Jon Talton - Cactus Heart

“There, now you have a match,” Bobby said hospitably.

“Bobby!” I winced.

“Dr. Mapstone, I am saving your life,” he said evenly, then he faced James Yarnell, who by now was on the other side of the room, his back against the wall.

“This is fun,” Bobby said, raising a gigantic, blue-steel automatic in Yarnell’s direction.

“Don’t kill me!” Yarnell pleaded.

“And why not?” Bobby asked, as if a party discussion had gotten heated and it was time for a new bottle of wine. “It sounds as if you have much to atone for, Mr. Yarnell.”

“My family built this state!” he shouted.

Bobby shot him in the left foot, releasing a jet of bright red blood. The pistol and flashlight clattered off to the side, and we were in half-dark again.

“Don’t speak, David,” Bobby cut me off coldly. He walked over, retrieved the flashlight and set it on a carton overlooking Yarnell.

Bobby rubbed his fine chin and aimed at Yarnell’s left knee.

“No!” Yarnell sobbed, clutching his mangled foot. “What do you want?”

Bobby chuckled. “You cannot possibly give me what I want. Dr. Mapstone, however, is more easily pleased. He would also tell you that you have the right to remain silent, that anything you say can be used against you.” He focused his aim. “I suggest you start talking about this kidnapping. And please don’t bore me, Mr. Yarnell.”

Yarnell’s eyes were wider than seemed possible for human eyes.

“It was Dad and Win together!” Yarnell blubbered. “They had to get Grandpa away from that little whore, Frances. She was pregnant again with his child. They were going to lose everything.”

“Slow down,” Bobby commanded.

“We brought the twins here. Then we went home. Talbott was told what to do, make the call demanding the ransom and pick up the money. After he gave the money to Uncle Win, he took Frances to the border.”

I spoke through my pain. “Why would she go with him? He must have kidnapped her, too.”

“No, no. She went willingly. She wasn’t that bright. She didn’t know anything about the kidnapping. Nobody did for days. Jack told her she would get to meet Grandpa in Nogales and they could be together. You’ve got to get me some help! I’m going to bleed to death.”

Bobby raised an eyebrow. “So?”

Yarnell moaned.

I went on, “But the real plan was to have Jack Talbott kill her?”

“If it came to that,” he said, his face contorted in pain. “Jack was supposed to drug her and get her an abortion. Then pay her to go away. He was given the money for that.”

I asked, “So why was Jack Talbott executed and Frances Richie forced to spend her life in prison?”

“Jack tried to blackmail us,” James said, forcing up some bravado. “The Yarnells don’t blackmail.”

Bobby stifled an exaggerated yawn.

“There was a time when we would have crushed you, towel head!” Yarnell yelled. Bobby mockingly put his hand over his mouth in shock, keeping the big automatic leveled. Yarnell said, “We couldn’t have either one of them talking. Dad put the pajamas in a sack in the trunk of Talbott’s car, just as a little insurance. Dad was smart that way. So if anything went wrong, and the cops searched Talbott, he’d look guilty and nobody would believe him if he blamed the family.”

“And Frances?”

“Grandpa died thinking the little bitch had betrayed him. We made sure she kept her mouth shut once she was in prison.”

“Really, how was that?”

“I’m dying here, Mapstone!”

“Put your hand over your wound. Apply direct pressure. I don’t think you silenced Frances. I think she chose not to talk.”

“You’re full of shit, Mapstone. You’re gonna tell me a broken heart over my grandfather shut her up? I’m finished talking. You’re a deputy sheriff, even if you’re a dirty one. So you have to arrest me, or arrest him!” He nodded toward Bobby without having the courage to look at him.

I said, “Frances didn’t have the abortion.”

“What are you talking about?” Yarnell started to gesture but stopped himself. Bobby kept the gun trained on him.

“She had the baby in jail,” I said.

“That’s…That’s impossible. We paid…”

“Not enough, I guess. She had that baby and it was adopted,” I said. “So the only thing this woman has left in the world is taken from her, but at least the baby has a chance to be safe and free. She knew if she said anything it might make the Yarnell family go after that baby. Mother love is powerful. Maybe it was the only thing left inside her after you and your family were through. Makes me wonder if there’s another heir to Hayden Yarnell out there, maybe more than one.”

“That’s not…”

“They might have an interest in the Yarnell Trust after you lose every dime.”

Yarnell stared past me and spoke in a monotone. “When she was just his mistress, it was one thing. She got pregnant but Grandpa made Dad adopt the twin boys. Max was a little kid. He never knew. But Grandpa and that little bitch couldn’t leave it at that. They loved each other.” He made it sound like an unprecedented phenomenon. “After Grandma died, he was going to marry Frances…”

“When was this?” Bobby asked.

“Nineteen forty-one. My dad and Uncle Win couldn’t talk Grandpa out of it. He was going to remarry and start a new family. He said he was sick of his sons and their gambling and failures.”

“You were part of it,” I said. “You also forgot to come back and get the two loose ends you left down here inside the wall. It must have been a hell of a way for little boys to die. Suffocating. In the dark.”

Yarnell momentarily shook his head, and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Dad had to do what he did. There was no other way. We were going to lose everything. Those boys weren’t even his children.”

Bobby glanced at me, something unreadable in his black eyes.

“Dad suffocated them in their sleep,” Yarnell said. “That night. Then we carried them down here, to the tunnels under the hotel, and put them in the wall. The next day Dad ordered the tunnels sealed and closed the freight elevator. It would have worked if Dad and Win hadn’t gotten at each other’s throats about the gambling and the art collection. If he,” Yarnell pointed at me, “hadn’t found the tunnels.”

He paused and swallowed hard enough that I could watch the saliva fall down his sweaty throat. “…If he hadn’t found my goddamned pocket watch.”

Yarnell looked around the bleak room, looked into the tunnel, as if for the first time. We all stopped and stared at him. The hard man brought low by unaccustomed pain and fear. Even the goon with both his knees gone stopped whimpering.

Yarnell added in a whisper, “They didn’t suffer.”

Christmas week. I stayed at Gretchen’s apartment with my foot up, listening to Handel’s Messiah on the CD player, foolishly mixing Macallan and painkillers, reading Burckhardt’s classic The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy . I had missed it in college. Now, it was pure enjoyment. It made me want to write and teach history again. I was glad to be alive.

Gretchen checked in on me from time to time, amazing me with what a man with only one good leg can accomplish. Peralta sorted out the Yarnell case, only making me write a few dozen pages of reports and statements. James Yarnell was under arrest for very current offenses: assault on a police officer, conspiracy to commit murder, giving a false report. Peralta’s detectives were working on other charges. Peralta was outraged to be in Bobby Hamid’s debt, and kept threatening to indict him for assault with a deadly weapon. Bobby would beat the charge, just like he had all the others. He could take care of himself, as I had chillingly learned. For a moment, the enemy of my enemy had been my savior. It made me feel strange.