J. Jance - Rattlesnake Crossing

They rode together in Butch's car, a Subaru Outback. "This smells new," she said.

"It is," he told her. "I just picked it up from the dealer last week."

"I didn't know you were planning to buy a new car."

Butch looked at her and grinned. "I wasn't," he said, "but life is full of surprises."

They drove down Grant to Miracle Mile and then pulled into a place called La Fuente -"the fountain." At almost eighty-thirty on a weekday summer evening, the Mexican-style eatery was hardly crowded. They were shown to a small candlelit table near the bar. "Do you want something to drink?" Butch asked. "A margarita, maybe?"

"Iced tea for me," Joanna said. "I still have to drive all the way back home. It wouldn't do for the Sheriff of Cochise to be driving around in a county-owned vehicle with a hint of Jose Cuervo on her breath."

"Iced tea it is, then. I was hoping for a roving band of mariachis, but unfortunately, they only play on weekends."

Just then a young Hispanic woman, dressed in a peasant blouse and a colorful skirt, showed up at the table pushing what looked like a salad cart. "Guacamole for your chips?" she asked.

"Sure," Butch said. "Why not?"

The young woman made the dip table-side, expertly peeling and pitting avocados. She mashed the peeled fruit in a small stone-like bowl and then added salt and pepper, tomatoes, onions, lime, and chili pepper. When she finished and was leaving the table, Butch slipped her a generous tip.

Joanna dipped a tortilla chip into the light green mixture and tasted it. "Delicious," she announced.

"When the ingredients going into a dish are that fresh," Butch told her, "it would have to be good."

The tea arrived and the waiter took their order-flautas for Joanna and a combination plate with chili relleno, taco and beef tamale for Butch. "So what's up?" Joanna asked, once the waiter had left them alone. "You've been hinting around that you have some kind of big news. Spit it out."

"I sold the Roundhouse," Butch Dixon answered.

"You what?"

"I sold it." Butch grinned. "Two weeks ago, this developer came around wanting to buy the place. He told me he wants to build a new resort hotel complex right there in the middle of downtown Peoria to draw on all the snowbirds that come down to the Phoenix area for spring training. Over time, he and his partners had managed to go around picking up pieces of property.

"From what I can tell, they bought most of them for a song-all except mine, that is," he added. "When the guy first showed up, I wasn't aware of what had gone on, but I found out about it over the next few days. The next time I saw him, I was loaded for bear. And in view of the fact that I was the only person standing in the way of his putting together this multimillion-dollar venture, I was able to strike a pretty good deal-for me and for the folks who used to work for me as well. They all walked away with a very nice severance package. Like I told the developers, none of them asked to be laid off. That was the only way I'd go for it."

Butch was clearly proud of himself. Joanna, on the other hand, was stunned. "So it's gone?" she asked.

"The building's still there, but it's closed," he replied. "The developers must have greased the planning-and-zoning skids pretty good, because the use permits are already posted on the door. It was written into the contract that I had to vacate the premises within three days of closing, and they had the check to me so fast it made my head spin. We had one last party-sort of a drunken variation on a going-out-of-business sale. Then I packed everything else up, put it in storage, and I was out of there, just like that."

So that's why the phone was disconnected when I called, Joanna thought. "But Butch," she objected aloud, "if you don't have the Roundhouse to run anymore, what are you going to do instead?"

"Write," Butch answered. "Mysteries, I think. I was an English Lit major. I always wanted to write. In fact, I've been writing some over the years-scribbling away for my own amusement and pleasure, even though I've never had anything published. But I always said that if I ever had the opportunity, I was going to do it full-time. Now I have all the time I need. I'm retired at age thirty-four, and if I play my cards right, I won't ever need to have a regular job again. So I bought myself a little laptop computer, and I'm in the process of getting started."

"How wonderful," Joanna said. "You'll get to live your dream. But speaking of living, what about that? If you don't have the building anymore, you don't have your upstairs apartment, either. Where are you going to live?"

Butch looked at her and grinned. "Bisbee," he said.

Joanna could barely believe her ears. "Bisbee?" she echoed hoarsely. "No!"

"Bisbee, yes," he returned smoothly. "There are seventy thousand people in Peoria these days. That's about sixty thousand people too many for me. So I've bought a house out in Saginaw, Bisbee's neighborhood. One of those old-fashioned Victorian places with a tin roof, a wraparound front porch, and a stamped tin ceiling. This fall when school starts, if you're busy and Jenny needs somewhere to go after school, she can just walk up the block and come visit me. I promise to have plenty of milk and cookies on hand with very limited amounts of television viewing."

"You've already bought a house?" Joanna demanded. "How could you?"

"To quote an old friend of mine named Mike Hammer," Butch told her, " 'it was easy.' I called up a lady at Copper Queen Real Estate and told her what I wanted. By the time I showed up in town day before yesterday, she had narrowed the held down to three possibilities. The one in Saginaw is the one I chose. It's vacant. Since I'm paying cash and there won't be a mortgage involved, the closing should "be pretty fast. But still, I won't be able to move in for several weeks. There's some work I want to do on it first-plumbing, painting, cabinetry. That kind of thing is always easier to do if the house is empty. So I plan to stay in the hotel until it's all finished."

Listening to him, Joanna was so astonished that she could barely comprehend the words. "You're moving to Bisbee?"

"I have moved to Bisbee," he said.

Joanna was thunderstruck. "But why didn't you tell me in advance? Why didn't you let me know?"

"Because then I would have been asking you for permission and you might have said no. I decided to present it as a fait accompli." His face darkened, "From the looks of things, it's probably a good thing I did."

"Your dinner, senorita," the waiter said, appearing at Joanna's elbow. Then he set another plate in front of Butch. "The plate is very hot, senor. Now, will there be anything else?"

Joanna shook her head wordlessly.

"I don't think so," Butch told him. "This will be fine."

The waiter walked away and Butch turned back to Joanna. "You're looking at me like I'm an invader from outer space."

"Why did you do it?" she asked. "Why did you go be-hind my back like that?"

"Because I care about you," he said simply. "I know what my feelings are for you and I hope, given time, you might feel the same way about me."

Joanna opened her mouth to speak, but he stifled her with a wave of his hand. "I'm not asking for any kind of promises from you," he added. "I know you need time, but I also don't think that with me in Peoria and you in Bisbee, you're going to know me well enough to make a wise decision one way or the other. My mother told me years ago, 'Distance is to love as wind is to fire. It blows out the little ones and fans the big ones.' That sounded good to me at the time when the young woman I thought was the love of my life had taken off with somebody else. I thought she'd come to her senses and come back to me. She didn't. And now that I'm older, it doesn't sound smart."