The Lies that Bind (19 page)

“I won't,” I said.

After he left, I watered the plants. “Sorry, guys,” I said. Then I got out a legal pad and drew blue circles up and down the red line, wondering why exactly Whit had come to see me and what ever had made Cindy believe the El Dorado auction would solve their financial problems. Whit was a real estate professional. He'd know what I knew: you can't get laughter out of a stone, tequila out of a turnip, or money out of a property being sold at a real estate auction, not in the current market—only he hadn't told Cindy that. Given the location—Arizona—and the times—the nineties—there was a good probability El Dorado was an S&L loan that had gone bad.

I dialed 800 information and asked for the number of Resolution Trust Corporation, the corporation that is administering the sale of the assets of the S&Ls that went belly-up. At the moment, those assets made it the largest corporation in the world, although a lot of them were really liabilities, properties that never should have gotten the loans they did in the first place. Chalk it up to bankers' optimism, stupidity, greed, or the fact that the money they were lending was savings deposits insured by the federal government. What did the S&Ls have to lose? Our money, but what the heck—we're used to seeing that go down the tubes. In the eighties, bankers looked upon Arizona the way Pizarro coveted Peru and Cortés lusted after Mexico, virgin territory to be raped and plundered, the profits to go in their pockets.

The RTC office in Washington referred me to its office in Denver, and that office referred me to Harry Chambers, the auctioneer in Phoenix who was handling the Arizona properties. I asked him if he was auctioning off El Dorado. He said he was and offered to send me a brochure.

“I'll get it in the mail today,” he said. “According to RTC guidelines, that property will be sold absolute. No minimum. It goes to the highest bidder.”

“Suppose there aren't any bidders?” I asked.

“Trust me. There's always somebody out there looking for a deal.”

Just like the legal profession, real estate is full of bottom feeders. “Thanks,” I said.

******

I
wandered out to the reception area to see what Anna was up to and found her hard at work reading the
Journal
“Hey, get a look at this. Women are having almost as many car accidents as men. They're driving faster and harder and wrecking their cars a lot.”

“They steal and murder more too,” I said.

“They also smoke,” said Anna, eyeballing the lethal weapon that was slowly burning down to ashes in my hand.

“That's progress for you.” Sometimes I think the women's movement tried too hard to make us more like them when what we should have done was let them be more like us. But then I remembered that what we used to be was so devalued nobody wanted it.

“Who's Whit Reid?” Anna asked. “Is he a client?”

“He's married to Cindy, Martha Conover's daughter, my old high school friend.”

“He got way impatient waiting for you. He looked at his watch about a hundred times and breathed through his nose—loud—like he wanted me to be sure to notice he was around.”

“Whitney James Reid III is the final flower on one branch of the civilization tree.”

“Huh?”

“He was born rich, went to the best schools, was successful in business. He doesn't like to be kept waiting; he expects everybody to cater to him.”

“He didn't even have an appointment, did he?”

“No.”

“Why doesn't he get his nose fixed? It has to drive his wife crazy, like living with someone who snores twenty-four hours a day.”

“Likes himself just the way he is, I guess.”

“Does his wife like him?”

“Not as much as he does.”

“Actually, he kind of reminds me of someone,” Anna said.

“Who?”

“Your ex-husband, Charles.”

“I was afraid of that,” I said.

16

E
RIC WINSTON FROM
New West Bank in Phoenix called the next morning to tell me the board would reduce Sharon Amaral's mortgage payments only to the amount of the interest. “I'm really sorry about this,” he said, “but there was nothing I could do.”

Winston knew whether he was telling the truth about who had made the decision. I didn't know, but I had my suspicions. Who wouldn't like to have an anonymous board in his or her life to take responsibility for the tough choices? To be able to say to the Martha Conovers of this world, “Sorry, Martha, but the board says I can't represent you, and there's no arguing with the board”? Bankers get to pass the buck. Lawyers in business for themselves don't.

“Sharon was a good customer,” I said. “She made all her payments on time before her husband took off. Just give her a chance to get her life straightened out.”

“I can't,” he said.

“You're going to be taking on an undesirable property in a declining neighborhood,” I warned him.

He wasn't intimidated. Bankers know how to say no; they get lots of practice. They get lots of practice saying what comes next too. “I'm sorry.”

“Would you sign off on the note if Sharon turns the house over to you? It'll save you the time and trouble of going through foreclosure. You're not going to get any more money out of Sharon anyway.”

“It's a possibility,” he said. “We're going to be interviewing Albuquerque lawyers next week. Could you come over?”

“I could,” I said.

“Why don't we talk about the Amaral matter then?”

“All right.” My making a client out of New West Bank might help Sharon, I thought, but what would it do for me? All I'd get out of it would be the ability to pay the bills a little sooner and the aggravation of having to hound Brink. That plus a trip to Phoenix.

I called Sharon. It wasn't much, 5½ Yellow Arrow Street, but it was home, and she was going to lose it. I might be able to improve on the terms, but sooner or later she'd have to pay up or move out. I picked up the phone, dialed Sharon's number and heard an answering machine voice. It was tempting to leave a message. “Sharon, the board says you're going to lose your house, and there's nothing I can do. Sorry.” I wasn't likely to get paid for my efforts in any case. “This is Neil,” I said. “Call me.”

Next
I headed for Brink's office to tell him he could become New West's Duke City representative. He might have been burrowed somewhere under the pile of papers that was his desk, but I didn't have the heart to look. I moved on to the kitchen and found him at the Mr. Coffee machine. “Coffee?” he asked.

“No, thanks. I'm going to Phoenix next week to talk to New West.”

He put a little of the powdered stuff that imitates milk in his coffee, plus a couple of pink packets of artificial sweetener. “Who gets to do the work? You or me?”

“How about whoever has the most free time?” He knew who that was.

“If I'm going to have to do the work, then I should go to Phoenix.”

“You want to?” I knew I was safe; Brink liked to travel about as much as he liked to work.

“Maybe.”

“Brink, there's no time for maybes. Whoever is going is going next week.” I wasn't sure what a banker would make of me, but I knew what one would think of Brink. Last night's dinner was crud on his tie. His hair was uncombed, his shirt unbuttoned around his ever-expanding belly, his shoes scuffed. There are lawyers who should remain in back offices doing careful and brilliant research while their more presentable colleagues deal with the clients. Brink's research wasn't that careful or that brilliant, but his looks and personality were back office all the way.

“You go,” he said. He stirred his coffee until it was the color of the Rio Grande in snowmelt.

“All right,” I said.

******

When Sharon Amaral returned my call, “Your Good Girl's Gonna Go Bad” was playing in the background. Sometimes a woman has a wound that only Tammy Wynette can heal. “They taking my house?” she asked.

“Unless you can come up with the back payments they are.”

“Fat chance.”

“They're talking about foreclosing. If they do and they don't recover the amount of the mortgage by selling the house, you're liable for the difference.”

“I don't have it,” said Sharon.

“I know,” I said, “but if you ever get any money down the road they could take it.”

“Shit,” said Sharon.

“I might be able to talk the bank into a better deal for you. You sign the house over to them, they sign off on the mortgage. At least you wouldn't owe them anything, and they might let you go on living in the house until they find a buyer. I'm going to Phoenix next week, and I'll talk to them about it then.”

“
Thanks for trying.” She didn't ask me to send her a bill for my time. I didn't offer.

“It's nothing,” I said.

******

The Kid arrived at my place that night with a big bag of tacos under his arm. “
Puta madre
,” he said, putting the bag down on the coffee table.

He wasn't the kind of man to show up after work tired and peevish. “
Que pasa
?” I asked.

“La Bailarina is gone.”

“Gone?”

“Her car is not there.”

“She just went out somewhere. She'll be back.”

“She never goes out. Where would she go? This is her only home. Her car is always here by eight o'clock.” It was true; La Bailarina was as predictable and unfortunate as the evening news. “It was the watchman, I think. He made her go. You didn't give him enough money or to drink.”

“What do you mean,
I
didn't give him enough money? It's not my job to support the ballerina.”

“What does it cost you to give her some money or some food? You have it.”

“I don't have
that
much money.”

“You have enough.”

“You know, Kid, we're not talking about Mexico here. She's an adult, an American citizen; she's got a car. Why can't she take care of herself?”

“You can take care of yourself; that doesn't mean she can?”

“I can take care of myself because I make the effort to take care of myself.”

“If she could help herself, she would. Why you not give Truman the money?”

“How do you know I didn't give him the money? Why are you blaming me?”

“Because if you gave him the money she would be here.”

“I did give him the money,” I said. “That's not why she left.”

“You know why?”

“Yeah, I think I do.” It was the guilt we were really talking about, the guilt of good but fucked-up intentions. “I think it's because I talked to her. I left her an invitation to a party some lawyers were having. I thought she'd like the food. When I saw her at the food table I spoke to her. I told her I lived in La Vista and had given her the invitation. She said I was mistaken, and she walked away.”

“You took away her
dignidad
, Chiquita.” Pride is something a Latin American male knows all about.

“I know.”

“
Where will she go?”

“Somebody else's parking lot?”

“
Mierda
,” said the Kid.

“I'm sorry. Okay?” I replied.

******

Harry Chambers's Resolution Trust Corporation auction brochure arrived in the Monday mail. It had a full-color cover with photos of the scenic Southwest: snow-peaked mountains, golden aspen, sixteenth-century adobes of God, orange-and-lavender-streaked sunsets, pink lightning, saguaro cacti. Inside, among the Arizona condominiums, vacant lots, four-plexes and single-family residences, I found El Dorado, a destination resort with plans for a golf course, two hundred homesites with restrictive covenants, and an uncompleted hotel that was open for inspection by potential buyers. Adobe doesn't photograph well, and imitation-adobe models photograph even worse. El Dorado looked more like an oversized mud hut than a pot of gold in its one-inch-square photo.

******

There are always cheap flights from Albuquerque to Phoenix, whatever the state of the economy, and they begin or end in California. You can almost count on getting bumped and getting a free ticket out of it if you go late in the day, when everyone is trying to get home. I left Tuesday morning; I didn't want to spend a night in Phoenix if I didn't have to, but I packed a bag just in case. I saw Jed White, a lawyer I knew, picking up his boarding pass at the Southwest desk and said, “Hello, Jed,” which was about all I had to say to him. Southwest is one of those airlines that have no assigned seats; you board according to the number on your boarding pass. The number you're assigned depends on when you get to the airport. While I stood on line, waiting to board my flight, I listened to the mix of accents behind me: New Mex, Old Mex, New York, unaccented English that had to be from California, the one state with no discernible accent.

People dress differently when they're leaving Albuquerque than they do when they're here. You always see more cowboy hats and boots in the airport than you do anywhere else in town. One of nature's laws is, the smaller the cowboy, the bigger the hat. You also see a lot of ruffled denim skirts and silver belt buckles that are heavy enough to use for workout weights. Tourists, I wondered, or do New Mexicans dress the part only when they leave their state? The line began to move. The man taking the boarding passes had to be a native New Mexican, because he switched from English to Spanish and back again in the same sentence. “
Dame
your boarding pass.
Gracias
.” I've never heard anybody but a New Mexican do that. I handed him my pass and was walking down the ramp to the plane when I heard a man's husky
voice
behind me say with a distinctly Argentine
y,
“
Yo no lo tengo
.” He was a man, apparently, who hadn't figured out the system and hadn't picked up his boarding pass. It's hard not to be obvious when you stop in a corridor to see who's behind you, but I did it anyway and found myself looking at a medium-tall guy in leotard-tight jeans and a shirt that was unbuttoned several buttons down his chest, far enough to show off his chest hair—if he'd had any. He wasn't wearing a hat, and his dark hair was slicked in place. He didn't look Southwestern or Latin American. He looked European: Italian, maybe, or Spanish, which is to say that he could easily be Argentine. When I turned around, he stopped arguing with the attendant and looked back at me with a crooked grin and an arrogant stare. Maybe he thought I was coming on to him. Maybe not. He didn't have his pass, and the attendant made him go back and get one. The crowd pulled me down the ramp. I made my way to the rear of the plane and went through the too-many-oversized-bags-in-the-overhead-compartment dance, trying to squeeze mine in. I never did see the Argentine guy get on, if he did get on. By the time I left the plane in Phoenix he was nowhere in sight.