“Ah, Alfredo.”
“Good evening, Mr. Withers!”
“It is very hot.”
“Yes, very hot.”
“Hotter when one walks fast.”
Alfredo lifted his head and dropped his cigarette.
“You warned them, didn’t you?” Jim said, and his hand went to his pocket. Alfredo stiffened, then saw the crisp bill in the hand extended toward him.
“I was asked to,” he said, accepting the money and shrugging his shoulders.
“Who asked you?”
Alfredo hesitated. “The lady.”
“I see. And suppose I asked you to do something?”
“I should have to consider.”
Alfredo’s meaning was clear, and Jim was already prepared with a sheaf of pesos. Handing them over, he named a cafe in the city and said, “I’ll be there all day tomorrow. If Juan should happen to go to my room, telephone me immediately. Is that clear?”
“Perfectly,” Alfredo answered with a smile, and Jim turned and walked away, everything clear in his mind, too. Kathy and Juan expected him to go on the jungle trip. Which gave them all day to themselves, the leisure of time and freedom. Jim grinned unpleasantly. If Alfredo called, he could make it back to the hotel in ten minutes with a fast taxi.
Kathy was still in the lobby. With a glance toward her, he went to their room and turned in. It was stifling and close, yet he managed to fall asleep.
6.
Morning and he left the room, Kathy asleep yet. Foregoing breakfast, he sought out the guide, said he had changed his mind about the trip, tipped him well and took a taxi into the city.
There he bought a three-week-old New York paper and found an outdoor table at the cafe. Morning passed, the heat blazed. Noon and he retreated to the cooler interior of the cafe. With the siesta, the streets emptied and came to life afterward. Jim sat outside again, nerves ragged, patience worn. He had changed from coca cola to brandy and soda. Time oozed, the phone call from Alfredo never came.
At five, he gave up waiting, hailed a taxi, drove back to the hotel and sought out Alfredo who met him with a smile that made him want to smash his face in.
“I am very sorry, Mr. Withers, but there was no need to phone.”
An obvious lie, but it was too late to do anything about it. “How much did you ask of the lady for not phoning me?” said Jim.
“Your wife? But she knew nothing. I went to Juan and he offered more than you.” Alfredo smiled and shrugged. “Of course you want your money back.”
“Keep it,” Jim snarled, walking away.
The shower was running when he entered the room. He slammed the door shut and Kathy called out: “How was the trip, darling?”
“Wonderful. I didn’t go.”
“You didn’t?” The pattering and splashing ceased in the bathroom. Towel around her, Kathy came out to find Jim standing at the door to the balcony, his face flushed and sweated, his eyes like glass.
“I don’t understand,” she said.
“There’s nothing to understand. I didn’t go because I met a party from New York. We went to a cafe and talked.”
“And drank.”
“So what? As long as you enjoyed yourself.”
“I didn’t exactly pine away.”
Still acting, flippant now. He wanted to knock her little head off. Why in hell did I marry her? he asked himself. But he knew why and turned away, going to the bathroom to shower himself. “I’ll meet you on the upper balcony,” he said.
Kathy was waiting for him and, as usual, Juan was at the table. He bowed, smiled at Jim, drew out his chair, and suddenly the cook began screaming at him from the kitchen. She was brandishing an ugly machete. Juan turned pale and didn’t move till she turned away. Then he scampered into the kitchen.
“My God, did you see that?” said Kathy.
“Perhaps he’ll tend to his business now,” Jim answered calmly.
But he was wrong about that. At least, Juan found time to return to their table to drop a word when he served them coffee.
“And how was the jungle trip?” he asked with a gloating smile.
“You should know,” Jim answered. Then, to deflect comment concerning this curious remark, he quickly turned to Kathy and said, “You know, we’re leaving tomorrow. Do you think a hundred and fifty pesos too little to tip the cook?”
“Are you going out of your mind, Jim?”
“In deepest appreciation for services rendered, that’s the way I feel about it.”
“Oh, do what you wish.”
Smiling, Jim counted out the money while Juan watched, obviously shocked. “And this is for you,” said Jim, adding a mere ten-peso note as a tip for Juan who could not protest. He looked sick but managed a smile and retreated to the kitchen from which he returned some moments later to extend the cook’s appreciation.
7.
Later, on the lower balcony after Kathy had gone to join the card players, Jim sat with another guest. Conversation led to the cook and her tirade against Juan.
“Nothing new about that,” said the other guest. “Last year she got to him with that machete and put him on his back for a month.”
“Really?”
“A nasty old woman, but she can really cook.”
“The best,” said Jim, looking at his watch. He stood up, excused himself and went to the upper balcony. Quiet there, the diners and waiters gone, a light in the kitchen, the Indian woman cleaning up. As Jim stepped into the kitchen, she turned.
“Just wanted to make sure you received the tip I sent you,” said Jim. “You did get it?”
The cook nodded, smiled.
“All of it? A hundred and fifty pesos?”
“It was but ten, Senor.”
“That was for Juan. He must have made a mistake,” said Jim and, with that, he turned round and left the kitchen.
Some minutes later, while standing at the front of the lobby, Juan passed him without notice and started down the dark road under the motionless palms. Almost within seconds the Indian woman followed him.
Next morning neither the cook nor Juan appeared at the breakfast hour. Then news came of the murder. Juan had been found just below the hotel in the bushes, hacked to death. The Indian woman could not be located.
The guest of last year, whom Jim had spoken to the night before, was heard to say the obvious: “I wouldn’t be surprised if it was the cook. They scrapped last night, and she slammed him with that machete once before, you know. Too bad, because she could wrestle up a meal.”
Kathy had nothing to say. Not until she and Jim were aboard the plane and flying north toward Mexico City. Then she turned to Jim and said, “Wasn’t it awful?”
Not looking at her, he lit a cigarette. “You mean about Juan? He had that coming, I think.”
“What do you mean?”
“Jealousy, of course. The cook was soft on him, but yesterday she found he’d been going around with another woman. One of the hotel guests. Lucky the cook didn’t go to work on her.”
Kathy had turned dead white. “How do you know all this?” she finally asked.
“Alfredo told me,” he replied, continuing the lie. Then he waited, for she had to ask, her woman’s curiosity greater than her fear.
“Did he say who the woman was?”
Her words were weighted, barely audible. They made Jim smile, and at last he turned and looked at her. “Alfredo didn’t have to,” he said slowly, watching her turn pale again. Then she raised her hand in a peculiar constricted gesture, as if to ward off a blow, and he laughed.
“You see, I knew all the while,” he went on. “And next time, if there is a next time, you’ll know what to expect.”
Big Steal