Snake in the Glass Page 5

  Frank had gone to retrieve his baggage from wherever he had stashed it, and he arrived first, looking both tired and pleased with himself. The dogs greeted him with uncontrolled glee, and he responded with appropriate head rubs and back scratches.

  “Looks like they remember you, Frank,” I said, watching the lovefest.

  “Too right they do. They’ve got good taste.” Frank finally managed to stand up. “No sign of Cam?”

  “Nope. This must be a major sulk, not that I blame him. But I’d rather talk about you right now. Let me get you something to drink, and you can tell me all about what we saw today. And maybe what else you’d like to see while you’re here. You didn’t get to do much sightseeing on your last visit.” Namely because he’d been busy rescuing Allison from some nasty thugs and playing backup to Matt. I’m sure it had been lots of fun for him, especially since everything had turned out well, but that certainly wasn’t on the usual list of tourist activities.

  He accepted a cold beer from me, downed half of it, then threw himself down on my shabby couch, the dogs at his feet watching him adoringly. I scrounged up some chips and guacamole (fresh from the market) and sat down in an armchair next to the couch. “Was the Gem Show what you expected?”

  “More or less. Lots of people looking, eh? Lots of stock, some good, some bad. Lots of wheeling and dealing going on in corners.”

  “Did you say you know some people here?”

  “I do. This business is small enough that a lot of us know each other, do business now and then. I’ll catch up with a few of them. You’re welcome to tag along, if you’re interested.”

  “I might. Ask me in the morning.” I was curious about the whole process, which I knew little about, although sometimes I wondered if all aspects of Frank’s business dealings would stand close scrutiny. Of course, for all I knew everyone in the business had a shady side, or maybe just pretended to in order to enhance the glamour of their trade. And Matt had accepted Frank at face value, so I had nothing to worry about, right?

  Matt arrived shortly after six and presented the dogs with a dilemma: stay with Frank or rush Matt? I could see the frustration in their eyes. Gloria contented herself with grinning at Matt from her position next to Frank’s feet, tongue hanging out, while Fred ran in circles halfway between the men, barking. I turned my attention to cooking, such as it was, and ten minutes later everything was ready. “Hey, guys! Food.” They trooped over and sat down at the table, where I had set three places. “We’re not expecting Cam?” Matt asked.

  “Doesn’t look like it.”

  “What’s up with him? You didn’t get a chance to say much last night.” When Frank grinned and cocked an eyebrow, Matt said, “No, it’s nothing like that. She fell asleep on me, literally.”

  “I was jet-lagged!” I protested. “Frank, how do you deal with jet lag all the time, when you travel?”

  “I sleep whenever I can—you never know when your next chance’ll be. Same with eating—and this looks great.”

  “Help yourselves, guys—I don’t stand on formality.” Heck, they were lucky they had plates. “Anyone need more beer?”

  There followed a respectful interlude where most of the food on the table disappeared. When the pace finally slowed, Matt asked, “So, how was Ireland? I hear the two of you were there together?”

  “Green, cold, and wet,” I said. “And here I thought they were tinting all those pretty tourist pictures. Except I think the green extended to the mold on my socks.”

  “That bad, eh?” Matt grinned; Frank pretended to be offended.

  “Oh, not really. I just hadn’t realized how acclimated I’ve become to Tucson, so it was kind of a shock to my system. It is pretty, and the people there were very nice. Friendly. Frank, how’d it seem to you, after so many years?”

  Frank sat back in his chair and finished off his beer. “The same and different, I guess. A few new faces, a few less of the old ones. Thing that struck me was some of them were talking about the same things as when I left. Costs going up, bloody foreigners moving in. Like no time had passed.”

  “I kind of got that feeling too,” I said. “Like I’d wandered into a time warp. You and Allison certainly have a lot of family in the neighborhood. No way I could keep them all straight. I didn’t even know she had brothers!”

  “I think she’d learned to keep her mouth shut when she was with Jack. It’s a hard habit to break.”

  I saw an opening and seized it. “I don’t know much more about you, Frank. You don’t have a wife or two tucked away somewhere, do you? I don’t want you to break Nessa’s heart.”

  While Matt looked bewildered, Frank said, “No fear of that. She’s a grand lady. Besides, she’d see right through me.”

  “Have I missed something?” Matt asked.

  “I’ll fill you in later,” I said, focusing on Frank. “You think Allison will be back?”

  Frank nodded. “I do. Ireland’s her past, and she knows it. She’s got some catching up to do is all. You can tell your brother that, whenever you see him.”

  “ ‘Whenever’ is about right.”

  “Em?” Matt again, still confused.

  “I explained last night, didn’t I? When I told Cam that Allison said she was staying on in Ireland, he said he was working on a project for someone before his job starts next week, and then he went off in a snit. He’ll probably immerse himself in writing code as a way to clear his head. When he gets into it, he forgets what time it is or sometimes what day—I’m the same way when I’m working with glass. I hope he makes it back before you leave, Frank—he’d be sorry to miss seeing you.”

  “I suspect I’ll be around—I’m in no hurry.”

  “Speaking of folks in a hurry, I forgot to tell you about this kind of interesting conversation I had with a very eager guy in the shop this morning. He came in and asked me what I knew about heat-treating gems. He said he wanted to rent some time in my studio to try enhancing peridot.” I wondered if any of the stones we had seen today had been treated. It hadn’t occurred to me to ask. “I wanted to run it by you, Frank—do you know what he’s talking about? And could it work, with the equipment I’ve got?”

  Frank shrugged. “Maybe. Depends on a lot of things. You know anything about treating gems?”

  “Anything I know about gems, I learned today, thanks to you.”

  Frank sat back in his chair and stretched. “It’s done a lot, even to diamonds. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. What’d he want?”

  “Furnace time,” I said. “At least that’s what he asked for, but he seemed kind of clueless. After he told me a little more, I suggested that the color kiln might work better, because it’s smaller and more controllable. And I told him he could have a fixed number of hours with it, as long as he didn’t interfere with my business.”

  “He a gem dealer?”

  “He said he was a professor at the university, in literature or something.”

  “Ah,” Frank replied. “Probably one of those egg-heads who thinks he knows more than anyone else. Well, no harm in letting him play around, as long as you get paid. Not in stones, I hope?”

  I smiled at him. “No, I told him cash up front.”

  “Good girl!” He yawned, then stood and walked over to the door to pick up his battered satchel. “Looks like the day is catching up with me. You two mind if I make myself scarce?”

  “Not at all. Let me dig you out some clean sheets. You know where everything else is.”

  “That I do. I’ll get out of your hair now. Thanks for giving me a bed.” He looked at Matt. “Em offered to put me up, since rooms are so hard to come by.”

  “Frank, you’re practically family,” I assured him. “Take Cam’s room, and if he happens to come back tonight he can darn well take the couch.”

  Frank headed toward the bedroom, and I looked at Matt. Matt looked at me. “Seems like your place is getting kind of crowded,” he said.

  “Seems like,” I agreed.

  �
�You know, Em, we can always go to my place, if we want some privacy,” Matt said quietly.

  I didn’t answer immediately, trying to figure out how I wanted to respond. When he and I had first been together, I had never visited his house, preferring to keep things on my turf. Then Lorena had reappeared on the scene and I had backed off, I had thought for good. I don’t believe in messing around with married men, so I hadn’t seen Matt for a couple of years after that. Now he and Lorena were finally, officially divorced. Since then we had trodden carefully—and I still hadn’t seen his house.

  As a city employee, Matt thought it wise to live in the city, although I had no trouble picturing him on a ranch somewhere, mountains and sky behind, his cowboy hat tilted back. . . . Em, get a grip! Matt’s a police officer, not a cowboy.

  Anyway, when he’d been married to Lorena, she had done her real estate homework and identified the most prestigious neighborhood—the Sam Hughes Historic District—and found a house there, all the time whining about how small and tacky it was. Or so Matt had told me, long after the fact. He’d said that after the divorce, Lorena couldn’t wait to shake off the dust of Tucson. So he got the house.

  At last, I said, “I’ll think about it.”

  Matt stood up. “I should be going. You want me to run a background check on this professor of yours, make sure he’s on the up-and-up?”

  I stood up too. “I don’t think so. I’d guess he’s pretty much what Frank describes—a guy who thinks he’s got a good idea and wants to play around with it. It’s easy money for me, as long as he doesn’t get in my way, and if it doesn’t work out I can send him packing. Don’t waste your time.”

  We made our leisurely way toward the door and made our good-byes, undisturbed by Frank. Tactful man, Frank.

  Chapter 6

  The Egyptians also believed that peridot glowed at night, and mined for it after dark.

  When I stumbled out of my bedroom the next morning, Frank was already dressed. He had even made breakfast and fed the dogs.

  “My, you’re chipper. Do I need to walk them?” I said.

  “No, we’re good. Even followed the letter of your local laws and cleaned up after them.”

  “Frank, you are a marvel. If the diamond business doesn’t pan out, can I hire you as a housekeeper?”

  He threw himself into a chair opposite me. “You couldn’t afford me, love.”

  I swallowed a lot of very good coffee and leafed through the newspaper he had brought in after his dog walk. I noticed one of the more bleeding-heart columnists had a longer-than-usual article about a body found in the desert over the weekend. He really pulled out all the stops, ending with a bleak statement that the unknown man had died “with nothing more than the pebbles in his pocket.”

  Frank had wisely let me absorb my quota of caffeine without attempting conversation, but I thought I should make an effort. I’m not used to having people around first thing in the morning. “Frank, you’ve got a lot of desert in Australia, right?”

  “That we do—the Outback. A lot of the middle of the country. Dry as a bone.”

  “Do people get lost there and die?”

  “Cheery talk for the morning. But yes, they do. We try to warn tourists that they should carry water with them if they’re headed toward the Outback, because if they break down, might be days before anyone comes by. Why do you want to know?”

  “We’re near the border with Mexico here, and we get a lot of people who cross and then get lost in the desert. Too many of them die, I’m afraid.” I gestured toward the paper in front of me. “Here’s another one. No ID, no way to track him unless his fingerprints are in the system somewhere. All he had on him was the pebbles in his pocket, according to this article.”

  “Not as odd as you might think. Some people believe that sucking on a pebble helps get the juices going so you don’t feel so thirsty. Doesn’t work for long, though. Heck, sometimes they even drink sand, thinking it’s water. Not a nice way to go.”

  “No, it’s not.” I folded the paper. “What’re your plans for the day?”

  “Places to go, people to see. How about you?”

  “What day is today? Monday, right? Yes, it’s Monday. That means the shop’s closed, so I’ll try to get some work done, I guess. You and Nessa have plans?”

  “Dinner maybe. I was going to go back to the show, see some of my mates, if you want to come.”

  “You know, I think I’d like that. Feels kind of like playing hooky, but business is so slow during the show weeks that I’m not going to miss much. But I can’t take the whole day, because I think this professor guy is coming back—with a check, I hope. So, uh, not to change the subject, but . . . do you think Allison will get in touch with you? I mean, you did tell her you’d be in Tucson, right?”

  He shook his head. “I did, but I’m not sure she’d contact me, not from over there. But listen, she’ll come round, in her own time.”

  “I thought she had signed up for a class at the university this term, but I don’t know that she’s taking anything for credit. What do you think she should think about doing, long term?”

  Frank leaned back in his chair, coffee in his hand. “I’m not the one to ask. She’s a bright enough girl, no question. If things with Jack had turned out, she’d have had a brood of kids. . . .”

  “Who’d pretty much be grown by now. You a throw-back, Frank? You want to keep women in the kitchen?”

  He grinned. “See, I told you not to ask me. And for the record, I like my women independent. Still, I think Allison wanted kids.”

  Damn. Another thing I hadn’t considered. Cam and I had never discussed offspring; for most of our adult lives it had been a moot question, since there was nobody in our lives to have children with. Our own parents, who had died more than a decade ago, hadn’t been the greatest of role models. But I could see Cam as a father. He’d be offhand, sheepish, and adorable. I could even see the children that he and Allison might produce—with red-gold hair and plenty of brains. I shook myself: what was I thinking?

  “Well,” I said crisply, “that doesn’t mean she shouldn’t have a job, or something else in her life. And any woman should be able to support herself.”

  “You’ll get no argument from me, Em. Are you headed downstairs?”

  “I am, as soon as I finish my coffee. You?”

  “I’ve a meeting or two lined up. You want me to stop by later, see if you want to go back to the show?”

  “Sounds good. And maybe Cam will have touched base and we can all have dinner together.”

  “Grand. See you later, then.” Frank said good-bye to the dogs and headed out the door. I had no idea how he was getting around a city he didn’t know well, but I had faith that Frank would be able to manage just about anything, with a minimum of fuss.

  After I’d finished my coffee and tidied up a bit, I walked the dogs again, more for my own exercise than because they needed it, and then I meandered downstairs to the studio, running through what I wanted to work on. I figured I’d better use my time wisely, because once the gem folk moved on, business would return to normal, and the classes I taught would resume—I’d put them on hiatus while I went on vacation—eating again into my precious free time. I sighed and started gathering my tools.

  I hadn’t had a chance to start a gather—I was still waiting for the glory hole to heat up—when I heard a tentative rapping on my back door. It was Denis Ryerson, and this time he’d brought a woman with him. Blast! So much for my getting anything done. I opened the door to him and said, “I thought you were going to call first? All right, come in.”

  He sidled in, uncertain. “I hope I haven’t come at a bad time? I took a chance you’d be here. I was hoping to get started today. Oh, sorry—this is my wife, Elizabeth.”

  “Nice to meet you,” I said with minimal courtesy. Elizabeth looked too brittle to me, and it was clear she didn’t want to be here. In any case, I really was itching to get started on my own work and I had no patience for soci
al chat. “It’s okay, Denis.”

  “Great! Oh, I brought that check along.”

  “Good.” I took the check from his outstretched hand, folded it, and slipped it into the pocket of my jeans.

  Denis turned to his wife, who looked as though she was afraid a glass piece would jump out and bite her. “Why don’t you go look at the items in the shop? I won’t be long.”

  “All right,” she said. She paid no attention to me.

  When Elizabeth had taken herself to the shop, I asked, “Have you told her what you’re doing?”

  “No. I said I was investing in your business, and I’d promised you a check today. Can we speed this up? She wants to get to the office—she’s in insurance—and I told her I’d drop her off.” He glanced nervously at his wife.

  “Fine.” I led him over to the space between my furnace and my annealer, where the glass kiln sat. It was a top loader, maybe three feet high, with controls on the front. “I told you about the kiln here. What you see is what you get. The temperature control is here on the front, and you’ll have to give it time to heat up.” I opened the top lid. “You just place your material on the floor inside, here. Do you have a strategy for temperatures for your stones?”

  “I thought I’d start by trying a range of temperatures and a range of times, then narrow it down. This is just preliminary. It might not even work.”

  “What kind of volume are you talking about? I mean, a couple of stones at a time, or a couple of pounds?” I wondered how many stones he was willing to sacrifice to his experimenting.

  “Oh, not much at once. A handful maybe. The unpolished stones—the rough—are not very valuable at this point—heck, you can buy them by the pound. So it’s no great loss if this doesn’t work. I just look at it as a business investment. How do you recommend I put them in the kiln?”

  “I’ve got some small crucibles that should work, and I’ll show you how to get them in and out of the kiln. You have to remember everything is hot, even though you can’t tell by looking at it.” An awful thought occurred to me. “Is this process dangerous? Because I’m not sure my insurance covers activities outside of normal glassblowing.”