All Maps Are Fiction Page 13

  “Huh. Maybe I should look into investing in this stuff. The clinic could use some cash these days.”

  “So, here’s where my business comes in, and keep this under your hat. We’re thinking of creating a puzzle that, when finished, would lead to this alleged buried treasure. Lots of speed bumps along the way. Given my recent diagnosis, I sort of feel a need to do something a bit off the wall. Like I might not have much time—”

  “Stop it. I told you, you’re going to be fine. You have a long life ahead. Plus,” she said as she rubbed the back of his hand, “I think you and I might have some things to look forward to.”

  Eric cleared his throat and interlaced his fingers with her. “Ah, well, when you put it that way. Maybe we should have dinner, tonight.”

  “Hmm. I’ve read about fast cars and fast men. Never had the pleasure of meeting one, until now. How’s my place around seven? I make a great veal scaloppini.”

  Eric walked into the breakroom where Aston leaned over the map on the table while Gabby studied offerings in the vending machine. “How’s it going, team?”

  “Team?” said Aston and Gabby in unison.

  “Sure, we’re all in this together—”

  “Ain’t you the cheery one? Must have been a good cuppa coffee you had,” Gabby said and winked at Aston as he moved back to the table.

  She continued to study the map and did not look at Eric. “I think I figured out what Starke was hinting at when he wrote that crap about the game being a trail,” she said to the map.

  Eric looked up at the lights over the table and wondered if that’s what gave the long braid down her back a different glow. Even though her crisp, white T-shirt was tucked into her jeans, it pulled up and exposed a slice of skin low on her back. How different women can be, and still be appealing, he thought. “What’s your guess?”

  “More than a guess, Boss. I had to hack my way through thorn bushes that ripped my flesh, dodge spiders as big as dinner plates, and snakes you wouldn’t believe. The scene gave me nightmares about being pecked to death by birds I couldn’t name. If it was a board game, all those hazards would be used to slow a player down.”

  From the tone of her voice, Eric was unsure if he should laugh. “Ah, okay, don’t sugar coat it for us.”

  “Well, I followed this skinny little path right about here,” she said, pointing to a place off Ruby Road and east of the gravel roadway that was once the main entrance. “Border Patrol dude I met, handsome fellow by the way, said it looked like a game trail, probably mule deer. Get it? Starke, or whoever, wrote ‘the game’s the trail,’ knew the place. Bingo, the trail goes right back to where the ‘elephant’, or its trunk at least, was hidden in the middle of an open area the size of this building.”

  “Damn. Great job, Aston,” Gabby said. “That Border Patrol guy figure out what you were up to?”

  “No. He had other things on his mind. So did I, when we went to dinner that night.”

  Gabby chuckled. “My, my. Didn’t know there’d be a romantic element in this story.”

  “Happens, doesn’t it?” she said, smiling at Gabby, her back still to Eric. “And I’m thinking this could be a more financially rewarding adventure than we first figured. I checked the market price of palladium this morning. The stuff’s currently going for $1,575 per ounce. If that box is a third as big as the clothes dryer, even if it’s only the size of a football, I’d say we’re looking at numbers way up in the six- or seven-figure bracket. Well, you do the math.”

  She looked at Gabby who seemed to be concentrating on something a thousand miles away. “What do you think, old man?”

  “How heavy do you think it was?”

  “Well, let’s think: I was busting my ass to lift a clothes dryer with a big stick, worried about poisonous snakes, and wishing I was an octopus so I could reach under the dryer to get to the treasure box. Can’t say that weight was a high priority. Only lifted it an inch or so. Anyway, not too heavy, about the same as a couple good cruiser boards.”

  “And how heavy is that?” Eric asked.

  “Maybe ten pounds for the twenty-two-inch model.”

  Eric pulled his cell phone from his pocket and clicked a few buttons. “So, five pounds times sixteen ounces per, times $1,575 per ounce comes out to around a couple million bucks.”

  “No shit,” Aston said.

  Gabby chuckled. “This is getting to be more fun all the time.”

  Eric ran his tongue over his lower lip. “I’m thinking the fewer people that know about this the better. You think we should forget the puzzle idea and just grab the palladium?” he said looking at the other two.

  “Naw. I’m still in it for the fun,” Aston said. She thought of how much a couple million dollars was, split three ways, two ways, or no ways even better. She reached over and touched Gabby on the shoulder. “You haven’t been bragging about how smart you are to anybody, have you?” she said.

  “Well, I did sort of mention to Bird Lady that I was working on a rather exciting project.”

  Aston turned to Eric. “What about you, Boss? Been talking with the artists or guys in production?”

  Eric bit into his lower lip. “Ah, no, not yet. Well, I guess I did ask Gina to check into the legalities of us using topo maps as designs. And I did sort of let slip to Pat, this morning, about what we were doing. Nothing about the value of palladium, I don’t think.”

  Aston put her hands in her hip pockets and looked at the ceiling. She exhaled. “Weren’t you the guy who said we have to keep a lid on this, just in case the story is true?”

  “Yeah, yeah it’s okay—”

  “Hey, you don’t have something affecting your brain, do you? If this is going to work, we all have to keep the secret,” she said.

  Eric looked away. Something affecting his brain. He had too much affecting his brain this morning. “We’ll be okay. Don’t worry. Let’s figure out a plan of how to create a map so I can start thinking of a plan to sell puzzles. I’ll get Gina to draw something that looks like a topo map so we can skirt any copyright laws.”

  Aston leaned back against the leather seat in the side booth of Casa DeAngelo’s, from which she could watch other diners and keep an eye on the front door. Diane was already fifteen minutes late, right on time for this girlhood friend. To Aston’s left sat a family with two unruly children under the age of five. The mother kept telling the boy and girl to use their inside voices while the father paid no attention, his eyes locked on his dinner plate. Aston wondered if a good smack on the ear might shut the kids up for a while. She thought of how her father would smack her on the ears, with both hands. When she looked up, Diane was standing there.

  “Hi. Didn’t want to interrupt that deep thought-place you were in,” Diane said and tossed her purse next to the wall before she slipped into the opposing bench seat. As she did, the little boy at the table next to them started to whack his spoon against his plate sending spaghetti sauce in all directions.

  “Hi, Diane. Oh, I was just wondering if a jury would convict me of murder if I killed a four-year-old who only deserves a good spanking.”

  Diane grinned and looked over at the children. “Not if I was on the jury. This is why you and I don’t have kids; why we’re free to roam the Earth. Speaking of which, tell me about Arizona. Especially the part about how you almost got caught in the act in the back seat of a car with a guy carrying a gun.”

  “Not exactly, my friend. You’re a bit ahead of the story. No back seat. No act, but he did have a big gun.” In Aston’s retelling of the events there was no girlfriend and the Border Patrolman got better looking. She left out details of why she was snooping around the Ruby Mine property, saying it was about birds, mostly. With their meal finished, and the second glass of wine delivered by the waitress, Aston said, “I have another thing I need to ask.”

  “Thought so. What’s up?”

&nbs
p; She took the scrap of paper with all the letters and numbers from her pocket. “I know, this is a shitty thing to ask of you, but can you tell me what this means?” she asked as she unfolded the paper.

  Diane squinted at the paper, then at Aston. “You really are trying to get my ass fired, aren’t you.”

  “No, I, ah. Forget it. Gimmie the paper.”

  “Where did you get this, or these?” she said, tapping the paper with a well-manicured index finger.

  Aston explained where she found the bottle of pills.

  “So, tell me, has there been any, ah change in his behavior?” Diane asked.

  “Like what?”

  Diane looked at the backs of the heads of two people seated nearby. “Like, has he been hitting on you? Flirting stuff?”

  “Hell no. As far as he’s concerned, I’m just a worker bee there. Plus, I’ve been out playing in that sandbox called Arizona all week.”

  “Okay. Maybe I should say, ‘do you want him to?’”

  Aston didn’t respond.

  “Aston, did you look up the information about Brymtuzi?”

  Aston leaned forward. “Yeah. I can’t believe he has AIDS.”

  “My guess is that he doesn’t. Those meds are, or were, for HIV. It’s complicated.”

  “Then what’s this stuff?” Aston said, pointing at the slip of paper with the numbers.

  “Well, this is curious. Were the pills in the bottle the same as the pictures of the Brymtuzi?”

  “Ah, no. These were white, not brown.”

  “Okay, something’s going on here. All this coding is for acetaminophen.” She leaned into the table. “Tylenol, basically. What happens is, when a drug company is clinically testing a new drug they include a control group. Some of the people in the test receive the real meds and some get a placebo. This is the typical placebo. But, Brymtuzi has been approved, or we couldn’t be dispensing it. Which means, the company can’t still be in the testing phase. They had to be through with testing, or they’d never issue it to us for distribution. So, either they’re putting your boss into a new control group, or—or, I don’t know what.”

  “You mean, like when they use people like lab rats?”

  “No, not like lab rats. People join these clinical test groups for lots of reasons, usually money. Can’t say he needs money. What’s strange, and this is where I’m about to dive into deep, make that deeper, shit. I just received a notice about your boss and another guy. The clinic said that Eric would no longer require the Brymtuzi medication and I should take him off the list. At the same time, they added this other guy’s name to the list. Brymtuzi’s an expensive, highly regulated medication. Something’s not right.”

  Aston leaned back. The leather seat felt cold through her damp T-shirt. She sipped her wine. “Huh. Okay, and the boss seems to have acquired some arm candy, too. A Pat Travino—”

  “From the Cyril J. Richards clinic?”

  “Yeah, you know her?”

  “I know of her. See her name in medical literature, that kind of stuff. Let me take a leap of faith here: If there was anything wrong with your boyfriend—”

  “Not my boyfriend. He’s my boss.”

  “Oops, slip of the tongue, your boss. Anyway, if he had any kind of medical issue, she’d be aware, since she runs the clinic he’s going to. And she wouldn’t be messing around with him, I’m sure.”

  “I guess this is where I say, ‘thank you’, isn’t it?”

  “And pick up the check because if any of this gets out I’ll be looking for work.”

  Aston laughed and reached over for the check. “Hey, speaking of boyfriends, how’s things between you and that reporter guy? What did you call him?”

  “Oh, you mean Mike Rollings, the cunning linguist? Not so much. He’s off covering a war or flood or something. Blew off a date last week because of some story. Hasn’t been around for a week or so. I think we’ll need some big-deal stories closer to home if that relationship is heading anywhere except the rocks.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  “When you gonna buy a real car?” Gabby mumbled as Aston helped him into the Boxter the next morning.

  “First, I like this one ‘cause it’s the boss’s. Doesn’t cost me a penny and I enjoy driving a car that costs more than my condo. Second, or third, I like the exercise I get from stuffing you into the seat and the wheelchair into what passes for a trunk on this thing.”

  Before Aston started the car Gabby asked, “What’s with Eric? He taking happy pills or something? You notice how he seems, maybe, less stressed? Back in the day, we’d say he was acting like he got his ashes hauled.”

  Aston smiled. “I agree. We say the same thing today, only using more four-letter words. He does seem less worried about something. Customers must be paying their bills.”

  “Humph. Maybe that doctor girlfriend’s got something to do with it. Well, let’s get to work. I was up half the night working on a great puzzle idea.”

  “And what did you do with the other half of the night?”

  “Ha, you’d like to know, wouldn’t you? Didn’t see Bird Lady waiting around the door this morning, did you?”

  “You be careful getting in and out of bed, old man. I don’t want them calling me saying you had a stroke or broke a hip or something.”

  “Not to worry, young lady. Every morning I take it easy when I wake up and stare at the ceiling and say, ‘please’.”

  “Please what?”

  “Not sure if it’s for more time or less time. Can’t think of who wrote that poem that says, ‘When you dream with a broken heart, wakin’ up is the hardest part.’”

  “Don’t know. I like the line, though,” Aston said. “Sounds like country music. Anything about a dog or a pickup truck in the rest of it?”

  Aston and Gabby were at work on the puzzle plan when Eric arrived. She had pushed his mess of spreadsheets and papers on the desk to one side to better study the map. The three had agreed to hold meetings in his office to lessen the chance of others in the building discovering details of the plan.

  “Well, look at the two early birds, would you?” Eric said, tossing his baseball cap in the direction of the bookshelf.

  “Early bird gets the worm,” Aston said, and winked at Gabby.

  Eric looked at the map covering his desk. “I’ve been thinking, at least the outline of this puzzle should reflect the shape of Arizona—”

  “Now there’s a shitty idea, Boss,” Gabby said. “Dead giveaway. This is a puzzle, for Christ’s sake, not a tourist map.”

  “Ah, you disagree then,” Eric said as he dropped into his chair.

  “Boss, the old man here was up half the night coming up with the most devious design you ever heard of. Killer idea.”

  “Really? What did you do with the other half of the night?” Eric asked.

  “Jesus H. Christ. Ain’t you two a pair. Look, first off,” Gabby explained, “this puzzle should be circular and printed on both sides. All the pieces will be different sizes, but identically shaped, except for the whimsey. The puzzle will consist of three parts: The first part—think of this design like a bicycle wheel—will be an outer ring, round, like the tire. The second part will be an inner ring—like where the spokes are but solid, and the third part will be like the hole piece cut from a donut, or hub, but bigger—and include the whimsey. But these rings and the center section don’t interlock. When put together, they can be rotated while lying on a table. All three sections will have to be perfectly aligned for the puzzle to present a true picture. Any one piece from the wrong side, the flip side—or picture—might fit, but will make the final map picture incorrect. You won’t be able to align the three circular sections. Think of this like the workings inside of a combination lock.”

  Eric released a deep breath. “And what is this, or, should I say these two pictures of?”

/>   Gabby turned to Aston. “Good gravy, am I supposed to do all the thinking around here? The pictures are going to be topo maps, of course. The center of which, maybe the whimsey, will be the box with the palladium, the treasure. People will need to precisely assemble the map, or maps, to find the path that leads them to that whimsey, not to just see a pretty picture.”

  “So, why not just put together the center section and forget the outer rings?” Aston asked.”

  “Because we’re going to remove all the road names and maybe some of the contour lines, too. You’ll need the correct line up of road lanes, trees, mountain ridges, from the first and second circles, or you won’t have any idea if that center circle is in Arizona, Utah or the Island of Jabip.”

  Eric doodled designs on a note pad that looked vaguely like skateboards to him. “So, if you get led astray by using a piece from the wrong side of the puzzle, it’s conceivable that you might assemble it but still be off track,” he said.

  Gabby laughed. “Hey, you’re beginning to catch on. This puzzle will be so devious even those Germans at the Ravensburger Company will be smacking their lips.”

  “What’s the Ravensburger company?” Aston asked.

  “Arguably the best puzzle company in the world,” Eric said. “They’ve created puzzles with tens of thousands of pieces.”

  “I think we should be looking at a minimum of two thousand pieces for this baby,” Gabby said. “The outer ring should be about forty-eight inches in diameter—huge. And make the production run really exclusive, say only a thousand copies. Maybe fewer.”

  Eric stood and gazed out the window. “Yeah, but before we sell one copy of this creature we have to convince the buying public that there is in fact a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.”

  Gabby slapped himself on the forehead. “Holy shit, I just had another brainstorm. When we package this puzzle we do it in an all-black box. No picture of the finished puzzle on the outside for the person to analyze or follow.”