109 East Palace Read Free

traffic steering around them.
    “How would you like a job as a secretary?” he proposed cheerfully.
    “Secretary to what?” she asked.
    “Secretary,” he said, smiling. Dorothy took in the smile. She knew Stevenson had recently returned to town from California, where he had been enrolled in some kind of government training program. Rumor had it that the training was war related, and she could not help wondering if this might be, too.
    “Well, what would I do?” she persisted.
    “You would be a secretary,” he repeated. “Don’t you know what a secretary does?”
    “Not always,” she answered smartly, wondering how long they were going to go round and round like this.
    “Well, think it over,” was all Stevenson said before continuing across the street. “I’ll give you twenty-four hours.”
    She spent most of that night on the telephone, calling virtually all the friends she had in Santa Fe to find out what, if anything, they knew about a big company or project coming to town. Nobody had heard a thing about it. She was leaning toward the bank job on the grounds that it was permanent, whereas the project Stevenson had mentioned sounded temporary and would last only as long as the war. Still undecided, and with the twenty-four hours almost up, she headed for her appointed meeting with Stevenson at La Fonda no better informed than she had been when she had last seen him.
    La Fonda was the central meeting place for locals and tourists alike in the tiny state capital, and legend had it that there had been an inn of some sort on the corner of the Plaza since the early 1600s. Situated at the end of the Old Santa Fe Trail, where the wagon trains from Missouri used to come rolling to a stop, the building once served as a casino and lively brothel and had been host to generations of trappers, traders, merchants, gamblers, politicians, and thieves, from Kit Carson to Billy the Kid. Since 1925, La Fonda had been run by the Harvey Houses hotel chain, which operated fine establishments throughout the Southwest, and so these days it catered to a somewhat better clientele. There was always a lively crowd milling around the dark, elegant lobby, so she was not surprised to see Stevenson deep in conversation with an out-of-towner. He was a businessman, probably a Californian, she judged, comparing Stevenson’s typical Santa Fe attire of open-neck, blue work shirt and faded Levis with the other’s brown silk gabardine suit, matching coat, white shirt, tie, and shiny dress shoes. Deciding to wait in the side hall where she was until they were finished talking, she sat in one of the big leather chairs favored by the bellboys when they were idle.
    As soon as Stevenson saw her, he waved her over and introduced her to Duane Muncy, explaining that he was the business manager of the new government housing project that was interested in hiring her. Dorothy, regarding Muncy skeptically, asked exactly what the job would entail and what her duties would be. All he would say was that she would be “secretary to the assistant of the project manager.” Finally, baffled by the wall of silence, Dorothy inquired somewhat tentatively if the project had “anything to do with the war.” Lowering his voice, Muncy allowed as how it did. He began to tell her a little about the project, his carefully circumscribed answers implying that it was too secret to comfortably discuss, when the man in the porkpie hat sauntered over and stopped to join them. He lingered only long enough to exchange a few pleasantries, and to look her over with apparent curiosity, before abruptly excusing himself, murmuring, “All right, I’ll leave you, then.”
    Dorothy watched him walk down the long foyer toward the heavy double doors of the hotel. He had not gone six feet when she turned to the two men and, before they could say another word, announced that they could count her in.
    She was surprised that beyond her astonishment at her own behavior she had few