Extreme Denial by David Morrell Page B

to bear arms.”
    Stapled to the article was a quotation from Scripture, and that’s when Decker realized how truly different the City Different was.
    Outside, he basked in the morning sunlight, admiring the Sangre de Cristo Mountains that rose dramatically just outside the eastern side of town. He still had trouble believing that he had come to Santa Fe. In his entire life, he had never been this impetuous.
    As he drove away, he reviewed his active morning and the various arrangements he had made: opening a bank account, transferring money from the institution he had used in Virginia, contacting the local branch of the national stock brokerage firm he used, phoning his landlord in Alexandria and agreeing to pay a penalty for breaking his lease in exchange for the landlord’s agreeing to pack up and forward Decker’s modest belongings. His numerous decisions had exhausted him and made the reality of his presence in Santa Fe increasingly vivid. The more arrangements he made, the more he committed himself to staying. And there were so many other decisions to make. He needed to turn in his rental car and buy a vehicle. He needed to find a place to live. He needed to figure out a way to employ himself.
    On the car radio, he heard a report on public broadcasting’s “Morning Edition” about a trend among middle-aged midlevel corporate executives to abandon their high-pressure jobs (before their corporations downsized and eliminated their positions) and move to the western mountain states, where they started their own businesses and survived by their wits, finding that the adventure of working for themselves was exciting and fulfilling. The announcer called them “lone eagles.”
    At the moment, Decker felt alone, all right. The next thing I’d better do is find an alternative to a hotel room, he told himself. Rent an apartment? Buy a condo? How committed am I? What’s a good deal? Do I simply check the listings in the newspaper? In confusion, he noticed a Realtor’s sign in front of one of the adobe houses on the wooded street he was driving along, and he suddenly knew he had an answer to more than just the question of where to set up housekeeping.
    7
    “A fixer-upper,” the woman said. She was in her late fifties, with short gray hair, a narrow, sun-wrinkled face, and plentiful turquoise jewelry. Her name was Edna Freed, and she was the owner of the agency whose sign Decker had noticed. This was the fourth property she had shown him. “It’s been on the market for over a year. An estate sale. Nobody lives here. The taxes, insurance, and maintenance fees are a nuisance to the estate. I’m authorized to say they’re willing to accept less than their asking price.”
    “What is the asking price?” Decker asked.
    “Six hundred and thirty-five thousand.”
    Decker raised his eyebrows. “You weren’t kidding when you told me this was a pricey market.”
    “And getting pricier each year.” Edna explained that what was happening to Santa Fe had happened to Aspen, Colorado, twenty years earlier. Well-to-do tourists had gone to Aspen, fallen in love with that picturesque mountain community, and decided to buy property there, driving up values, squeezing out locals who had to move to housing they could afford only in other towns. Santa Fe was becoming equally expensive, mostly because of affluent newcomers from New York, Texas, and California.
    “A house I sold last year for three hundred thousand came on the market again nine months later and went for three hundred and sixty,” Edna said. She wore a Stetson and wraparound sunglasses. “As Santa Fe houses go, it was ordinary.
    It wasn’t even adobe construction. All the contractor did was fix up a frame house and apply new stucco.”
    “And this is adobe?”
    “You bet.” Edna led him from her BMW, following a gravel lane to a high metal gate between equally high stuccoed walls. The gate had silhouettes of Indian petroglyphs. Beyond it were a courtyard and a