Once or twice a week, he’d get documents of one sort or another delivered to the bungalow, and those deliveries were inevitably followed by phone instructions. They were usually about driving over to some federal building or municipal office in this county or that. He’d driven along the Salt, Gila, Yaqui, and Sonora rivers. He’d visited with tribal elders and councils and filed papers of every kind with every kind of bureaucrat — black-skinned, red-skinned, white-skinned, and just about every shade of skin in between. He’d stood in lines longer than the one at the Department of Motor Vehicles. He liked to laugh to himself that they were eventually going to ask for a urine sample, have him read an eye chart, and then give him some goddamn road test. No wonder they needed training films. This shit was confusing and stupifyingly boring. He could only imagine how much more boring it would have been had he actually had to read all the crap he was signing and filing.
Still, it was worth it to Harry. Most days were his to spend as he pleased as long as he stayed in character. That was pretty easy, as he was a virtual stranger in Tucson. Even when his role didn’t require him to do so, he’d take long drives in all directions. And that was another amazing thing about coming back to the Tucson area; Harry had somehow recovered his once impeccable sense of direction. Even when it let him down and he got lost, Harry looked at it as an opportunity to explore. Sometimes he’d head out at the dawn of the day and sometimes at dusk. The scenery and the landscapes were breathtaking, almost otherworldy. It was as if his eyes were reborn and could now see what he had missed or ignored during his many acting gigs. Duke Wayne once told him that if you live in the desert long enough, brown becomes just another shade of green. Only now did Harry see the truth of this. More than anything, he’d come to love the rich redness of the rock and soil, a shade not so different from the color of his skin as a young man. There was something comforting about it. From the moment he landed, Harry knew he fit here. He just didn’t know how.
There was a knock on the door and Mel Abbott shouted, “Come in!”
“These must be them,” Paul Spiegelman said, rubbing his palms together.
The office door pushed back. A stocky Latino in blue spandex bicycle shorts, a wet Los Lobos T-shirt, a backpack, and a helmet stepped into the office and laid a fat envelope on Mel’s desk. “Sign here.” He pointed at the receipt.
The pen shook in Mel’s right hand. It took him so long to put his name down, it was like he was etching rather than signing.
“Some time today would be nice, jefe,” the messenger said, staring at his watch.
Spiegelman smiled. Not Mel.
“Here.” Abbott shoved the receipt at the messenger. “What’s the matter, you afraid you’ll be late for your date with your chica?”
The messenger snatched the receipt, balled a copy of it, and threw it in Mel’s face. “I don’t know about my chica, but your mama don’t like me to be late. She dries up quick these days.” He took his time leaving the office, not exactly fearing for his life.
“Can you believe that motherfucker?” Mel said. But Spiegelman could barely contain his laughter. “Very funny, Paul. Very funny. Just shut up and give me the package.”
When he opened the envelope, Spiegelman started whistling “We’re in the Money.”
“What should I do with all these fucking audio tapes we got from Harry?”
“Toss ’em. I can’t believe he still thinks he’s being followed around by a camera crew. You gotta love actors!” Spiegelman said, then went back to whistling.
Mel was already dialing Joey Pothole’s number.
There was a knock at Harry’s door. He dreaded answering it. Not only because it was barely daylight, but because it had been five days since he had received a package of documents or a phone call. An actor, even one as old as dirt who hadn’t worked for a decade and a half, knew when a shoot was winding down, and this shoot was definitely winding down. He hadn’t wanted to think about it, but it couldn’t be avoided any longer. The truth was that as much as he felt he belonged in Tucson, Harry wouldn’t be able to afford to relocate here. Sure, it was all great now, but in the end it was an illusion, no more real than any of the other movies he’d been a part of. The house, the pickup, his groceries, the utilities, his cable TV bill were all being paid for by the folks who cast him in the role. And as many cheese fries as fifty grand would buy him, it wouldn’t go very far if he were responsible for the things the film people were footing at the moment. No, it was back to burgers, L.A., and cheap hotels for Harry. Who knew, he thought, maybe when he got back Marissa LaTerre would be back too and together they could rekindle Harry’s career.
But when he reluctantly pulled open the heavy, hand-carved front door, it wasn’t a UPS or Federal Express man who greeted him.
“Can I help you?” he said to the impassive young Indian woman who stared at him across the threshold. She was quite pretty, with almond eyes, a broad nose, full lips, and a head of the blackest hair. In tight, faded jeans, a light denim blouse, and cowboy boots, she was dressed just like many of the young women in Tuscon.
“My great-grandmother would like to speak with you. She’s in my truck.” The woman turned and pointed to a beat-up old Chevy in the dirt driveway next to Harry’s Ford.
“What’s your name?”
“Rebecca. Please come. She is very old and it is very hot in the truck.”
Harry followed Rebecca to the truck and there in the front seat sat a frail, ancient woman with hair as gray as her great-granddaughter’s was black. Her deep brown leathery skin was wrinkled and heavily lined. She looked familiar to him. He remembered seeing her, but not where or when. It might have been on his trip to the Gila River compound or maybe it was when he was standing on one of those endless lines in some county or federal office. As he was about to find out, it was less important that he remembered her than she remembered him. When Harry stepped up to the door, the woman held an old black-and-white photo out to him.
“Isaac Hart,” she said. “Your father.”
Looking at it, Harry nearly fainted. At thirty, Harry had been the spitting image of the man in the photograph.
Mel Abbott and Paul Spiegelman sat across the table from the man who had acted as the buffer between them and the mining company. He was the man who had availed them of Joey Pothole’s services and who had supplied them with the expense cash they needed to pull off the scam. He said his name was Walter Hogan. Con men themselves, neither Abbott nor Spiegelman — neither of whom were actually named Abbott or Spiegelman — believed him.
“Do you have the package?” Walter asked.
Mel’s lip twitched. “I might ask you the same question.”
Walter placed an attaché case on the table, flipped the latches, pulled the lid open, and spun the case around.
“Five hundred large,” Walter said. When Mel went to reach for a pile of bills, Walter slammed the attaché closed. “This isn’t the time to get sloppy or foolish. What were you going to do, fan a stack by your ear like some moron in a movie, or did you want to show off to the waitress?”
“Sorry.”
“And the other half?” Paul piped up.
“When the documents check out. You’ll get your percentage when the client starts pulling copper out of the ground. Now, don’t make me ask again. The package.”
As Paul Spiegelman slid the fat envelope across the table to Walter, the man relaxed his grip on the attaché case and smiled. “You sure everything’s here?”
“Everything,” Mel said.
“Everything,” Paul chimed in. “Everything: a copy of the original birth certificate, the dummy contracts he signed, the original adoption papers, copy of the father’s will, the deed on the house in Tucson in Ben Hart’s name, a copy of the truck registration and insurance in his name, the tribal papers acknowledging Ben Hart’s rightful heritage, the land deed that his father held on the acres your guys are going to mine. And, of course, the coup de grâce: Ben Hart’s will, which we wrote and he signed without a second look. In it, as per your instructions, he bequeaths all his assets to Robert T. Ramsland. A friend of yours, I imagine, who will no doubt turn right around and sell it to Francoeur Mineral and Mining.”