A Deadly Shade of Gold (30 page)

But after all the white-washers had moved along, back to other pressing PR problems, a little man moved in on me who was considerably more impressive. He was bald and wide and brown,
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and had a face like the fake Aztec carvings gullible tourists buy. He had an eye patch, and carried himself as if he were in uniform. His name was Marquez. I had been vaguely aware of him in the background, coming and going, keeping to himself. He came to me at the bar and suggested we go over to a table. He smiled all the time. He had a tiny gold and blue badge, and something that said he was Colonel Marquez, and something else that said he was in Investigationes Especiales for some kind of national bureau.

"That boat went up with one hell of a bang," he said.

I gave him my water safety lecture. He listened to it with total attention, and when I ran down, he said, "That boat went up with one hell of a bang, eh?"

"Yes it did indeed, Colonel."

"Down in Puerto Altamura, in the village, you're a pretty popular tourist, McGee."

"Every tourist should be an ambassador of good will."

"That Garcia house, it's like a fortress, eh?"

"Maybe they have sneak thieves around here."

"A man handles himself pretty well, and then he hides a gun in a john tank, for God's sake."

"Colonel, you skip around so much, you confuse me."

"This was the last place the Columbine IV was definitely seen."

"Was it?"

"How many women do you need for one little vacation, McGee?"

"Now look, Colonel."

"You pretend to be mad, then I'll pretend to be mad, and then we'll quiet down and play some more riddles, eh?"

He looked perfectly happy. I said, "Can I play a game?"

"Go ahead. But watch yourself. You're semi-pro. This is a pro league. Even if you're a pro in your own country, you're semi-pro here. We play hard ball."

"Let's just imagine that a rich man hides himself away here because it's a place where he's hard to get at, and he expects sharpshooters. He would expect some because they plain hate him, and some because they think he might be in a situation where they can pick some of the loot off him.

I guess they've picked him pretty clean. There's one thing left, maybe, like a lock box in a Mexico City bank with better than six hundred thousand U.S. dollars in it."

The smile remained the same size, but suddenly looked hemstitched. He got up and patted my shoulder and said, "Wait right here, please."

I had a twenty minute wait. He came back. He signaled for a drink, and said, "I suddenly thought of a phone call which could prevent a little error in bookkeeping. I am enjoying your game."

"Thanks. We'll imagine a man comes down here after there's some trouble and tries to figure out who's been trying to do what to whom. The dust is settling, and he isn't too anxious to kick it up into the air again. How do we classify the little lady with the sliced throat? She brought along legal aid, so let's say she was after the loot. Maybe, along the way, she earned an assist on the Columbine thing, because she was anxious not to have anything drastic happen before she could get the loot."

"And what have you been after?" he asked.

"Just a little fun in the sun, Colonel."

"Like looking at the pictures on Heintz's wall? Heintz wants to be a company man, but he thinks it was a hell of a bang too. What if Taggart thought he would sleep better if Miguel for sure, and maybe the Hichin girl along with him, had one of those boating accidents you give the big talk about?"

The man had a very flexible and interesting mind. I checked his concept for about twenty seconds. Sam did have the opportunity. And it would be a horrid irony if the package he had prepared had waited right there until Nora was in range.

"No. It wasn't his style."

He shook his head sadly. "You spoil the fun. You tell me too much too fast, McGee. See what you told me? That you knew him that well and that he's dead."

"I've lowered my guard because I trust you, Colonel."

"My God, that is so unique, I don't know how to handle it. I seldom trust myself, even."

I was fascinated by the computer mechanism behind that Aztec face, so I put another little piece of data into the machine. "Of course, Miss Gardino knew him better than I ever did."

"So! An emotional pilgrimage. I'm disappointed in you, McGee. Or did I speak too fast, eh?

Emotional for her? Loot for you?"

"Something like that."

"One little area of speculation is left. It will never be proved one away or another. I think these things entertain you too. Taggart and Alconedo do some very dirty work for Don Carlos.

Certain people are getting too close to Don Carlos. Perhaps he has promised them much money for special work they have done. So he makes a sly scheme, eh? He will leave the house with Miguel and Taggart to go to the boat. His pockets are full of bank books, eh? Perhaps an old and trusted friend is at the hotel with a car. There is a hell of a bang, and the car drives away, with Don Carlos hiding under a blanket, maybe." His smile broadened. "But it is so difficult to arrange, so intricate, so full of suspense, eh? With the strain, a little blood vessel goes pop in Don Carlos' head. How many times can a man successfully disappear?"

"Son of a gun!"

"It entertains me too. Taggart left with loot. What if he had left, or planned to, on that boat.

Perhaps with Miss Hichin. The possible combinations are interesting. Ah, well. You are scheduled to leave tomorrow. You can leave."

"Thanks."

"You were discreet with those drab little news people. There is no need to kick up dust now. Let it all settle. The dead women are in transit. Don Carlos and his wife will be in institutions. We have the problem of those other Cubans. The land syndicate will find a buyer for the house. May I say a few things to you, McGee? On a personal level?"

Si, mi Coronel."

"My God, what a horrible accent! I think you are a reckless man. I think you are a mischievous man. But you have good intentions. You have a sour view of yourself, eh? You are... I would say a talented amateur in these matters. But an adult, I think. One finds so few American adults these days. To you, the village Mexicans are people. Not quaint dirty actors we supply to make the home movies look better. I have some problems I work on. Tampico, Acapulco, Mexicali.

Three kinds of nastiness. If you're bored, we could have some fun. I can give you no official protection. I would use you, and pay you very little out of some special funds they give me. I would throw you into those situations, and see what happens."

"I'm flattered, but no thanks."

"No temptation at all?"

"Not very much. I guess I get into things, Colonel, because I get personally and emotionally involved."

"The stamp of the amateur, of course. But why set up an order of which has to come first, my friend? Because you have the soul of an amateur, you will find that personal emotional involvement after you get into these things. You will always bleed for the victims. And always have the capacity for terrible righteous anger. This recruiting is very irregular, McGee. But when you are in the business of using people, it is hard to let a special person slip away."

"Give me a great big medal for what I accomplished here, Marquez."

"Don't be bitter about the woman. If she wasn't willing to accept risk she wouldn't have come here. She could stand there unharmed while a thousand boats blew up. This was the thousand and first."

"You are overvaluing me, Colonel."

"Maybe you mean this thing is not over for you yet."

"Possibly."

He put his hand out. "When it is over... if you survive it... if you have some curiosity, write me at this address. Just say you are going to visit Mexico and would like to have a drink with me. By then I will know much more about you than I know now. But I don't overvalue you, McGee. The
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affair of the knife at the Tres Panchos was very swift and competent. One day I would like to know just how you managed the dog. And before leaving, do not forget the interesting photographs in the base of the lamp."

"Colonel, you are showing off."

He made a sad face. "That is the flaw in my personality. Vanity. And your flaw is sentimentality.

They are the flaws which will inevitably kill us both. But let us enjoy them before the time runs out, eh? Buena suerte, amigo. And good hunting. And God grant we meet again."

Sixteen

UPON RETURN to this country from any quiet corner of a foreign land, the most immediate impression is that of noise; continuous, oppressive, meaningless noise. Highway noise-from the labored snarl of the big rigs shifting on the grades to the pneumatic whuff of fast passenger traffic. The bell sounds of wrenches dropped on cement garage floors. Diesel bray. Restaurants all clatter and babble like huge cocktail parties, the sound rising above that stupefying placebo of Muzak, which is like cotton candy being stuffed into the ears. Sound trucks, brash snatches of radio music and TV laughter, shuffle and tick-tock of sidewalks full of people, rackety clatter of machines filling out paper forms, horn blatt, brake squeal, yelps of children, shrieking passage of the jets.

There is a spurious vitality about all this noise. But under it, when you come back, you can sense another more significant and more enduring vitality. It has been somewhat hammered down of late. The bell ringers and flag fondlers have been busily peddling their notion that to make America Strong, we must march in close and obedient ranks, to the sound of their little tin whistle. The life-adjustment educators, in strange alliance with the hucksters of consumer goods, have been doing their damnedest to make us all think alike, look alike, smell alike and die alike, amidst all the pockety-queek of unserviceable home appliances, our armpits astringent, nasal passages clear, insurance program adequate, sex life satisfying, retirement assured, medical plan comprehensive, hair free of dandruff, time payments manageable, waistline firm, bowels open.

But the other vitality is still there, that rancorous, sardonic, wonderful insistence on the right to dissent, to question, to object, to raise holy hell and, in direst extremity, to laugh the self-appointed squad leaders off the face of the earth with great whoops of dirty disdainful glee.

Suppress friction and a machine runs fine. Suppress friction, and a society runs down.

As I holed up in the City of the Angels, I was also aware of a comforting feeling of anonymity. In the world's biggest third-class city I could pass unnoticed. I spoke the language. I was familiar with the currency. I could drink the water. I could almost breathe the air, late April air, compounded of interesting hydro-carbons.

I wanted transient accommodations, of a very special kind. I did not want to sign in anywhere as McGee or anybody else. I did not want to impose on old friends and get them implicated in anything.

I did not want to be within that strata subject to routine police checks. I wanted anonymous transportation and freedom of movement. I wanted to be the nearest thing to an invisible man I could achieve. It might turn out that all such precautions were unnecessary. But I had to follow my hunch. The hunch said that this might get messy before it was over---0r, more accurately, might continue to be messy.

I got in at six in the evening. By seven I was prowling the area where I hoped to work something out, the trash end of Sunset Boulevard. My luggage was in a bus station coin locker. By nine o'clock, in several assorted bars and lounges, I had surveyed several groups, ingratiated myself with a few and then given them up and gone on. By ten I had a promising group in a crowded corner of a place called The Pipe and Bowl.

Extremely local cats, in the restless middle twenties, overdressed and slightly stoned, trying to look as if they hadn't spent their week in insurance agencies, department stores, dental labs and office buildings. They accepted the amiable stranger, with the usual reservations, indirect challenges, the waiting to see if there was any angle, any kind of hustling.

I did my verbal card tricks, and struck the right attitudes, and bought my share. I was Mack, a boat chauffeur by trade. They shuffled me around to one of the two free lassies, perhaps on the basis of a girls' room conference, and amalgamated me into the group. Her name, unfortunately, seemed to be Junebug. She had a round merry face, a lot of gestures and animation, cropped brown hair. Her figure, as revealed by a little beige stretch dress, was quite pretty, except for a potentially dangerous case of secretarial spread. She was careful to tell me her boyfriend was an engineer working on some kind of rugged project up in Canada.

From time to time, according to mysterious signals, we all left and piled into cars and went to other places which seemed to be identical to the ones we left, the same music, the same drinks, the same faces at the bar. We had drop-offs, and we picked up some new recruits. By the third stop I had become an old time buddy. At the fourth stop, well after midnight, I had her trapped in a dark corner and made my pitch.

"Junebug, I've been living a little too much tonight. This check will take me down to cigarette money."

"Gee, Mack, I've got a few bucks in my purse if..."

"It isn't only that, honey. What happened, this isn't home base for the boat I was running. And I got fired today. It's no real sweat. The owner got a wrong idea of me and his wife. I've got money coming. And no problem about a job. The man said get off my boat, and I got my gear and got off. But now I am definitely hung up for a place to stay. My gear is in a bus locker."

She moved as far away from me as she could get, which was about six inches, and she stuck her underlip out and said, "if you think you're going to shack with me, buddy boy, if this is one of those cute ideas, I haven't had that much to drink. No sir. Oh-you-tee. Out."

"Honey, believe me, you are a very exciting woman, but that wasn't my play. I want a place where I can hole up until the money comes through. That's all. Not your place. I thought you might know of a place. As soon as the money comes through, I'll pay you a going rent."