“Don’t be so damned vivid, Trav.”
“I’d like to unravel that remark she made about some men having told somebody else where he was before they came here to fix him. They tried and they didn’t make it, and evidently they didn’t survive the experience. That was the inference. But if any kind of big dramatic violence went on around here, I think Felicia would have known about it and told me about it. How did Sam earn those gold figures? Who got all but one of them away from him? Honey we’re up to here in questions.”
“What are you going to do about it?”
“Pry Alma open.”
“You can’t go back there!”
“Nora dear, I wouldn’t go over that wall again for a thirty dollar bill. So we got to get sweetie pie out of there somehow.”
“Is she another one of those… what did you call them?… sun bunnies?”
“Not this one. This one is bright and cold and hard and beautiful.”
She gave a mirthless laugh. “Sam kept pretty busy.”
“I think this one would have gone after Sam if she thought he could do her some good. And I think if she went after him, he wouldn’t stand much of a chance. And I think her nerves are good enough to carry on another intrigue right in Menterez’s house. This one has the cool sexually speculative look, like the one who married the prince.”
“Or like poor little Mandy? Christine’s pal?”
“I think this one is a little more commercial than that.”
“She and that Gabe are a team?”
“I don’t know. He’s a little too pretty. She’ll cross him up when it comes his turn. I think he’s just a stud she imported to liven the dull days of waiting. But I have the idea he knows what she’s trying to do.”
“I keep thinking of that black dog.”
“Please. I keep trying not to think about him. How do we get her out of there?”
“Darling, the mail comes to the village by bus, and they bring the mail for those houses out here to the hotel. I… I might put a little note in there for her. My handwriting is obviously feminine. So is my note paper.”
“Nora, you are a fine bright girl.”
“I don’t know what to say. But it should be something that… She shouldn’t be able to rest until she finds out the rest of it. Maybe I should phone her.”
“There is one phone in this whole hotel, in Arista’s office. I think there are two in the village. There are none on the hill.”
“Oh.”
“But the idea is superb. Let’s give it a lot of thought.”
“Shouldn’t we make sure of her name? Wouldn’t that help?”
“It would help indeed.”
It seemed a difficult project, but like many such problems, it turned out to be extraordinarily simple. I found one of the hotel porters at a small table near the lobby door sorting mail, the mail he would carry up the hill and leave at the tenanted house. He was checking the addresses against a tattered, dog-eared sheet. The principal names had been typed. Other names in the household had been written under them in pencil. There was a long list under Garcia, well over a dozen names. Among them was the girl’s name. She had phonied up the first name, as girls are inclined to do these days. Almah. Miss Almah Hichin. The porter was trying to tell me I would not find my mail in that batch. I misunderstood him. By the time Arista came over to straighten me out, I had what I needed.
Nora and I spent a long time composing a draft of a very short note.
“My dear Miss Hichin, I have heard so many things about you, I feel that I know you. ST told me rnany things, including one thing I must pass along to you in person. He said it would deeply concern you, and might change your future plans. It does not mean much to me, but from the sound of it I would judge it important. I am at La Casa Encantada, but for obvious reasons, that would not be a good place for us to meet.”
“What obvious reasons?” Nora asked, scowling.
“If you don’t have any, she will. Or she’ll wonder what the hell your reasons are.”
“Where should we meet?”
“I saw three cars up there. One is a dark red convertible Ghia. Say this: Drive the little red car down to the village tomorrow at one in the afternoon. Stop in front of the largest church. Please be alone. I shall be.”
Her initials, NDG, were embossed in the top corner of the blue note paper. There was no address. I had her sign it with merely an N.
“What if she should know Sam is… dead?”
“She’ll wonder what he said before he died.”
“Do you think she’ll come?”
“She’ll have to.”
“Tomorrow will mean the day after tomorrow. We can’t get it to her until…”
“I know. You’ll give it to that old porter, with a lovely smile, and a five peso note.”
“Then what do we do with her if she does come?”
“I’m going to take a long walk to find out, dear.”
“Can I come?”
I did some mental arithmetic. A kilometer is sixtenths of a mile. “Can you manage ten miles in the heat?”
She could do better than that. She proved it. She became very mysterious, made me wait for her, came back full of suppressed amusement, then led me out to the back of the hotel, to the out buildings lluere, the supply sheds, generator building, staff barracks, back to a place where Jose, our room waiter, stood proudly beside a fantastic piece of transportation. It was an Italian motor scooter with fat doughnut tires, all bright coral, poisonous yellow-green and sparkling chrome. It had a single monster headlight, and two fluffy pink fox tails affixed to the handlebar grips. It had a radio antenna, but no radio, with a blue fox tail fastened to the tip of it. There was a broad black cycle seat, and behind that a padded black lid to the stowage compartment, a place for the passenger to sit. It was incongruous transportation for that severe, polite little man. He would not consent to rent it until he had checked me out on it. It had two speeds. I kicked it on and wheeled it sedately around the area, flatulently snarling. I comported myself with dignity and appreciation. I told him it was strikingly beautiful, and I would treat it with the greatest care.
When the deal was struck, Nora straddled the rear compartment, her dark hair tied in a scarf, and we took off for the village, Jose watching us with an enigmatic expression. There were little cleats for her to brace her feet on. She found that her best way to hold on was to hold onto my belt. She shouted that this experience had come to her about twelve years too late. With the soft tires and the heavy coil springs on the front fork, it was really quite comfortable on the rough road. In high gear, along a relatively smooth area, the speedometer showed a little over 50 kph, or something over thirty miles an hour.
Again I ruptured siesta by making three circuits of the public square. Brown dogs yapped and ran after us, then waited, gasping, for us to come around another time. Children shouted and imitated the art of jumping over an invisible knife. Dark faces grinned. I went down the road which headed in the opposite direction from the hotel, and found the ice plant and more fish docks, some old trucks at a loading platform, and more packs of kids and dogs.
I discovered that the brake was tender. It had a tendency to lock the rear wheel. I made my turn, scattering a flock of white hens, and went back and made two more circuits of the square to the cheers of the populace, and then turned inland over the crude road we had traveled in the blue bus.