forty-six:
friday morning

Bloom worked his phone, grabbed tidbits off the web. Trudy kept her eyes out for cops and the speedometer a steady ten miles over the limit.

They had talked about a quick buzz through New Castle to circle the house of Ricardo Reyes, or waiting there, but the odds of success were low.

If the Rifle tour was quick, they might stop on the way back.

Bloom called the hospital in Grand Junction but Trudy could tell he’d hit a brick wall.

“Used to be they’d give you detail,” he said, “but the whole health care privacy stuff now, about all they say is they are a hospital and they do treat people with medical needs, in case you thought you were calling a used car dealership.”

The valley broadened, following the Colorado River on its descent west.

“All I know is they pulled someone off the Flat Tops with search and rescue,” added Bloom. “Nothing more.”

A dozen or so men and women worked a roadside alfalfa field, their necks covered in white kerchiefs. All wore matching wide-brimmed hats, pixilated dots of humanity in the corner of a heat-soaked field of bounty and beauty. Trudy imagined Alfredo hunkered down in the back of a pickup or waiting for his next connection along a back road.

At the Garfield County Airport exit, Trudy turned the pickup back across the I-70 overpass. The frontage road on the south side of the highway snaked west past a field of horses tucked against a high bluff, where the airport was built. A private jet was on final approach, bearing down straight at them. Its landing gear was down and so close Trudy could make out the pattern in the oddly motionless tread of tire under the plane’s nose.

The road led them to an industrial park, a stretch of hefty warehouses and prefab buildings for businesses and operations that required heavy equipment and big storage spaces. Despite the scale of the buildings—some with doors the size of a three-story house—there wasn’t much human activity. An oversized hauling truck, wheels higher than their pickup, rumbled past. Two men chatted by an idling bulldozer blowing black puffs of exhaust.

Trudy turned onto Buckthorn Drive and stopped.

“What are you doing?” asked Bloom, still busy searching on his phone.

“Coming up with a plan,” said Trudy. “And waiting for you. This road ends in about ten seconds. You can see it dies right up there. I’d prefer not to slide past Pipeline Enterprises without a plan.”

“Go down to the end and turn around,” said Bloom. “We’re a couple of lost tourists looking for Rifle Gap and we turned the wrong way. Something.”

“And if Mr. Reyes is out front or his truck is parked there? Do we have a plan?”

“Do we need one?” said Bloom without a hint of judgment.

“Drive down, turn around?” said Trudy.

“And see what we see,” said Bloom. “Based on the inert website, could be an empty lot or fake scenery for an old western movie. All front.”

By Trudy’s estimation, there were eight businesses before the dead end, four on each side.

“And if we get recognized?” she said. Bloom appeared invigorated, unworried.

“Then I don’t think our lost tourist story will work,” said Bloom.

“The sign on the pickup,” said Trudy. “They might be looking out for it.”

“Then we’ll have our conversation sooner than I thought,” said Bloom.

He smiled as faintly as a man can smile.

“I wasn’t exactly thinking ahead,” said Trudy. “Should have taken your car.”

Trudy put the pickup in gear and tried to squelch her gnawing fear. She felt as if a giant spotlight hung in the sky, tracking her every move.

Some of the operations were devoid of external information about the nature of their purpose or function, but Pipeline Enterprises looked to be about pipes, drilling rigs and, simply, enterprise.

“Son of a bitch,” said Bloom.

The giant doors were opened wide, as if to say, “no secrets.” The doors faced straight west. The interior looked well-stocked and well-stuffed. Workers outside buzzed around a truck that sported a tall, dense thicket of pipes and blue hoses, twice as thick as the versions at the quarter-powered car washes. Four more trucks stood in a neat row nearby. There was order to the place, perhaps military blood in the family.

Trudy did an unhurried three-point turn and crawled back in front of Pipeline Enterprises.

“Pull right up in front like we mean business,” said Bloom. “Got anything to deliver? A bouquet or something? Roses?”

“Nobody has basil or rosemary delivered,” said Trudy. “And we are not florists.”

“I need a rose, a prop of some sort,” he said. “Or not.”

Trudy pulled up alongside the broad apron of concrete that served as the industrial front porch. Bloom wasted no time opening his door.

“What, what are you—?”

“I don’t know,” said Bloom. “Sometimes you just have to ask.”

“I’ll go with you.” She heard herself say it, but it was the last thing Trudy wanted to do.

“Stay here,” said Bloom. “I might come running.”

There was an element to Duncan Bloom that was relaxed and unflappable. The world owed him information. Simple.

Bloom smiled. “If I’m not back in three hours, send help because I might be bored to death learning more about well casings and pressure gauges than one man can stand.”

Trudy watched him walk away, a fine stride with purpose and an appealing, well-rounded quality.

The men around the repair project stopped in unison, looked up at Duncan’s approach.

Suddenly a dog jerked to attention, standing its ground, no chain in sight. Its bark was a baritone and dark. Trudy shuddered. Bloom kept walking, didn’t look back.