A Wall of Fire
Chapter 24

Copyright© 2011 by Robert McKay

I realized as I was getting back into the Blazer that it had been a couple of weeks since I'd been to the office, so I headed that way. From where I was I had a choice of several routes. I decided to go down Tramway just as far as Paseo del Norte, and cut west from there. When I first came to Albuquerque, Paseo was way out there, beyond all but the merest fringes of the city. These days development is spreading everywhere, and there's a lot more along the road than there used to be. Just before I got to I-25 I passed Darlia's school, Calvin Academy, in its nook between Paseo and Holly. Dr. Chalmers had bought the land there because it was cheap, but from an investment point of view he's done very well, for the price has gone up tremendously.

So have property taxes. One of the things Cecelia has done is insist that she cover the annual tax assessment on the school's land, something that we can handle easily but which is tough for a school which recycles almost all the tuition and fees it receives back into operations. Calvin Academy has an administrative staff that would seem skeletal to someone who's used to the way government schools operate, but it pays its teachers better than the government does – not that they're likely to get rich. More of the money that comes into the school gets back into the classroom than is standard in government schools – and that's one of the reasons why Darlia's still there, and will be until she graduates from high school if we have anything to say about it. It's also one of the reasons we don't mind paying tuition and fees, and I didn't mind – when I found out about it – Cecelia covering the property taxes on the property. We pay for what we get, but we surely get what we pay for.

I turned south on the I-25 frontage road. I could have gotten on the freeway, but I dislike freeway driving and avoid it whenever possible. You see more on the surface streets – or, if you're going cross country, the US highways or the state and county highways and roads – and you don't have quite as many people, usually, trying to get where they want to go regardless of what's in front of them. I turned my radio on as I drove south, ready for music now, and found a station playing an old Whitney Houston song. It's her first hit, I think, though I could be wrong since it's the only thing I've ever heard from her that I've ever liked, and I've not followed her career. It came out back in the late 80s, when I was living in Red Hawk, Oklahoma. At least that's when I first heard it. "Oh, I wanna dance with somebody," she sang, and I sang along, though my voice isn't near as pretty as hers.

Nor do I dance. It's not that I have anything against dancing, though there are some Christians who do, it's that I'm no good at it. There've been a few times when Cecelia and I have danced together, whether in our living room or at a party – not that we go to parties together more than once or twice a year – and I enjoy it and so does she, but neither of us is going to win any awards. I've never watched Dancing With the Stars and don't plan to, but I know that I'd never make it on that show. My notions of dancing come closer to the aimless gyrations you see in film of the 1969 Woodstock festival than to anything that actually qualifies as dancing.

But that didn't keep me from singing along. And so I drove south to Jefferson, where I crossed the freeway and went south again on Jefferson for a short way, and then turned right on Bogan. I followed that to the northbound frontage road, and there, between Bogan and McLeod, is the office building where I've been renting space since 1992. The office was vacant when I was looking for a place to set up, and I took one look out the window and asked to sign the lease. The rent wasn't cheap then, and it's gone up over the years just as everything else has, but to me it's worth it – even if Marla, my part-time secretary, has to grit her teeth to make out the check for it each month. I can afford it – I can afford to run the office at a loss for years, if it comes to that – but she's not in my financial bracket and even though she's worked for me for a couple of years she still thinks the rent's outrageous.

And maybe it is, considering I don't take a great many cases and sometimes go for days without ever going into the office, especially when I'm working. But I'm not paying for walls and floors and electric plug ins. I'm paying for the view of the Sandia Mountains. It's the same principle that moves people to spend tons of money on a house in the far Heights. It's not that the roads are better up there, or the air's clearer, or humidity is any less – it's the magnificent view. Sometimes even the die-hard materialists among us admit, by their actions, that there are things more important than tangible objects.

Marla was at her desk when I walked in. "Hey, Darv," she said. "I was going to call you if I didn't see you by noon. You've got till the close of business today to pay the rent or they'll charge a late fee."

I didn't smack my forehead, but my mental reaction was the equivalent. "Sorry, Marla – I'm tied up in something and forgot." I sat in the wooden chair beside her desk. I'm the only one who ever sits there, but she keeps it anyway. "I've been working nights, and tailing a bad guy, and leaning on him too. It hasn't been hectic, exactly, but it's been keeping my attention."

"I figured it had to be something like that. You've been harder to find around here than I am." And she smiled at me. She wants to become a cop when she graduates from UNM, and if she makes it, she'll just have to smile to charm suspects into her patrol car – which is actually better than having to fight 'em.

"Yeah, well," I said, "someone's got to bring in some bucks around here."

Marla laughed at me. "And you're the one who tells me not to worry about the bank account, because if it gets low you'll just put some personal funds into it."

"Yep, that's me."

"If that's you, then you won't mind signing these." And she pushed several checks over to me.

I looked them over. The rent check was there, as well as checks to pay the phone bill, and an electronic security firm I used to debug a politician's house a little while back when I found out a rival was trying to get dirt on him. Marla's paycheck was there as well, and that one was late. I signed them all, and handed them back, saying, "Sorry I didn't get your salary to you sooner."

"Darv, you know you pay me enough that a few days late isn't going to hurt me."

 
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