Rome with her art appreciation group next week. Right, right, I replied, I was taking her home to lie down. And make sure she’s taken today’s dose of lnderal. lnderal, I repeated. A beta-blocker, Dr. Gordon elaborated. She needed to have it every day. And make sure she has a little something to eat, but no artificial food colorings in any form. She had a food allergy, he reminded me. We didn’t want her heart revving up. I replied that I was well acquainted with the food allergy. Would she be in for her regular rehab appointment on Monday? Yes, yes, I said meekly, wondering whether that would be before or after the scheduled office confrontation with Albert Lipscomb. Make sure Marla doesn’t get into any more quarrels, Dr. Gordon concluded ominously. Fat chance, I said with a laugh that probably didn’t jibe with the cardiologist’s idea of comedy.
When the guests finally departed, Macguire and I worked rapidly to clean up the trash and pack up the soiled pans and platters. Marla reported that she felt better and that her dress was almost wearable. After some discussion, Captain Shockley and Tony Royce began to dismantle the display of gold ore and bars. Since I’d been too busy to examine the brilliant samples at close range, I brought my garbage bag over to the case.
“Come on and take a look,” Tony invited me. His brown eyes were merry. He looked as dapper as ever, and his anguish over the Marla-Albert conflict had evaporated. Maybe Prospect clients violently disagreed with the partners all the time, and he was used to handling confrontations. Smiling, he held a chunk of ore out to me. I put down the garbage bag and took it.
Thick gold streaks ran through the gray rock. I turned the lump over. The glittering bands widened on the stone’s other side. In grade school, Arch had learned about the history of mining in our state. When the Cub Scouts had visited the nearby Edgar Mine, Arch had been in heaven. Until the moment that I held that deliciously shiny chunk of gold ore in my hands, I had never felt even the slightest interest in Colorado gold mining. Suddenly, I was captivated.
“Nice, isn’t it?” asked Tony pleasantly. “Now take a look at a bar of unpolished dore gold. This is how gold ore looks when it’s been refined.”
He handed me a heavy, grainy-textured gold bar with a crusty, rippled underside. I found myself wondering how much it was worth.
“Hoohoo!” called Marla. Wearing the much-rum- pled green dress, she waved to me from behind the counter with the portable ovens. “I’m leaving!”
“Want me to follow you?” Tony called.
“No, no,” she cried back. “Goldy will!”
“It’s nice,” I said to Tony, and handed the pebble-surfaced bar back to him. “Do you mind if my assistant oversees this last bit of the cleanup? The rental company will be by within the hour to pick up the ovens, the tent, and the rest of the equipment. I know I’d feel better following Marla home in my van. To make sure she gets there safely, you know.”
“No problem,” Tony said as he loaded the last of the samples and bars into the second oversize backpack. He smiled. “You’re a good friend, Goldy. Tell Marla I’ll call her later.”
Captain Shockley grunted, “What kind of car does that woman own, that you have to follow her? Isn’t she a good driver?”
“She has a four-wheel-drive Mercedes,” I replied crisply. “But she’s had a heart attack, so ? ” Wait a minute. Why did I feel I had to explain myself to this man?
“Four-wheel-drive Mercedes, huh?” said Shockley as he hefted one of the packs onto his back. His bulging eyes peered in the direction of the parking lot. “Where’d she get the money for that?”
I walked away. Let Tony explain Marla’s financial situation to Shockley. I’d had enough for one day.
Macguire promised to finish up. He’d be coming over in the morning, he said, to discuss a new job not related to catering. What new job, I asked. But he only put a finger to his lips. A secret. Great.
I guided Marla to her car, ignoring her fierce protests that she didn’t want to be babied. The van sputtered and coughed as I followed my friend’s taillights to her home in the Aspen Meadow Country Club area. At least the rain had finally let up. I fixed Marla some crackers and herb tea while she got ready for bed. When I went up to her bedroom with the tray, she was under the covers, looking remorseful and sorting a bright pile of cosmetics and jewelry. But I knew better than to get her riled up again by asking what had started the altercation with Albert in the first place.
“Did you take your Inderal?” I asked. When she nodded, I said, “Hey, I’m pooped. But it was a super party,” I added with false conviction. “Those folks drank a lot of beer. And you really looked gorgeous in the silk. Besides, I don’t think anybody’s really going to remember ? “
“Oh yeah, it was just a marvelous party,” she interrupted, avoiding my eyes. “I didn’t have a thing to eat, and my new dress is ruined.” Pink plastic bottles and gold lipstick containers cascaded from her hands. “This pile is for the fishing trip I’m taking with Tony,” she said lightly. “We decided to move it up, to get a break, just the two of us.” She fingered a smoky white plastic bottle of cream. “But this large pile is for Rome, where I am going without Tony.” She exhaled in exasperation.
“He gave me your check for the party, Goldy, because I told him you needed it right away. It’s on the bureau. “Look, Marla, you didn’t have to ? “
She stopped dividing containers and finally looked up at me with doleful, red-rimmed eyes. I felt a pang. She looked years older than she had when she arrived at the Prospect Financial party that afternoon. “Don’t start. Some people don’t honor their financial commitments. Tony’s not one of them, you’ll be happy to know. Neither am I.”
“I’m already aware of that fact. But ? ” Her dark eyes flashed.. “That Lipscomb moron thinks I’m stupid. That’s the problem. Partner’s girlfriend? Got a lot of money? She’s ripe.”
“Can’t Tony ? “
“No, Tony can’t anything. I tried to convince him that Albert’s up to something. He wanted to know who’d called the assay into doubt. ‘What makes you think there’s no gold in the mine?’ he asked me. ‘Our geologist is the most highly respected in the state.’ Now he wants to have all of the ore they’ve brought out analyzed by a different lab, in case the Kepler lab down in Henderson, Nevada, is some kind of fraud joint.”
“Whoa,” I said. “I know an assay is an analysis of ore that tells you what metals are in it, and what the concentrations are. So what’s the problem?”
“Gold is an element, my friend,” she replied. “You have to heat up the ore to separate out the good stuff. It’s what’s called a fire assay. Any lab that tells you they can figure out what’s in your ore without a fire assay is lying.”
I sighed. “But all these Prospect clients have put up a ton of money. I mean, they’re not dumb, are they?”
Marla went on: “I don’t know. I didn’t tell Tony I’d paid good old nineteen-year-old Macguire to get the copy of the assay analyzed by a student down at the Colorado School of Mines. Maybe Macguire’s friend doesn’t know enough about assaying yet.” Her forehead wrinkled. “I guess I shouldn’t have looked at the report before the party began.”
“Tony probably wouldn’t believe Macguire was your source. And you’re right, Tony and Albert will put even less stock in what a student says. I mean, over their fancy geologist.”
Marla deposited the jewelry and cosmetics into two plastic bags and fluffed her coverlet. “You think? Well, Tony promised me everything would be fine. They’d get it all sorted out. That mine was producing gold during the Second World War, and FDR had it closed down with that order of his, what was it, L-two-oh-eight?”
“I’m sorry, the Roosevelt administration is not my area of expertise, although I understand Harry Truman liked buttermilk pie.”
She sighed at my ignorance. “All nonessential mineral mines were closed. FDR wanted only copper, zinc, and lead. For bullets, isn’t that depressing? Albert’s grandfather swore the place was, well, a gold mine. So now Albert swears that with the discoveries they’ve made, by putting capital into the place to bring the mine back into production, we’re all going to be rich as blazes.”
I decided not to say, But you already are rich as blazes. -… In any event I didn’t resent her inherited wealth. She was generous, even carefree, about giving it away. Besides, to me, Marla’s riches were a very clear object lesson that money didn’t buy happiness.
“Anyway,” she went on, “if the gold thing pans out, ha ha, I may become Midas yet.” She frowned. “Except the student at the School of Mines says it’s a red flag when you get an assay that’s not a fire assay. Tony promised me that Albert will get it all worked out. Maybe the early ore samples weren’t as promising as Albert claims, or
