Heroes David Hagberg (best motivational books TXT) 📖

the message when the contact code appeared in the personals column of the Santa Fe classifieds.

Big Earl Really Understands Henrietta’s Rotten Upbringing.

N.G. wants you back. Market 4-4510.

Beruhrung. CONTACT. Except for the last three words, but they were nothing more than fillers. He was certain of it.

Schey was sitting at the small table by the window. He was drinking a cold beer. Eva was outside taking the laundry off the line. It was just after six-thirty. He memorized the telephone number, then folded the paper and set it aside.

He had missed the morning and afternoon contact times, which left eight until eight this evening. Less than an hour and a half away. It was a Thursday. A little unusual for him to be going into Jemez Springs on this night, but not dangerously so.

He got up and went outside, around to the bunkhouse, where he dropped off the newspapers. The four ranch hands inside were playing poker and didn’t pay much attention.

Back outside, he angled up to the main house where George Romero and his wife Juanita were sitting on the porch.

“Hey, George,” he called out, pronouncing the name in the Spanish way. “Can I take the pickup into town this evening? Be gone a couple hours.”

Romero was a short, very stocky Mexican-American who was jolly when he was drunk: He was almost always drunk now that he had Schey and Eva to help out.

He waved his beer bottle. “Get some gas when you’re in town, old friend. Should be a few coupons in the glove compartment.” Romero got up and staggered to the porch rail.

He winked, and his wife shook her head. “Stay away from Mama Roseros, you know. You come back with the disease, and the little bugs, and I think Eva will kill you.”

His Mexican accent was almost comic. Schey grinned and waved, then headed back down the hill to where Eva was just finishing with the clothes.

She looked up when he came. Almost immediately she knew that something was happening, and she nearly dropped the shirt she had just undipped from the line.

“I’m going into town for a little while,” he said.

She looked into his eyes. “Has it come?”

He nodded.

“Oh Christ,” she said, looking away. “Oh Jesus …”

“It’s all right, Eva. I haven’t committed us yet. I’m just going to make a telephone call. We’ll see what happens after that.”

“Where are you going, Jemez Springs?”

“Too dangerous,” he said. “I’ll get down to Jemez Pueblo, or even San Ysidro. I’m just going to make a telephone call.

Nothing more than that.”

“Then you’ll come right back?”

“Promise,” he said.

The battered Dodge pickup truck was parked in the barn. Eva was standing in front of the bunkhouse when he went by and headed down the dirt road to Highway 4. She waved, and he waved back, but then he was down the hill and out of sight.

It took him less than half an hour to make it the ten or twelve miles through Jemez Springs and the rest of the way down to Jemez Pueblo, which was a town of about eight or nine hundred.

There were several taverns, a few Catholic churches, one farm implement dealer, a blacksmith, and two gas stations, one of them combined with a diner.

Schey stopped at the diner, had the attendant put in five gallons of gasoline—he had to give the farm ration coupons first—and then he went inside where he ordered a beer.

He took a deep drink, then went over to the phone booth in the corner. He plugged in his nickel and dialed for the operator.

“Number, please,” she said.

No one knew him here in Jemez Pueblo. No one would be able to say who it was who had used the phone. At least he didn’t think so.

“I’d like a Santa Fe number, MArket 4-4510,” he told the operator.

“That will be seventy-five cents for the first three minutes, sir.”

He had gotten enough change with his beer. He plugged the money into the phone. Moments later the Santa Fe number was ringing. Once, twice, and then it was answered by a man.

“Big Earl.”

“I have something for you,” Schey said softly.

“What?” the man snapped.

*?&

“Where can it be delivered?”

“Where are you calling from?”

“Where can we meet?” Schey countered.

“You’re calling long-distance. Can you get into Santa Fe?”

Schey said nothing. He held his breath as he pressed the receiver close to his ear. He could hear something in the background on the other end of the line. Something he knew.

“Hello?” the man said. “Hello?”

Then Schey had it. He was hearing a radio. Like a police radio in the background. A police radio! At a police station.

“Hello …” the man shouted, but Schey hung up.

The lovely white Polish-Arabian mare contentedly crunched the sugar cube, then nuzzled Canaris’ hand for more.

“No, Motte, you have had enough,” he laughed, patting her broad, sleek neck.

She reared back and shook her head, as if to disagree. Canaris laughed again. At that moment he felt a surge both of pride and of bittersweet happiness. Forgotten for the moment, at least, was the disturbing news that Schrader and Freytag-Loringhoven had brought him earlier in the month. Had it really been two weeks ago?

The Arabian, which was often given the run of the property adjacent to Canaris’ home at 14 Betazeile, backed off, turned, and imperiously headed off at a gallop, frisky now that she had gotten attention, that she had been given a treat, and that the weather was so splendid.

Canaris had to shake his head. He looked at his watch. It was just a bit after two. Rely on the goodness of animals. It was the one certain thing remaining in this very uncertain world, he thought.

Although it was only a Thursday, he did not feel guilty about being away from his office. Bender had turned out to be a fine, if unimaginative, aide. The office, by and large, ran itself these days. No one on the high command gave a damn, in any event.

So why should he?

He started back up toward the house, when an open