Extreme Denial (10 page)

It wasn’t even adobe construction. All the contractor did was fix up a frame house and apply new stucco.”

“And this
is
adobe?”

“You bet.” Edna led him from her BMW, following a gravel lane to a high metal gate between equally high stuccoed walls. The gate had silhouettes of Indian petroglyphs. Beyond it were a courtyard and a portal. “The place is incredibly solid. Knock on this wall next to the front door.”

Decker did. The impact of his knuckles made him feel as if he had tapped stone. He studied the house’s exterior. “I see some dry rot in the columns that support this portal.”

“You’ve got a good eye.”

“The courtyard’s overgrown. Its inside wall needs re-stuccoing. But those repairs don’t seem to justify your calling this a fixer-upper,” Decker said. “What’s the real problem? The place is on two acres in what you tell me is a desirable area, the museum district. It has views in every direction. It’s attractive. Why hasn’t it sold?”

Edna hesitated. “Because it isn’t one big house. It’s two small houses joined by a common wall.”

“What?”

“To get from one structure to the other, you have to go outside and in through another door.”

“Who the hell would want that inconvenience?”

Edna didn’t have an answer.

“Let’s see the rest of it.”

“Despite the layout, you mean you might still be interested?”

“I have to check something out first. Show me the laundry room.”

Puzzled, Edna took him inside. The laundry room was off the garage. A hatch led to a crawl space under the house. When Decker emerged from below, he swatted dust from his clothes, feeling satisfied. “The electrical system looks about ten years old, the copper pipes a little more recent, both in good shape.”

“You
do
have a good eye.” Edna said. “And you know where to look first.”

“There’s no point in redesigning the place if the infrastructure needs work, too.”

“Redesigning?” Now Edna was even more baffled.

“The way the property is laid out, the garage is between the adjoining houses. But it’s possible to convert the garage into a room, put a corridor in the back of that room, and knock out part of the common wall, so the corridor leads into the other house, unifying both halves.”

“Well, I’ll be ..Edna glanced at the garage. “I never noticed.”

Decker debated with himself. He hadn’t planned on a house this expensive. He thought about his three hundred thousand dollars in savings, about the down payment and the mortgage payments and whether he wanted to be house-poor. At the same time, the investment possibilities intrigued him. “I’ll offer six hundred thousand.”

“Less than the asking price? For this valuable property?”

“For what I believe you called a fixer-upper. Or did my suggestion suddenly make the house more appealing?”

“To the right kind of buyer.” Edna took a good look at him. “Why do I get the idea you’ve done a lot of negotiating for property?”

“I used to be an international real estate investment consultant.” Decker gave her a business card that the CIA had supplied him. “The Rawley-Hackman Agency, based in Alexandria, Virginia. They’re not Sotheby’s International, but they handle a lot of special properties. My expertise was finding properties that had more value than they appeared to have.”

“Such as
this
one,” Edna said.

Decker shrugged. “My problem is, six hundred thousand is absolutely as much as I can afford.”

“I’ll make that point to my client.”

“Emphasize it, please. The standard twenty percent down payment is a hundred and twenty thousand. At the current rate of eight percent, a thirty-year mortgage on the remainder is ...”

“I’ll have to get my rate book from the car.”

“No need. I can do the math.” Decker scribbled on a notepad. “About thirty-five hundred a month. A little more than forty-two thousand a year.”

“I’ve never seen anybody that quick with numbers.”

Decker shrugged again. “One other problem—I can’t afford the house if I don’t have a job.” .

“Such as selling real estate?” Edna burst out laughing. “You’ve been trying to sell
me”

“Maybe a little.”

“I like your style.” Edna grinned. “If you can sell me, you can sell anybody. You want a job, you’ve got one. The thing is, how are you going to afford the renovation?”

“That’s easy. Cheap labor.”

“Where on earth do you hope to find that?”

Decker held out his hands. “Right here.”

8

While serving in military special operations and later as a civilian intelligence operative, Decker had experienced fear on numerous occasions—missions that had gone wrong, threats that could not have been anticipated—but nothing matched the terror with which he woke in the middle of the ensuing night. His heart pounded sickeningly. Sweat stuck his T-shirt and boxer shorts to him. For a moment, he was disoriented, the darkness smothering. This wasn’t his room in the La Fonda. Immediately he reminded himself that he had moved to a rental unit that Edna was managing. It was even smaller than the apartment he had given up in Alexandria, but at least it was cheaper than the La Fonda, and economizing was an urgent priority.

His mouth was dry. He couldn’t find a light switch. He bumped his hip against a table as he groped his way to the sink in the tiny bathroom. He needed several glasses of water to satisfy his demanding thirst. He felt his way toward the single room’s window and opened the twig shutters. Instead of a majestic view, he saw moonlight gleaming on cars in a parking lot.

What the hell have I done? he asked himself, beginning to sweat again. I’ve never owned anything big in my life. And I just signed papers committing myself to buying a $600,000 house that’s going to cost me $120,000 down and $42,000 a year in mortgage payments.
Have I gone crazy
? What’s the agency going to think when they hear I’m investing in serious real estate? They’re going to wonder what makes me believe I can afford it. The truth is, I
can’t
afford it, but
they
won’t know that.

Decker couldn’t help thinking of a recent scandal that involved an operative named Aldrich Ames who had passed secrets about the Agency’s Moscow network to the Russians in exchange for $2.5 million. The results had been disastrous— operations destroyed, agents executed. It had taken years before the Agency’s counterintelligence unit suspected a double agent and finally focused its attention on Ames. To the Agency’s horror, the counterintelligence team discovered that, as a part of a standard review, Ames had nearly failed two lie-detector tests but that the results had been described as ambiguous and a judgment made in his favor. Further, the team learned that Ames had made extraordinary investments in real estate—several vacation homes and a ten-thousand-acre ranch in South America—and that he had hundreds of thousands of dollars in various bank accounts. Where on earth had the money come from? Not long afterward, Ames and his wife had been arrested for espionage. The Agency, which had become lax about keeping an eye on the personal lives of its operatives, adopted new, more stringent security measures.

And I’m going to be the target of some of those measures, Decker warned himself. I’m already being watched because of my attitude when I quit. The papers I signed today are going to set off alarms. I have to call Langley first thing in the morning. I have to explain what I’m doing.

That’ll be a trick. Just what
am
I doing? Decker touched a chair behind him and sank into it. The darkness pressed harder against him. The purchase agreement I signed has an escape clause, he reminded himself. When the house is inspected tomorrow, I’ll use a flaw the inspector comes up with as an excuse to back out.

Right. I was too ambitious. Caution—that’s the ticket.

Slow and careful. Avoid doing anything out of the ordinary. Put the brakes on. Have numerous backup plans. Don’t be dramatic. I mustn’t let my emotions get control of me.

For God sake, he told himself, that’s the way I’ve been living for the past ten years. I just described my life as an operative. He slammed his hand against the side of the chair. I dealt with fear before. What have I got to lose?

The chance to live.

Three weeks later, he took possession of the house.

9

Santa Fe was Julian’s, El Nido, the Zia Diner, Pasqual’s, Tomasita’s, and countless other wonderful restaurants. It was margaritas, nachos, and red and green salsa. It was spectacular mornings, brilliant afternoons, and gorgeous evenings. It was ever-changing sunlight and constantly shifting high-desert colors. It was mountains in every direction. It was air so clean that there were views for hundreds of miles. It was landscapes that looked like Georgia O’Keeffe paintings. It was the Plaza. It was the art galleries on Canyon Road. It was Spanish Market and Indian Market. It was Fiesta. It was watching the aspen turn autumn yellow in the ski basin. It was snow that made the city look like a Christmas card. It was candles stuck in sand in paper bags, lining the Plaza to illuminate it on Christmas Eve. It was glorious wildflowers in the spring. It was more hummingbirds than he had ever seen. It was the gentle rain that fell late every afternoon in July. It was the feel of the sun on his back, of sweat and the healthy ache of his muscles as he worked on his house.

It was peace.

THREE

—————

1

“Steve, you’re on floor duty today, right?” Edna asked.

In his office, Decker looked up from a buyer’s offer that he was preparing for one of his clients. “Until noon.” All the brokers in the agency were normally so busy showing properties that they seldom came into the office, but Edna insisted that someone always be available for walk-in clients and telephone inquiries, so each broker was required to spend a half day every two weeks on “floor duty.”

“Well, someone’s in the lobby, looking for an agent,” Edna said. “I’d handle it, but I have to get over to Santa Fe Abstract for a closing in fifteen minutes.”

“No problem. I’ll take care of it.” Decker put the buyer’s offer into a folder, stood, and headed toward the lobby. It was July, thirteen months after he had come to Santa Fe, and any doubts that he’d had about his ability to support himself had quickly vanished. Although some of Santa Fe’s Realtors failed and dropped out each year, he had done well. Techniques of elicitation that he had used to gain the confidence of operatives he was debriefing turned out to have application to making clients feel at ease. He was now up to $4 million in sales, which provided a 6 percent commission of $240,000. Of course, he had to split half of that with Edna, who provided office facilities, advertisements, and the nuisance details of running a business, not to mention an organization for Decker to disappear into. Even so, $120,000 was more than he had ever earned in one year in his life.

He came around a corner, approached the front desk, and saw a woman standing next to it, looking at a color brochure of available homes. With her head bowed, Decker couldn’t see her features, but as he approached, he took in her lush auburn hair, tanned skin, and slim figure. She was taller than most women, about five foot seven, in excellent shape. Her outfit was distinctly East Coast: a nicely fitted dark navy Calvin Klein suit; smartly cut low-heeled Joan & David shoes; pearl earrings; and a woven Italian-leather black bag.

“May I help you?” Decker asked. “You’d like to speak to an agent?”

The woman glanced up from the brochure. “Yes.”

She smiled, and Decker felt something shift inside him. He didn’t have time to analyze the sensation, except to compare it to the sudden change in heart rhythm, almost a lurch, that came during moments of fear. In this case, though, the sensation was definitely the opposite of fear.

The woman—in her early thirties—was gorgeous. Her skin glowed with health. Her blue-gray eyes glinted with intelligence and something else that was hard to identify, something appealingly enigmatic. She had a symmetrical face that was a perfect combination of a sculpted jaw, high cheekbones, and a model’s forehead. Her smile was radiant.

Although Decker’s lungs didn’t want to work, he managed to introduce himself. “Steve Decker. I’m an associate broker with the firm.”

The woman shook hands with him. “Beth Dwyer.”

Her fingers felt so wonderfully smooth that Decker didn’t want to release her hand. “My office is just around the corner.”

As he led the way, he had a chance to try to adjust to the pleasant tightness in his chest. There are certainly worse ways to earn a living, he thought.

The offices in the agency were spacious cubicles, their six-foot-high partitions constructed to look like adobe walls. Beth cast a curious gaze toward the tops of the partitions, which were decorated with gleaming black pottery and intricately patterned baskets from the local Indian pueblos.

“Those window seats that look like plaster benches—what are they called?
Bancos?”
Her voice was deep and resonant.

“That’s right.
Bancos,”
Decker said. “Most of the architectural terms here are Spanish. Can I get you anything? Coffee? Mineral water?”

“No, thanks.”

Beth peered around with interest at a Native American rug and other southwestern decorations. She paid particular attention to some New Mexican landscape prints, walking over, leaning close to them. “Beautiful.”

“The one that shows the white-water rapids in the Rio Grande gorge is my favorite,” Decker said. “But just about any outdoor scene around here is beautiful.”

“I like the one
you
like.” Behind her attempt at good humor lurked a puzzling hint of melancholy. “Even in a print, the delicacy of the brush strokes is obvious.”

“Oh? Then you know about painting?”

“I’ve spent most of my life trying to learn, but I’m not sure I ever will.”

“Well, if you’re an artist, Santa Fe is a good place to be.”