“They could catch me,” he said. “They mustn’t get these pictures. You’ve got to get them to the New York Sun. Do you understand? You may be old and poor and frightened, but it is the least you can do for those two kids they murdered. Send the film and my card to the New York Sun.”
He turned and walked to the entrance of the bar, pushed open the swing door and stepped cautiously into the alley.
The police whistle sounded again. The alley was still deserted. Cade began to walk towards the intersection. His heart was slamming against his ribs, but he felt strangely excited and elated. He was sure the old Negro would somehow get the pictures to Mathison. It didn’t now matter what happened to him. He had done his job. He felt vindicated.
He didn’t even break his stride when three men came running around the corner, clubs in hand and converged on him.
Two
Fourteen months preceding Cade’s trip to Eastonville, he was in Acapulco, Mexico’s fashionable, white-beached playground, completing a series of photographs for the coloured supplement of the Sunday Times.
At this period, Cade was at the top of his lucrative career. He was strictly free-lance, creating his own assignments, taking superb photographs which Sam Wand, his New York agent, promptly sold, crediting Cade’s bank account with the considerable proceeds.
At this period, Cade was very fortunate: he was famous, wealthy, sought after, in excellent health and his creative talent set him in a class of his own. Success hadn’t spoilt him. But like most creative artists he had his failings: he was extravagant, he drank more than was good for him, and he was over-fond of the company of beautiful women. To off-set these failings, he was generous, unselfish, kind and a champion of the “Have-nots.” With no wife nor family, he was often lonely. He had no roots. Basically, he was a simple man with a brilliant talent. Much of his time was spent in trains, aircraft and cars. The whole world was his workshop.
He had recently returned from Santiago on the Lake of Atitlan where he had taken a series of sensitive photographs of the Indians’ way of life. They were good pictures that made you feel the dust and smell the dirt and made you understand the continuous struggle the Indians were making to survive.
To put a frame to these photographs, Cade decided he needed contrast. Part of his talent was blending vinegar with oil in the exact proportions.
So he had come to Acapulco. With a 20 cm telephoto lens he had obtained comparison pictures of the fat and the suety, the old and the veined, the vulgar and the exuberant who lay like gas-inflated corpses in the sun. For Acapulco shares with all other expensive and exclusive sun spots of the world the spectacle of the too rich, the too fat, the too pendulous and the blind to ugliness.
He was staying at the Hilton Hotel. His pictures were on their way to Sam Wand. He now felt the usual let-down of his inner self which he always experienced after a difficult and exacting assignment. As he sat in the canvas lounging chair by the big swimming pool, a Tequila Collins in his hand, he began to wonder about his future plans.
The American tourists, noisy, vulgar and near naked, splashed like amiable whales in the water. Cade watched them bleakly. It depressed him that so many of the old and so few of the young had money.
He finished his drink, then picking up his Minolta, he walked over the bridge to reach the far side of the pool and made his way with easy strides to the public beach.
Without knowing it, he was about to keep a fatal appointment with his destiny. It was on this hot sunny afternoon that he first met Juana Roco, a woman who was to ruin him, reducing him to the wreck of a man who was later to be beaten nearly to death in a town called Eastonville.
Mexican women mature very young. Unless they watch themselves, and few do, they quickly become fat, overblown and unattractive. Juana Roco was Mexican and seventeen years of age: an age of twenty-six or seven for the normal American woman. She was slightly taller than most Mexican girls and her fine black hair reached to her knees. Her skin was the colour of the discreet blend of coffee and cream. Her eyes were large, luminous and black. Her nose small, but classically shaped and her mouth a promise of sensuous dreams. Her body was the most perfect sexually exciting feminine equipment a man could imagine.
She lay on her back on the sand, her hair making a frame for her face and body. Her eyes were closed and she was alone.
Coming upon her, his mind busy with future plans, Cade stopped short, involuntarily catching his breath.
A small strip of scarlet cloth covered her breasts. Another strip covered her groin.
Cade thought she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. So beautiful that he thought of her as a “thing” and not as a woman. It was only a little later that he became aware of her sensuality.
His shadow fell across her face and she opened her eyes. They looked at each other and she smiled. She had strong white teeth and her lips as she smiled were a temptation.
“All alone?” Cade said, standing above her.
“There’s you.” She had an accent and it was attractive. “I saw you last night. You are at the Hilton, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
She sat up and swept her mass of hair over her shoulders into a gleaming black rope.
“You are Cade, aren’t you? The photographer.”
He laughed: delighted.
“How did you know?”
“I know lots of things.” She looked at him, so friendly, so beautiful. “I’ve seen many of your photographs.” She shook her head. “You must be very unhappy sometimes.”
He knelt beside her, intrigued.
“Why do you say that?”
“Aren’t you?”
They looked at each other and he was a little worried by her eyes. He had a feeling they were seeing too much of him for comfort.
“Don’t let’s talk about me,” he said. “Let’s talk about you. Tell me your name.”
“Juana Roca.”
“Are you on vacation?”
“Something like that.”
“Where are you staying?”
“Room 577, Hilton Hotel,” and she laughed, running her slim long fingers through the strands of her hair.
For a moment it didn’t jell, then he became abruptly alert.
“That’s extraordinary! I am in Room 579.”
“I know. I changed rooms this morning.”
It was at this moment he forgot she was merely a beautiful thing and became acutely conscious of her overpowering sexual attraction. He felt his blood quicken and his heartbeat became uncomfortably fast.
“Did you?” His voice was a little unsteady. “Why?”
She looked beyond him at the blue Pacific, an inscrutable smile on her lips, then she asked, “What is the time, please?”
“The time?” For a moment he could only stare stupidly at her, then he hastily looked at his strap watch. “It is twenty minutes to two.”
“Oh, dear!” She scrambled to her feet and snatched up the bathing wrap on which she had been lying. “I must go. He hates to be kept waiting. I didn’t know it was so late.”
“Who? Don’t go! Wait...”
But she was already running across the sand. Unlike most girls, she ran gracefully with the easy strides of a man. Her shoulders were set square, her waist narrow and her derrière was small, full and firm unlike the usual back pieces of Mexican women.
Cade remained kneeling in the sand. He watched her out of sight. He had been in and out of love with dozens of women, but this was a new experience. This was disturbing, even a little painful. He found himself suddenly unsure of himself. Changed rooms? Had she been joking?