It was a hot day, and when Dempster stepped into the Eldorado, he was relieved to find the place air-conditioned. Taking a tip from the guys, he'd put on the suit Freddy had supplied him with, a casual, lightweight, single-breasted blazer with matching trousers, though he found that it hadn't been necessary. There didn't appear to be a dress code.

He breezed past the front desk, giving it only the quickest glance and seeing Gardner, who happened to have his back turned at that moment. Past the elevators and just before the lobby's lounge, he made a right and faced the Nidah Spa, where through the giant glass doors he saw a middle-aged woman behind a desk, content with her paperwork. Another right and he was in a nook with bathrooms and two payphones. He stepped into the men's room, washed his hands, waited an additional half-minute, and then stepped out again, and slowly made his way down the concourse. He passed the lounge and the kitchen on his left, while on his right the pavilion was empty save for a coffee cart no one was currently manning. The Tierra-tiled floor in combination with the soft gilding light continued the illusion he'd experienced when he'd first examined the outside. As though the entire place, to one degree or other, was made of gold. A palace in which men like him were not meant to tread. All the while, he was aware of the camera at his back.

Directly ahead was the Anasazi Ballroom. The doors were propped open. Inside a woman vacuumed while a man cleaned the windows. The hallway made an L that went right and then another that went left, leading past another set of restrooms, the De Vargas Room, the Zia Room, and ending with a double-door exit onto Johnson Street. Here there was another entrance into the Anasazi Room as well, only this door was closed. Aware that the third camera since he'd walked down the concourse was on him, Dempster stood there a moment, fished around in his pockets for imaginary cigarettes, then shrugged and walked back the way from which he'd come.

Making a right into the lounge, he approached the bar and asked the bartender, "Where's the closest place to buy a pack of cigarettes?"

"Just go up San Francisco Street until you reach the Plaza," the bartender said. "You'll see the Five and Dime. That's the closest place I can think of."

"Thank you."

He walked through the lounge, this time taking in the rope carved glass-topped tables, the loud striped carpet full of zigzags and diamond patterns, the potted cacti strategically placed here and there, and the moderately tacky wood-carved coyote sculptures, predominantly placed in the lounge's center. The lounge was a little dimmer than the rest of the place. Dempster didn't know if it was because of the decor, or if the lights were turned down lower.

Exiting the lounge, he stopped in the lobby at the brochure stand, grabbed a couple at random, and then watched the front desk. When Doug Gardner saw him his face paled and he went rigid, almost as if panic stricken.

A guest approached and asked to use a computer. Gardner slapped on a smile and directed them up the stairway to the computer room. When he looked back, Dempster was gone.

Going through the mental photos he'd taken of the hotel's interior, Dempster made his way up San Francisco Street with newfound confidence. The place was pretty much as Gardner had described it, only more elaborate and with a certain class Dempster couldn't relate to. He'd noted every camera that had been marked on the layout, had covered mosta"if not alla"of the exits with the exception of the Old House restaurant, where he would have looked suspicious had he entered, if for no other reason than that it was closed.

He thought about what it would be like to have that kind of money. What it would be like to actually stay somewhere like the Eldorado. To have enough moneya"legitimate money that was on the books, with everything kosher and no strings other than taxes attached. Hell, what it would be like not having to worry about things, always having enough to eat, having a roof over your head without having to share it with inmates or drunkards or rats or spiders. To have a nice place, not a mansion or an estate, just a comfy little place to call home.

If things worked out right, and he sensed they would, then he'd have a pretty good chunk of change coming to him. Not quite enough to retire, he didn't think, but enough to get him going, to hopefully start over from scratch, abandon this line of work and figure out what the hell he wanted to do with the rest of his life.

And what the hell did he want to do with the rest of his life? He couldn't come up with a single answer.

After two blocks he saw a late 80s model Nissan Sentra, parallel parked in front of Starbucks. What caught his attention was not the car, but rather the woman standing outside it, an unraveled coat hanger in her hands, trying with little success to get it through the top of the unopened driver's side window. The moment he saw her, a tiny flutter started in his chest. He crossed the street and knocked on the hood.

"You always seem to be having car trouble," he said.

When their eyes met, Sandra's face lit up, and before Dempster knew what was happening, her arms were around him.

"I thought I'd never see you again!" Her voice was so filled with enthusiasm it almost frightened him.

"What are you doing here?" he asked.

"Locking my keys in the car, what does it look like?"

"You just shouldn't be allowed around automobiles," he said, and took the coat hanger from her. Eighteen seconds later he opened the door, reached in and removed the keys from the ignition, and handed them to her.

"My uncle was right, you really can do anything. Merci beaucoup, vous le bel Homme."

"De rien, la belle femme."

"Ooh-la-la." She put her keys into the pocket of her jeans, winked at him, and said, "How can I ever repay such a gallant act?"

"I'd appreciate it if you didn't," he told her. "I think it would take some of the thunder out of the whole chivalry thing."

She smiled. "Well in that case, would you like to get a non-repaying cup of coffee?" She gestured to the coffee shop behind her. "I promise to make you pay for your own."

A laugh escaped hima"a bigger laugh than the joke warranted, and for a brief moment he felt like he was fifteen again. "All right," he said. "You got a deal."

"But to be honest, you might not want to trust me," she said. "I might have no choice but to break our deal when we get inside."

He smiled. "I guess I'm willing to take that risk."

"Where did you get that car?"

"I bought it from this Native American welder up in Taos. It's old and falling apart, but so far it's taken me where I want to go." She sipped her mocha. "It got me from there to here."

"And how was there? It didn't last very long."

"It was a big dull dud," she said. "A land full of emptiness. Nothing to do, nowhere to go. I'd been around the entire town twice within the first day, and found little that stimulated me in any conceivable way. It was beautiful, don't get me wrong; but I guess I was hoping for a livelier environment, not that it's Taos' fault. As Dylan Thomas said, 'Someone's boring me. I think it's me'. So I bought my little car the next day, spent a bit more time with my parents, and got here this morning."

"And you already managed to lock your keys in the car."

"I told you before that I wasn't interested in being a genius. I never said I was bright." She paused, started to reach for his hand then thought better of it. "I've also already run into you. What are the chances of that?"

"You would think they'd be pretty damn poor, but maybe the odds were better than we thought."

"Did you think about it? I mean, did you wonder if we'd ever run into each other again?"

He studied her delicate face, those beautiful eyes, such beautiful eyes. He said, "'It is dangerous to be sincere unless you are also stupid.'"

"George Bernard Shaw," she told him.

"I guess I'm fairly stupid," he said, and nodded.

"Maybe I'm crazy," she said, "but I can't help wondering if fate is somehow playing a role in all of this."

"I don't think it's any crazier than ships passing in the night and then finding each other three days later."

Her face brightened.

"How are your aunt and uncle?" he asked before things went any further.

"They're fine, still in Taos with my parents." Then she giggled. "My uncle just loved you. Wouldn't stop talking about Jack Driscoll and how amazing he thought you were. Jack this and Jack that, praising you left and right until my aunt finally asked him if he was hoping to become Mrs. Jack Driscoll."

Dempster laughed. "I thought they were pretty terrific too."

"My parents were a little hurt that I'd just arrived and had already decided to move on. Told me they hadn't seen me in ages, and could I just settle down, even for a month. I love them, but I'm a grown-up now. There's so much I wanna do, and time doesn't slow down."

"How old are you, Sandra?"

It was the first time he'd seen her face take on caution. "Twenty-four," she said.

"You still got plenty of time," he told her.

"I know. I know that I'm young. But even when I was very small, I was somehow acutely aware of how quick time passes. I was always one of those kids that tried to do everything at once because I didn't want a single thing to pass me by."

"It can't be helped," he told her. "Things passing you by, I mean."

"I know, but I wanted to experience everything. I wanted to live life the way I think it's meant to be lived. I still want that."

"And how is life supposed to be lived?"

She shrugged. "However you want it to be, I guess." She sipped her drink, set it down, and stared at the table. "When I was seven, I was walking along Eighth Street with my mother. Eighth Street is a business district in Woodward, Oklahoma. We had been shopping and it was just going on evening when a car turned the corner and tore up the street, zigging and zagging, looking like it was about to lose control. Which it did. It hopped up onto the sidewalk and missed us by about two feet. We watched it crash into a lamppost and some newspaper boxes behind us. It also killed two women, who were buying a newspaper. The person behind the wheel was a twenty-one-year-old kid who had stolen a car and was driving intoxicated. His blood-alcohol content was almost three times the legal limit. He wound up being charged with two counts of first-degree manslaughter."

Dempster drank some coffee. "Pretty scary."

"That's when it really clicked for me, I think. I realized that, at some point or other, life is going to kill you. You never know when and you never know how." She sighed. "I think that's when I truly became aware of how fast time passes, and I figured I better take as much of it in as I could. Really do my best to enjoy however much time I have remaining."

"A little morbid," Dempster told her, "but nice."

She looked away and then back. "What about you? How are things going? How's work treating you?"

"Much like Taos treated you. Only instead of being bored out of my mind, I find myself trying to juggle about twenty different things at any given moment. For want of a better trite phrase, I feel like a chicken with its head cut off."

"Are you juggling right now?"

"In my mind," he said, "but no, I don't have much going on today, other than stopping by and visiting a friend, which I should probably do pretty soon." He looked into her eyes and then grabbed his coffee. "What about you?"

"Just wandering around," she said, "wondering where I'll be and what the hell I'm doing. You know, just trying to enjoy it and take things in."

"So it sounds like your day is fairly open."

"Yeah, I guess you could say that."

They looked at each other. Something inside him fluttered again. He wanted to reach over and take her hand but didn't. Instead he slid his coffee away, grabbed a napkin, removed a pen from his pocket and wrote down his cell number.

"Call me in a couple hours," he told her.

She took the napkin. "Don't think I won't."

"And don't you think I think you won't," he said. "I don't just give that number out to anyone. You're a special case."

"Do you mean special in like, you like me, or special as in you think I'm a retard?"

"I'll let you know when you call me."

She laughed. It was a very girlish laugh and it made him not want to leave. He thought about staying, sitting and talking with her all day, drinking cup after cup of coffee until his entire body rattled. Going for a walk, possibly, maybe up Canyon Road to check out the galleries, letting their hands join again, their fingers intertwine. Stopping by the river, drawing her close, maybe even kissing her.

He rose from his seat.

"Call me," he said, and left, buzzing, feeling as though he'd known her for ages, but still wanting to know more. He barely knew her, but felt she truly was something speciala"something that, if the cards dealt out right, maybe he could believe in.

She makes you feel like you're better than you are. You're not though. It's an illusion. You're no better than you were fifteen minutes ago, or yesterday, or six months ago, and you're not going to magically change. And don't forget how much you've already lied to her.

Of course I can't just magically change, he thought, not overnight. That's stupid. But people do change. They change all the time, and if you're willing to work at it, just about anything can happen.

He got back to his car, and wondered how much he had just lied to himself.

2.

Angela had just laid out slabs of clay for a new project when Dempster rang the doorbell.

"I didn't mean to disrupt you."

"No problem," she told him. "I have to let these slabs dry out a little before I can really do anything with them anyway." She offered him a seat. "Would you like something to drink?"

"No thanks, I just wanted to talk for a few minutes."

Uncertain of the subject, Angela sat down on the couch quietly. From the look of her, she was putting up defenses. "What's on your mind?"

"I wanted to talk about Mike," he said. "About what he's doing." When it became obvious that she wasn't following, he went on. "It's none of my business, and I know I'm certainly not a prime example of a good human being and therefore pathetic to even wanna stick my nose in at all, but I'm wondering why Mike has stopped painting."

Taken aback, though clearly relieved from some mental anguish or other she had created for herself, Angela sighed and nodded her head. "Yeah, he hasn't done much lately. I guess he really stopped a couple years ago, after he'd met this couple from New York."

"He told me that story. Sounded like a couple of fruitcakes."

"I think he's just tired of trying, y'know? Sure, he'd always had his ups and his downs, but those two cretins picked him up so high and then just let him fall."

"The straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak."

"Right, but it was more like an anvil, I think."

"He told me over lunch the other day that he would paint no matter what, but he'd lost interest in the career aspect. Said that the paintings he'd done were just going to stay in the closet. I assume that means he's just gonna throw them away eventually."

Angela looked at him then looked away. "There aren't any paintings in the closet," she said. "I think he's maybe picked up a brush three times in the last two years. If he ever produced anything, I never saw it."

"Do you think that's what it is? Do you think it's as simple as that? Too many disappointments?"

"I dunno, Jack. You know how he can be. On one side he's got all the personality and more, then he has this other side that seems to be holding a million secrets and I'll be goddamned if he's ever gonna share a single one of them."

Dempster nodded. "I guess I'm concerned," he said, "mostly because, even during his downs, he'd always had an optimistic outlook. Granted, almost a decade has passed since I've last seen him, but there's an angry bitterness to him now that I've never seen before. I know I'm sticking my nose in where it doesn't belong, but I'll be damned if I'm gonna let him just work in that store and not even have any other goals."

"Okay," Angela said, "so what do you suggest we do?"

"I dunno. Maybe nothing other than tell him he's an asshole. All I know is his one goal in life has always been to be an artist, and we can't just let him give up and throw it all away for no damn good reason."

There was quiet for a moment.