NINE
“Give me a tequila sunrise,” she said. The clock over the bar pointed to twelve-thirty, and there was a group of four American women at one of the tables at the far end of the room eating lunch. Beth had not eaten breakfast, but she did not want lunch.
“Con mucho gusto,” the bartender said.
The awards ceremony was at two-thirty. She drank through it in the bar. She would be fourth place, or maybe fifth. The two who had done a grandmaster draw together would be ahead of her with five and a half points each. Borgov had six. Her score was five. She had three tequila sunrises, ate two hard-boiled eggs and shifted to beer. Dos Equis. It took four of them to make the pain in her stomach go away, to blur the fury and shame. Even when it began to ease, she could still see Borgov’s dark, heavy face and could feel the frustration she had felt during their match. She had played like a novice, like a passive, embarrassed fool.
She drank a lot, but she did not get dizzy, and her speech did not slur when she ordered. There seemed to be a kind of insulation around her that kept everything at a distance. She sat at a table at one end of the cocktail lounge with her glass of beer, and she did not get drunk.
At three o’clock two players from the tournament came into the bar, talking quietly. Beth got up and went straight to her room.
Mrs. Wheatley was lying in bed. She had a hand on her head with the fingers dug into her hair as though she had a headache. Beth walked over to the bed. Mrs. Wheatley did not look right. Beth reached out and took her by the arm. Mrs. Wheatley was dead.
It seemed as though she felt nothing, but five minutes passed before Beth was able to let go of Mrs. Wheatley’s cold arm and pick up the telephone.
The manager knew exactly what to do. Beth sat in the armchair drinking café con leche from room service while two men with a stretcher came and the manager instructed them. She heard him, but she did not watch. She kept her eyes on the window. Sometime later she turned to see a middle-aged woman in a gray suit, using a stethoscope on Mrs. Wheatley. Mrs. Wheatley was on the bed and the stretcher was under her. The two men in green uniform were standing at the edge of the bed, looking embarrassed. The woman took off her stethoscope, nodded to the manager and came over to Beth. Her face was strained. “I’m sorry,” she said.
Beth looked away from her. “What was it?”
“Hepatitis, possibly. We’ll know tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow,” Beth said. “Could you give me a tranquilizer?”
“I have a sedative…”
“I don’t want a sedative,” Beth said. “Can you give me a prescription for Librium?”
The doctor stared at her for a moment and shrugged. “You don’t need a prescription to buy Librium in Mexico. I suggest meprobamate. There’s a farmacia in the hotel.”
Using a map in the front of Mrs. Wheatley’s Mobil Travel Guide, Beth wrote down the names of the cities between Denver, Colorado, and Butte, Montana. The manager had told her his assistant would be of whatever help she needed in phoning, signing papers, dealing with the authorities. Ten minutes after they had taken Mrs. Wheatley away, Beth called the assistant and read him the list of towns and gave him the name. He said he would call her back. She ordered a Coca-Cola grande and more coffee from room service. Then she undressed quickly and took a shower. There was a phone in the bathroom, but the call did not come through. She still felt nothing.
She dressed in fresh jeans and a white T-shirt. On the little table by the bed was Mrs. Wheatley’s pack of Chesterfields, empty, crumpled by Mrs. Wheatley’s hands. The ashtray beside it was full of butts. One cigarette, the last one Mrs. Wheatley had ever smoked, sat on the edge of the little tray, with a long cold ash. Beth stared at it a minute; then she went into the bathroom and dried her hair.
The boy who brought the big bottle of Coke and the carafe of coffee was very respectful and waved away her attempt to sign the bill. The telephone rang. It was the manager. “I have your call,” he said. “From Denver.”
There was a series of clicks in the receiver and then a male voice, surprisingly loud and clear. “This is Allston Wheatley.”
“It’s Beth, Mr. Wheatley.”
There was a pause. “Beth?”
“Your daughter. Elizabeth Harmon.”
“You’re in Mexico? You’re calling from Mexico?”
“It’s about Mrs. Wheatley.” She was looking at the cigarette, never really smoked, on the ashtray.
“How’s Alma?” the voice said. “Is she there with you? In Mexico?” The interest sounded forced. She could picture him as she had seen him at Methuen, wishing he were somewhere else, everything about him saying that he wanted to make no connections, wanted always to be somewhere else.
“She’s dead, Mr. Wheatley. She died this morning.”
There was silence at the other end of the line. Finally she said, “Mr. Wheatley…”
“Can’t you handle this for me?” he said. “I can’t be going off to Mexico.”
“They’re going to do an autopsy tomorrow, and I’ve got to get new plane tickets. I mean, get a new plane ticket for myself…” Her voice had suddenly gone weak and aimless. She picked up the coffee cup and took a drink from it. “I don’t know where to bury her.”
Mr. Wheatley’s voice came back with surprising crispness. “Call Durgin Brothers, in Lexington. There’s a family plot in her maiden name. Benson.”
“What about the house?”
“Look”—the voice was louder now—“I don’t want any part of this. I’ve got problems enough here in Denver. Get her up to Kentucky and bury her and the house is yours. Just make the mortgage payments. Do you need money?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what it will cost.”
“I heard you were doing all right. The child prodigy thing. Can’t you charge it or something?”
“I can talk to the hotel manager.”
“Good. You do that. I’m strapped for cash right now, but you can have the house and the equity. Call the Second National Bank and ask for Mr. Erlich. That’s E-r-l-i-c-h. Tell him I want you to have the house. He knows how to reach me.”
There was silence again. Then she said, as strongly as she could, “Don’t you want to know what she died of?”
“What was it?”
“Hepatitis, I think. They’ll know tomorrow.”
“Oh,” Mr. Wheatley said. “She was sick a lot.”
The manager and the doctor took care of everything—even the refund on Mrs. Wheatley’s plane ticket. Beth had to sign some official papers, had to absolve the hotel of responsibility and fill out government forms. One had the title “U.S. Customs—Transfer of Remains.” The manager got Durgin Brothers in Lexington. The assistant manager drove Beth to the airport the following day, with the hearse discreetly trailing them through the streets of Mexico City and along the highway. She saw the metal coffin only once, looking out the window from the TWA waiting room. The hearse had driven up to the 707 at the gate and some men were unloading it in brilliant sunlight. They set it on a forklift, and she could hear the dim whine of the engine through the glass as it was raised to the level of the cargo hold. For a moment it trembled in the sunshine and she had a sudden horrific vision of it falling off the lift and crashing to the tarmac, spilling out the embalmed middle-aged corpse of Mrs. Wheatley on the hot gray asphalt. But that did not happen. The casket was pulled handily into the cargo hold.