All Maps Are Fiction Read online

  “Okay, let’s see where this goes. Have a good weekend.”

  “You too.”

  “Oh, I’ll be right here trying to figure out where we can source clear-cut basswood at a lower price.”

  “Hmm. Sounds like fun.”

  She hoped he was watching her jump two curbs on her skateboard as she followed a straight line through the parking lot.

  Chapter Ten

  Gabby raised and twisted in his chair. He searched the sky beyond the bird feeder toward the rising sun. He could hear the squishing sound created by the soft tires of Bird Lady’s wheelchair as she approached. “Morning, Phyllis. Looks like another sunny morning, doesn’t it?” he said without turning.

  “Morning, Randal. Yes, it does. Sleep well?”

  “All things considered, quite well. Always good to open my eyes and not see people with wings floating around the room. Especially when I’ve been dreaming all night about characters like Russell Starke.”

  “Huh. Starke and Yates. The guys that started the puzzle company, which just happens to be located up the road from here.” Phyllis hesitated and looked out the window. “I dreamt about us again last night Randal. We were finally taking a vacation from this place.”

  Gabby turned away. “You and your dreams. You know, some people think living in a place like this is a dream.”

  “Not my kind of dream, my friend.” Phyllis exhaled and searched the ground around and under the feeder. She looked at him. “What’s on your mind this early?”

  Gabby looked around the still-empty room. “It’s not so much a thought, it’s another secret.”

  “I’m good at secrets.”

  He smiled at the bit of color he could see rising in her cheeks. “That you are, my dear. That you are. Tell me,” he said as he shifted his weight in the chair and turned more toward her. “How can birds, or squirrels, remember where they stash their food?”

  “Oh, well, some do, I suppose, some don’t have to. Acorn Woodpeckers bore holes in trees and push an acorn into the hole. And Blue jays, nuthatches, sure, lots of birds do. I mean, they don’t do a real good job of hiding things. Crows are probably best at that. Most birds leave things in plain sight.”

  “What about you, Phyllis? If you wanted to hide something, where would you do it?”

  She looked at the open space in front of them. “Well, depending on what it is of course, I think the best way to hide something, say an elephant, is in the middle of a herd of elephants. Something like that. Hide it in the most obvious spot.”

  Gabby looked at her and smiled. “Once again I think you’ve hit the nail on the thumb, my dear. Best we head on to the dining room before the aides think we’re up to something.”

  “Some of them are already wise to that, and they’re jealous, my handsome man.”

  It was a warm, sunny day. Aston could hear birds singing. People standing next to palm trees were cheering her on. She was in the middle of a 720 gazelle flip on a new Supreme board when the buzzing of a distant cell phone woke her. She opened one eye and looked at the blurry clock next to her bed, six o’clock. “What the hell? You mean there’s a six in the morning, too.” By the time she located her phone in the kitchen, the call ended. The screen read, ‘One missed call.’

  “No shit. I know I missed it,” she said to the reflection of herself on the screen. She scrolled through the list of missed calls to the last one. Her knees buckled slightly and she leaned back against the kitchen table. It was the call she dreaded. She knew it could mean only bad news. The screen read, ‘Bright Horizons Assisted Living.’ She hit the redial button and said, “Don’t let it be, please, don’t.”

  “Good Morning, Bright Horizons, how may I direct your call?” the voice intoned.

  Who can be cheery at six the morning, especially at that place? she thought. “Ah, this is Aston Leerie. I just got a call from—”

  “Oh yes, from Mister Conrad. He’s such an early riser and I tell him he should buy his own phone so he doesn’t bother the girls here at the front desk. Now I’ll have to hunt him—Oh there he is, coming this way. Please hold.”

  “Morning sunshine,” came the welcome, gravely voice.

  “If you ever call me in the middle of the night again, I’ll, I’m not sure what I’ll do but it won’t be pleasant. You scared the shit out of me.”

  Gabby chuckled. “Time’s a wastin’ gal. We got places to go and treasures to find.”

  “Do you always get up this early?”

  “Have to. Old men have guilty dreams, sweetie. Besides, you know the early bird what gets the worms. Ask the Bird Lady. She eats a lot of worms.”

  Katie, the receptionist, was hanging up the phone as Aston wheeled Gabby into the lobby at Tree Top Flyers. “Eric in?” Aston asked.

  “He was here for about ten minutes then left. Said he’d be back in half hour or so. He had another call from his doc,” Katie said and rolled her eyes.

  “Shit.” Aston frowned and picked at some invisible crumbs on the front of her Bob Dylan at the Budokan T-shirt. “Okay, we’ll hang in his office for a while.”

  Gabby hunched up his shoulders. “Did it just get colder in here or am I dying?”

  “I think you’re dying,” Katie said. “Or does he always smell that way?”

  Gabby looked at the receptionist. “In my next life I hope I come back as a Japanese. At least there, the older, more knowledgeable, mature and erudite people get some respect from people only a third their age,” he said as Aston headed him toward the door.

  “Hit the buzzer, Katie. I don’t want to push this, what did he call himself—smart ass—through the glass.”

  Eric smiled as he drove into the parking lot of the Cyril J. Richards Clinic. Parked in the spot designated for the director sat a bright red Mazda MX5 Miata, top down despite the cool weather, sporting dealer’s license plates. Someone got a new toy, he thought. He parked his Porsche in front of a sign designating it as the parking spot for the CFO. Pat Travino was leaving as he entered the building.

  “It appears you took my advice,” he said.

  She grinned as she studied the two cars side by side. “Yeah, great to drive, however, because it’s so small, I wonder if it makes my butt look fat?”

  Eric forced himself not to break eye contact but could not suppress a grin. “I think you’re safe.”

  “Maybe you should take me for a ride in the Porsche before my seven-day free-return thing expires. Or, would that upset your wife?”

  “Well, first off, there’s no wife.” He shifted his feet. “Ah, second, you know why I’m coming here so—”

  “Hey, hold on, buster. I’m looking for a ride in a hot car, not a roll in the hay.”

  “Shit. Sorry. No, you just caught me off guard, that’s all.”

  “Wait. I’m the one who should apologize. You’re right, that was a bit too strong. Let’s back up. How about, after you visit Doctor Hechtua, I take you for a drive to the nearest Dunkin Donuts? Then, when you come back in two weeks, you take me for a ride to the nearest Starbucks? Fair?”

  Eric turned his attention on the two cars. For some reason his mouth felt dry and he hesitated. “Okay, sounds fair. So, if you know I’ll be back in two weeks, you must know about my case.”

  “I’m the boss. I’m supposed to know everything,” Pat said as she fumbled in her purse looking for a business card. “Shit, I totally forgot. I’m in a meeting across town this morning. We’ll have to do all this driving and coffee drinking some other time.” She found the card and offered it to him. “Give me a call?”

  “Yeah, I should be getting back to the office, too. After Doctor Hechtua, I mean.” He removed his card from a small, metal holder and handed it to her. “Or, you can call me, before that free-return thing expires.”

  “Deal,” she said and continued down the steps to the parking lot.

&nb
sp; Eric watched as she hiked up her skirt to more easily slide into the low-slung Miata. Well, that makes losing a little blood today easier to handle, he thought.

  “Gabby’s got it figured out,” Aston said as Eric entered the office. His eyes were glued to the business card. “He says—hey, you listening?”

  “What, oh yeah, sure. Just thinking,” he said and dropped a box of donuts on the desk.

  “Hey, it’s my idea, I’ll tell him,” Gabby cut in. “I consulted with some of my, ah, consultants—”

  “You didn’t tell anybody about this, did you?” Aston asked.

  “No. Listen, these people I work, or worked with, are solid, stand-up folks. They can keep a secret better than me. We’re okay. We came to the conclusion, the best place to hide an elephant is in the middle of the herd,” he said and tapped the box of donuts.

  “Ah, I don’t see how that applies in this case, Gabby,” Eric said, thinking of the map’s thousands of miles of Arizona desert, all free of elephants.

  “Where’s them maps? I’ll show you. Remember, I said I know that part of the world and it dawned on me, after consulting with my consultants, the herd, in a metaphorical sense, we’re searching for, must be in the Peloncillo Mountains. Or, maybe those are the Pajarito Mountains, there.”

  Aston turned to Eric. “Is he speaking English or should I get Katie’s kid to come in here and translate for us?”

  “Listen young lady—”

  “Oooo. A promotion to Young Lady, up from ‘Sweetie’?” Aston said and gave Gabby’s chair a spin, causing his knees to bang against the desk.

  “Okay you two, just tell us what you think you know, Gabby,” he said, and dropped Pat’s card on his desk.

  Aston glanced at the card while Eric unlocked the safe where he kept the maps overnight. When the large map was unrolled and its corners weighted with coffee cups, Gabby studied an area north of the Mexican border. “Yep, exactly like I remember,” he said and rested his finger on a thin gray line. “Forget all this crap around the edges. This line here’s Ruby Road. It’s called that ‘cause it leads, or led, to the Ruby Mine and what’s now a ghost town there. The Ruby Mine was originally called the Montana Mine, I think. Started around 1900 or so. It pissed out in the early 1940s. They used to take lead and zinc outta there by the carload. All that crap was gone when we worked along that road. Back in there it’s about fifty miles between towns as I recall. Beautiful place. On clear days we could see Baboquivari Peak off to the northwest—”

  “There he goes, speaking Spanish again,” Aston said.

  “Shit girl, the Spaniards landed there in fifteen hundred so it’s only fair to keep some of their words around.”

  Eric leaned over the map. “So, you think Starke might have hid the palladium in the old mine?”

  “Right in the middle of the herd, so to speak. Get it? The Montana Mine? If he was stealing palladium dug up in Montana, the name’s too much of a coincidence,” Gabby said, shaking his head. “All private property now. Was back in the sixties when I chased after the bad guys, too. Well, they weren’t all bad guys. Fellas like Starke and your dad were okay. Just trying to make a living and all. I’d guess the mine is a mile or so back off the road. Place is no doubt crawling with Border Patrol these days, looking for more honest people to lock up. That fucking president—”

  “Okay, okay,” Eric said. “Somebody has to get in there to see if the palladium could actually be there before we can start what we plan to do—make puzzles. I don’t think the company can afford it, though.”

  Eric and Gabby both turned toward Aston.

  “Ah shit. I think I know how a girl buffalo feels when she discovers those boys with the cool skins over their heads ain’t boy buffalos.”

  “I’ll get you a first class ticket to Tucson,” Gabby said. “And lend you the knife I used to cut off the heads of rattlers.”

  Eric smiled and tilted his head a bit when he looked at her. “Hey, you’re already wearing the perfect wardrobe for this kind of adventure. Camo shorts—

  “I’ll need desert camo for that place, and a gun.”

  “No gun. You’re not a terrorist. With the Border Patrol all over the place we want them to think you’re a tourist. This has to be a low-budget operation.”

  Gabby straighten in his chair. “I know, you can be a bird watcher. Perfect cover. You know something about birds and Bird Lady back at the loony bin can fill you in on what to look for.”

  “And the company will toss in the time off—with pay,” Eric added.

  As Aston turned Gabby’s wheelchair and prepared to leave, the old man said, “Hey Eric, wheel me back to the men’s? I gotta pee something awful.”

  Aston kept the pair in sight as they moved down the hall and around the corner. She wanted to be certain they would not immediately come back. She searched for the business card lying on Eric’s desk, and photographed it with her cell phone. She planned to Google the doctor’s name as soon as she got home.

  Aston returned Gabby to Bright Horizons and opted for lunch with him and Phyllis. During the meal she bent to retrieve her napkin and noticed their knees touching. When the conversation slowed, she calmly mentioned to Phyllis that she was thinking about going out to the Tucson area for a few days for birding. Maybe the more experienced birder could recommend some hot spots?

  Phyllis closed her eyes and tipped her head back. “Oh, lucky you. Well, in general, you should hit Madera Canyon south of Tucson. That whole road’s great. If you’re looking for real adventure, and a rarity, go southwest, down toward Nogales, on route 10, as I recall. Keep your eyes peeled for the signs for the turn off to Peña Blanca Lake. That’d be Ruby Road.”

  Aston looked at Gabby whose eyebrows rose close to his hairline. He shook his head.

  “You go about, maybe twenty-five miles up that road, it’s probably still not paved so take it easy. There’s a ghost town up there. You’re looking for the Five-striped Sparrow, Amphispiza quinestriata. Check it out in the field guide before you get there. That fucking bird was my nemeses for twenty years.”

  When Phyllis dropped the f-bomb, Aston turned her head, afraid she might spit her ice cream on the table. Phyllis continued without missing a beat. “The sparrow looks just as the name implies. Plus, this time of year, there are plenty of good hummers around already. I wish I was ten, make that twenty, years younger. I’d go along with you. Do you have a good pair of binoculars and a decent field guide? Be glad to lend you mine.”

  Aston cleared her throat and took a quick look at Gabby who was staring at his empty plate. “I’m okay with my binoculars, but I could use a field guide for that part of the world.”

  “Some maps of the area wouldn’t hurt, either,” Gabby said. “I can draw some up for you.”

  Aston smiled. “Oh, I think I’ll just stop at the triple A and get the real thing.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Aston struggled to find even the outline of mountains through windows blurred by heavy rain. As the clerk at the Hertz counter in Tucson finished the paperwork, she said to the woman, “I thought this was the desert.”

  The clerk peered over the top of her glasses out the window. “Yeah, well in spring we’ll take all we can get ‘cause we won’t see another drop until monsoon season.”

  “Monsoon season? Think the roads will be okay back up in the Pajarito Mountains?”

  The clerk stopped writing and looked at her. “I think we better switch you over to a four-wheel drive if you’re going in there, girl. It’ll be muddy, for sure, and some deep puddles.”

  “How deep?”

  “Well, if you see guys fishing in them, drive around,” she said and released a deep breath as she crumpled up the papers, and prepared to start over.

  Based on Gabby’s recollections, Bird Lady’s instructions, a map, and a GPS that would cost an extra fifty bucks, Aston got to the turnoff
for Ruby Road ninety minutes after leaving the airport. The rain had stopped thirty minutes before, making water droplets on the cacti sparkle like Christmas lights. She drove a mile up the road before she saw the first bullet-riddled sign: ‘I’d Turn Back if I was You’. Not encouraging, she thought. Her stomach growled and she glanced at her wristwatch. Almost four. What’s that in body time? She parked the car to better study a flock of birds working the ground and edges of a small puddle. The puddle spanned the entire width of the road and was the color of her favorite latte. Tire tracks passed through the center of the puddle so she thought it would be safe to drive through.

  “Holy shit,” she said to the car. “Those are Blue Buntings mixed in with Varied Buntings. Man, I might never go back to Cleveland if this is what birding in Arizona is like. This is the kind of stuff you only see in field guides.”

  For the next hour Aston sat on the hood of the Jeep, undisturbed, enjoying the warm sun. She watched birds as they came and went around the small puddle. When her stomach growled a second time, she decided to call it a day, find the hotel she had booked online and go treasure hunting in the morning. She glanced at her wristwatch, three hour time difference between Cleveland and Arizona. Eric would get the progress report he demanded when she got to the hotel. It would include a message for Bird Lady: Five Blue Buntings in the first hour.

  As she ate dinner she thought: What to do about Eric? What are those meds he’s taking? Did the guy have AIDS? He didn’t act gay; the opposite in fact. But why else would he be going to that clinic, seeing that Doctor Travino? He did act a bit strange, but then, to her way of thinking, anybody outside the skateboard world was a bit strange. Each time she glanced up from her dinner she noticed two guys in Border Patrol uniforms looking at her. As the men started to leave, one got up his courage and diverted over to her table. Play time, she thought

  “Excuse me. But we were wondering if you spent time in ‘Stan, or maybe the Sand,” he said, giving her a smile that she thought should be used in a toothpaste ad.