At the appointed hour of 10:00 AM, Keith flipped open his cell phone and called Harrell Wade Harrison. “Yo! Wade! Where are you?”
“I’m breakfastin’ by the pool here at my temporary digs – the Hotel Albuquerque. Nobody’s in the pool because it’s so darned windy. I’m a little hung; I was tossin’ tequila shots at the El Mescal bar here at the hotel last night with some people I met. Actually, they weren’t people; they were a pair of wild legal secretaries. I would have preferred ‘cerveza’, but these gals wanted to show me the proper way to drink tequila. You know, lick the salt from your left thumb web, slam the sauce with your right hand, and suck the lime held with your left hand. It was great fun, but they drank me under the table.” Wade’s voice sounded an octave or two below normal.
“I know the ritual,” snickered Keith. “Did they reel you in with that line that ‘tequila is always drunk in pairs’?”
“I don’t remember! I was too busy fixatin’ on this one gal’s diaphanous blouse. I’ve decided to become a brassiere salesman when I graduate. I think she had a thing for me, but I’ll never know. It’s probably just as well. My granddaddy says, ‘if you can’t frock’em, don’t knock’em’. I think maybe the altitude got me,” lamented Wade.
“Thank God for grandfathers,” answered Keith, not really knowing whether he had Wade’s attention or not.
“You know, Keith, if we were back in Tuscaloosa, some good red-eye gravy and biscuits would fix me right up. But they don’t have any on the menu here. How do you New Mexicans cure a hangover?”
“I can’t really say that I’ve had the experience,” gloated Keith. “Hispanics claim that a large bowl of menudo is a cure for the problem. You’re in luck in that it’s prepared in most Mexican restaurants on Saturdays and Sundays some say in large part for that purpose. You might try it; the desk folks would tell you where you could buy a menudo grande, I’m sure of it.”
“What’s it made of?” inquired Wade.
“Don’t worry about it,” replied Keith. “But it should get you back up and running.” Keith wasn’t interested at this point in discussing cow innards. He was more interested in bringing this larger situation with Wade to a head. They weren’t what one would call ‘bosom buddies’ by any means. In fact, Keith didn’t really care much for Wade. Besides having questionable honesty, Wade exhibited a lot of ‘red neck’ characteristics that Keith found reprehensible. Keith recalled a thought he had had back on campus that if travel is indeed the enemy of bigotry, a trip out west might be supremely beneficial for Wade. They just happened to be part of the same dormitory GDI coterie at school. They were of the same ‘tribe’ that fielded teams for intramural events; they all sat together for games at what was lovingly referred to as ‘the mother ship’, the Bear Bryant football stadium on campus. In fact, Wade was most assuredly his least liked associate in the group. Only a fun dorm room ‘treasure hunt’ discussion that had gotten out of hand one night had led to Keith’s present predicament. He was snared only by his geographical heritage. Keith continued his conversation with Wade; “Sounds to me like you could use some down time for awhile. Your hotel is near Albuquerque’s Old Town. I’ll come pick you up about five and we’ll have an early supper near there and decide how we’re going to handle this. Okay with you?”
“Count me in; I’ll be waitin’ for you in the lobby. Ten four,” said Wade with a perceptible increase in his enthusiasm for the day.
Not only Keith’s personal ethics, but also his knowledge of the law, told him that he was on the threshold of aiding and abetting. While in high school several years ago, Keith tinkered with the idea of a career in law. To help evaluate the prospect, he simultaneously and successfully pursued a pre-law or paralegal Associate Degree at the Central New Mexico Community College (formerly known as Albuquerque Technical Vocational Institute). It was the acceptance of a large number of these two-year curriculum credit hours by Alabama that enabled him to complete his Bachelor degree in just three years having given a computer career the nod over law. He knew that Wade had in mind the wrongful taking of someone else’s property and had rationalized that action as ethical in his view.