whoever has left them in that disgraceful state should be ashamed. It would only take a moment to discard all of that refuse. The honey is attracting bees and flies. And I'm afraid my own honey fry bread is now attracting more of these annoying bees. I'll have to eat you up, won't I?" He addressed his fry bread. Then he looked up from his plate and smiled at Mother Maud. After a moment's silence, he shrugged his shoulders. "I thought you were talking to me."

Mother Maud shot another sly look in his direction. "Blow up the whole camp. Let rattlesnakes nurse their young and the sun bake their putrid hides."

Girt chewed a delicious mouthful of fry bread, swallowed and wiped his mouth with a paper napkin. "Again, I must ask, were you talking to me, ma'am? I'm sorry, but I can't understand your words completely. Let me explain myself. I am the unfortunate victim of a perforated eardrum on my left side. An early childhood injury and nothing to bemoan now, really, I'm in no real pain to speak of and thank you for your generous consideration. I don't want you to think I'm trying to gain sympathy from strangers, but a perforated eardrum is a very unfortunate development for a fan of everything operatic, like me. I often miss the stereophonic effects of the marvelous singing I hear every winter in The Old Pueblo, you see. I live in Minnesota in the summer. Bell, Minnesota. Many people think it's ironic that I'm somewhat deaf and I live in a town called Bell. What do you think of that?"

"In Hell Canyon without anything to eat or drink. For 27 days marching 600 miles," chirped the old lady.

Having heard only some of her words, Girt had the vague sense that reason might very well have departed the old woman. "Is someone up getting you food? Isn't someone with you, helping you?"

"Unto the wicked a mouthful of sand. Let them be vilified and stamped out upon the plains of Babylon. Food for cats, wildcats of the desert hills. Their claws shall rake their remains and defecate on their skeletons."

This long speech, delivered in the clearest voice yet, was the first comment fully understood by Girt. Alarm registered on Girt's otherwise mild face. He believed, in fact he was fairly certain, he had heard the word 'defecate.'

Before he could respond to Mother Maud's perplexing pronouncement, Mrs. Warner arrived carrying to the table two Styrofoam plates, each holding a lump of golden fry bread swimming in a pool of pinto beans with shredded cheese blanketing them. "We are sitting here," she thundered at Girt, "Who are you? What are you doing here?"

"I was just visiting with the la—"

"Get out!" Mrs. Warner ordered.

Eyes wide with astonishment, Girt grabbed his honey fry bread and scurried away.

"Who is that man?" asked Mrs. Warner, squinting at him as he found another bench. "I cannot believe the unmitigated gall of some of these opera fans. They are hopelessly rude and intrusive. Did you hear their criticism of that wonderful opera?"

Noticing the creepy Mrs. Warner glaring at him, Girt ducked down at his table and scooted closer to the table's other occupants.

"Did he bother you?" she asked her mother.

Mother Maud looked mysteriously pleased.

"Was he bothering you?"

Mother Maud clamped her thin lips together and said, "Yummy." She might have been talking to her fry bread.

"I'll find out who he is," Mrs. Warner promised.

"The quarry has gone to camp. Eastward over unexplored mountain ranges," Mother Maud offered.

Just then, the teeny figure of Mrs. X scampered toward them with her own Styrofoam plate of fry bread and beans.

"What are you doing here?" demanded Mrs. Warner.

"Mother Maud!" exclaimed Mrs. X taking the old woman's flat white hand.

The corpse-like lady whimpered.

"She's looking well," said Mrs. X to Mrs. Warner. "I came to see the opera."

"Another artesian well," said the old woman. "An open shaft leading directly to hell. Fall in with a scouting party."

Mrs. X leaned down quite close to the old hellion's pink, shell-like ear. "You're looking well, Maud. I'm glad to see you up and about."

Mother Maud jerked her head up in pain and scowled at Mrs. X. "Echoes of war whoops."

"Enjoying the opera?" asked the little woman to Mrs. Warner, who was busy cutting fry bread into small enough pieces for her mother. Mrs. Warner speared the bread and coaxed a piece into her mother's obstinate mouth.

"The murder cheered her," Mrs. Warner replied. "We have the suicide next. The third act. If this fry bread perks her up enough, we may stay. She responds well to beans. I'm enjoying the murder immensely."

"We must sit together!" Mrs. X exclaimed. "I didn't see you when I was in there. I've never liked opera, but this one was almost good."

"Look," exclaimed Mrs. Warner, glancing up from feeding her mother long enough to watch where the unfortunate Girt had gone, "that horrid little flirt of a man is going to his car to retrieve something. The fool. Now I can get his plate."

"Who is he?" said Mrs. X suspiciously. "One of the murderous Wilson gang?"

"Remorseless war," croaked Mother Maud.

"Too humane for him. We need something stronger, mother." And then to Mrs. X: "He may very well be a part of that gang. All I know is I came back to our table and found him flirting with mother."

Mrs. X's little deer eyes lit. "What a fiend. Possibly trying to get inside information about our plans! They may be on to us. Please be careful in your future activities!"

"Send punitive expeditions. Create havoc in the hillsides. Scour the hills and leave his bones to be picked clean by vultures," muttered the old lady merrily.

"Yes, mother. You've got the right idea," said Mrs. Warner, calming Mother Maud.

Mrs. X looked from mother to daughter.

"Multiple massacres. Cut them down and waste them like the dogs they are."

"Dogs again?" asked Mrs. Warner, intent on poor Girt. "I wish you'd drop that."

"Wait for out opportunity to kill the whole party."

"That's action!"

"A movement of treachery."

"Yes, trust me. I assumed a disguise at the last party I went to, Mrs. X. I had an inkling that I may have someone thwarting my intentions." Mrs. Warner's eyes tenaciously pursued Girt Ganges, but another backing car blocked his movements.

"Drat," said Mrs. Warner. "If he went to his car, I didn't see which one it was."

"Oh dear," said Mrs. X. "Just our luck! I'll try to run out there with my phone." Mrs. X left her fry bread reluctantly and scampered to the parking lot, but Girt was nowhere to be seen.

"Utter subjugation, even to the point of extermination. Let none live to tell about the dead," said the old lady adamantly, but in a way that made her sound almost happy.

"Isn't she an inspiration?" asked Mrs. Warner in wonderment, addressing the world at large and Mrs. X in particular when she returned to the table and discovered her fry bread in the possession of several desperate bees.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

A few days after the amateur opera, the stringy-haired, gap-toothed man, Mrs. Warner's new armament expert, signaled his new helpers (hired at her insistence) to join him, but from their crouching position under the dead Palo Verde tree Juan and Willy ignored him. Not remembering the signal they had agreed to half an hour earlier, they were busy arguing over whether to expect the yelp of a distressed coyote or the chug-chug-chug of a cactus wren when their leader's actual call came softly from behind a creosote bush a stone's throw closer to the mansion.

"It was a yip like this, ese," whispered Juan. He made a little coyote yelp under his breath. "That was it." He hiked the back of his jeans up so there wasn't a gap of bare freckly skin between his shrunken white T-shirt and his pant waistband. While he made this undignified adjustment to his wardrobe, he tried to puff out his chest to assert some real authority over his friend Willie who never listened to his excellent opinions, not on the day they'd fled El Paso together with the cops on their heels after their vacation, or the day their truck broke down outside Pima Ruins, or this very evening.

Willie turned quickly toward Juan. "No man, it was a bird call," he whispered in reply. "Don't you remember?"

"Bird, what bird?" said Juan under his breath, already letting a belittling tone affect his voice. "You always say it's a bird."

"I can't make it," said Willie, feeling his buddy's disapproval. "I'm not a bird. It was some ... some cactus bird."

"Cactus bird!" said Juan haughtily. "That ain't no type of bird. What you mean to say is that it was a cactus wren."

Their whispered argument got louder.

"Cactus wren then! A wren. Don't get in my face about it, dude," complained Willy.

Juan groaned. He regarded Willie with superiority. "Ese, the wren call was for Tuesday."

"Tuesday? I don't remember nothing about a bird call."

"It was the signal," Juan pointed out, now reaching exasperation.

"But we didn't do nothing," whined Willie.

"But the bird call was the signal," said Juan mimicking Willie's whining voice.

"Oh," said Willie, suddenly remembering. "Yeah."

"Yeah! And a bird call ain't the signal today."

But unfortunately the situation was, as Willie argued; the stringy-haired, gap-toothed man had in fact settled upon another bird call signal and ordered them to respond when they were in place to the two-note cry of the little Inca dove which trundled around the Sonoran Desert chirping a phrase that sounded a lot like "kill me, kill me."

"Kill me, kill me," squawked the stringy-haired, gap-toothed man again, more loudly, his frustration with Juan and Willie growing. He planned to fire their asses as soon as this mission was over. He dropped to a crouch behind the creosote bush and waited for the rehearsed response.

"What was that?" asked Juan in a scared whisper. His eyes rolled about the dark hillside.

Willie, crouching beside his buddy, wore a dubious expression on his face as he poked his head around the trunk of the Palo Verde tree. "Did somebody just say 'kill me?'"

"I think so. It came from over there."

"Go around the tree and see what it was," Willie suggested.

"Not me, man. I don't want to."

The stringy-haired, gap-toothed man stood up. "Kill me, kill me," he repeated frantically.

A long, strained silence followed. The mansion they were bugging, five stories of Mediterranean splendor above them, looked all the more imposing in the moonlight and mocked the ineffectual efforts of the stringy-haired, gap-toothed man to coordinate this eavesdropping mission.

And frankly, a gray cloud followed wherever the stringy-haired man went. Two months out of prison and here he was coordinating the most senseless job in the world. Juan and Willie were proving to be more worthless than he had assumed; conversations with Mrs. Warner had been surreal. And, he had to ask himself, why was he now working for a lady who was destined to be the winner of the next "America's Biggest Kook" contest? And who aims a flame thrower so that it incinerates her own Bentley?

"Kill me!" cried the stringy-haired man in exasperation.

And this proved significant, because Juan and Willy decided that was the signal and stumbled up to him, but at the same time his irritating client chose that moment to pop up from her rock seat again, and suicide was starting to look like an attractive option to the stringy-haired man. "I'll just be sitting on this big boulder as you told me." Mrs. Warner announced this as she stood up from her perch on a large lump of crumpled gneiss.

"Yes," the stringy-haired man said finally, fighting to keep his voice from betraying his frustration, "I've got that."

"I'm anxious to get started. I can't wait," Mrs. Warner gushed.

"Sure. We all want to get started. So, let's," he smiled tensely, hoping that the nutty old woman would take the hint and stay down.

"Yes, let's begin." She held up a finger indicating he ought to wait one moment while she took cover. But when she sat on the rock, she remained there for only an instant before popping up again.

She's a damn vampire Jack-in-the-box, fumed the stringy-haired, gap-toothed man internally!

"I don't want you to think I'm doing this on a whim," she explained, "I'm only doing this because I have to. These are dangerous people, you see. They call themselves the CONQUISTADORS. If I told you that they were involved in buying a very delicate tract of land and to develop it in the most outlandish fashion. Wholesale habitat destruction. It's a civic duty. I'm not crazy about ..."

"Oh, I don't think you're crazy, ma'am. Who would ever think of calling you crazy?"

Yes, ruminated the stringy-haired, gap-toothed man sarcastically to himself, a really nutty person would use something a great deal stronger than a flame thrower to settle their disputes with a dry cleaner establishment.

"Well ... so that you understand." She started to sit back on her rock and then reconsidered. "Are those two little disks really going to provide what I need? I told you I want to know what's going on. I want to be inside."

The stringy-haired, gap-toothed man's groan was audible. "Ma'am?" he asked as he struggled to contain his anger. With a tight smile on his face, he strode over to where she waited and looked at her askance, though he was trying to look fascinated.

She repeated her question.

"Ma'am, I see you're concerned, but the way I've got this rigged it might just cause you some temporary hearing damage. I'm worried about you wearing headphones. Does that just about answer your question?"

Mrs. Warner sat back on the rock.

He came back to his spot, rolling his eyes.

"Now, everybody," he began, "do you remember the signal to pick up the equipment is—"

But he did not get to finish his instruction.

"And you can collect all these disks quickly enough and get them in the van and out of here before anyone sees you if anyone suspects us?" Mrs. Warner had poked her horrible head out again. Her face swung around and her blonde hair, bobbed forward comically. She had gone back to the piled hairdo after another appointment at Mujer Dorada.

"Ma'am, we've worked that out, we've got it covered. Juan here," the stringy haired, gap-toothed man stepped around a prickly pear cactus and pointed out the squat and bulgy-eyed Juan Verdugo, "you see, his position, his job, ma'am, is to grab the left disk, and Willie there," he pointed to the lean William Buckler who was lolling beside Juan and picking something from his ear, "he'll be in charge of the right disk. I," the stringy-haired, gap-toothed man spread his own fingers and touched his chest, "I will get the headphones from you and we'll pack 'em up real fast, and Juan fires the engine in the van. Okay?"

"Lovely. Well thought out. I'll be back there. On the rock. With my headphones," she added, shuffling off to a different seat on the rock.

"Yes, you do that."

"Right here."

"Like I said, before all the fireworks, you really don't even need to be here, but it's your grudge so I'll make it your call, sweetheart." He added the sweetheart as an afterthought, and rather dubiously.

"I can get to my Rolls quickly from here," she said, looking back and nodding at him. She disappeared behind the boulder. The sweetheart remark had pleased her. Forester had driven her to the reconnaissance rendezvous with the stringy-haired, gap-toothed man and his minions, but she had ordered Forester to stay with the Rolls. She was starting to wonder if he wasn't the reason for all her recent failures. She would do a lot better with the stringy-haired, gap-toothed man who exuded confidence.

"Yeah, good." He turned back to the gang, blowing out considerable quantities of air.

Juan rubbed his elbows and smiled broadly at Willie. The black stains and missing enamel on his teeth made his mouth resemble the aftermath of trench warfare. He kept smiling that ugly smile. He sure got a kick out of the way that old biddy acted.

Mrs. Warner tottered out from behind the rock. "I have my phone in my hand, ready to go." She shook it as evidence.

The stringy-haired, gap-toothed man spun around. "Sure," he said brightly, but it was a brightness tinged with insanity, the way a mother might look right before she got down to the business of drowning her ten children in the bathtub and burning down the family bungalow.

"After I get the information it's—vamoose into the night," she said gaily.

After placing the disk on the ground in front of her, the stringy-haired, gap-toothed man flipped the latches on the case and opened it.

"Now," Mrs. Warner murmured to the Bionic Wave, "you'll be good and pick up something interesting."

Quickly, she donned the pair of headphones she found inside the case and, bringing the disk to her lap with the trigger in her hand, she plugged the headphone jacks into the back of the disk. The Bionic Wave was her newest, most prized spying possession. Ordered from her favorite online magazine, American Combat Handguns and Weaponry, it replaced the Arsenal Ear, which had performed inadequately. The stringy-haired, gap-toothed man asserted the Arsenal Ear's manufacture was faulty and returned it for a refund. But the Arsenal Argosy claimed that "after examining the device, they found said listening device sent to said customer had performed up to our exacting technical standards." They offered to substitute the latest version, the Bionic Wave, however, to keep her patronage.

She brought the disc up in front of her. For several fruitless minutes she scanned a steamy, glowing, kidney-shaped pool behind a redwood fence. She then searched the lighted windows of the mansion itself until, with the stringy-haired, gap toothed man's assistance, she located them, Bruce Wilson and his girlfriend, dressed as CONQUISTADORS and sitting at a long, granite kitchen counter. The thin woman in a clanking costume spoke to the foppish bald-headed man who sliced mushrooms and sported a leather doublet. That was Mr. Bruce Wilson. And Mrs. Warner recognized the woman in the clanking metal as the lady in a red jacket at Mr. Falcon's party!

"Conquistadors!" exclaimed the old crone, bringing the disc down toward her chest for a moment. She stared off into space as though receiving some divine inspiration. "A highly peculiar costume for a modern person. What do you think?"

The stringy-haired, gap-toothed man pulled a face. "Uh... they like costume parties?" he ventured.

"Hardly, I think."

"Or they volunteer at a museum?" he suggested.

"Nonsense," said Mrs. Warner, "there's something sinister going on here. An organization. Calling themselves 'Conquistadors.' The conquerors, of course, they think of themselves as that. It's all making terrible sense to me now. What a horrific situation! My city is under siege! What size of an organization are they? What are their goals? Where are they headquartered? And where does the money come from?" The old woman's voice trailed off.

The man and his assistants glanced at each other and smiled.

She directed the disk and listened attentively. She remembered to press record on the phone app to capture the conversation.

"We aren't going to ..." said someone in the kitchen.

"Well, I don't think so, but we'll have to see."

"I told them we could be in Skull Rock on the thirty-first ..." someone said.

"Skull Rock," said Mrs. Warner triumphantly, "Roca de Cabeza in Spanish. On the thirty-first. We have a jump on them!"

Mrs. Warner heard a tap running in the mansion. She wriggled the disk irritably.

"Slice them like this, no?" asked the man.

"Yes, better," said the lady. She smoothed the wide silk scarf that covered her black hair.

"So different ..." he began, but Mrs. Warner missed the ending.

"Damn denunciations!" Mrs. Warner adjusted the disk again and checked the headphone connection. The stringy-haired, gap-toothed man fumbled about trying to look helpful. He sent Juan and Willy to adjust the other two listening devices.

She hunched forward and studied the lighted kitchen with the vexed squint of a frustrated eavesdropper.

For a while, the two discussed outfits and the man's undergarments.

"Blah blah blah," said Mrs. Warner, "blah blah, blah blah blah."

"Open it?" asked the man, holding up a wine bottle.

"Yeah and get on with it," snapped Mrs. Warner.

"Of course. Why not?" replied the lady, swooshing around the lavish kitchen.

"Of course," said Mrs. Warner, mocking her.

The lady slid open a kitchen drawer and peered inside. "Any particular corkscrew, dear? There must be ten in here."

"They all work, darling."

"Not if he's using them," Mrs. Warner quipped.

A bored maid appeared from a pantry. She waddled around two bar stools at the counter and placed large square Japanese dinner plates on bamboo place mats. She disappeared and returned carrying a pair of wineglasses and green cloth napkins.

"Darling!" the woman exclaimed.

"Dear!" the man replied.

"Ding dong, anybody home?" squawked Mrs. Warner from her chilly rock seat.

" ... if we can raise funds for the other ... soon ... Tumacacori and Cocóspera? It was all so fantastic, all in ruins, and the little neo-gothic niches in Oquitoa. We'll sponsor them all. The new property ... flying in in six weeks ... knows what to look for ... the thought of developing such an out of ordinary place... so beautiful."

"Isn't it? My god, it's so amazing," gasped the fawning man. He had managed to remove the foil from the neck of the wine bottle and was trying to center the corkscrew over the cork.

"And that brunch ... a lovely mission, just extraordinary, and Davidson agrees to the Tubac dinner at Haciende de—"

"Ha!" exclaimed Mrs. Warner, suddenly interested. She leaned forward and held her breath.

"—Luna on the twenty-sixth. I told him you'll be there at eight."

"The luck!" Mrs. Warner exploded. "I've got the date of one of their meetings!"

"... misunderstanding ... have to clear that up ..." replied the man. He screwed the corkscrew down, stopping several times to check its progress.

"Exactly," agreed the woman. "See her there," said the woman. "She's—" she searched for a striking word, "obtuse."

"Yes, yes! My thoughts exactly," added the man expansively. He lowered the two arms of the corkscrew and the cork squeezed out of the bottle's neck. "She has nothing interesting to contribute to a discussion of property development. As you say, she's absurd! So middle-class."

"Precisely."

The pair of them! Cheap snowbirds! They came out west for a little winter break and tore apart the desert!

The woman took the open wine bottle from Bruce, who hadn't yet figured out how to get the cork off the corkscrew.

"Society ... simpleton ..." said the lady, using her hands to express complete exasperation as she sloshed rosy wine into their glasses.

Mrs. Warner leaned in, suddenly fascinated.

"Not in weeks. I think I'm over it. But another trauma and I'm flying back and checking into The Brooks."

"I don't want you to. And, if you go back, I'm going with you."

"Oh, you dearie," said the lady.

"Oh, baby," cooed Bruce.

"Oh, give me a break!" exclaimed Mrs. Warner.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Forester worked his clues, for he, too, had a mystery to solve.

A year earlier he had lost track of his girlfriend, but, more importantly, she had taken their daughter, Debra.

With a large cup of coffee at his side and the door to his apartment above Mrs. Warner's garage locked and all the blinds and curtains tightly closed, he spread various papers, computer print outs, witness statements, etc., on a small dining table in front of him. He tried to correlate tidbits of fresh information and discard unreliable clues. Important leads got a daub on the corner with a yellow highlighter.

Six months earlier, a clue from a cooperating relative had led him to the Old Pueblo. From this clue, he learned that his girlfriend had arrived in January, thirteen months earlier. Upon arriving in the Old Pueblo in June, Forester hired a private detective and began searching on his days off. The car his girlfriend had come in must have not been reregistered; running the plate resulted in nothing. The detective had discovered the apartment where she had taken a lease for six months, but that clue came a month after she'd already moved. On one of his first days off from his job with Mrs. Warner, Forester's own questions to some tenants had yielded a few clues. They remembered his daughter wore a uniform to a pre-school. Possibly a navy-blue skirt and a white shirt.

This prompted a long process of calling and checking schools. From all his efforts, he was able to discern that there were only two pre-schools in The Old Pueblo that had uniforms. Calling around to all these, it turned out the navy-blue skirt could only be St. Joseph's Catholic Pre-School.

Then, knowing that she was in preschool, Forester could hone in on her departure time, follow her home and thereby find where they lived. He decided on a location in which to hide and watch for her to go home. But not a thing had come of that in the two months he spent surveilling on his days off. He worried that the tenants must have been wrong about the uniform information. He would have to begin again with that clue.

Then he hired the private investigator to watch the school on the days he was working. That led to the house. He'd arrived behind it one sunny day and gotten close enough to speak to Debra, to tell her how to spell her name. He had hoped she would run to the fence and he could lift her over even with the pit bull, but things had not worked out the way he'd wanted.

When he returned on his next day off, the home was abandoned! There was no sign of Debra or his girlfriend.

The hired private investigator began asking neighbors and her landlord for information and that was where he was now. Waiting for any information the investigator might glean. Uncertain which way to turn and only hoping that someone living near Debra had a clue about their new location. Maybe more watching at the school would reveal their new home. Debra had been wearing a uniform, a navy-blue skirt and a white shirt. But paying the investigator was eating into his salary. So far, Mrs. Warner had no idea he was searching for a child. She considered it funny that he'd lost his girlfriend.

Previously, his girlfriend had worked in a strip club as a waitress. Perhaps that was a clue. He pondered letting the private investigator know that fact. Forester was unsure if he had mentioned it. Maybe the man she was living with was an employee at a bar or strip club?

He sat still and tried to remember the decals he'd seen plastered all over the place. Hadn't a few of them been from a strip joint? Yes, that computed!

The clue was too good. He wanted to return there right away, that evening! But it wasn't practical. In the dark he wouldn't be able to see any decals, if they were still there. Even though Mrs. Warner had taken the night off and gone to bed early, he never knew when she might want a ride somewhere to set off a bomb or deliver a frightening note!

Strip clubs, also, were plentiful in The Old Pueblo, but maybe there was a better chance using that angle. People might remember more about an adult than a child. But no one at the old apartment building knew where she worked. They didn't have a clue, so he would have to visit strip clubs, one-by-one, until he'd visited them all.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The early March sun slumped behind Cat Mountain and scattered its golden rays across the Old Pueblo basin. In southern reaches, the light sculpted the San Xavier mission windows and niches, deepening the arches and concealing the doors. Eastward, on the Rincon's lower slopes, it threw the shadows of a thousand saguaros into elongated tubes that melted over rocky slabs and sidled into arroyos. Over the desert pavement in the West, the sunbeams nestled into the thorns of the Teddy Bear Cholla forming a glowing halo of prickles. And in the Old Pueblo itself, light stole across the lunar landscapes on the town's many volcanic stone walls and it glittered and gleamed off the thousands of shards of broken glass in vacant lots.

In the Catalina foothills, the disappearing sun put an amber glow in a certain coyote's eyes as he trotted hungrily up the sloping Catalina Gneiss toward the pale green down on Big Horn Slope. On his way to a higher home, he stopped to watch a fleet of puffy clouds and the crumbled pink hoodoos and crags around Big Finger Rock. Those clouds and hoodoos reflected in the towering twenty-foot windows on the side of Villa Escorpion mansion. The coyote also briefly eyed two withered crones seen through the glass of the great den; one slumped in a wheelchair, the other crouched over the chair, dressed in a bizarre, enveloping suit of stringy tan rags, a Bushrag Ghillie suit for desert environments, as advertised on the American Combat Handguns and Weaponry website.

"Miscreants," croaked Mother Maud from her chair, as Mrs. Warner, her left arm no longer in a cast, fumbled a crocheted shawl in place around her mother's frail shoulders. "Scarcely a vestige of their trail. Send punitive expeditions."

Mrs. Warner pushed the tan rags away from her face and pleasantly stroked her mother's veiny hand.

"Mother, dear," she said soothingly, "you're always thinking for me. And an excellent idea, too. Are you worrying that I haven't really done enough to the CONQUISTADORS yet? Are you wishing I could stop them?" Mrs. Warner clapped her hands eagerly and flounced around in front of the old woman, showing off her ridiculous camouflage suit. She danced and skipped, as much as Mrs. Warner could ever be said to skip, capering like some evil rag mop. "Tell me what you think of this outfit! 'Become the bush,' it's called. Spectacular, isn't it?" she cried.

The old woman in her wheelchair studied the leaping lump of ripped cloth in front of her. Along with the special ops suit, Mrs. Warner had paired spiky red sling-back heels and a large, jangling Hopi charm bracelet.

"Wait!" Mrs. Warner yelped. She took several large steps away from the big window and performing a catwalk directly at the wheelchair, displaying the outfit's advantages with dramatic swooshes and pirouettes. When she got close to her mother, she skulked around the wheelchair in a lame attempt to mimic a stealthy spy. Then she bounced away in the manner of a cross-dressing special Ops soldier.

"Tomorrow night I try it out!" exclaimed Mrs. Warner.

"Tomorrow, mother!"

"What do you think? I'll be at Hacienda de Luna in Tubac. Conquistadors will be dining there after meeting at Tumacacori Mission—news from the Bionic Wave—and I'll see if I can get close to the Humphreys car unseen."

"Good cover for an ambush," chirruped Mother Maud.

"It is! I'll ambush in the bush!"

There was no sign that her mother had gotten the pun.

"And Mother, things are progressing! Mrs. X is obtaining fabulous information for me! People and their dirty deeds are getting connected in my mind. I see the spider web they've woven over this city. It's so splendid to finally be on top of it all! And my new friend the stringy-haired, gap-toothed gentleman. Do you remember him? He got me the newest listening devices, but now he plans to steal the plans Davidson needs. The stringy-haired, gap-toothed man? Do you remember him? He'll get me a device to deal with the Livestock Association. And he knows all about bombs, mother. All about setting bombs. But tell me of your plans for Davidson," Mrs. Warner plead. "I must know immediately what you have in mind for HIM." A breathless Mrs. Warner knelt beside her mother.

Mother Maud sat stoically.

"Give me a little hint, mother."

The old lady stared out at the rocks and cacti.

"Mother?"

Mother Maud blinked twice.

"A hint?"

"Stick to our enemies like glue," ordered the old invalid.

"Glue?" Mrs. Warner's eyes shone. "Inspired! Use glue for something? Super Glue in locks? That's an old and an interesting trick. How very clever!"

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

That night in Tubac, amidst the patio columns of Hacienda de Luna restaurant, all covered in pinkish, papery bougainvillea blossoms and a small moon mural, Mr. Wilson and Mr. Humphreys spent the evening hours discussing real estate developments.

In the cool air around the candlelit tables the pungent fragrance of red chile con carne, rice and refried beans drifted, freely mixing with the sharp scent of mesquite wood from the many clay hornos. A strolling band of mariachis dressed in their charro costumes played endless renditions of La Negra.

"Back to these plans," ordered Wilson, holding a digital camera at arm's length over the crisp white tablecloth.

"Oh," Humphreys yawned, patting his mouth, "are we still doing them?" He sat up and stared bleary-eyed at the sparsely peopled tables. Snowbird golfers and a family of shoppers who were returning to the Old Pueblo from an excursion to Mexico finished their dinners.

"Look for me," Wilson demanded. "you have an artistic eye. I trust you more than anyone they send up from Mexico."

"All right." Humphreys grudgingly picked up the digital camera and scanned some images of San Jose de Tumacacori and the golf course they planned.

"The edges of this dark wall. I'm very taken by the contrast of brown adobe and the blue desert sky," he said.

"Let me see." Wilson held the camera for a moment. "Yes, I liked that, too." He handed it back.

Humphreys viewed several more photos. "And here, the dark arch at the front and those crumbling columns."

"Aren't they effective? We could build along the wall there."

"That would make a nice inside entryway. The high ceiling and the flowered cross. I'm very pleased by that."

"Yes! When we build along this line; we might want to order that built while we're in Mexico. We need someone cheap to do it. By the way, Damson does want to go in with us."

"After he said no twice?"

"He changed his mind."

"Alright, we'll take him in then. Hmmm...yes, but maybe the light isn't good. Enough work." He handed the camera back and prepared himself to return to the work of downing his drink. "I'm very interested in this tequila right now."

Wilson nodded and exclaimed: "Yes, this tequila farm is something we've got to invest in!" Wilson tapped the screen of his phone in a corner.

"Hmmm, well, maybe..."

Behind Mr. Wilson and Mr. Humphreys, a figure, dressed head-to-toe in black, skulked past, flattening itself against the patio wall. It carefully lifted the latch and stepped through a gaily-painted gate.

The black dressed figure used the employee's bathroom, then continued out the back of the restaurant. Yanking his hairnet off and stuffing it into his apron pocket, the black-clothed man joined the small circle of kitchen staff who cooled themselves outside.

"Which?" said someone. Even back there, the bubbling of the patio fountain and the yips of the mariachis garbled their conversation.

"Which what?" said the newcomer, making everyone laugh.

"He won two hundred dollars at a casino!"

"Crystal Sands. I told you."

"You lucky—"

"Several of them mock-punched the gambler who covered his ribs and laughed.

"Lucky jerk."

"Take me with you next time."

"Okay."

"Me too."

"I'm not taking everybody. My car only fits six."

One man turned around and studied the far side of the parking lot. "What's that?"

"What?" another waiter asked.

"That thing." The man pointed toward a crumbling wall near the bank of the dry Santa Cruz River. "I could have sworn it was over near the restaurant a few minutes ago and now it's there."

"Where?"

"It's there now." He pointed again. "By the dumpsters."

"Oh."

"It's a bunch of old rags caught in a cactus," one man speculated.

They studied the big cholla quizzically. The rags reared up and rippled in a peculiar fashion, almost as though an unseen person inside tussled with a bear. One man stepped back from their circle and stood on his toes in order to get a better look.

"It's a tent," he concluded. "It's got camouflage spots."

"Yeah," someone else agreed with a shrug. "That's just an old tent. Somebody camped beside the river. A druggie."

"He saw it over there," someone said. They all laughed. "Now it's over here, caught in a cactus?"

Someone joked: "It's the tent that walked!"

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Spiky pink moc-croc boots shot out of the opening car door like dangerous artillery, although there was not a living soul outside on Calle Sin Vacas, not anyone standing at their mailbox sipping an after dinner coffee and studying the retreating storm nor anyone watching the twinkling lights of the Old Pueblo or enjoying the silent companionship of the towering saguaro cacti that crowded that hillside road and its enormous mansions. No one to witness the stiletto heels appear and begin their pathetic kicking and squirming until they poked out far enough from the glossy Seafoam Jaguar to be able to land in a muddy puddle.

For an instant, the boots that were halfway submerged splayed out in a befuddled fashion as though looking for a direction to flee to and then they toed in doubtfully, and then a raspy woman's voice could be heard to ask: "How in the blue blazes did I land in this ocean?"

Rising slowly out of the driver's seat, an astonishingly horrible figure cobbled itself together, the hips, the trunk and the peculiar head stacking themselves up until the whole form stood atop the sunken boots.

She was not a vampire, and her adventures so far that late winter and spring had not involved stakes through the heart, the rising of the undead or much blood sucking to speak of, but the wealthy lady who stalked the Old Pueblo, resembled a vampire and was scarier than any urban myth.

The woman began moving. Her thumb and forefinger sunk like fangs over the frame of the Jag's door while she braced her other hand against the side of the car. Then, supported on both sides, she waded awkwardly backward out of the puddle, sending great circles of dirty water spilling and splashing outward. As she struggled backward, the candy-apple high fashion boots emerged, coated with mud, wrapped with weeds, and dotted with little yellow Palo Verde leaves.

"This is not what I needed," she said bitterly, looking at her boots.

At that, she swung the door shut with an effort that sent her staggering further backward.

Zwerf, went the trunk lock when she had managed to turn the stagger into a shuffle and had pressed the remote. Reaching the trunk, the lady lifted the lid and sent rivers of rain into the side channels. The trunk remained unlit when she opened it; several days earlier she'd removed the bulb.

She bent over the trunk compartment and hovered above a silver case that gleamed in the dim ambient light. Grasping the case handle, she shot a furtive glance around her. Towering black silhouettes of saguaro cacti crowded the hillside homes right up to the edge of the road. While most people would have hesitated, wondering if one of those dark plants with their upright arms were actually human, to Elditha P. Warner the cacti suggested only dumb witnesses.

She lifted the case carefully out of the trunk and set it on the wet pavement while she pressed the trunk lid shut. Then she bent down and retrieved the case.

She swung around briskly and lurched up the curb, again steadying herself against the side of her car. Taking a few tottering steps across the muddy sidewalk, she spied the faint markings of the rocky path she needed to follow. She walked further and passed a car where a man with stringy hair and a gap-toothed grin sat cleaning his nails with a teeny screwdriver. Mrs. Warner nodded once and he nodded back.

"Good evening," he was heard to say. He got out of his car a few minutes later and followed her up on the desert trail.

With a stealthy look behind her, Mrs. Warner slipped into a dense growth of saguaros, creosote, prickly pear cacti, desert marigolds and cholla cactus.

A pungent scent of creosote tickled Mrs. Warner's nose as she crept up the hill behind the mansion. She made an eccentric silhouette against the mansion lights as she was only slightly fleshier than a scorpion and dressed like a geriatric go-go dancer; the breeze caught the hem of her skimpy black raincoat and revealed a pink leather miniskirt binding her thighs together. In the brisk breeze on that dark hill her piled hair leaned slightly backward. After a particularly steep section of the trail, the obelisk atop her head brushed the lower branches of a Palo Verde tree and sent a cold shower down.

"Bah!" she exclaimed, shaking off the icy water.

With the case in hand she kept an eye on the four stories of lighted windows above. A few minutes later her assistant had caught up. He carried a cardboard box.

"Now this is guaranteed to make a big bang," said the stringy-haired, gap-toothed man. "It's one of my best. All we have to do is put it under the window and wait for it to go off."

"Splendid!"

"Yes, give me the fuses."

"I have them here," said Elditha.

Mrs. Warner and the stringy-haired, gap-toothed man crouched outside the mansion.

"I'm glad I don't have Forester with me tonight."

"Is that so?"

"Yes. He's quite the baby around bombs. Says he doesn't fancy them. Can you believe it? The man is a coward. I left him at home. No doubt he'll find a cake baking show to enjoy."

"You like bombs?" asked the stringy-haired, gap-toothed man.

"I like bombs when they are exploding near people who deserve them. You're sure it will make a loud noise and scare them badly? I most want them to be terrified enough to take off for another location," said Mrs. Warner gleefully.

"Yes, guaranteed. I give you my word. This bomb will scare them."

"Good! That's good enough for me." Mrs. Warner straightened up and placed her hands on her hips.

"And until we want it to, until we've got device where we want it, it won't go off—"

BOOM!!

BOOM!!

"G&*#$@@%RPKJANLA!" cried the stringy-haired, gap-toothed man when his stringy hair went on fire. He scuttled around in circles, screaming and using his hands to put his hair out.

There was a large amount of smoke around them, and they were blackened about the face but they both appeared alive and possessed of all four limbs. Somehow, they stumbled backward toward the vehicles.

"We must visit the nearest urgent care for your scalp," said Mrs. Warner.

"Oh, my fucking God," screamed the stringy-haired, gap-toothed man. A large part of his stringy hair was scorched.

While Mrs. Warner was busy getting blown up without him, Forester unfortunately wasn't getting much closer to gaining custody of Debra, or even seeing her again for that matter. Every strip joint he went to was a failure; the detective wasn't finding out anything for all his inquiries. Forester had half a mind to cancel his contract with the detective and just give up.

Maybe the leads he'd followed were worthless. They all led to dead end encounters. Either someone answering to her description had never worked there, or she had left a month or two earlier.

Trying to locate her at an apartment was fruitless, because she lived temporarily with boyfriends. The closest he'd gotten was the backyard when he spelled her name for Debra, but after that Debra was well and truly gone!

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

From as far away as Camino Sin Aqua, looking up at the steepest slopes of the Catalina foothills to Escorpion Estates at the summit of Puerto Lobos Lane where the rock and concrete mansion called Villa Escorpion loomed like some hefty bunker on the Siegfried line, the English mechanic could spot the shriveled, hunchbacked figure of Mrs. Warner, a bloody bitch if ever there was one, planted alongside her loaner car, a Sea Foam S-type Jag.

Her bowed back and gruesome eyes he recognized from half a mile away. She sported a face like a pike's with a lower jaw that jutted out and sharp blackened teeth you could view quite clearly when she was hissing at you, which happened to be almost all the time she spoke. That March noon she wore a tulip-shaped, rust colored ethnic skirt that fell to her knees, dark taupe nylons, and brown pointy ankle boots. Her girlish white blouse with its bib collar and blouson sleeves looked humorous paired with sunken, rouged cheeks and mile-high blonde hair.

The old lady shambled around the back of her broken-down Jag clutching a cell phone to her ear, hearing news of her many machinations, and carelessly scrunching the thickly scattered beans from the stout lime-green branches of an overhanging Foothills Palo Verde. In the act of parking on the steep lane, the mechanic heeded Mrs. Warner's hunched form advancing toward him. Screeching and gesturing for him to hurry, her slow movements made her look like a mad dog, or better yet a cockatrice, half-snake, half-chicken, inching across the sunny asphalt.

"KABOOM. He'll think something hit him," he heard the old bat say as she shuffled in his direction. "Yes. Yes. They won't get a lead." She hung up.

Immediately the phone rang again. The ringer tone tinkled My Favorite Things until she cut it off by answering. "Yes," she said merrily, still shuffling toward the mechanic. "The construction is in ruins! Complete confusion. Wilson is getting extremely irritated by the delays. People are starting to blame him. Yes, imagine that." Mrs. Warner laughed. "You've done a wonderful job, Mrs. X. But right now, my damned S-type is stuck on my hill again and my mechanic has finally dragged his very fine English butt up here. Yes, you've got some news? Well, it will have to wait a moment. I need to talk to this moron."

"Well?" she demanded of the mechanic. As she drew closer, and held the phone away from her ear, he could discern tiny people made of thread, a man and a woman in South American peasant garb, dangling on hoops from her large earlobes. And, he noted happily, she might have sprained her wrist.

"Mrs. Warner, what seems to be the problem today?" he began in a pleasant, solicitous manner.

The gaunt figure of Mrs. Warner eyed him furiously.

"You've got eyes, haven't you?" she barked. "This damn loaner S-type is stuck on the damn hill again, right outside my drive. Are English people all thoroughly stupid or is it just you? I want this piece of junk fixed and I want it fixed now and I don't want to hear any excuses. This has happened three times before and I told you to fix it. What have you done about it? Nothing! Just given me a whole lot of your bullshit."

"Didn't we explain to you that you shouldn't put it in park on this hill? You need to use the emergency brake instead, remember?"

Mrs. Warner's temper snapped like a leaned-on wooden fence after forty years in the Arizona sun. "I need to use the emergency brake? I'll break you, if you don't fix it now! I don't want to hear excuses for your incompetence. Don't try to blame this one on me. Fix it! I don't have time to waste saying howdy-do with you and hearing all your patient, condescending bullshit about how my car is supposed to work. I don't need to know how it works; I need to have it fixed! Fix it now! Fix it! Fix it! Make it so it never does this again or so help me I'll make it so uncomfortable for you that you'll never work in this town again. Do you understand?"

"Yes, ma'am." The mechanic strode to the car. Muttering, he opened the door and slid behind the wheel. The car vroomed and he struggled to pull the gearshift out of park.

The mechanic reached below the instruments and pressed the trunk release button. He sprang out of Mrs. Warner's car.

The trunk lid popped open. Instantly, masses of odd hardware could be seen bulging out of various shopping bags, plastic totes, cardboard boxes, and string purses. Plumbing pipes jabbed upward beside piled boxes of nails. Handcuffs, aluminum baseball bats, and clubs protruded menacingly. Stun guns, cans of mace, and fuses spilled out of a plastic crate. With a look of total frustration, the mechanic strolled back to Mrs. Warner.

"Ma'am?" began the mechanic.

"Don't bother me. I'm on the phone."

"Ma'am."

"Fix it."

"I'm afraid your trunk is full of heavy items again."

"Of course, it is. I'm a very busy woman. In terms of the arts, the town doesn't run without me. I'm on every board that matters. What you're looking at is scenery and tools for the Old Pueblo Amateur Opera Guild and you better not damage any of it, because I've got a spare Neidhohle for an upcoming production in there and everything we need for the duplicate of the window in Scarpia's apartment!"

"Ah huh. Well, as I said the last time I was here, I'm going to have to remove all of that stuff for your friend's apartment in order to get the car out of park."

"Then deal with it. Don't bother me, you idiot. I expect my car fixed. But if you damage anything you find in there, or if you damage that loaner car and don't give me another, I'll be happy to sue Tudor Jaguar and Mr. Bizmore, personally. And don't think this is an idle threat because I never threaten what I can't do. Mr. Bizmore better watch out because he's walking on thin ice and I know where he lives. Right over there. On top of the next ridge, Camino Sin Especial, number 11425. I've got my eye on him and my ears to the ground and I'm going to find out every little thing about him if he crosses me."

"Is any of this stuff dangerous?"

"Dangerous?"

"I don't want to—"

"Why don't you get busy and try picking it up and find out? Now get to work! And if you don't fix it in five minutes, I'll give you dangerous! It happens to be my middle name!"

The mechanic gingerly lifted crates and string purses out of the trunk and set them on the side of the road.

"What?" shouted Mrs. Warner into the phone.

The mechanic froze at the sound of her scream. Then he began removing the items more quickly.

A light breeze ruffled Mrs. Warner's skirt and staggered her slightly. "What are you saying! The Meet and Greet is sold out? Tomorrow! The party is sold out? We must humiliate them!"

She listened into the phone, heeding Mrs. X's next words carefully.

"Damn! Is nothing going to go right? Is this stupid group indestructible? How is he thriving with all my best efforts at destruction?"

"You don't know? Well, find out!" Mrs. Warner stabbed the red phone on the screen with a knobby finger. She stood panting with exertion.

Her sharp eyes latched on the mechanic. She remembered now that she was without a car.

"You're dawdling. You're taking too long. I want that car you came in as a loaner," she demanded. "Give me the keys. This is an emergency."

At that, she put her hand out.

"Ah...yes ma'am." Obediently, he produced the keys to the other car from his pocket.

Mrs. Warner snatched the keys from his outstretched hand.

"Wait!" she shouted as he tried to turn away. She popped the trunk of the loaner car. "I want that," she pointed to a long black case that he had just lifted from her trunk, "put it in the trunk of the loaner."

"Very well, ma'am." The mechanic complied with her orders as she got in the car.

"Put everything else on my driveway straight ahead and ring the bell. Wait until someone comes down. You can fend for yourself getting back to the dealership. I can't sit around waiting for rank amateurs like you to decide how to fix my vehicle. There's an emergency situation, and I've got to deal with it. With the Opera Guild. And I've got to be there—" she groped the car door and lowered herself in, "—I'm the First Director of Production and nothing happens without me!"

With that, she slammed the door and started the car, guiding it in a three-point turn, and boomeranging slowly back at the mechanic, heading straight for him and veering off only when he'd leapt to safety at the side of the road.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Later that evening Mrs. Warner stood facing out of the open doorway of the dark mortuary chapel. Above her, the beautiful White Dove of the Desert soared upward, resembling a shadowy, three-layered wedding cake set against the indigo sky. A team of restorers, working on scaffolding behind screening material, had stripped the finished bell tower of its white exterior and revealed the two- hundred-year-old brown bricks that now loomed above Mrs. Warner. That night the screening rippled in the night breeze as though giant fingers strummed the fabric. At her back in the chapel colorful votive candles flickered in the same desert wind while outside, the walls of the mortuary patio crawled with Lilliputian figures, relief panels showing the Stations of the Cross.

A frustrated Mrs. Warner looked this way and that. She put her hands on her hips and hobbled to the men's restrooms. Standing with one wrinkled hand on the wall, she glared down the dark passageway and harrumphed. She came forward to the front wall of the mission complex and peered out of the open archway toward the dirt parking lot.

Beautiful choral music from a recording flowed out of the open mission door. Mrs. Warner gritted her teeth at the sound; she had to get her next project going and where was the stringy-haired gentleman? Was he going to let her down? After leaving her mechanic on the hill with her broken down Jag, she'd driven out to the mission and discovered that the reception for the Western Livestock Association Meet-and-Greet would be sold out. And Mrs. X had verified information about the participants and their ideas about cows; they had no respect for animal suffering. Everything was perfect, except no help with the equipment!

Mrs. Warner headed back toward the mortuary chapel in case someone had entered while she had checked the bathrooms. But hearing the click of footsteps on the sidewalk behind her, she froze.

A scruffy-looking man, the stringy-haired, gap-toothed man, dressed in dirty denim strolled casually toward her back.

When he was nearly upon her, Mrs. Warner whirled and faced him.

"You always come through for me," said Mrs. Warner merrily.

He replied: "Ma'am." He smiled and showed the gap in his front teeth. His graying brown hair had been cut shorter due to the premature bomb explosion, and his facial stubble which was brown, red and gray, growing in many different directions now had two bandaged areas.

"I'm rather desperate right now," she rasped. She began moving out of the enclosed walls of the mission complex toward the parking lot. "This is a crisis. So, I thought of you. This Livestock Association says penning breeding cattle in small quarters is not cruel. The day after tomorrow is the start of their three-day spring meeting. I intent to disrupt it."

He followed and said: "Yes, ma'am. Very commendable."

"Cut the congratulations. Come look at the contraption." Mrs. Warner shuffled out the archway. "I've got it in the trunk, as luck would have it."

"Okay."

"They walked across to the loaner car, he taking one great step at a time and waiting for her tottering gait. As they approached the rear of the borrowed Jag, Mrs. Warner popped the trunk and he looked down at the black case. The stringy-haired man's fingers tore open the Velcro closures and revealed something that looked like a small version of an automotive leaf spring.

"The manual's tucked in the side pocket," Mrs. Warner offered.

The man tugged on a protruding booklet and drew it out. He flipped through and studied some diagrams quickly.

She asked: "Well, what do you think? Will it fit the bill?"

"Very clever. Spring action."

"You can mount it in rocks or on your shoulder and conceal it under clothing until you position it."

"It ought to work. But you don't want to do the target practice here?"

"No, that's too risky. People are here nearly every night. And you better get eight or ten of—" Mrs. Warner glanced around. "Of them. I'm going to need to make quite a few shots beforehand. The only problem is I haven't much time. What hill do you have in mind for my practice?"

She waited for him to respond.

"On the way to Three Points," he said. "Gas line property. You could practice on that hill tomorrow night if you follow me out there and no one will be the wiser. I will make sure of it."

"Well, get them from a butcher. I should think."

"Yes, ma'am."

"None must weigh more than fifteen pounds. That's in the book. I know you won't let me down. I can't be seen buying them in case something gets in the papers afterwards."

"Understood."

"Do you think you can get me shooting? In one night? Hmm? Yes, they're presents for my dear friends. I'm going to fly something in to them. It's a bit of an emergency. I'll pay whatever I have to. Understand?"

Mrs. Warner craned her head to hear the answer.

"Easy," he said with a smile.

"Excellent! Yes, it will be a merry March after all!"

CHAPTER TWENTY

Near midnight and yet Forester still had the intention of visiting the Pirate Ship Club. It was a boat that linked to a concrete dance hall. He arrived at the lit-up Pirate Ship and rolled his eyes. This was probably the dumbest club he'd visited. But his girlfriend might have worked there. Someone might remember her.

"Well, good evening," said a lady wearing a corset. She also wore a pirate's hat and she went to the bar. A large oil painting of a pirate battle raged behind her head.

"Good evening," Forester replied.

"Cover is five. One drink minimum," she said in utter boredom.

Forester paid with a card. "Any Mexican beers?"

"Dos Equis?"

"Sure. Kinda quiet tonight."

"It always is on weeknights."

"I'm looking for a waitress. Her name is Glenda."

"Oh yeah? I don't know any Glendas."

"Did someone of that name used to work here?"

"Nah. Never." The lady brought a Dos Equis out and opened it beside a frosty glass.

"You've been working here long?"

"Fifteen years."

"That's long."

Forester poured his beer and deliberated. "The distinctive thing about Glenda was one of her tats."

"Oh yeah?"

"She had this flaming goat on her arm. A goat on fire."

"Oh! She did work her. I saw that goddamned thing."

"Really!"

"Sure. She was calling herself Monica and working as a pole dancer. I think she was friends with one of the other pole dancers."

"And who was that?"

"Her name is Georgie. But she's not working tonight. I don't know her schedule. I only work three nights a week."

"Then it would be possible that 'Monica' could still be working here and you won't know it?"

The lady shrugged. "Well, yeah. She could be. I don't know the different shifts sometimes. I haven't substituted for anyone in a long time."

Forester's heart raced. Finally, a lead that was going somewhere. And he could get a private detective working on this right away!

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

A harried and frustrated Mrs. Warner, wearing blue crocodile pumps and looking more hunchbacked than usual, stumbled about on a dark hill. In her good hand she carried a large white plastic bucket and in the left arm a flashlight that sent a yellow cone of light traveling over the dirt and rocks and the cholla cactus. In search of the right rock, she flashed the beam far to the left and far to the right. She searched the area close to the old volcanic wall, and under the big iron lions that guarded the curving path to the grotto, an imitation of the grotto at Lourdes. She stumbled down the hill and up again, near the rutted path and farther to the north of the path and still she didn't see what she wanted.

"Crap. They aren't making rocks the way they used to," she complained. "Forester, why does this place have to have the most measly hill on the face of the earth? It's got almost no cover and nowhere to mount your weapon! I could get out any map of any part of Arizona, one of the most mountainous places on earth, and if I shut my eyes and jabbed my finger down at random, I'll bet I could find a better hill than this one. When God was creating hills, he must have said 'let's make the most unimpressive gopher mound on the entire globe and put it outside San Xavier Mission.'"

"It does seem that way, madam," replied Forester, scanned the trail margin. He appeared to have a large automotive car spring strapped to his back. The straps cut into the front of his black suit and knocked at the back of his black Homburg.

"Well, where is our mark?" Mrs. Warner demanded.

"It seems to have disappeared," Forester answered equally confused. "Perhaps a rock hound?"

"Incompetence," said Mrs. Warner bitterly. "Rank incompetence. I trusted the stringy-haired, gap-toothed gentleman again. That is beginning to be a mistake, Forester. I don't believe he is up to snuff. That bomb explosion was entirely his fault. I couldn't hear correctly for days. He's not what he claimed."

"No, madam. Perhaps not."

A frustrated Mrs. Warner put the bucket down and stood with her hands on her hips. Down the volcanic slope of Grotto Hill, Mission San Xavier del Bac, The White Dove of the Desert, rose out of the barren desert soil like a dilapidated ship.

A ship that had choral music flowing from it. The eerie sound of singing drifted from the open door of the mission. And the music blended with laughter from the garden on the east. The Livestock Owners and their Meet-and-Greet!

These chatting, socializing friends of butchers really deserved what she was about to send their way. If they were going to disrespect cows, they were subject to retribution! Mrs. Warner had remembered the conversation she overheard in the mission in which someone reported that the Livestock Owners disdained anything involving pity for the cow. Mrs. Warner had seized upon this comment to motivate her attack. People who had no pity for the pregnant cows did not deserve her pity. Would the frightening experience she had in store for them shock any of them into treating cows better? She rather doubted it. But the publicity would help the cause. What she was about to do would certainly reach the newspapers. The headlines would be shocking!

Mrs. Warner aimed the flashlight beam at a stand of cholla she'd neglected. "Ah ha!" Mrs. Warner cried, seeing behind the cholla the rock that the stringy-haired, gap-toothed man had marked on their scouting search several nights earlier. "There you are, you little bastard."

She cackled loudly. Her jewelry crashed and bashed together.

Soon thereafter her cackling wasn't for the amusement of anyone but herself; Forester unstrapped the case from his back and left the devious contraption with Mrs. Warner. He retreated to the bottom of the hill to act as a lookout. Mrs. Warner didn't want anyone deciding to climb the hill that night, although that was rather unlikely on such a windy eve.

Fiddling with the Velcro, she yanked the catapult free from its straps. A few more moves and she grasped the marvelous thing.

The stiff wind in her face had her a little concerned. When she'd practiced with "The Patented Enforcer Catapult Armament System" on the hill near the gas line there had been no wind at all.

Jamming her heels in rocky crevices, Mrs. Warner teetered toward the rock marked with a daub of fluorescent paint.

When she reached it, she set down the bucket, pulled the folded manual out of her coat pocket and located the diagram she needed. She spread the manual on the bubbly brown surface of a volcanic rock and placed her flashlight on the page to hold it open and to light it.

Next, she worked her arms out of her coat, a lengthy process involving a great deal of grunting and bending. When the threadbare designer coat finally dropped onto another obliging rock, she delved happily into the instructions for her contraption: "The Patented Enforcer Catapult Armament System," ready for action in any skirmish.

For many days, she had studied the pictures in American Combat Handguns and Weaponry showing the flexible mounting options, firing angles, and trajectories. She'd read how "The Enforcer Catapult" –compact and easy to assemble—was the first discharge system based on an automotive leaf spring. "Machined from aerospace-grade aluminum," the sales pitch had explained, "this cutting-edge equipment sends whatever payload you chose to your designated target with ease and precision." After reading and rereading her favorite part of the advertisement—"hurls weights up to fifteen pounds at your enemies, rendering them speechless when disgusting refuse splatters their pool, home, or car window"—she'd ordered it shipped by overnight delivery.

The catapult, which was light enough to be carried over her shoulder and compact enough to be hidden under a coat, especially with Mrs. Warner's ample hump, had worked perfectly when the stringy-haired, gap-toothed man had used it to fling several garbage bags from the small volcanic hill on the road to Three Points. But with the Livestock Association party looming she had had to move fast. There was little time to practice with the actual stomachs. And the stringy-haired, gap-toothed man had not been able to make a measurement from the hill to the impact spot in those practice sessions and to compare that measurement to the distance between her position on Grotto Hill and the Livestock Meet-and-Greet. Not to mention factoring in elevation differences!

Still, she was convinced of the weapon's capability to send a bloody stomach crashing into the midst of the Livestock Association, though it would hardly be enough punishment for what THEY'D said.

She carried the catapult around to the mounting position and stood over the spot with her legs spread. Grunting, she drove the thin end of the weapon into a space, wedging the catapult between two rocks so that it stood upright with the payload spoon at the back.

Next, she returned to her coat and searched the pockets for the surgeon's gloves. Pulling the gloves on slowly, her gnarled hands shook. Once the gloves were on, she smoothed the fingers and tweaked the wrists.

Then she blundered back to the bucket and stood over it.

"Ready?" she asked the contents facetiously.

With a fruity chuckle, she bent over and reached in.

"Very difficult to handle these things. Greased eels might be easier. Ha! Got you!"

She started to stand up.

"Shit!"

She went down again and caught what had slithered out of her hands. Out it came, cradled in her gloves: a big bloody cow stomach. She wrinkled her nose at the stinky thing, and like some demented Doctor Frankenstein, conveyed the stomach up to the payload spoon. Above the alpine heights of her pale blonde hair, a sky full of stars, unwinking in their blazing brilliance, surrounded the pair of white crosses at the top of Grotto Hill. Nearby, a moon slice shone down on the odd scene. In that lunar light the tiny crinkled leaves on the creosote branches cast long fans of lacy shadows over the bubbly basalt and made the lions seem huge and menacing.

She plopped the stomach on the payload spoon and stepped back.

"Happy landings," she bade it.

The purplish cow stomach sagged on the catapult arm, oozing blood, and looking as though it would rather be doing almost anything else but what Mrs. Warner planned.

She twisted her upper body around in order to glance obliquely at the trajectory diagram in the owner's manual. Through the wand-like branches of a creosote, one of the oldest living unchanged plant in the world, Mrs. Warner began to aim the catapult for the Livestock Association Meet-and-Greet in the small garden area to the east of the mission.

She twisted "The Enforcer" slightly north, maintained it there, hesitated, and angled it back again south. She consulted the manual.

"Not exactly clear what they have in mind," she mumbled. "Maybe I should have brought him." She was thinking of the stringy-haired, gap-toothed man.

A gentle sibilant whisper of a breeze waved the creosote branches, whipping them back and forth. The breeze ruffled the edge of the manual. Suddenly, the small flashlight holding the page open, rolled. The manual fluttered shut.

"Of all the damn nuisances," Mrs. Warner said, leaving the weapon to relocated the page. Bumbling backward from the firing position, her pumps clumsily kicked the bucket.

"Oh, goodness," Mrs. Warner fussed as the bucket teetered. "What am I doing? Kicking everything over?"

The bucket tipped, hit a rock with a loud whap and promptly dumped its contents.

Three cows' stomachs disgorged at her feet; a gooey, sloshing sound accompanied the spectacle. Then the bloody bucket tumbled down the hill; the clump, clump, clump echoing loudly in the night's quiet as the empty bucket mischievously whacked every rock possible before coming to rest against a prickly pear cactus.

"Sherman Whittlewattle!" snapped Mrs. Warner. She crouched down, her skinny bottom in its tight tulip skirt protruding drolly, the blood-dripping leaf spring jammed in the rocks in front of her and three cows' stomachs at her feet. Her wicked face swiveled around; the desert hill made a bad hiding place, only creosote for cover. Though she had kept an eye out for any hikers on the northern trail of Grotto Hill, it was always possible that someone had used the southern path to wind their way around the far side of the hill and visit the grotto behind her. Hearing the noise, they might become curious.

After several minutes frozen in her daft position, Mrs. Warner relaxed. She looked at the pile of stomachs, which had molded themselves to the rocks. "Damn!" she said. "It's going to be hard to get those up and I might need them."

Disgusted by her own incompetence, Mrs. Warner left the stomachs where they were, choosing to reopen the manual. "There now," she said, spreading the page and readjusting the flashlight.

She spent several more minutes repositioning the catapult, when she spotted the eyes.

Two glowing eyes, coming slowly up the hill toward her.

A dog! It had smelled the stomachs.

"Those O'odham and their wild dogs! Letting them wander around everywhere on the rez so that people have to deal with a bunch of mutts..."

"Get!" Mrs. Warner yelled at the yellow eyes. She clapped her palm against her leg angrily. "Get away!"

"Forester should have shooed them away!"

She picked up a small rock and flung it. The dog yelped and retreated partway down the hill. It sat down on its haunches and whined.

Mrs. Warner reached down for another rock when, far away, she heard tinny laughter coming from the mission's open door.

It was someone in the crowd of Livestock people, someone with a tinkling giggle. The party was going full swing.

Mrs. Warner turned toward San Xavier. The sound perked her up; she felt as bouncy as a day-old quail. Her prized opportunity had arrived. She would have to worry about the dog later.

With a great deal of difficulty because of her high heels and the rocky slope, she wobbled her way back to "The Enforcer."

"Now, now, now..." she said.

Everything at the ready, itchy palm on the handle, Mrs. Warner postponed until the first sign of the crowd getting really big.

The wait was interminable.

She scanned the shadowy mission complex, fearing she might have missed her opportunity. She looked back at the door in time to see the bounteous figure of the chairman of the Livestock Association, a thick black binder tucked under his arm and a large woman at his side. He burst out the nave's wooden door.

Mrs. Warner relished the sight of the couple striding side by side, heading along the walkway that took them past the gift shop and to the party where Mrs. Warner planned to send the stomach.

"C-o-o-o-m-e-o-o-o-n," she mumbled. "C-o-o-o-m-e to mommy."

When the pair approached an archway, she readied herself.

Mrs. Warner glanced up at the drippy organ she would soon send into orbit.

She grasped the handle.

The chairman of the Livestock Association bound through the arch heading toward the party.

Mrs. Warner pulled the handle back. Slowly, she drew the stomach to a firing position. She drew in her breath and released the handle.

The spring snapped with a whipping judder. A horrible twang sounded at her ear and the gory organ shot off. The yellow eyes of the dog followed the flying organ in its arced path overhead through the air, spattering blood, up, up, up...and far to the south of the party.

How was she to know that the usually jovial and good-humored Sister Patti Ynez would drive by taking the turn down the eastern road of the mission complex just then?

SPLAT!

The bloody mess hit the hood of the nun's green Gremlin and Sister Patti stomped on her brakes. She looked out the windshield at a messy spatter of gory remains.

Sister Patti's shriek cut through the dark.

"Reload," Mrs. Warner muttered, "Reload."

She stooped down and tried to gather another ghastly stomach from the rocks. As she had suspected, the organs wouldn't cooperate. Several times the bloody ones she picked wouldn't come up and slunk out of her hands.

"Oh, damn," she muttered.

At last she got hold of one balky stomach and loaded it on The Enforcer's payload spoon.

She grasped the handle and pulled harder than ever before. Yanking with all her might, she brought the spoon back beyond the small warning label which said, "Under no circumstance exceed this angle."

She released the handle. "Ha, ha!" she cried happily.

The stomach shot up, vertically. The spring came adrift from its hole in the rocks and performed a double flip in the air.

"Gweet!" was the feeble protest Mrs. Warner made before The Enforcer smacked her.

Thunk! It slammed Mrs. Warner's arm and head.

Clang! It landed on the rocks nearby.

After impact, her brittle body slumped forward. "Mhaaaa," she moaned, as she collapsed on the sharp volcanic boulder.

Then the stomach returned to earth.

Splotch!

The organ exploded when it landed squarely on her spine.

For several minutes, she lay very still, decorating the rock.

Then she began to writhe. She pulled her knees to her chest and quivered this way and that. Puffing and groaning, she brought herself around.

"Ough," she whimpered, breathing heavily, and floundering about in an attempt to regain consciousness.

"Have to keep going," she whispered. "Can't be found like this. Gather everything up and leave no evidence."

A frazzled Mrs. Warner staggered to her feet and stared groggily down Grotto Hill.

Concerned citizens surrounded Sister Patti, comforting her and studying the starry sky for the Great Horned Owl that had dropped its meal.

Hearing that, Mrs. Warner managed a snort.

"Owls."

Her gaze traveled to the area beside the mission walls where an unfazed Livestock Association enjoyed their party. Several people shrieked with laughter and danced about in a crazed fashion. People were patting each of on the back and chuckling. Her plot had failed!

Mrs. Warner's eyes narrowed and her fists balled as the party continued, swung into full force and disturbed the dark Mission Road. Mrs. Warner touched the spot on her right arm where The Enforcer had knocked her. It throbbed as though a mountain of copper ore had landed there.

This night's injuries, she reflected grimly, just might require professional medical assistance again.

But before that, she would have to deal with the six glowing yellow eyes attached to three ugly and ill-tempered dogs that were approaching Grotto Hill.

She pulled her cell phone out of a pocket in her jacket and pressed a number from her log of phone contacts.

"Forester?" she managed to gasp. "I'm slightly injured and there are some dogs here that I need you to deal with..."

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Nosing toward the valet drop-off like some obedient dog, the dark blue Rolls-Royce Corniche rounded the large bronze statue of a desert bighorn sheep. Above the steering wheel rim, the mascara-enhanced eyes of the old crone glared, and she gripped the wheel tightly in a forward lean. Her wrinkled face hadn't been improved by the addition of many bloody scratches and another large white bandage, which was taped to her forehead.

She pointed the Rolls so that it circumnavigated the great pyramid, a composite sculpture made up of individual potted golden barrel cactuses each sporting its own collar of glimmering green gift-wrap. A shaft of light from the resort's massive portico angled down and slammed into a slew of the green wrapping paper, shooting light beams of startling intensity onto the slab sides of the passing Rolls. The same sunlight, as it fell upon the sloping expanse of El Conquistador Resort, made a vivid contrast between the velvet green of the golf fairways and the dusty tan desert backdrop. A layer of pinkish dust covered the Old Pueblo in the broad valley below, and floated above it like a magic carpet over a child's toy-strewn floor.

The Rolls, facing this lower resort view, insinuated itself as close as possible to the gilded doors of Conquistador Salon, which was downhill from the valet drop-off at the main resort entrance, and came to an abrupt stop.

For several moments the Rolls just sat there. The winter tourists, golfers and sunbathers, perspiring in the sunny desert noon and climbing toward the resort's grand entrance, gradually filtered back into paths that took them near the Rolls. The moat of warm gray concrete, the Conquistador's sunny drive, warmed their cold feet.

Swinging their arms in rhythm, three bronzed Swiss women in tennis whites shared a joke and one of them skipped ahead to pluck the collar of her friend's starchy shirt.

"Nein, albern!" protested the victim, batting away her friend's hand.

Then the heavy door of the Rolls popped opened in front of them and vintage boots shot out like hazardous artillery.

"Himmel!" exclaimed one of the ladies, falling back.

Mrs. Warner came out slowly and cobbled her fragile body together in front of them. When she was fully upright, she reached behind the seat and dragged out a large poster. "DO YOU CARE!" it said in massive, messy handwritten letters. The laughing crowd of tennis players took one look at Mrs. Warner, with her hideous scratches and huge sign, and fell back.

"Meine Gott, welk und blutig scheusslichkeit," said one of the ladies. She unconsciously touched her own pretty cheek in reaction to an up-close assessment of the old woman's wounds.

Mrs. Warner propped the big sign against the side of her car and shut the car door. She picked up the sign and hugged it against her side with an elbow. The other arm hung at her side; an abnormal tilt of her wrist was another aftereffect of her many recent injuries.

"I want to tell you about the plight of the mountain bighorn," Mrs. Warner announced, pouncing on the startled ladies. For years, she had read with a particular interest about western herbivores, especially desert bighorns. "I have all the facts right here on my poster board. I will open it out for you and explain. It's imperative that important people take an interest before it's too late for these wonderful creatures. Some real estate agents have their eyes on a prime property." The tennis players tried to back away, but Mrs. Warner shuffled closer. "If there are any of the original herds there, and this is in doubt, dreadfully in doubt, it is worthwhile to try and do what we can to save them, certainly any right-minded individual would agree with me. The desert bighorn is a noble creature. Here you see a photo of the imposing male specimen. Can't you feel their nobility? Imagine how they have evolved from the animals around here during the Cenozoic era. Fascinating to contemplate the ice age affecting a desert place like this. Can you imagine this animal going extinct in those gorgeous mountains you see above you? That is inevitable if we do nothing. Certainly, we cannot lift the restrictions on walking dogs on the trails. Perhaps we ought to make the mountains off-limits for hikers completely? Wouldn't hikers understand? I, for one, think they would. You see the bighorn is a private, shy animal and cannot stand the encroachment of people."

"I'm terrible," said one of them, a flustered lady, who botched her apology.

"You're interested in our mountains," Mrs. Warner continued, "You look like an intelligent woman. All of you are. I'm sure you've been to college. I know you are interested in Arizona because you're visiting here. You're not one of those people who visit a place and don't care at all about it. Why, that would be ignorant. You see, the bighorn sheep of our mountains need a lot of space." Mrs. Warner swam her arms around her to illustrate. "Space. And crowding these resorts up in the hills simply for tourists to come in January and February and March isn't really wise, is it? Also, there's the issue of domesticated animals. Goats are the worst thing for desert bighorns because the goats have a disease that causes blindness and now the desert bighorns are catching the disease from goats that broke free." Mrs. Warner glowered when they turned away. "Give me some time to tell you all about them!"

"I'm terribly. So, sorrowing," said the fleeing woman. The pair with her paused until she trotted at their side. They fled and began giggling nervously.

Mrs. Warner stood by herself. Mutely, she tipped the poster toward other passing tourists, but a great gulf had opened around her as people who had overheard bits of her speech and seen her hand-painted sign avoided her. She grunted acknowledgement of their motives. "You're only here for the fun," she said. She folded the sides of her sign together. "Idiots."

Up the sidewalk with the poster tucked under her arm again went the grim Mrs. Warner. "Young sir," she croaked as she approached the carpeted valet stand and its padded purple ropes. The first valet that looked in her direction got the keys to her Rolls and a twenty-dollar bill waved at him.

He shot out toward her and then confronted the huge black eyes and crazy hair of the old woman. She looked exactly like Senora Hernandez, a witch he had known in his village in Sinaloa, Mexico. Falling back so that he was out of her line of sight, he crossed himself repeatedly. "O our Lady of Guadalupe," he began mumbling, "mystical rose, make intercession for Holy Church, protect the Sovereign Pontiff, help all those who invoke thee in their necessities ..."

"Yes, I'll certainly consider helping you," replied a magnanimous Mrs. Warner, picking up some of his prayer as conversation, "You can count on me. Protection, well certainly. Yes, I have a generous heart. I like to think there are people who have benefited from my good works. But, intercession? Well, I confess I'm not completely certain about that one. Frankly, I'm confused. Who do I intercede with? What exactly I'm supposed to do? In other words, give me the necessary datum."

The eyes of this valet had practically rolled back in head when he was replaced by another valet. Mrs. Warner glanced up and recognized Rogelio Verdugo. Her young Guatemalan friend again!

"Senora Warner, whatever did happen to you?" he asked, seeing the scratches and the big bandage. Rogelio Verdugo was nineteen years old and his voice, when he spoke English, was high pitched and a little girlish. He had heavy eyebrows above large expressive eyes and he was trying, unsuccessfully, to grow a moustache.

"Nothing much. A slight mishap on a hillside," said Mrs. Warner poo-pooing the impact of the Patented Enforcer Catapult Armament System. "Happened weeks ago."

"I think it was not so slight," said Rogelio.

"They're trivial wounds. Just scratches."

"How do you have employees and they don't take care of you?" he asked with genuine concern.

"Never mind, dear boy. But take care of the car."

"I will take care of the Corniche," he said happily.

"And I will take care of the desert bighorn! Here are my handcuffs!" said Mrs. Warner, producing with jangling triumph a set of cuffs from her pocket.

"What are you going to do with those?" cried the valet and he quickly hid both his wrists behind his back.

But the back of Mrs. Warner gray suit didn't answer.

"Sir," she said, addressing a balding sunburn man in a pale yellow guyaberra shirt, "You look like an intelligent, thinking man." Mrs. Warner assumed a place at his side as he strolled up the hill. She was adept at faking comradery when it was needed.

"I like to think that I am," he said cheerfully. "My daughters disagree."

"And I don't want to hold you up for more than a few minutes." Mrs. Warner stopped and he obliged the old woman by stopping also. She flipped open her poster again. "Here you see several telescopic photos of the desert bighorn in their mountain home above this resort—"

"I've got no time for this now," said the man apologetically. "I'm afraid I'll be late for my luncheon."

"Surely, as we walk toward the restaurant?" she implored.

"Well, have it your way, but can you keep pace?"

"Watch me." Mrs. Warner slapped the sides of the poster together and resumed her position trudging beside him. "The desert bighorn is an amazing animal—"

"Can you prove that?" he interrupted.

She nodded. "Consider several pertinent facts. First, I want you to reflect on their spectacular horns."

"Horns just make them vulnerable as a trophy," he said bluntly.

"All the more reason to protect them. Second, think of their ability to maneuver on steep slopes."

"Then there may be more of them than we know," he said, finding the weakness in her argument.

"Don't you trust the scientists that are looking for them?" asked Mrs. Warner.

"Maybe," he said, conceding the point.

"And finally, don't overlook their ability to survive on the sparse vegetation of the hillsides in Arizona."

"Miraculous. I need top sirloin and baby asparagus myself."

"Well, stop a moment, stop," said Mrs. Warner, holding back his arm. They had reached the base of the bighorn sheep statue. "Now, see the magnificent beast!" She lifted an arm to indicate that he must look up with her.

He did as he was told. The great bronze thing stood above lifting its noble head out as though it were inquiring about a seat in the restaurant. The eyes had those hollow pupils that give statues the eerie stare of the deranged. If bighorns could be rabid, this statue depicted the condition well.

"I suppose it's good as statues go," he said finally.

"But, of course, I mean the animal. Think about this marvelous desert animal."

"I suppose it's rather special," he said.

"Yes, rather special ... rather," agreed Mrs. Warner. She fumbled in the pocket of her suit and produced an open handcuff. As the man obligingly stared above him, she suddenly snapped a cuff on his wrist and closed the other end on the statue leg.

"What!" he exclaimed. "What have you...? Take this off!"

She whipped another pair of handcuffs out and attached herself to the statue.

"Are you utterly mad?" asked the man, rattling the cuffs.

"I'm sorry to have to do this to you."

"I'll miss my luncheon! Capital expansion planning."

"Terribly sorry."

"Produce the key to these handcuffs at once and unlock me!"

Mrs. Warner looked a little chagrined at this. "I haven't brought the key with me. The police when they come to arrest me will free you."

"Oh my god! What did I do to deserve you?"

"Don't be distressed. You'll probably be on the news."

"I don't want to be on the news. My meeting is a secret to my partner." He looked around him. "Will you please contact the hotel staff?" he asked a passerby.

"What?" said the middle-aged woman.

"Contact the hotel."

"Is ... are you being held hostage?" she asked.

"Yes. I'm handcuffed to this sheep!" bellowed the man.

"I'm very sorry," lied Mrs. Warner, "It's all for the desert bighorn you know."

The hotel manager arrived in a tizzy and immediately phoned the police who arrived eventually and informed Mrs. Warner that she was under arrest for false imprisonment and trespassing. The police called in a locksmith to remove the cuffs. While a crowd gathered to watch the locks being picked, Mrs. Warner tried to deliver her speech again, though no one listened, the least of all the handcuffed man, who introduced himself as Jasper Boddington III.

"What" he said in an exasperated tone, "is your name?"

"Mrs. Elditha P. Warner. We can't shake hands."

"Do you realize you'll be arrested?"

"An unfortunate reality. But," she said, "my man Forester will bail me out."

"Well, Mrs. Warner, this has been an interesting afternoon. My wrists feel like they're on fire."

"I had the same feeling when I locked myself to the door of the Game and Fish Department last August. I recommend plunging your hands quickly in ice."

"Thank you," said Mr. Boddington. "Most considerate of you after what you've done. I hope they don't hold you overnight."

While Forester was arranging Mrs. Warner's bail that afternoon, he was contacted by the private detective he'd hired. One trip to the Pirate Bay Bar had been enough for him to locate Forester's ex-girlfriend. It turned out she performed as a pole dancer on Thursdays and Fridays. The detective met with her, and she agreed to talk with Forester briefly before one of her performances. This brief discussion with her revealed that she was perfectly willing for Forester to take Debra occasionally, as she found her to be too much trouble for her new boyfriend to care for. She wasn't particularly glad to see Forester, but he decided he would take what he could. It was arranged that he would take care of Debra in two weeks for the first time in more than a year!

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

A large glob of goopy green adhesive slopped onto the segment of fake Saguaro, and Juan slammed the next segment on top, skated it around randomly and left the edges of it a distance off alignment from the one below it, not bothering to tamp it down anymore as he had for the earlier sections. As a result of his carelessness, the fake Saguaro was becoming quite squirrelly.

The adhesive mortar, the color of guacamole, and far too liquid due to incorrect measures, oozed out between the segments and seeped down the side to the segment below. Again, without bothering with the inconvenience of a level, Juan was plopping more adhesive on top and slamming another segment down, though the fake Saguaro he was creating now was definitely becoming crooked.

"That Saguaro is lop-sided," said the stringy-haired, gap-toothed man coming down on them from a ridge suddenly. "The thing is leaning."

"No, it isn't," said Willie, sticking up for his friend. "It just looks that way if you look at it the wrong way."

This logic was so bad it almost convinced to him.

"What do you mean?" the stringy-haired, gap-toothed man asked, wanting to be convinced.

"Just step back here," Willie said.

"Okay." The stringy-haired, gap-toothed man obliged by joining Willy a distance back from the fake construction.

"Now, if you look at the Saguaro here you would think it was bent like," Willie explained.

"Yes, it's looking bent."

"But," said Willie, "if you look at it from over here, where, I might add the windows of the house are, you have to admit the wall looks fine and dandy."

The string-haired man stepped back from the Saguaro in the direction Willie indicated and looked at it askance for several minutes, then he wended his way around boulders and cacti to a spot nearer the road. "I guess it's all right," he said finally voicing no real conviction. He walked back to the truck and began loading chunks of fake Saguaro segments into a wheelbarrow.

Willie skulked around the Saguaro, knowing full well that it was leaning at an alarming angle. When the stringy-haired man turned his back, they grinned at each other.

Juan whistled merrily as he readied another piece.

"That can't be right," Willie said with some alarm at the sight of another of his pitched segments going together.

"No, it sure ain't," said Juan. "It's perfectly wrong."

"More than perfectly wrong, it's absolutely wrong," Willie agreed. "Don't we need some kind of level to do this so it won't fall down? The last segment with the listening device is going to be hella heavy."

"Well, I guess no one is going near it much," Juan figured.

"I ain't. That's for sure," Willie said.

Juan scrambled down the ladder. They stood back looking at what they had built. There was no use denying it; the fake Saguaro cactus did not look like it was going to stand the test of time. In fact, it was rather unlikely that the fake cactus they had so inexpertly built would still be upright tomorrow.

For she had done it. Mrs. Warner had gotten the stringy-haired, gap-toothed man to devise a broadband blocking device to fit in the top of a fake Saguaro cactus but Juan and Willy would do the actual building. The segments of a fake cactus had been cast for her and the stringy-haired, gap-toothed gentleman fit the blocking device in the top section.

They had arrived separated at the property behind Mr. Humphrey's ranch in a suitable location late that night and she had picked the spot she wanted. The old cactus had been designed to mimic the Saguaros around it. Green mortar would be daubed on the segments to give it a disintegrating look, the segments fit together to support a fabulous blocking device that would stop what the CONQUISTADORS were doing.

Regardless of their observations, Juan and Willy were completing the actual construction and installing the last segment. The stringy-haired, gap-toothed man assured Mrs. Warner that the blocking device would work perfectly. She would slow down everything going on at the Humphreys ranch!

When Mrs. Warner walked up to the Saguaro, she ignored its slight list. The cactus shifted further as the two assistants came down the ladder. A blob of adhesive fell ominously with a loud thwap.

"I give you credit. I didn't think you could get this thing built," Mrs. Warner croaked to the stringy-haired, gap-toothed man.

"I designed this for maximum ability to penetrate the building. You should be able to block all devices in that house. This cactus represents a lot of work on my part, Mrs. Warner. And I hope you appreciate it."

"Oh, I do, I do. Most delightful!"

"It's well built. You're going to be stopping all communications."

"Madam, I am not entirely certain about the construction..." Forester began reluctantly.

"Whatever do you mean?" Mrs. Warner asked her assistant. Forester was becoming so irritating lately!

As this was the first time anyone had dared point out to Mrs. Warner that the Saguaro which she had commissioned was crooked, she drew herself up with a dignified snort but looked nevertheless at the cactus with a fresh, appraising eye.

Say, she meditated, a good deal surprised, it did seem to her that the cactus segments were not exactly what she had had in mind. The fake Saguaro had a distinctly warped appearance. The segments were traveling in and out of vertical in a haphazard fashion. Circular segments didn't meet fully and the adhesive between the segments oozed and bulged out all over the structure like a stack of melted sandwich cookies. Maybe some clouds were traveling oddly past the moon?

"Well, let's begin!" cried Mrs. Warner.

This was his cue. The stringy-haired, gap-toothed man walked quickly to the bottom of the Saguaro. He stood with his box, connecting to the blocking device. As he stood fiddling with switches and such he put on headphones. And leaned his back against the fake Saguaro.

The Saguaro let out a loud ripping sound.

"Ma'am! I do believe—"

And the tower of fake cactus pieces began a quick cave-in.

First, a horrible faint crumbling, rumbling sound came from the lower segments of the cactus and then...

The stringy-haired, gap-toothed man, from his position under the fake cactus, looked up.

"Holy shit!" he said when a ten-inch crack opened and he appreciated that the whole thing was about to drop on him.

The onlookers glanced up in time to see the arching pillar of the cactus tumble. The last segment at the tip of the cactus sucked under quickly.

The very loud noise expelled from Mrs. Warner's throat sounded something like the word: "Gwiffit%$#&%$tagra!"

Mrs. Warner, Forester, Juan and Willy stared as the Saguaro leaned severely and collapsed on the stringy-haired, gap-toothed gentleman.

The cactus fell with the most enormous crunch imaginable, the supporting structure melting, rather like the stalk of a droopy flower, heaving over before the unbelieving eyes of the onlookers. Segment after segment caved over, with resplendent dust and goop and noise.

Juan who was caught unawares a little too close to the falling cactus scattered with a small shout, pushing creosote branches away and running with his hands in the air. Pell-mell, Willie flew away from the collapsing structure and more of the segments so terribly built by Juan and Willie came down in harsh booms and thumps.

Not a single segment was destined to stay upright.

The whole thing, the messy job that Juan and Willie spent almost no time on, had leveled itself in less than one minute.

The shock to them of seeing that cactus fall into ruins in a matter of seconds was horrible to behold.

Mrs. Warner flattened her hairdo and moaned: "Oh no! This can't be!" several times.

Forester, armed with a shovel, rushed in toward the fallen cactus yelling for the stringy-haired, gap-toothed man who might have been trapped underneath the rubble, though thankfully it proved that he was not so unlucky. The stringy-haired, gap-toothed man's assistants had high-tailed it out of there the moment the thing went down.

Now all that was left was a mass of segments and sticky adhesive, a failed gob of Mrs. Warner's planned glory.

A week later and Mrs. Warner had another horrid plan up her sleeve. Luckily, Forester had gotten wind of it. Unluckily, this was the day he had Debra with him for the first time.

Forester stalked out to his car holding his daughter's hand. As he rushed back with her, Forester considered what he ought to do next. If he took Debra with him while he defused the bomb, wouldn't he be reprehensible? Only a beast, he supposed, would take a child near a bomb even for even an instant. On the other hand, leaving her in the car was also risky and... child endangerment. Suppose he didn't defuse the bomb? Suppose the thing went off before he could disarm it? After all, he wasn't certain he knew what he was doing. Leaving Debra was folly, taking her along was foolhardy. Doing nothing, driving back to Escorpion Estates, might mean Dr. Goodhouse's clinic would go up in flames. And that was really risky too. And he hadn't had time to plan something to divert the janitorial service. They might arrive at any moment!

He looked at the chubby face of his daughter.

"Are you going to be good?"

She nodded.

"Be a good girl and stay in here," he pleaded.

He shut the door and sprinted toward the back of the building.

He looked back to see Debra's face squashed against the window.

Forester rushed to cut the wire.

As he rounded the back of the clinic, around the barring chain, he found the bomb. Luckily, the stringy-haired, gap-toothed man had constructed a simple smoke bomb. Forester had a rudimentary idea of how to defuse it. He had planned ahead and brought a pair of wire cutters with him. It was simply a matter of snipping some wires.

His hands shook as he made the necessary snips.

Defused!

He barely had time to exhale before he dashed away and headed for the car where his daughter was now standing at the passenger side window.

The teeny face of his daughter peeked out at him through the dusty window only to disappear when Forester slid his key in the lock and reached for the door handle. Forester tore open the door.

"You scamp," he said as he looked in and was greeted by the sight of his daughter's head popping up from the back seat. "We saved a bank and a health clinic tonight!"

"Goody!" she said. "Let's play! Games!"

Forester patted her head. Entirely unsafe, the rest of this night better be uneventful until he could get her home!

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

"Forester, I want to inform you that I am on my way to Olde Mexico within the fortnight," Mrs. Warner announced.

"Is that so madam?" said Forester, standing before her desk in her private study.

"I want to take you along with me on this excursion. How would you feel about it?"

"I will have to give it some consideration, madam."

"All right, do that. I will double your pay for the time we're there, of course. I hate to leave Salomon and Mother, but there's no helping it. I feel called to take care of this awful gang of no-good businessmen!"

And, she went on to explain, she had stopped using the services of the stringy-haired gentleman after the fake saguaro collapse. "I have lost all confidence in my factotum from Pima Ruins. He has failed me too many times. I've let him know he is no longer in my employ. I believe his technology is inferior, Forester," she explained. "Very inferior. And his execution of any superior technology he manages to get his hands on is subpar. The way he handled the installation of that blocking device is a good example. While I have pity for the poor man, I must say that he did a terrible job of construction and it was he who hired those two nincompoops and he who supervised them, terribly. Why, I could see right away that the fake cactus they had built was put together poorly."

"Yes, you did say that," replied Forester. Of course, she had said no such thing and had criticized Forester for having the temerity to point out that the fake Saguaro looked tottery. Forester conjectured that the stringy-haired man had refused to go to Mexico with Mrs. Warner. He must have formed a pretty good idea of how things generally turned out for Mrs. Warner and doubtless he wanted no part of it anymore, despite her money. Of course, Forester had managed to wreck a few of Mrs. Warner's plans himself.

"Mexico is my destination now. This will be the most important action in my life! Nothing compares to the evil of having the CONQUISTADORS and Mr. Humphrey operating in Mexico and Arizona. I blame him for many of the deficiencies in this town. That man has not seen the last of me...He will have to pay for his malfeasance. I am not letting him off the hook easily."

The last thing Forester wanted was to leave the Old Pueblo and go galivanting around Sonoran villages in Mexico looking for the head of some imaginary gang with a weird employer like Mrs. Warner. He had managed to get closer to partial custody of Debra and he might even have a chance at full custody. On the other hand, the last situation when he had had to defuse a bomb with his daughter in the car made him think twice. That was too dangerous for his kid. His ex-girlfriend might be leaving Debra with unseemly characters but they weren't defusing a bomb at a clinic and leaving the child unattended in the car at night. Maybe he was the worse parent of the two! Of course, such a situation would probably not happen again. Or would it?

Perhaps there was another reason he should stay back in the Old Pueblo. Mrs. Warner's vigilante missions were hard enough to thwart in the U.S.; they might be much harder to counteract in Mexico where he barely spoke the language and had no knowledge of the criminal justice system if he would have to bail her out. And he didn't relish the idea of getting Mrs. Warner out of a Mexican jail! Also, in the throes of stopping some of her plots he had broken the law in America. What if he had to do that in Mexico? He didn't want to spend any time in a Mexican jail and he doubted that Mrs. Warner, even with all her money, would be able to get him out quickly. And, frankly, if he did nothing, if he refused to go with her to Mexico, her missions had a way of failing on their own. But then she might actually die if one of her missions went terribly wrong. Or, worse, she might actually kill someone in Mexico!

Whichever way Forester turned he had another moral dilemma to face. None of it made sense or was easy to analyze, but he knew he had to make a decision soon.

And he needed to get Debra away from their mother before she decided to take her to another city. Every minute he didn't spend with her she slipped that much further from him. He couldn't afford to waste so much time in another country. But Mrs. Warner promised to pay him well and a lawyer he'd consulted had cost plenty and the private detective even more.

But it was unlikely Mrs. Warner could get along in a foreign country since she barely survived in Arizona. Therefore, he made the momentous decision to travel with Mrs. Warner to Mexico and leave his kid in the Old Pueblo. With any luck, Mrs. Warner would fail quickly and become discouraged or maybe someone would give her a clue that would lead her back to the Old Pueblo. Or maybe he could set up some fake clues to lead her back? She followed a vague breadcrumb trail now, quite possibly the same thing would happen in Mexico and it just might take her back around to U.S. He didn't want to think of another alternative, namely that Mrs. Warner might injure herself so severely that he would have to bring her corpse back to the Old Pueblo. That outcome worried him considerably.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Across Sonora, in small countryside villages, in the coastal playas, and the large cities, the tale spread about a weird old gringa who traveled by night. Thus, Mrs. Warner's arrival became famous in Northern Mexico by word of mouth.

In the countryside villages, when they encountered her, they speculated that she'd come down from the hills, or from some chilly arroyos somewhere beyond their farms. This creature, they surmised, must have stumbled out, human-like, but much slower, out from the lengthening shadows. Behind cactus and pine, deer and rabbits scampered to safety from her; the animals could feel her presence there—a figure that was cloaked by the Sonoran night, wild-eyed and looking over their sleepy valleys for trails and signs and omens that might lead her to her prey. Out on the edge of a farm in the waning hours of night, she stopped and they almost believed they heard a heart-freezing howl.

Moonlight streaks coursed over her skinny body, and the sticks of the trees swayed and snapped as she thrust her way through Sonoran forests. Her spiky pile of hair probably housed something living inside of it; it shot up with its own backbone seemingly. And her many disguises left her looking most peculiar. Her false wigs sat on her head in odd angles and the scars on her face gave her a weird, cut-up aspect. She used tanning powders to adopt different complexions; she wore odd dirty clothes. At times, she resembled some slapped-together, moldering, walking scarecrow.

These country people correlated her arrival with other-worldly lights in the sky, small green and red beams traveling at great speed through the northern skies that April. She might have been an alien who had lost her space ship, her pulsating flying saucer. Somehow, she had zoomed in upon them without warning and what her real intentions were, no one knew. She had plans for them, that much they were certain of, and the best thing appeared to be to get rid of her as quickly as possible.

Those in other small towns mulled over the way the ancient woman walked, slowly like some creepy insect with her thin arms held in front of her and her lower jaw jutting out. In village after village, she frightened the people with her cut-up face and odd way of skulking about, asking strange questions. They feared she was like an insect that wished to chew Mexico to pieces, a devouring monster. Was she part of a plague of insects? Was she the grand queen of some race of beetle-people intent on invading Northern Mexico and grinding it to bits?

The dark of her crazy eyes made some of them think she was part of the undead, a blood sucking, slow-moving vampire coming for the souls of the living. They'd seen that in movies. She was something that made you want to shrink back into your bed under the warm covers and forget what you had seen. And she tended to go out only at night!

The amount of dust she raised on the rural roads of Sonora was like a huge war party of Apaches, or the battles of colonial Mexico. You could have sworn Father Kino had ridden through, but it was only an old lady on the sidecar of an English motorcycle. A bald man with a big moustache drove. She told the people in villages who complained about the dust that she only hoped THEY wouldn't see the cloud and guess that she was coming. But who was THEY?

Her weird silhouette crept through these small villages. In their limited alleys and streets and parks, she came searching, searching, her associates asking in Spanish for leads about the CONQUISTADORS. Or some of them would awake in the night to the sinister sounds of an old woman, highly bandaged and limping, moving through the town at a snail's pace. Her slinking shadow crossed the streets of Oaxaca, wobbled through Mesilla and crept through Aqua Prieta. She slowly limped over the pavements past door after door. Her head turning every which way, listening to the words of the people with her who had scouted the town for any suspicious gringos.

Walking slowly through the dark Mexican nights, walking the streets and the plazas of little sleepy Sonoran towns, asking questions always. Were there any such people in the town? Were there any Anglos at all in the place? Were there any people wearing red jackets or people discussing CONQUISTADORS? That was what she asked in the villages. Strange questions for an ugly old gringa. She assured them that the answers were very important for their future. The CONQUISTADORS, she explained, wanted control of all of Northern Sonora and Southern Arizona. They planned to combine the two into a giant criminal enterprise! It was a gang dedicated to all kinds of crimes and frauds and environmental degradation.

Like the walking dead and looking just about as healthy, this old woman wobbled through their larger towns asking questions about a gang possessing mysterious wealth. She would know where they were or die trying, she said. Were there any unusual homes, perhaps homes with secrets?

Many people in the cities said it must be her husband and not the evil polluters that she sought. A woman as awful as that, they reckoned, would quickly lose her husband. He no dumped the woman. She probably followed him into Mexico. Was the poor man a Mexican, they speculated? Even if he weren't, they had pity for him. They wouldn't give her any information no matter what. She didn't deserve a husband. Her husband was well free of her.

And the women in big cities laughed at her sometimes. Silly old gringa asking foolish questions about CONQUISTADORS. They didn't know anything about that. What, was she living in the past?

On a clear, moonlit night in Hermosillo they heard from the brave that her shadow flowed over the big town square at midnight. She spent several days there, getting information in any way she could.

Inland, in the northern states of Mexico, she traveled by motorcycle sidecar sitting beside a young Guatemalan man or a bald gringo with a large yellow and gray moustache. She was always yelling at the drivers and passing slowly, but dangerously. The people in the hill towns could see her crazy face yelling in English for the drivers to move over, demanding and threatening and shaking her fist. Buzzing through villages, the motorcycle took corners rapidly and her tall blonde hair bent over. In arroyos the motorcycle bottomed out like there was no tomorrow. She sat always looking forward eagerly awaiting their arrival at another destination where she imagined there might be some hint of this gang's whereabouts.

Several residents of ocean bays fled when the hunched figure of the gringa (who like some stealthy witch landed near ports, followed leads) arrived in their villages. She took in rumors at the ocean as though she were sucking them up in a straw. She drew them into her, these rumors and digested them so that they came out the way she wanted and supported her increasingly bizarre version of what the CONQUISTADORS were doing. In her mind an army of people kept the CONQUISTADORS safe from her and these evil doers were everywhere in the ports she visited. She kept CONQUISTADORS on the move and it was only through the rumors of curious sounds and sights that she learned their secrets. They kept one jump ahead of her, but she had help. She would often send paid operatives ahead to the next port to scout for the tales.

From region to region, from town to town. Moving almost every day, Mrs. Elditha P. Warner worried citizens across the expansive of northern Mexico.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Nighttime in her hotel room at Roca de Cabeza and the crumpled figure of Mrs. Warner zipped open a black nylon duffle bag on a twin bed. The two halves of the bag fell open like a clamshell, and she could be seen hovering over a horrible mound of different colored human hair. One of her wrinkled, careworn hands traveled toward the mass of miscellaneous wigs—and a large card of beards— to choose a short red-haired wig with a highly teased back. She lifted it out and carried it to the bathroom mirror like the scalp of a victim.

Shuffling to the bamboo framed mirror, Mrs. Warner carefully smoothed her own hair which was pulled back severely in a tight bun. Satisfied that it was tight enough and smooth enough she lowered the comical red wig over her horrible head and attached it with bobby pins. Finally, she wet a round wire brush and coaxed the wig into shape, lifting and teasing the back sections of the hair several times. Next, she applied a messy smudge of lipstick which began spreading into the lines around her lips like the fraying edges of a small red silk bag. Finally, she returned to the bedroom and donned a pair of cheap brown polyester slacks and a white safari-style jacket which she'd laid out on the bed. The results were spectacularly absurd. She looked like a Drag Queen jungle explorer who had a strawberry explode on her lips.

The slacks hurt her frail legs that were still feeling the effects of many of her misadventures. Horrible prickles from that cholla in Tubac! Weeks later, the many wounds had turned slightly purple and she winced if the slightest pressure was put on them. Bedtime had been agony the prior night. During the night, she could feel thousands of the tiny glocids prickling her everywhere, despite the efforts in the emergency room to scrub them off her flesh, the very painful, thorough-going and vigorous efforts of several nurses over several hours, the standard treatment in hospital rooms for people who have fallen into beds of cacti.

But enough complaints; she now had a mission! She was on the ground where her nemesis might be found. She was doing real things to capture La Gatito and it thrilled her to think that perhaps by that very next morning she might have him bottled up at last. This time there would be no escape. This time she would not leave his care to someone irresponsibly idiotic.

Yes, despite her injuries, Mrs. Warner was excited about her discoveries in Mexico. In the little coastal town of Roca de Cabeza, which she and Forester had entered only the night before, she had learned more of the extraordinary and horrible reports. Anecdotes about a wailing tower.

The stories told of an old tower on the coast a few miles outside Roca de Cabeza. From the coastal watchtower they heard moaning every night. A ghostly wail it was that filled the nights with horror and made the villagers flee the area. Though the secluded cove was perfect for lovers, there were never any of them brave enough to lie side by side kissing on that beach for as soon as they started, the sound would start, too. And it was awful.

At first a small groan might be emitted and that could, of course, be taken to be the sea lapping against the rocks. Perhaps a sighing sound or a clicking tongue would come next and couldn't that be nothing more than a boat docking or the sea again? Then the sigh would grow louder and the clicking a little bit more like an angry mother scolding her son.

Sensible residents said the whole thing was nothing more than the sound of the sea sucking against the sand. Any inlet as big as the Sea of Cortez was bound to make some peculiar sounds near the base of an old tower. But the rumor of the wailing tower had traveled inland to where Mrs. Warner stopped the prior night and of course she vowed that she would see this town with the wailing tower the very next day.

She listened carefully to the stories of the villagers, never once interrupting when they described the activities at the tower. It was obvious to her that the legend of the wailing tower was nothing more than a foolish superstition of gullible people. Of course, it was obvious to Mrs. Warner what the answer was. Clearly, an evil group of millionaires were using the tower in some sort of nefarious plot! She would have to put a stop to this or the innocent people in the village would pay when they were controlled by the Feen and Humphreys organization and these dastardly CONQUISTADORS. They would run the people like sheep and they would have no one to protect them. She, Mrs. Warner, along with the help of Forester would make sure that these CONQUISTADORS were no longer in charge of anything. The key was to destroy their power base in Sonora so that they would have to resort to crime in America where they would be much less successful. That was how Mrs. Warner assessed the whole situation. Forester, for his part, did not object to her logic. He was beginning to think her chances of injury or death were lower in the countryside of Mexico than in the Old Pueblo with that stringy-haired imbecile coming up with dangerous bombs every other day. Even though Mrs. Warner had fired him, Forester wasn't sure they'd seen the last of the stringy-haired gentleman.

Her theory of the mysterious tower was that it had become the headquarters of the entire group of evil doers (some combination of Mr. Humphreys, Mr. Davidson, Mr. Feen and Mr. Wilson) who were now cowering in fear from her because of the narrow misses. She imagined they had someone imprisoned in the tower. What the townspeople were hearing was the agony of some poor person who was locked away and being tortured, Mrs. Warner claimed!

To Elditha, it was not beyond her imaginary gang to stay in an old out-of-the-way, supposedly haunted tower. But to think of it was absurd to Forester who applied logic to the situation. Couldn't they find a better place to imprison someone than an old tower that was practically falling down? Mrs. Warner pursued people who were quite wealthy, so what would they be doing in such an outlandishly old, half-crumbling tower? It wasn't as though they couldn't find a better place to have as a hide-out or a headquarters. Forester argued the point with Mrs. Warner, but she would have none of his logic. In her mind, the abandoned tower could easily be fixed up inside. Forester knew the likelihood of that was infinitesimal.

She didn't want to be told that these noises had been heard for twenty years, that it was a legend of several generations. Forester tried to tell her that, but she wouldn't listen. Forester tried to tell her that the sound was the perfectly logical sucking sound caused by the shape of the inlet, but Mrs. Warner would have none of his justifications and explanations. She knew a mysterious story when she heard one, and she wasn't going to be put off when perfectly innocent Mexican people were no doubt being horribly tortured in the tower! She would put a stop to it right away! This gang could not get away with torturing Mexicans!

She would investigate first!

At eight that night, she and Forester drove in the motorcycle and sidecar toward the tower, using directions provided by the hotel owner.

Somehow, on their way to the tower, they took a wrong turn. They ended up on a secluded beach with no sign of the tower.

"There's no structure here, ma'am," Forester asserted.

"Obviously you screwed up the directions! Head over to that vegetable stand. Ask again!"

"Yes, ma'am."

Forester stepped across the street to the stand and asked about the road he needed to take in order to find the tower. With new directions in hand, he returned to the motorcycle.

"Well, do you know where to go?" asked Mrs. Warner crankily, when Forester returned.

"Yes, but it will be dark when we get there. Don't you think we ought to wait until morning?" Forester asked.

"Never! Surprising them at night is perfect. The darkness will hide our approach. I need you to wait at the bottom in case they come past me. I understand there is only one door."

They finally arrived at the tower at nine. In the darkness of coastal Mexican, the sound of the sea slapping against the rocks was not comforting. In addition there were floating lights on the Sea of Cortez as though it were liquid silver or a pond on an alien moon.

The tower's age had prompted great disputes among the village elders. There were many residents who dated it to the time of Francis Drake, El Drake, whom the Mexicans held in great fear and esteem. They believed El Drake haunted the tower. Others held it was still older and had as its base an old tower of the Mayan times, a lookout over the western sea. It was known that trade by boat occurred along this coast at that time, though the tower had never been properly dated. This old tower was built by their great-grandfathers at least and had stood through many a hurricane that came up the narrow channel of water. And the tower had survived an earthquake that hit nearby Guadalajara and destroyed many other historic buildings.

But it had not met Mrs. Warner.

Well, Mrs. Warner wanted nothing to do with all this nonsense about the ghost of Sir Francis Drake. She asserted that the best thing was to go right in. No doubt the CONQUISTADORS imagined an isolated tower would be the perfect spot to coordinate their hideous plots, but she would soon confront them. She only questioned who was bringing them food.

Forester and Mrs. Warner clambered out of the motorcycle and sidecar.

And there it was at last, the tower by the sea. The old structure had the look of something delicate and very dilapidated. Mrs. Warner immediately tottered toward the tower on a wooden bridge. Several boards of the bridge fell away as she hobbled over them. Forester, walking behind her, could find no safe path.

"Ma'am!" he tried to whisper.

"Silence, fool!" she whispered back.

Forester approached as she banged the tower door with her hand but there was little sound produced. Not enough to scare THEM. She needed a big sound to frighten them into opening that door!

She looked around the tower property. With one scrawny arm, she lifted a collapsed board and carried it to the door. She banged the board against the great oak slab.

She walloped the door to the tower without regard.

Then she banged again harder.

"I know you're in there!"

"Senora, es tovar no es muy durado," shouted a little man, probably a caretaker who was sprinting down a sand dune toward them.

"Are you a conspirator with them?" Mrs. Warner demanded.

"Que?" said the poor man helplessly.

"How much is he paying you?" Mrs. Warner continued.

"No pay. Tower is not good."

Not strong. Not strong, he repeated the words and yet Mrs. Warner ignored his protests and charged ahead with her plans of attack.

A third bang was all the old fragile tower door could take. With an eerie creak, the door began to give way. Mrs. Warner looked up and squinted as the whole dark door toppled toward her.

She stepped aside just in time.

"Senora!" wailed the caretaker, seeing the door collapse.

Mrs. Warner walked in.

The tower was dark except for light filtering in from above. She began to climb a spiral staircase.

The tower smelled of salt and old wet stones. She could barely see her feet in their fashionable boots. Step by step, she mounted skyward.

About forty steps up, she had a funny premonition and did not step further. She waited. A cloud that had been covering the moon scudded away and suddenly she could see. Her boot was about to step out into thin air!

She grabbed the wall beside her and looked again. The staircase where she had planned to step had collapsed. The whole stinky tower was empty the rest of the way up!

She turned around and tottered down.

When she emerged, a shaken Mrs. Warner addressed the horrified caretaker and Forester. "Someone has mistakenly led me here. The staircase is gone after forty steps!"

"Yes, I was trying to tell you that!" said the caretaker.

"It was an attempted murder, Forester. These people mean business." Mrs. Warner's face set itself in a hard and more determined look. Which terrified Forester.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

A powerful person! Perhaps, this El Gatito she sought? A maniac, that fit the bill of the CONQUISTADORS as far as Mrs. Warner was concerned. A maniac locked up in the bedroom of an isolated agave farm.

Mrs. Warner intended to find out. She had strong suspicions that it just might be them....

The operative she had hired knocked loudly on the door to her room. He gave her directions to the Blue CONQUISTADOR agave farm.

"We must hurry!" she announced, pounding on Forester's door. "This information is fresh. We must act on it!"

She sat beside Forester at the very front of the sidecar, leaning forward almost willing it to go to the ranch where they might find El Gatito. She had a grim look on her face and no sight of a smile.

"Faster!" she hollered. "Drive faster, Forester!" Usually she disapproved of fast driving, but she would make an exception for this El Gatito character.

The further up the road of the agave farm that they went the muddier the rutted road became, more ponderous and difficult to travel on in their motorcycle. Though Forester made efforts to avoid the thickest mud, the tires still became coated with gloopy slop and dirt. Finally, it slowed them severely. The road, or really a track, was swampy with puddles of stagnant greenish brown mud and rough with squishy dirt thickened in the ruts of vehicles. They could see hoof prints were more frequent than tire marks.

The motorcycle slowed.

"What's going on?" Mrs. Warner demanded. "What are we doing? Why are we slowing so much? We have to go on now! There can be no delay. I can't afford to come to a stop!" she squawked. "Soon we will reach them. They may have already heard that we're closing in. They could be fleeing their headquarters as we sit here. But we cannot sit here! Onward, Forester, onward!"

"The mud is slowing us down," he yelled back at her over the loud sound of the engine revving. "I'm trying the best I can to get us out."

Mud sloshed over everything. The wheels spun mud backward and splattered the agaves behind them. Several lizards and birds rushed away in different directions.

"Oh, good grief!" exclaimed Mrs. Warner as the engine sputtered.

"I'll try again," Forester volunteer bravely.

He stomped the bike and revved the motor.

A clunking sound came out along with blue gas. Now the wheels barely spun at all. "I'm clogging it up! There's no hope!"

"Oh God," he said a moment later. "We can't go on with the bike," he explained bluntly, "We're completely caught in this thick mud. We won't be able to get out now."

"Go on, go on." Mrs. Warner's head swung around in confusion. She tried to look for an answer on the horizon.

Forester stopped the bike and got off, helping Mrs. Warner to swing herself out. She stepped into thick mud and floundered her way to the side of the trail. Forester walked around the front of the bike looking at the mud and at a nearby house. And then he spied more hoof prints.

"I'll walk over to that house, madam, and see what they think is best. Perhaps burros would be available."

"Yes, do that," said Mrs. Warner. She could think logically when she had to.

He came back a half an hour later.

"The farmer says we should walk to that farm ahead. The little red house. We'll borrow burros from him and go the rest of the way on burro back. The ranch we want is further down the road and burro is the best way in after the rains. It's an agave farm, as we were told. There are rumors about the caretaker who lives there. The family does have a connection to the Old Pueblo."

"Ah ha! As I suspected! We are getting closer. Did it seem like he had a phone?"

"No madam."

"Good. I hope he doesn't have a laptop or a cell phone hidden away. We can't afford to have these fellows know we're on their trail."

They slogged across the farm field to the adjacent house. Mrs. Warner's skinny legs wobbled and wiggled as she picked her way across the mud. She muttered to herself and spent her time looking toward the far-off ranch where she knew the gang was hiding. She had a gut feeling THEY would be there; this El Gatito and the gang. This was close to the town where a photo was taken which Mrs. X had seen and it gave every indication of being the sort of place where THEY would want to hide. Obscure farmhouses were a favorite haunt.

The farmer was able to lend them two burros and he gave them directions to the mysterious ranch.

Mrs. Warner mounted her burro with difficulty. She had to be helped into the saddle and the donkey took a lengthy and quizzical look behind it at the extremely peculiar, skinny woman sitting on its back. Its gray shiny hide suddenly shivered as though it had a hideous blowfly on it. The shiver went from the haunches to the neck and back down to its belly. As they walked the burros away from the barn and across more muddy fields, Mrs. Warner's burro gave out a horrible snort of protest at what was happening. It wanted to bolt away and leave its misshapen burden behind.

Soon Mrs. Warner and Forester were closing in on the wide expanse of another agave field. Across the landscape as far as you could see in all directions there was nothing but a regimented world of bluish agave plants like huge barbed artichokes planted so close the tips of the sword-like leaves touched each other. A thousand pinwheels across the land, reaching out and touching one another. The mud was thick around the agaves.

"Forward," said Forester, signaling with his hand as though he were the wagon master of some freaky caravan.

"I love it when you state the obvious," snapped Elditha.

With each step of the burros, they grew closer to the ranch.

Finally, a small path led to a white brick house with some small pots of geraniums in the teeny windows and a lemon tree planted at the side. The house was located in the center of the agave grove.

They stopped in front of the door. Mrs. Warner slid off the burro with difficulty, her wig falling sideways over her ear. Her expression was full of loathing and determination. She took only an instant to adjust her outfit and then she then mincing forward.

"Keep an eye on the back exit and try to watch the front," she said to Forester.

He tethered the burros to the lemon tree.

"Madam," Forester called. "Do let me help you."

"Stay where you are, Forester. I believe I have this one covered. I may have finally found the answer to the power struggle. I will wrest honesty out of this man, if it's the last thing I do."

"Oh, dear. I don't like the sound of that!" said Forester to himself.

At last, the center of their power had been reached, Mrs. Warner ruminated with herself. So, this was where it all emanated from, the source of the money for purchase of the mountains in Arizona, the mining, timber, and fishing interests. Finally, she had reached the zenith of evil. This small agave farm and the man hiding at this ranch house held the key, the key to the power of evil. All she would have to do was take him with her.

"We will tie him up," she called back to Forester. "Bring along that stout rope of mine."

"Very well, madam," replied Forester.

She picked her way through the mud to the tiny, hidden house and pounded on its door.

"Senor?" she began, addressing the rather confused caretaker who appeared momentarily in the doorway. This small man had stooped shoulders and was wearing a tattered T-shirt with holes of different sizes, but in lines, so that the dots of his brown skin showing through formed long archipelagoes. He leaned out from a little green-stained door which had been nicely carved with a plaque of four fat Mexican gray squirrels. The squirrels looked as curious about the visitor as he was. It wasn't often that someone ventured out this far into the vast, ocean-like expanse of blue agave fields where the man lived. Every day when he said goodbye to his wife and she walked to the village where she cashiered at a grocery, he felt that she was lost at sea and he despaired at where they lived. However, there was privacy and a feeling of majestic splendor in living in such a place and he could almost imagine the whole field was his. It was a dangerous job, too; there were thieves now that the fields were infected. The blue agave was rotting at an astounding rate.

In his callused hand he held a dainty pansy-painted cup and frowned at Mrs. Warner's poorly secured burro which was already straining toward several of his favorite potted plants that he had lovingly placed in a shady semi-circle under a small lemon tree.

"Si?" he said mildly, keeping a wary eye on the burro.

"What is the name of this ranch?" she asked in Spanish. At the sound of her business-like voice, a crow perched on the roof cawed raucously and dove into the agave.

"This is Blue Conquistador's field," he answered simply, but proudly. "They make a very famous tequila from these agaves. And those who know me call me Beto. Beto Guzman."

"Well, Beto. Blue Conquistador, is it?" Mrs. Warner gave Forester, who was coming up with the rope, a significant glance. "We may very well have heard of this CONQUISTADOR group. Yes, we know them well. We want to see the headquarters," said Mrs. Warner rather brusquely, unable to hide her feeling of triumph. "It has taken us a long time, but we have finally tracked it down."

He looked around in obvious confusion and rubbed his head. "Que?" he asked finally. "What headquarters are you asking about?" He took a sip from the pansy cup.

"We are not amused by your play-acting. We should have guessed earlier that the source of all that money was from tequila. We don't want any monkey business about it and we know you will not give us any trouble but will let us in immediately. We won't have to get rough. We don't want any injuries, but this CONQUISTADORS conspiracy, the acts of the CONQUISTADORS, must end."

"Are you looking for the owner? Go forward in that direction." He began to gesture with one hand, gently swooshing her toward the mountain. "He lives in the big white home near the volcano—"

"The headquarters you have in your back bedroom," said Mrs. Warner, butting in without ceremony. She wasn't going to wait around forever playing games with an underling. "Don't act ignorant. We are sympathetic with the way they have taken advantage of you, but we don't like people who act ignorant and are duplicitous. We wish to see the headquarters. You see, we know all about it, so there's no point in trying to protect them anymore," she explained. "Give up now and we will make the authorities look kindly on anything you happened to have done which is not exactly on the up-and-up."

"Up-and-up? A headquarters, here? Not at all. This whole ranch is run from the big pink house on the road to Guaymas, if that's what you mean. Yes, I think you want to go there instead of seeing the owner. You should take the burro back along that furrow near the lemon tree. The one with the big red bucket. Keep going for a long time and don't turn left or right at any time. Then you'll find the foreman. It is a long journey, but you will make it finally. I'm glad you know Blue Conquistador Tequila. It is some of the world's best tequila. It think." He smiled at them and showed every indication that he might go on talking about Blue Conquistador Tequila.

"Who's in the back bedroom?" she asked abruptly.

"I have only my wife's cat in there." The smiling man was sincere and earnest in his manner, but he did not yield to Mrs. Warner's obvious interest in entering his house. "Just a terrible cat. I wish to God she would let me kill him. Somehow," he added, crossing himself several times and leaving this cat-killing as a vague operation that he was not all together certain of.

"A cat?" said Mrs. Warner suspiciously, squinting at him.

"Si."

Some bright light went off in her nutty head. "Then let me see the 'gato.'" Mrs. Warner turned and winked at the burro and at Forester who smiled stiffly and joined her in laughter.

Beto was quite shocked, for he was fairly certain he had seen her wink at the burro. Then she began laughing like an escaped lunatic.

"Yes, a gato," he echoed, laughing uneasily. "A cat from hell. It belonged to her mother who lived in D. F. and since that old skeleton of a woman has departed this world, my wife insists we keep the creature here. A creature straight from hell it is. Bringing it on the bus, that was an adventure, let me tell you. People were saying 'what have you got in there, a devil?' and 'the noise is keeping my children awake.' We somehow got it here. But it will not accept human company—"

"Until now—" said Mrs. Warner, stepped quickly to the thresh hold. She tried to push her way past Beto.

He blocked her. "No senora, senora. Por favor, no entrada. This cat of my wife's is very fierce. We locked him in," the kindly man explained in a patient manner. Forester figured he was beginning to doubt Mrs. Warner's sanity. "Even to open the door slightly to put a dish of food before him terrifies me. You shall not want to do this thing. Believe me," he ventured. "He attacks everyone. I want my wife to be rid of him. Killing him is the only solution, for he could never be trained. Never." He crossed himself several more times energetically. "And I don't take killing lightly."

"I understand. Locked in? Yes, you have been locked in, Beto. I understand that. Very well, now I am the one who is coming to claim the 'cat.' This 'cat' is my business now and I will take him off your hands." Mrs. Warner stood more erect and barreled toward the door.

Beto wedged himself in the opening, wrapping one foot behind the open door before Mrs. Warner could pass through. "No senora. You must not go in. The cat he is insane." The man's eyes widened as she came toward him again. Again, he blocked Mrs. Warner from passing him and entering the house.

"We will give you money. Is that what you want?" asked Mrs. Warner impatiently. She snapped open her purse. "We have plenty of money and you are welcome to it for the old 'cat.' We are happy to capture him. Your reward is well earned. Name your price."

"No," protested Beto. He was genuinely horrified by her offer of cash. "But listen, I'm very afraid your burro will get away," he said, pointing at the animal which was straining at his rope.

"Yes, I'm sure some money will help the situation." Mrs. Warner fumbled at the clasp of the purse.

"No, senora. No dollars. I will never let you in there. To do so would risk great harm to you. And the cat might escape. I don't want to think of the harm it could do." This old American lady was clearly mad, but why was the man with her not helping? The stupid ridiculousness of what she had said left him off guard for a moment and with his guard lowered he let the door open a little too wide.

Mrs. Warner welcomed this opportunity and as quick as the strike of a rattlesnake she shot her arm in. She then began clawing at the shoulder of the man to move him away from the door but the man resisted her attempts to get past him. She hooked a finger in one of the holes in the poor man's shirt and ripped at him. He came forward and then the sleeve tore off completely.

"Oh, get out of my way you foolish, foolish imbecile!" she yelled.

"Senora!"

She grappled his blocking arms and partially pulled the rest of his shirt off. "I can tell by the way he's fighting that I am on the right track in coming here," she reasoned to herself. "These CONQUISTADORS inspire tremendous loyalty in certain depraved individuals." She was thinking this to herself, but happened to also say it out loud, something that happens to people who have lived too long alone. At the word 'depraved,' Beto fought her off with renewed vigor.

"Por favor. I plead with you not to do this," he begged Mrs. Warner in a frantic voice.

With a look of gleeful triumph, Mrs. Warner tore Beto away from his own front door. Mrs. Warner entered the residence.

"Help me!" he shouted, hoping without much optimism that someone would be weeding the fields nearby and hear him. "Help me! A madwoman is in here!"

"Madam," Forester began, coming earnestly up the steps, "I do believe we should listen to..."

Mrs. Warner charged forward. The little house was clean and tidy with beautiful wooden furniture and tropical colors on the walls. Her access to all the bedroom doors was clear; no one else was home to stop the invasion. She stepped across a rug and slunk down a hall to the door of the last room.

"You do not have to fear them anymore. If they have made you do things you do not approve of, I am here to tell you that you are free of them. You are released. Go and be thankful that I have come to rescue you. Your rooms will no longer house dangerous criminals who prey on surrounding communities!"

Her hand reached for the knob and turned it. Beto backed away.

"Madre Mia y Santa Felipe!" screeched Beto, tearing at his hair. He staggered out the front door. "You don't know what you are doing, lady! What has possessed you! Don't go in there, I'm telling you! My wife doesn't dare do it!"

Mrs. Warner flung open the door.

"Ay, Chihuahua!" The look of horrified alarm on the poor man's face was completely genuine and he scurried straight off the porch and into the forest of agaves without looking back.

Mrs. Warner walked boldly in.

"If I had another helper with me, I could cover one of the rear exits," Mrs. Warner muttered to herself. "This must be the right bedroom. The man's face showed more fear when I looked in its direction. He is frightened. Rightly so, this gang is a fierce bunch. I don't blame the fellow. Evil people have a way with simple people. Especially simple, rural people. Money can make anyone do anything. But money cannot make a basically honest and moral people approve of activities which personally sicken them. Perhaps I will find this bedroom jam-packed with plans?"

Mrs. Warner limped forward into the hot, dark room. She walked past the litter box without noticing it. She was busy examining the window first for any possible exit. Curtains billowed from the windows but she could see the screens were still on and no one had left the room. It was puzzling that the drapes and the screens hung in tatters. Very strange. But with the fields of agave surrounding them she didn't see how anyone was going to escape her.

She heard a sound. "Where are you?" Mrs. Warner inquired once she had shuffled a few steps into the modest bedroom. "Come out! We know you're in here. You're a bigger fool than we thought. Thinking you can hide from us. Are you listening? Why don't you say anything? Why don't you answer me? Stubborn, huh? By now you should realize the game is up. Admit it, I have you. This agave field was not a lucky choice for you for a hideout. Your little game is over. You can't escape us. No more ruining the countryside, bombing the sea for fish. No, you are done for and you might as well admit it." She tiptoed forward and looked around. "Don't make this harder for yourself than it needs to be. Tell me where you are."

"Madam?" asked Forester tentatively. He had stepped through the front door of the little house.

"I'm alright, Forester! Perfectly fine, in fact. Please don't be such a fuddy-duddy," she called from the bedroom. "I told you to watch the back of the house!"

She waited quietly, letting her eyes adjust to the darkness. The room was as sparsely ornamented as the front of the house. The only decorative details were a flowery lamp beside the bed and a shelf of china objects near a window. When her eyes could locate objects better, she heard something, a slight scratching sound near the billowing curtains. A shadow flew up the wall. Surely someone had scrabbled under the bed.

"Stubborn, is that it?" she asked. "Well, are you under the bed?" she asked. She sidled toward the side of the bed nearest the window where there was a narrow passage to the lamp. "I will find you wherever you are. Of that you can be certain," she promised as she worked her way along the bed. Her shoes were showing under the bedcovers. "Why are you trying to flee me now? I have a man outside. He's twice your strength and very lively. If you escape me, you will not escape him."

Slowly she bent down until she was on all fours. Lifting the bedcover gingerly she peered under the frame. "Where are you? You may as well come out now and stop playing these games. You're wasting time trying to evade us. Give up and we will guarantee your safety. Your prison stay will be short. We don't bear you any grudge," she said disingenuously.

Suddenly, a horrible snarl, a howl and the scrabbling sound of claws sounded from a shelf of porcelain flamenco dancers and bullfighters attached to the wall above her head. Slowly, Mrs. Warner's head turned away and came out from under the bed. She was still on all fours, but she let her gaze travel up the wall beside her and, she found the little shelf of knickknacks above her and sitting on the shelf looking down at her was an extremely large, ferocious black cat. Its horrible yellow eyes were layered with green sticky matter and most of its teeth were broken. An old wound had left the side of its mouth pulled up in a permanent snarl and its ears were tattered and droopy.

"Gerrrddditttt," it said slowly. "Gerrrrrrrrtraddddittty," it added. It was rocking its bottom the way cats do before they pounce and it knocked over a statuary bullfighter and tipped a cup in its saucer.

"A trained assassin cat," said Mrs. Warner resolutely noticing the terrible thing above her, "what clever people I'm dealing with."

Being spoken to was something the cat despised. "Gerrrrrrrrraddddditttyyyytata," it repeated more succinctly. It rocked its bottom again more violently and its eye grew bigger as it honed in on Mrs. Warner's face and her wig.

The big angry cat growled a long sustaining growl, gave out at loud horrible hiss, and then it leaped down upon the hapless Mrs. Warner with its claws out. Mrs. Warner tried to raise her arms to defend herself though the cat's attack was much too much for her to handle with simply an upraised arm.

Where was Forester when she needed him?

Zoom. In one fell swoop, the animal snatched off her silly blonde hair with a frenzied combination of front and rear claws and sent the silly champagne wig scooting across the floor like some fleeing pelt of an abused animal.

Then the horrible cat set its attention on the true features of Mrs. Warner. It didn't hesitate, but went whole hog at her, slashing and tearing, and it was difficult to catch a single movement of the cat, for it became a mass of claws and swishing tails. Where there usually were ten claws, ten thousand tore.

Spitting and squalling, it raked Mrs. Warner's cheeks hundreds of times with its claws. Scratching and ripping with the front and the back claws, it slapped her face, spanking her rapid-fire. It added some tracks across her forehead and put a few lines in her scalp. It also managed to lightly mangle one of her ears.

"Help, help, your cat has a hold of my head!" There was no point in her hollering this at Beto; he had fled at the instant she opened the door and was now halfway across the agave fields heading for the shop where his wife worked. Clearly, he knew what was in store for her and he wanted no part of it. Mrs. Warner fell backward onto a flowery counterpane. She threw out an arm and tried to wrap the coverlet around her. She felt the cat latch briefly onto her skull, rake across her scalp with all its claws and then choose freedom over further torture of its unwitting releaser. It screamed a parting yowl at her as it scrambled away toward the open door.

With a horrid growl, it zipped out the open front door of the house to freedom, and woe unto any agaves that got in its way; their barbs would be of no use against this furious fiend.

The tied burros leaped when the snarling bundle came out. Forester jumped out of its way.

Seconds later the cat was followed by Mrs. Warner, covered with blood from the racking of the cat's claws. She lurched straight toward one of the frightened burros.

"Madam!" hollered Forester in a short warning about the upset burro.

The impact of the burro's flailing hoof laid Mrs. Warner out cold.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Mrs. Warner's release home, once she was taken by ambulance from a hospital in Sonora, Mexico to St. Fidelis Hospital in the Old Pueblo, took more than six weeks. The scratches from the cat as well as the donkey's kick to her head had nearly killed the ancient nut, and her nurses were surprised that she recovered at all from the donkey's kick which stove in a portion of her skull. Mrs. Warner was naturally highly concerned with the state of her towering hairdo. She paid someone to come into the hospital and fix her up-do, though it still resembled a Force 4 tornado.

Forester stayed at her side when he could. And he used the opportunity of her near-death to try to discuss more sensible actions in the future.

"Madam," Forester began," I think you can guess what I'm going to say." He stood at the foot of her hospital bed when she was finally alert enough to have a conversation.

"Yes, Forester. I see that you are here at the foot of my bed, hat in hand, to beg me to stop trying to right the wrongs of this world. You are going to ask me to overlook the many malfeasances around me. I think, finally, I may have to agree with you. I cannot change the world. My plots are seemingly doomed. I have money, but I don't have luck. Luck is something you can't buy. Even with an Arsenal Ear or a Bionic Wave or an Enforcer Catapult. Do you know that Forester?"

"Yes, madam. Your luck has run out."

"I never had any, Forester."

"Oh, I beg to disagree."

"Did I ever tell you why I do what I do, Forester? These 'missions' you call them."

"No ma'am, you never did. And I've often wondered."

"Well, I think I will tell you. I think I will. The time has come. I once was lucky enough to have a son, you know."

"Really? With Mr. Warner?"

"Yes, Forester. We had a lovely son. He was a healthy young boy. We loved him deeply. He was killed you see. By a careless idiot. He was a developer; he knew all the best people. He didn't care about the accident. He didn't care about my son. I saw this same attitude with many people like him."

"I'm so sorry. There's something I've been wanting to tell you. Will you promise me the plots are over?"

"I will. I don't have the heart for it anymore. Or the strength. I realize I could have endangered my husband and my mother. They depend on me to pay for their care. If I was an invalid myself, they might not get the care they need."

"No more ideas of getting even with people who aren't doing the right things?"

"I've given it up," Mrs. Warner replied resignedly.

"No more ideas of the CONQUISTADORS? No more worries about mysterious people controlling the world?"

"I won't worry about them. They may finish off the world for all I care. I can't endanger my mother or my husband. I care for them too much."

"You're not looking to finish them off? Stop developers?"

"Not in my mind at all. It's the last thing in my mind. I'll be a home-body from now on. I'm going to be a good girl, Forester. I will probably begin watercolor painting or flower arranging in the Japanese style. Something like that. Maybe puzzle building. Yes, I think puzzle building would suit me."

"All right. I want to tell you about my predicament. I need your help with something that is important to me—" He was about to ask her for permission to take his daughter, if he could get custody, to his room above the garage.

But he didn't get a chance to tell Mrs. Warner about his daughter and how he had found her in the Old Pueblo. Before he could begin, the doctors came in for another procedure on poor Mrs. Warner, and Forester had to cut off his discussion.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

The ticket to Casa De la Guibbarza, the fabulous foothills home of the Gutmans, was a four-inch by six-and-a-half-inch stiff cream card with a golden border and interesting interwoven filigree at the corners. As a fascinating fact, and in keeping with her current obsession with all things Spanish Colonial, Mrs. Gutman had made sure the filigree engraving she picked was of a style favored by the Spanish aristocracy.

Mrs. Warner held the gorgeous thing in front of her almost not believing it was real. She brought the card to her nose and sniffed the faint scent of Valencia orange that a single drop of Mrs. Gutman's perfume had left on the costly card stock. Magnificent!

She closed her eyes. This invitation represented a great achievement, a milestone in her life. This invitation brought her to the pinnacle of power; now she would be making the rounds among the interesting and important citizens of the Old Pueblo. Who knew, she might be nominated to be an Auxiliary Dona de Los Descendientes del Presidio de Arizonac someday? With that vision, she opened her eyes and smiled a broad, creepy smile of complete satisfaction.

It was then, suddenly, that she perceived the very tip of a crisp square of cream-colored notepaper, which poked out of the envelope in a disturbing fashion. It was too thick to be a piece of tissue paper that you might find slipped into an invitation. It also wasn't any part of the envelope. Clearly, a separate note had been added. How had she missed it?

Mrs. Warner turned the envelope upside down and shook. The neglected note dropped out and fell to the floor, blank side up. Mrs. Warner looked warily at it for almost a minute without making a move to pick it up. Why was she so afraid of what might be written there?

At last she let out a long sigh and inched chocolate-colored nails along the side of her skirt. When her wrist hung over the couch, she bent forward at the waist so that her hand could reach the floor. Her thumb landed on the paper and her index finger snapped up an edge. She pinched the paper between her thumb and forefinger and brought it to her lap. Writing in a spidery cursive, Mrs. Gutman herself had penned the words.

"I want to introduce you to our friend Mr. Jameson Humphreys. He will be an important part of our lives next winter."

Mrs. Warner's throat muscles cinched tight. Could this really be happening? Had she finally gotten invited to one of Mrs. Gutman's parties only to discover that they wanted everyone to meet Mrs. Warner's old nemesis? She reread the note in disbelief. Sure enough, that was what it said. And Mr. Humphreys planned to winter in Arizona again. That meant even if Mr. Humphreys quit town immediately, he would be back again for another season five or six months in the offing. And if Mr. Humphreys didn't leave for another month, there was a good chance he would do some terrible things to the town! In addition to her constricted throat, Mrs. Warner's brain began pounding out an agonizing throb.

Mrs. Warner had promised Forester not to worry about any of her prior obsessions. She had promised not to do anything to stop the CONQUISTADORS plans for Southern Arizona. Knowing that she was finally agreeing to stop was not as easy as she had supposed it to be, however.

Mrs. Warner concentrated on her own unhappiness.

What she needed to do was take a parting shot at Mr. Humphreys. Rising at once on her dangerously spiky heels, she clattered into her office and snatched up her cell phone where it lay atop a pile of papers on her big granite desk. If she replayed the many messages that she'd left for herself in the last weeks, she might find a fresh idea, nothing big, just a small vandalism or a minor act.

In one message her voice said: "Order ammunition."

That wasn't too helpful. Ammunition could not be considered minor.

On another occasion she had demanded: "Investigate dry cleaners."

She had, without luck. Mr. Wilson laundered his own clothes.

Then she heard the ill-fated call to action: "Potatoes...er...don't forget that great potato idea!"

Potatoes! She had forgotten!

It was a wonderful idea, a small, low tech plot that she could do on her own. She wouldn't need Forester or the stringy-haired, gap-toothed man to help her with that plot.

She'd stumbled upon it while reading the Phoenix Herald police news. The trick, which a Phoenix husband had used on his ex-wife, involved shoving a potato into the exhaust of the victim's car and rapping it with a hammer to make sure it lodged securely in the pipe. When the unsuspecting victim tried to start her car, the potato would shoot out explosively making an enormous boom, which was certain to frighten the wits out of the victim.

Mrs. Warner broke down and phoned the stringy-haired, gap-toothed gentleman to confirm the facts about the potato plot. Since his idea of using explosives at the hotel had failed, Mrs. Warner's faith in this gentleman had flagged, but she was out of contingencies now and without Forester as an advisor the stringy-haired, gap-toothed gentleman would have to do. As he explained after listening to her, the only chance of failure would occur if the potato-plugged exhaust created too much pressure on the system, in which case combustion would be impossible and the car wouldn't start. In that case, she would at least have the pleasure of knowing he would need a tow. Mrs. Warner agreed watching Mr. Humphreys call for a tow would be pleasant.

She regretted breaking her promise to Forester, but after all this was a teeny plot. More like a small vandalism. She hadn't really promised Forester that she would never do anything to anyone. He had in mind the big dangerous things she'd been doing, not little minor vandalisms.

In her mind the potato plot promised to be her best plan yet, one superior to her other, failed attempts because it used vastly simpler technology. (And surely, she would not mishandle a potato or a hammer!)

CHAPTER THIRTY

The drive to The Pirate's Ship, a quaint pirate's ship, out on the dusty thoroughfare near the Air Force base was quicker than Forester had anticipated and he hardly had time to arrange his face when he had entered the strip club.

He went to the counter. He didn't look to see if she was dancing. "Can I leave my ex-girlfriend something?" he asked the cashier.

"Sure. But she left you something, too."

"This is a check." He started scribbling an amount that was twice what he could afford. "What did she leave?"

"Your daughter."

Forester looked up sharply. In a corner behind the counter, Debra sat on a low stool. She was dressed in a plaid skirt and a small dirty T-shirt with a dinosaur on it.

"I was about to call you."

"Good grief!" Forester's whole body sagged. "What a mother."

"You better take her outta here."

Forester swept around the counter and lifted Debra. The rising child said, "I haven't seen you. For a long time I haven't. Why do you got that pimple there?"

"Tell her I have Debra," said Forester to the cashier.

"I don't have to tell her anything," said the lady grumpily. "She left for Vegas anyway and I don't even know if she's ever coming back."

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

At seven that same Saturday night while Forester's daughter was being dropped in his lap, Mrs. Warner left Villa Escorpion, shambling down the wide front steps, a plastic bag containing three russet potatoes of various sizes swinging from one hand and a hammer gripped in the fingers of the right arm, which was in a cast after the donkey kick in Mexico. In hopes of being fashionable, and also less visible, she had dressed entirely in black—a pantsuit and a black faux-fur coat—and she wobbled, of course, in her trademark ridiculously fashionable high-heel boots.

Practically slathering at the mouth in anticipation of the last little plot against Mr. Humphreys, with her Rolls waiting patiently for her, Mrs. Warner reached the bottom of her steps and shuffled across her cobblestone drive. The evening's potato fun sent her sharp teeth into a tight smile.

She fell into her Rolls, tossing the potatoes and the hammer on the carpet, and starting the car with a loud vrooming noise. She crept it down her drive.

She bottomed the car out on the level and floated out the larger gates of the estate. In all her excitement at what she was going to be doing that night, she drifted off the verge of the road. The car went into a slide and skidded off the asphalt. It gathered speed while she fought to keep it from heading for an arroyo's edge.

With seconds left before a disastrous dive, the Roll's rear fishtailed, its engine roared, its wheel wells spewed fans of red dust, and she snapped the car back onto the road. Accompanied by a squeal, the car rounded a boulder slowly and disappeared without a flash from the brake lights.

"Get a grip!" Mrs. Warner chastised herself.

She traveled on, passing across the crumbling face of the Catalina Mountains. Uphill and around sweeping vistas, she continued on at a steady pace. Suddenly, reaching the top of a ridge, she stopped the car and peered at a street sign.

"Calle Sin Envidia," she said, laughing raucously at the name of the Gutman's street.

Spinning the Rolls' wheels, she lightly pressed the gas and sent the car climbing up 'the street without envy.' But her forward movement was soon stopped by the imposing sight of a guardhouse. She gained admission and guided the Rolls to the top of the long canyon road, past the homes of twenty or more multi-millionaires.

The Gutman estate, Casa de la Guibbarza, dominated a saguaro-covered slope in Tuscan-styled splendor which was evolving (with the help of a team of architects and engineers) slowly into a home of Moorish influence; spas and artificial waterfalls coursed through the vast, terraced desert gardens. As she approached the home itself, Mrs. Warner noted happily that a certain White Jag, Mr. Humphrey's Jag, had already slotted into a space rather far below the mansion. At its farthest end, where the road butted against a steep rock face, she whipped her own Rolls slowly around a cul-de-sac, parked at the curb, and killed the headlights.

Outside, inky blue spilled down the mountains, painting first the many deep canyons and then the pink ridges and hoodoos. Blue saddle tops, on a range older than the Rockies, hung rider-less in the sky nine thousand feet above her until they cinched up and their pommels of gray dipped toward another, northern trail. In the skies above, the lavender edges of the cumulous clouds had tinged mauve and then magenta, while below in the basin a blanket of sparkle spread, with tiny lights, like loose threads, drawn in from Mexico.

Mrs. Warner's gnarled fingers seized the bag of potatoes and then worked their way around the soft rubber handle of the hammer before carefully opened the door of her Rolls. Wiggling her bottom around in the seat and poking the pointy toe of her Giovanna Giomagnifico boot out, she was just preparing to raise her bottom when she started violently at the sound of her own name as someone, a very loud someone, descended upon her from behind.

"Mrs. Warner!" shrieked a pair of gory red lips. The small woman attached to them was stooping above Mrs. Warner with an excessively devoted look on her tanned and pudgy face. With one hand on the door and another on the roof of the Rolls she effectively blocked Mrs. Warner's exit.

Mrs. Warner, blowing out air irritably, quickly chucked the sack of potatoes and the hammer on the seat beside her.

"You, dear! You came after all!" the weird woman blurted. Her bejeweled high-heeled sandals tread the street as though she was a nervous chicken.

Mrs. Warner plastered a strained smile on her face and turned to meet the inconvenient interloper.

"Mrs.—?" Mrs. Warner in her black fur outfit came slowly to her feet beside the door in the small space the woman had left her.

"Gomez!" said the lady, providing her name.

"I was just going to say that," said Mrs. Warner artfully.

"Let's walk down together, shall we?" exclaimed the bright bothersome clod whose name Mrs. Warner had not remembered. Without waiting for a reply, Mrs. Gomez hooked Mrs. Warner's cast with her elbow and drew her close. Arm-in-arm with the blabbermouth, with only enough time to find her purse, close her door and beep the lock, Mrs. Warner found herself strolling down the sidewalk to the Gutman Estate. Damn, groaned Mrs. Warner, she had so hoped to soak in its splendor on her own after leaving the little potato present in Mr. Humphreys exhaust pipe.

"I threw such a fit, Mrs. Warner," the silly woman confided, "that I'm embarrassed. When my Leonard wouldn't come with me tonight, and I thought I was going to be alone, I pouted and complained like a four-year-old in front of a closed candy store, but he held out. He couldn't be bothered with one of my parties and then the phone rang and someone said that I would find you here! Oh, how lucky I am! How lucky!" She yanked Mrs. Warner closer.

"Yes," said Mrs. Warner dully. "We're a lucky pair, the two of us."

The broad disk of lights from the Old Pueblo twinkled impishly at Mrs. Warner's quiet sarcasm while the great bulk of the mountains stood behind like an uninvited third party eagerly eavesdropping on Mrs. Warner's excruciation.

"Oh, it's just the happiest of nights!" exclaimed Mrs. Gomez loudly to anyone on the street. "And to think, I almost didn't come!"

"Oh, goodness, think of that," said Mrs. Warner, who was still adjusting her mind to the idea that she was now going to have to get rid of this woman before she could do anything to Mr. Humphrey's car.

"I hope you don't mind my saying so," Mrs. Gomez remarked. "But the windows of your Rolls are awfully dark. I almost thought better of walking up to where you were parked. I was sure you'd gone in already. I couldn't see you through the tint. Not until the door popped open."

"Imagine," said Mrs. Warner, wishing she had sat in the car longer before opening that cursed door.

A cactus wren, in silhouette against the orange setting sun, perched atop a saguaro and chirruped happily.

"Well, foolish me, I like them that way. And who would be looking for me?" Mrs. Warner added in false humility.

"Who indeed!" exclaimed Mrs. Gomez happily. "And you with your arm in a sling! Coming down on this steep sidewalk alone! We'll have to take care of each other, won't we? That's why I'm going to walk with you, all around the party. I'll be like that little pony who trots beside the thoroughbred racehorse, don't you know? The stable pony? Arm in arm, we're practically sisters!"

"Yes. Practically."

"I won't let a little thing like a broken arm keep you from enjoying yourself tonight."

"Oh, I hope I enjoy myself," said Mrs. Warner with a very different kind of enjoyment in mind.

"I'll go everywhere with you," Mrs. Gomez gushed. "I won't leave you alone for one little minute, not a microsecond or a millisecond. I don't know which it should be. Micro or milli? Which should it be?"

Unbeknownst to Mrs. Gomez, at the promise to stay at her side, Mrs. Warner's expression had hardened to something approximating a slab of caliche.

"Here we are!" the millstone exclaimed without waiting for an answer.

They had arrived at the Gutman's door to find the party well under way.

"You're safe and sound!" exclaimed Mrs. Gomez. "You aren't going to break another arm with me to guide you. You don't have to worry about falling. After your accident, you're probably afraid of taking another spill."

"No, I've been told I have a strong constitution," Mrs. Warner explained.

After being greeted by an austere servant with close-set hooded eyes, they were led directly through an impressive series of large, book-filled dens to the rear, where the vast Gutman gardens clung to the slope of Rattlesnake Canyon.

"With me around you'll relax," pledged Mrs. Gomez. "You haven't got a thing to worry about. Not a care in the world. And now you can circulate without fear. Circulate among the crowd. Like a pair of queens, regal-like. Let them see us. That's the way to do it when you've been injured. A broken arm is nothing to stop you. Yes, it's best to walk and—"

"My doctor recommends sitting. Lots of sitting," Mrs. Warner piped up.

"Does he? He may know what's best for you, but still I can't help thinking that's a mistake. With all these marvelous hills, and the stairs Mrs. Gutman put in."

Mrs. Gomez had barely finished this comment when the two of them glimpsed the formidable Mrs. Gutman ensconced in a large, thronelike wrought iron chair across from her even more shriveled husband. This was the moment Mrs. Warner had been waiting for.

The twin chairs had been placed on a raised dais, with three smaller chairs on either side. These chairs were occupied by a corpulent man in a red cummerbund and several thin, horse-faced women. The shriveled host, from his seated position, greeted them

"I don't know you, but it's good of you to come." He looked at each of them with bleary blue eyes and immediately looked at someone else.

"Thank you," said Mrs. Gomez eagerly extending her hand. Her sandals continuously tread the ground and she panted.

"Thank you," echoed Mrs. Warner, but as she shook the pale and flat hand of the distracted old doyen she pondered the remark. Was Mr. Gutman making a subtle dig? Mrs. Warner's quick glance noted an assortment of antique relic metates arranged decoratively along the far side of the glistening negative-edge pool, which stretched to the canyon lip behind the venerable Gutmans. It was as though a team of ancient grinders had suddenly abandoned their stone servitude and gone for a swim. Mrs. Warner grinned to herself imagining, some mad midnight, the formal, prune-faced Mrs. Gutman crushing corn in a subservient position on her knees before the volcanic stones, a fiendish Mr. Gutman lording over her, slashing at her naked back with an unrelenting bullwhip.

"Very good of you," mumbled Mrs. Gutman, also looking around distractedly.

A waiter handed Mrs. Warner and Mrs. Gomez each a large tulip shaped glass of white wine and began swooping them toward the exit stairs.

"We're just celebrating. This fabulous mission project," Mrs. Warner heard Mrs. Gutman say to the next small group that gathered around her. "Such joy for us to be...a part of it...seeing these wonderful old missionary delights of ours in the limelight...er...so to speak."

Mrs. Warner nearly snickered. Why, the poor thing practically dithered.

"Yes, thrilling," said a lady, a smile wrapped tightly around her face. "Imagine our luck."

"Gertie!" cried Mr. Humphreys, swooping up to them. "My inspiration!" He air-kissed Mrs. Gutman's shrunken cheeks.

Mrs. Warner detected that the sycophantic Mrs. Gomez's earnest support of Mrs. Warner's cast dropped for a moment as she hoped to catch the eye of Mr. Humphreys.

As quickly as Mr. Humphreys had arrived at the Gutman's side, he flitted away across the terrace.

"You must see our pyramid of golden barrel cacti," said Mr. Gutman, speaking to everyone and no one. "We've just had it put in." His shriveled neck almost rattled against the collar of his pale gray suit. "I'm sure everyone will enjoy it."

"By all means, let's see the cacti pyramid!" said Mrs. Gomez in a gay tone of good humor.

Mrs. Warner, still attached to the fawning Mrs. Gomez, found herself being maneuvered toward the gardens. Hoping to quickly ditch her chatty companion in the crowd of mission aficionados who devoured shrimp and colorful canapes wholesale, she held back. "Oh, I want to sit," said Mrs. Warner, peevishly. She would have liked to see this pyramid herself, of course, but in walking down to the gardens she feared her opportunity to get the potato in Mr. Humphreys exhaust might be disappearing. "Leave me here. I simply must eat something." But she was not to be so lucky.

"I'm not going to leave you alone," said the unwelcome companion proudly. "You, my poor injured dear, have someone to care for you. Imagine if you fell again tonight with your arm in a cast! And Mrs. Gutman's home is nothing but awful pokey cacti. You don't want to get a poke. But I'll be at your side every moment. You can count on me!"

"Yes, I can count on you," said Mrs. Warner. She could count on her to spoil everything, the annoying busybody!

"Shall we?" Mrs. Gomez thrust Mrs. Warner toward a steep, covered staircase that led to the lower gardens. "Let's go down, too."

"Not down there, surely? That leads down. You don't want to go there do you?" said Mrs. Warner with real concern.

"Yes, I do," Mrs. Gomez proclaimed. "I suppose now I'm a great bother to you and you'll want to leave me." From the sound of it there was no chance of her complying even if she had known that was Mrs. Warner's true opinion. Though Mrs. Warner's honest answer would be yes, she demurred, as she was dragged.

Stumbling down the stairs, a cross Mrs. Warner explained. "It's just that my asthma makes climbing stairs a little difficult."

Mrs. Gomez held on to Mrs. Warner's arm. "With a broken arm you have to be careful of your balance. Balance is so important when you get old. Not that we're really old, but old-ish. The weight of the cast on one side of your body can cause you to compensate in the way you carry yourself. In your steps. When you're not used to the cast, it's easy to pitch over."

"Oh dear, I wouldn't want that to happen again."

"No, of course not.

"Hmmm."

"That's why you need a loyal friend to walk with you on steps like these. Now, here we are. And very nice going." The steep, dark steps were particularly treacherous with both of them wearing high-heels and bearing wineglasses.

Mrs. Warner and Mrs. Gomez skirted a spa.

"Let's go a little farther, down here," Mrs. Gomez suggested. "A new set of stairs beckons so. Who knows what we'll find? It's an adventure tonight. You and I are going on an excursion."

"Heavens! But don't you know, those stairs only go down another level," said Mrs. Warner with fear in her voice. "It isn't very nice down there, really. Not any nicer than here. Everyone makes such a thing of Mrs. Gutman's gardens but seeing them tonight I think they're quite ordinary. She didn't hire the best landscapers. Why don't we stop and enjoy ourselves here? We haven't had our wine and there are lots of seats all around. We can have our choice. What do you think?"

"No, forgive me. Wherever I am I like to explore my environment. I'm always off on little vistas."

"But the sunset!" Mrs. Warner swept one arm across the orange, red and turquoise sky that was just beginning to fade behind them. "I don't know when I've seen a better one."

"There's one of those each night!" said Mrs. Gomez succinctly.

She dragged the pained Mrs. Warner down another steep flight.

When they had reached the lowest extent of the Gutman gardens, the energetic Mrs. Gomez swung around. "Hmmm?" she said. "Isn't it nice down here?"

"Yes, and we can sit," said Mrs. Warner weakly, steering them toward the nearest bench.

Mrs. Gomez let her reach the bench before suddenly exclaiming: "Oh! I don't want to do any sitting! My legs are feeling so invigorated by all these stairs. My doctor was right; this is the best thing in the world for me. Let's start back up!"

Mrs. Warner staggered at the prospect. "Well...I suppose...if you don't want to sit..."

"Up is the way I want to go. Back up to where the people are. We don't want to be antisocial, do we?"

"Shouldn't we...have thought of that before...we started down?"

"Oh, silly me. Yes, I ...What was I thinking?"

Climbing and climbing as Mrs. Gomez insisted, taking the steps from the rose gardens to the succulent beds to the pyramid of golden barrel cacti, Mrs. Warner could not rid herself of her barnacle.

Finally, in a sculptural garden of iron and concrete balls, Mrs. Warner prevailed. "I think...we ought to call an end to all these stairs," she wheezed, upon seeing the large, interesting metal ant surrounded by potted lemon trees on a landing above. "I don't see how you can keep...going...all this time."

"Aren't I awful?" Mrs. Gomez confessed.

"Not at all, but ...do you think...all this walking...is it good for...us. I may need to find a bench. A chance to use my inhaler. Here."

Mrs. Warner collapsed onto the shiny Mexican tiles of a concrete bench. The dark desert night surrounded them and the garden lights had begun switching on. "Without my inhaler I have such a time. Go on without me."

Finally, she had worn out the talkative busybody.

"I'll just be up there," said Mrs. Gomez, pointing to the landing above. She left Mrs. Warner.

The instant Mrs. Gomez had gone, Mrs. Warner fled toward a concealed stairway.

At last, Mrs. Warner traveled alone. And her good luck increased as she wobbled up the steps and discovered two figures at the top, seated in a secluded arbor. It was an unknown woman with—Mr. Gutman. In the increasing dark, they did not see Mrs. Warner sneak up behind them.

She stole very close, stooping down and arranging three hanging branches of ivy to cover her gruesome, prying face.

Mrs. Warner was startled to discover that the woman planned to cut off an affair with Mr. Gutman.

"How can I thank you enough, Frank," the woman was saying. "But as I told you, my life is my art. It is a necessity, I assure you, or I would never leave your marvelous party early. You know, I wouldn't do that to my good friend."

"No, no," Mr. Gutman protested. He clung to her hand.

"We must have a meeting with him. There are so many details, you understand, the boring details of life."

"Yes—but no! We can't lose you tonight. I can't lose you tonight!" Mr. Gutman held her hand to his chest. "Stay, my dear, stay!"

"He's flying in from the coast," said the woman loudly. "Very impromptu, you know. These Hollywood issues are so time consuming!"

"Bring him here!" cried Mr. Gutman.

"Oh, I couldn't. It's business and this is a party."

"We're all family now," Mr. Gutman assured her, petting her hand in intense emotion. This woman was the heartthrob of Mr. Gutman! It was all too rich. Too wonderfully funny to find out the little peccadilloes of the powerful couple.

But, she woke herself up, she planned to leave the party soon! She'd better get to work right away.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Up and up and up the stairs Mrs. Warner climbed, keeping an eye out for the cursed Mrs. Gomez and hastening her steps.

Back into the Gutman Estate, Mrs. Warner slipped, shuffling discretely through the house and right out the front door.

She wanted to get the potato in Mr. Humphreys' exhaust pipe. Mrs. Warner strode up the hill, badgering herself about the delay. She had to get to her car as quickly as possible. Get the potato and the hammer, the potato and the hammer, she told herself, but all that climbing up and down around the Gutman's gardens with the irritating Mrs. Gomez had worn her out. Mrs. Warner's walk was more unsteady than usual. And when she stepped off the sidewalk, she pitched off the curb in a manner that more closely resembled a fall than a step. She lurched to the door of her Rolls and unlocked it. Reaching to the seat, she brought out the sack of potatoes and the hammer.

At least it was getting reasonably dark now. The bent igneous rock on the cliff above the Gutman home had shadowy fingers slithering up the slope. She sucked in a deep breath and started down toward Mr. Humphreys' Jag.

The warm wind blasted her frail frame, seeming to send her backwards. The first few steps were difficult. When had she ever been so tired? That donkey kick had weakened her. Step by step, her energy drained; the Jag sat furlongs away. In fact, it might as well be moving away from her!

Her feet barely lifted off the pavement and after an eternity, she found that she wasn't even back to the Gutman's front door.

And when Mrs. Warner finally surpassed that milestone, she grew increasingly desperate.

Every step down sapped more of her strength and Mr. Humphrey's Jag appeared to be getting no closer. She was running out of energy.

She tried to urge herself on with visions of how the potato would startle Mr. Humphrey; perhaps he was sensitive to loud noises. But if Mrs. Warner didn't get there with enough time, the plot would be spoiled.

Her legs were like leaden clubs.

Just when hope had faded, when the potato plot waned, infeasible and stupid due to Mrs. Warner's long captivity at the hands of the talkative Mrs. Gomez, circumstances suddenly brightened.

A miraculous vision appeared on the sidewalk ahead. Down the steep driveway of a neighboring mansion that clung to the canyon wall near the Gutman's Estate there rode a teeny girl with bright green eyes who pumped the pedals of her new, pink stingray bike. As she rocketed toward the sidewalk, she tossed her head from side to side and enjoyed the interesting effect of not being able to see through her long curly black hair. When she had done this several times, she stood on her pedals, a feat she had just mastered with the help of the family maid, and she swept her floppy locks backward off her tiny face just in time to turn sharply onto the sidewalk and see a weirdly horrible old woman with her arm in a cast hurrying toward her. The crazy black-clad lady held a hammer and a plastic bag with brown lumps in it. They were potatoes!

The little child, having seen many remarkable and interesting things at her tender age, but never a lunatic before, rode directly and energetically at Mrs. Warner to get a good, close look at her. But Mrs. Warner was so busy glancing furtively around, checking the parked cars for witnesses to what she was about to do and worrying about the departure plans of Mr. Humphreys that she had not yet discovered the bicycling girl. Then, looking back at the lighted entry of the Gutman mansion, Mrs. Warner witnessed with considerable horror Mr. Humphreys taking leave of his friends, bestowing air kisses on many cheeks and fending off protesting requests that he stay longer.

"Damn denunciations," cursed Mrs. Warner, seeing this dire development. She was really going to have to speed up the potato insertion or forget about the whole thing. And it had been such a pleasant little plot against such an unpleasant person! But Mrs. Gomez, without meaning to, had succeeded in goofing up Mrs. Warner's parting shot.

She swung around with an angry scowl on her ugly face only to discover a small pink bike zooming toward her, about to neatly slice her in two!

"Get away!" she cried, throwing her arms out in an ineffectual attempt to fend off the assault.

"Why do you got those potatoes and that hammer?" the little girl demanded as she came to a skidding stop inches from impact with Mrs. Warner's knees. "And why is your arm like that?"

"Get off the sidewalk," was Mrs. Warner's tart reply. Mrs. Warner, who was breathing hard and trying to recover from the shock of nearly being run over, started to bypass the girl with a brusque sidestep and then, taking quick note of the bike, reassessed what she was doing. A bike was a mode of transport, was it not?

Using honeyed tones and ignoring the child's questions, a tense Mrs. Warner said: "Hello, hello, my dear. Don't you have a sweet little bikey?"

Mrs. Warner had easily discovered the child's weakness.

"Do you like it?" the little girl asked, stoking her bike's basket lovingly and lingering on the corsage of white plastic daisies with large yellow centers that trimmed the edge. Her eyes traveled to Mrs. Warner's head where she gaped at the peculiar swirl of blonde hair that had been teased and lacquered and pinned by the stylist at Mujer Dorada Salon until it resembled a fantastical horn. The stiff outgrowth tilted off of Mrs. Warner's horsehead at a curious angle. In her two years of preschool and one year of Castle Canyon Kindergarten, the little bicyclist had not seen anything like this.

"I do. I do like it so much," promised Mrs. Warner.

"I do like it too!" said the little girl.

"Would you let me ride it? Only for a moment?" asked Mrs. Warner in her best, plaintive style.

"All right. Are you really her?"

"Who dear?" Mrs. Warner began to mount the dinky bike.

"The Unicorn Fairy Superhero!"

Mrs. Warner paused and cogitated for a moment. "Oh, yes. Yes, I am."

The ancient Mrs. Warner climbed awkwardly on the bike's seat. She began tentatively pedaling the teeny pink stingray bike down the sidewalk. The bike's trajectory drifted, especially when Mrs. Warner swiveled her head toward the Gutman mansion, at which point the front wheel wobbled, and the frame swayed, and she careened toward the parkway. "Crud!" she muttered, turning forward and scrambling to steer the veering bike, "I hope they aren't coming."

"Who? Who don't you want to come?" asked the cheerful little girl who was skipping alongside in the rubble-filled parkway. While walking she joggled her head from side to side so that the early evening sky, a saguaro cactus, and several boulders (that had shed layers like cabbages) smeared together.

"A bad ... man ... and woman," said the old woman, breaking off her words in order to take great huffing puffs. Her feet in their high boots punched the bike's small white pedals relentlessly, but with puny jabs, and her mascaraed eyes bulged at the effort.

"But why," asked the little child a second later, "do you got those things?" She pointed at the potato and the hammer which were visible as lumps inside a plastic grocery bag that had been slung over the bike's handlebar.

The oily chain of the bike creaked. Clumps of a delicate yellow weed at the edge of the walkway rustled in the breeze like the ruffle on a cuff, and a woodpecker rapped three times on the twisted trunk of a dead Palo Verde that crowned a nearby hill. The old woman scooted her skinny bottom forward on the stingray's long banana seat. She pursed her lips. "Ah ... you're wondering ... about those," she replied in due time, "and so you should. Very observant. Perhaps ... someday ... you'll be ... a famous ... lady scientist. Curie quizzes ... her mother ... why the bread rises. Keep at it ... and you shall be ... famous, that is." She paused for several seconds more; the precision gears in her nutty brain whirled.

"But why do you got them!" the frustrated girl demanded, throwing her little hands up in the air. The toe of her tennis shoe punted the half-buried remains of an electrical outlet onto the street. It scudded across the asphalt and came to a stop after spinning.

"Fairy superhero work," said the old woman finally, with a great deal of force, and without any obvious shame that she should have to resort to fooling a child.

The little girl, who was eager to fish for a compliment, swallowed this. "Do you want some streamers like mine?" she asked. Hanging off the handlebars, two pink mops made of foil shimmered and crackled in the breeze. "Aren't they pretty?"

The old lady nodded, "Hmmm," and she twisted her head around again. No one there yet. "Yes, I'm quite ... especially ... fond of your dress," said the distracted lady, turning to face forward again, "I only wonder ... if they'll ... have it ... in my size."

They traveled a few feet further while the girl scrutinized this puzzling woman who had asked to borrow her bike. In order to grasp the low handlebars, the old lady was forced to hunch her back so far over that anyone driving by down Calle San Envidia would have believed a headless lump had decided on a bicycling excursion. But nevertheless, her head was there, with her blonde hair piled into a towering mountain. Surely, sensed the girl, that was not a style? What should she make of her tight black suit and bony knees? And such funny black boots! At last, the child asked: "Are you really the Unicorn Superhero Fairy like you said? I dreamed of you last night."

"Of course, ...," Mrs. Warner looked down at her feet and willed them to move faster, "and I'm ... ever so happy ... that you ... let me ... use your bike." She flashed a broad and kindly smile.

"You're welcome, Your Fairyship," said the child, stepping a regal curtsey, her fingers pinching the seams of her shorts.

But Mrs. Warner didn't have time to notice the child's courtesy for in attempting to speak, smile, and ride, one of her knobby knees had collided with the grocery bag and the swaying sack had nearly knocked the bike to the ground. Mrs. Warner yanked the handlebars this way and that and her knees opened and closed extravagantly. The arch of her back grew more distinct and her elbows stuck upward in acute angles. A tight little 'o' shaped at her mouth.

"Hey!" said the little girl, shrewdly observing the old lady's struggle, "You don't know how to ride a bike. You don't know how, Miss Unicorn Superhero Fairy."

"Be patient," said a flustered Mrs. Warner, recovering herself and the bike's straight path. She stomped the stingray pedals more forcefully, grunting as she jammed them down. She was so peeved by her near accident that she actually sped up. "I hear ... Rome wasn't ... built ... in a day, ... though ... some of us ... don't know it," she added pertly.

"Sure," chirped the good-natured girl, lifting her shoulders. "I didn't know they builded it at all."

Ahead, Mrs. Warner spied a downhill section. "Almost there ..." she said in a voice strained by the effort of making one particularly energetic push.

Mrs. Warner risked another peek behind her. The violet spires of Bighorn Ridge were superimposed with the small vigorous figures of a man and woman. The woman was dressed in a red jacket! The two of them strutted side by side, gaining ground on the bike. Their martial strides stayed in sync, even when the man brought a cell phone to his ear. The developer and the agent had gained on her. If they got too close, the game would be up.

"You can do it. You can do it, Miss Unicorn Superhero Fairy," said the little girl as she sashayed smartly along in the rubble of wires and nails left in the parkway by the home builders. "Miss Unicorn Fairy can learn!"

"Come on!" Mrs. Warner urged her legs desperately. "Come on for me!"

"Yes, come on, Miss Unicorn Superhero Fairy," echoed her little companion brightly, but breathlessly.

Then the bike rolled more quickly; it headed toward the part of the sidewalk where the pavement dropped down at a steep slope.

Another check assured Mrs. Warner that she indeed was pulling away.

"Yeah, you're doing great!" yelled her cheerleader.

"Going to reach it," said Mrs. Warner.

"Yippee!" shouted the little girl, struggling to keep up.

"Nearly there," said Mrs. Warner.

Though the bike was pulling away, the little girl would not allow herself to be left behind. She began running. And she was alarmed. In her eyes, this clumsy fairy might crash.

"That's enough. Stop, fairy!" she cried, dashing ahead and striking various crossing-guard poses.

Mrs. Warner kept going.

"You're gonna wreck! Get off!" yelled the kid. "Get off my bike!"

"Remember, the Unicorn Superhero Fairy will be your true friend," said Mrs. Warner using her best fairy-tale lilt.

"I don't care! You can't ride. Get off!"

Mrs. Warner tried to ply her with a gift. "A castle shall be your home."

"I got a house!"

In response to the child's anger, Mrs. Warner pumped the pedals more quickly. "Dearie, I assure you I really need this bike."

Now running, now walking, the little child tried to keep up. "Get off!" she screamed as the bike pulled further away. "Give it back!"

Mrs. Warner turned. "I am most terribly sorry!"

Then the dismayed child mourned as her pink stingray, with the hunched up old lady on it, sped down the incline like some out-of-control toy which had been wound too tightly and was juddering itself to death. It zoomed through an intersection without stopping.

"Us fairies," Mrs. Warner's shaken voice could be heard to wail, "are having a little problem!"

The road curved. The brake controls on the handlebars meant nothing to Mrs. Warner. She tried fruitless and frantic back-pedaling. The stingray left the sidewalk. The last ground tossed the bike like a parched pea hitting a brick floor. The front tire walloped a large rock and the bike launched itself airborne.

The child grimaced and sucked in her breath. "Uh-oh, Miss Unicorn Superhero Fairy," she whimpered, covering her face.

Through crisscrossed fingers smelling of strawberry jam, she peeked out just in time to see her new bike and the fairy tumble into that big, cactus-lined, rocky canyon.

For a minute the girl said nothing, but just stared at the vacant street. "Miss Unicorn Superhero Fairy will probably fly it back," she said, gnawing her bottom lip.

Seconds later, the man sprinted to her side. He was winded and drooling. He stood beside the girl panting, pressing the tips of his fingers to his chest, and swiping the slobber off his mouth with his jacket sleeve. He leaned on his knees near the girl. "We'll call an ambulance right away," he promised in a comforting tone when he was able to speak. Over the clatter of her heels, the woman came down, blubbering indistinguishable anguish. She also overworked her hands like Mickey Mouse in a mania.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Having driven apprehensively past the many ambulances and fire trucks which were double parked below Casa de la Guibbarza, and, hearing rumors on the sidewalk outside the Gutman's Estate of the unfortunate and abrupt ending of an old lady's ride on a pink stingray bike. Forester, with his dear Debra now in hand, made a frantic and fruitless search of the parked Rolls and then the Gutman's party for any sign of old Mrs. Warner.

"Let's run, Debra," said Forester when he emerged back outside after scouring the rooms and gardens thoroughly and having no luck.

"Down to where the fire trucks were?" Debra asked cautiously.

"Sure, why not?"

"Okay," she shrugged.

Her little legs made slow progress for a large man who was hoping to find his friend (and Mrs. Warner was a friend to him now, he felt). It almost looked as though Debra's bouncing legs went up and landed her in the same exact place on the pavement, but eventually they reached the T-junction that had been so troublesome for Mrs. Warner an hour earlier.

At the accident site, under a lone pink sodium street lamp, Forester leaned over the dark cliff edge calling Mrs. Warner's name and studying the rocky canyon slope for any sign of her. Only when the spotlight of the sheriff's helicopter finally flitted away and the search and rescue team came up the ropes, did he begin to face the grim reality.

"Can't you rescue her?" Forester asked one of the rescue party. "I believe she's my employer. Mrs. Elditha P. Warner. She's a prominent lady."

"At daybreak we'll try again. We have spotted what appears to be a body on an inaccessible ledge. There's no movement of the figure. Our plan is to recover this body in the morning. It would be highly dangerous tonight. The helicopter has to try again tomorrow. The wind and the dark are too much to contend with."

"Oh," Debra moaned, seeing one man holding a white bike basket, "look at that pretty little basket with the flowers around it. It's all squished up." Debra earnestly wished the battered basket had been hers.

"I'll get you a prettier one than that," Forester promised cheerfully, noticing that she was mainly concerned that she didn't have a bike with a basket like that and not worried about the injured person.

"There couldn't be one," said his daughter morosely.

"And a bike to go with it," he added.

"I can't ride anyways," she confessed.

Forester listened in as the rescuers discussed plans to return at daybreak with needed equipment to retrieve the body of the very thin, elderly female whom they had spotted sprawled on an inaccessible ledge. Doubtless, Mrs. Warner had taken a fatal plunge into the awful abyss.

With Debra's little hand in his, Forester turned away from the rescuers conference, certain he did not want to hear more about Mrs. Warner's death. He deemed how suitable in a way it was that her final exit off life's stage had been during another pratfall and with a pink stingray bike as a vehicle, to boot!

He understood suddenly how much he would miss her. Why, the whole world would miss her if only they knew it! She was a force for good, though her missions were often misguided, taking vengeance into her own hands. Her wretched peevishness also had a way of growing on you. How could he ever again look at anything that happened to him without immediately seeing the sourest side and thinking of her? She had somehow embodied one of the indomitable spirits so characteristic of human nature: the ability to see the worst in everything and everyone.

And she was so durable. When her plots had failed and she had been horribly injured, she had always been able to call on an inner strength, an instinct perhaps inherited from caveman ancestors, which got her through. Rising again at each defeat, she tried one more time to reach her goal, no matter how daunting the task, no matter how long a slog she might face. Not that her goals were all that good –they were most definitely violent—but in his years on earth Forester had learned that perfectly well-intentioned efforts often had unforeseen, terrible consequences and therefore, might not nefarious plots have good results? And in the whole scheme of the universe what did a little ineffectual crime by one old frail lady really signify? And he had managed to stop most of them.

But now that exquisitely awful spirit of hers had yielded to overwhelming reality, the power of gravity and the mechanics of the universe. It was a sad day for Forester, though his life was much easier without her as an employer, and he had to admit that the lives of many innocent people, who had been unaware of their peril, were safer. And he could stop foiling her plots. That had become entirely too dangerous for him. And now he had Debra's welfare to consider. Rescuing Mrs. Warner, protecting people from her plots, would be too risky for a full-time father. What would Mrs. Warner have felt about him getting his child back? She would have wished him well, certainly.

He turned away from the gaping gorge and, striding back to his car with Debra at his side, his mind filled with these and other melancholy and perplexing notions.

On their way back to his car, they passed Mrs. Gomez and he bid her good evening, tipping a black Stetson off his shining baldpate without knowing she might have been the reason Mrs. Warner was dead.

"Let's go home," he then said softly to his daughter.

"Where is home?" asked Debra.

He was unsure himself. "Well, I did work for the lady who went over the cliff. Her home is called Villa Escorpion. That means Scorpion Villa, but I've never seen one of those, if a live scorpion would worry you."

"Oh, no, that wouldn't worry me. Kevin had big brown scorpions as pets. They were pretty nice."

"Well, Villa Escorpion is up there. In the foothills, but several canyons that way." Forester pointed east. "What do you think of that?"

"I don't know. What did you do there?"

"I drove her car. The big blue one we saw. And other ones in her garage."

"Can we go there now?"

"I think we'll have to. I don't have anywhere else to stay!"

"Because I'm very sleepy."

With his broad back pressed against the torn upholstery, Forester drove his car slowly past the Gutman's party.

Mrs. Warner, Forester knew, would have loved it there.

Long after little Debra had fallen asleep in her father's bed and he had taken the couch in the cozy rooms above Mrs. Warner's garage, the night wind stropped the weedy rock wall below the Gutman's Estate. Up and up, the wind carried toward the canyon's lip.

Eventually, a gust reached old Mrs. Warner's corpse, which sprawled upon a lonely and sharp rock spire.

Her corpse was slumped like a rag you might see clinging high on a canyon wall, if you went on a hike after a flash flood. Blood had trickled out of a corner of her mouth and those horrible eyes of hers were thankfully shut. Her legs, using one of her favorite descriptions, were weirdly akimbo; one hung downward, stretched out like a sprung spring.

And in that state, it was almost imperceptible, and frankly rather unbelievable, when her withered left forefinger barely twitched.

THE END

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

You can download more of Lorraine's works from her author's page at https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/LoRay

Read Lorraine's interview at https://www.smashwords.com/interview/LoRay

Find Lorraine on Wattpad.

Do you enjoy having books read to you? After the autumn of 2020, more of Lorraine's books will be available as audiobooks and podcasts.

Connect at lorraine.ray00@gmail.com

