Chapter 2

The rooms seemed smaller and darker than he recalled. Hotter than Hades too. Of course, the evaporative cooler had been shut off long ago and would not work until it was serviced. He struggled to heave open a couple of old-fashioned, sash-style windows. In the evening, the drift of air might help. The phone, electricity, and water were all shut off. He resigned himself to a miserable night since it was Sunday and he couldn’t even start to get everything going again before tomorrow. Poor planning on his part. He hadn’t even considered such practical matters.

That would also require him to tap into his last resource, the old savings account in the little local bank. He hadn’t deposited even a nominal amount in over a year. He prayed the account—and even the bank—had not been closed or merged into a larger one, miles away. How much money was there? Somewhere, he had an old statement, about the time he got the condo and had probably forgotten to notify them of a new address. At that time, a couple thousand bucks did not seem significant. It did now.

* * * *

Barry Barlowe rocked back in his chair and stared unseeing at the distant blue line of mountains. Was it better to be a midsize frog in a puddle, or hardly a tadpole in the big lake? Bad analogy for the desert, but nothing about a lizard came to mind. High hopes had a way of scaling down. Maybe it was better to be the honcho of Miners and Merchants Bank of Linda Vista than just another loan officer or glorified clerk in a big branch bank in Albuquerque.

Still, he should have done more, been better, climbed higher. His mother told him that damn near every day. She usually added how disappointed his late father would be. Well, screw the whole mess. He had a job and took care of her well enough, didn’t he? Of course, there was no wife anymore and no hope of grandchildren, another of her pet peeves. Sometimes, life really sucked.

At that point, Christina Espinoza, his administrative assistant, came bouncing in with his morning coffee and a sheaf of papers. “Good morning, boss. You’ll never guess who I just saw at Connie’s Cocina!”

Barry shrugged. Tina’s penchant for gossip sometimes irritated him. Otherwise, she was a good assistant and there were not many as capable in town, so he kept her. “Can’t imagine,” he replied, trying not to sound too bored.

“Justin Dunne is back! Mattie said he’s staying at his mom’s place and came in to City Hall early this morning to get the water turned on and stuff. It sounds like he’s back to stay, at least awhile.”

Darts of ice and fire slashed through Barry’s gut. Justin. Oh, my God. Of course, he’d forgotten, hadn’t he? Right. He’d only thought of that long-ago connection at least once a day for the past ten plus years. Oh, fuckin’ shit. Why now? Why here and why now?

He took a moment to gain control. “Well, bad pennies do that, Tina. I came back, didn’t I? Thought he had a position in some big outfit in Arizona, though. No reason to leave that to come back to this dump.”

She gave a classic Latina shrug. “Who knows? Mattie said he was walking, and it’s several blocks from Mrs. Dunne’s old house…that seemed odd to her, and it does to me too.”

Barry drove to the bank every day from the big old house he shared with his unhappy mother although it was just a long two blocks away. He justified it by saying having a car handy could help with business needs such as taking a client to lunch or a golfing date. His Mercedes was the best car in town, anyway, and at times, he felt it was good to be seen in it. It was an extravagance. Oh hell, a bank president, even of the smallest Podunk bank in the damn state, had standards to uphold. Mom reminded him of that every day.

As Tina skipped out, he fell back into a mixture of melancholy and anticipatory thoughts. Justin was back. Would Barry see him? Should he? What could he possibly say?

Justin had been a sophomore when Barry was a senior at Linda Vista High. Barry had been a big athlete, while Justin was almost a classic nerd. Barry knew the younger boy had a crush on him. It had only seemed funny at the time. Everyone said Barry would be a big star at college, and he fully expected that prophecy to come to pass. It didn’t. A star in the double A bracket in New Mexico—the smallest schools to field an eleven-man football team—was almost nothing in a name university. Depressed, he’d let his grades go and came home his second year with his tail tucked. Justin was a senior then, not a star although a winner in various academic competitions and even a member of the new soccer team where he didn’t shame anyone.