Flame of Diablo (6 page)

began to laboriously recite a request for

a room, but he waved the book aside.

'I speak a little English. You are an

inglesa, senorita?'

'Yes, I am.' Relieved that she did not

have to converse with him in her non-

existent Spanish, Rachel smiled. 'I'm

trying to trace another
inglese, senor
—a

man. My brother,' she added hastily for

some reason she probably could not

have defined.

'He has been to Asuncion, this brother?'

The man watched her impassively.

Rachel sighed. 'I'm not sure. I think so.'

He hesitated, then he reached for the

hotel register and swung it round so that

she could see it.

'Look for yourself,
senorita.
No
inglese

has been here apart from yourself.'

Rachel scanned swiftly down the list of

names. It had occurred to her that Mark

might have travelled under an assumed

name, but she knew he would not have

bothered to disguise his handwriting and

none of the scrawls in the register bore

the least resemblance to his signature.

She

felt

almost

sick

with

disappointment.

'Turistas
do not come here,
senorita,'

the man said almost placidly. He was

turning away, when she halted him.

'Then can I book a room for the night?'

she asked, braving his look of

astonishment. 'And a guide. I would like

to hire a guide if that is possible.'

'Senorita,'
the man said very slowly, 'I

must tell you that I do not have

unescorted women staying at my hotel.'

She felt a slow tide of colour run up to

the roots of her hair. She had never felt

so helpless in her life.

She said, trying to keep her voice calm

and pleasant, 'Then as this is the only'

hotel in this benighted town, I'm afraid

you will have to make an exception for

once. Unless you can provide me with a

guide immediately, of course.'

His look of astonishment deepened. 'And

where do you wish this guide to take

you,
senorita
? Always supposing that

such a person could be found.'

She said baldly, 'I want to go to Diablo.'

If she'd suddenly produced a hand

grenade and drawn the pin, she couldn't

have hoped to make a greater sensation.

His jaw dropped, and he almost took a

step backwards, she would have sworn

to it.

He said flatly,
'Es imposible.
Where is

your family,
senorita
? Who are your

friends that they let you contemplate such

madness?'

Rachel frowned. All sense of reality

seemed to be slipping away from her,

but that again could be attributed to the

strangeness of the altitude. On the other

hand it meant that she had to act the part

she had set herself, and it was somehow

easier to act than to believe in what she

was doing. Deep down inside her she

was afraid, but on the surface she was

ice cool and in command of the situation.

She said, .'It's good of you to be so

concerned,
senor,
but quite unnecessary.

I can look after myself. 'I'm neither a

child nor a fool, and I don't need you to

judge my actions.'

Not a long speech, she thought

detachedly, but an effective one, she

hoped. In a situation like this, she

needed to make every word count.

She glanced at the hotel-keeper, noting

with satisfaction that he did not seem

quite so sure of himself as he had been.

There was an air of uncertainty about

him, and he eyed her as if she was

something new in his experience. She

wanted to giggle, but that would be fatal,

so she deepened her expression of calm

assurance.

'There must be someone around here,'

she said crisply.

'Someone who knows this region well.

And you don't have to feel responsible

for anything. Just introduce me to him,

and I'll do the rest.'

The man gave her a long look, then

shrugged deeply and fatalistically.

He said slowly, 'There is such a one—

Vitas de Mendoza—but whether he will

agree to take you to Diablo is another

matter.'

'That's

my

problem,'

she

said

confidently, almost gaily. She had talked

round this definitely hostile little man.

She could talk round the world. 'When

can I meet him?'

He hesitated. 'Later,
senorita.
I will

speak to him of your request. At the

moment he is engaged.'

She saw him give a half-glance over his

shoulder at that door down the passage,

and remembered the sound of men's

voices and laughter.

'I'd prefer to see him right away. The

matter is urgent. I'm not just a casual

sightseer, I'm looking for my brother.'

'And you think the brother has gone to

Diablo.' He shook his head. 'That is not

good,
senorita,
but it gives me an idea.

Tomorrow or the next day there will be

an army patrol arriving here. If you

speak to Captain Lopez he will look for

your brother.'

Rachel was silent for a moment. It was a

tempting

prospect

to

resign

the

responsibility for finding Mark to the

army, but at the back of her mind she

was remembering what Isabel had told

her about the illegal trafficking in

emeralds. Supposing when this Captain

Lopez found Mark, he actually had

emeralds in his possession? She

swallowed. It didn't really bear thinking

about. She had no idea of the sort of

sentences attempts to smuggle emeralds

might carry, but she imagined they would

be heavy, and that Colombian prisons

would be a bad scene too. Besides, if

Mark were arrested, it would be the

death of her grandfather.

She had to face the fact that she must find

Mark herself—with the help of Vitas de

Mendoza, and hope that he was the sort

of man who could be bribed to keep his

mouth shut if Mark had broken the law in

any way. The thought made her feel sick

with fright and despair, but it also had to

be faced.

'I haven't got time to wait for the army,'

she said. 'You don't even know yourself

when they'll be arriving, and they could

be held up. I've got to see this Mendoza

man

immediately.

There'll

be

arrangements to make, and I want to

leave as soon as possible.'

She left her small case standing by the

desk and went down the passage

towards the closed door. She wouldn't

have been at all surprised if he'd

grabbed her arm and tried to stop her as

she passed him. When she reached the

door she risked a glance back over her

shoulder, and saw that he was standing

quite still staring after her with an

almost bemused expression on his face,

and she could have laughed out loud.

All she had to do now was bemuse Vitas

de Mendoza into taking her to Diablo,

she thought as she opened the door and

stepped into the room beyond.

It was a good job that she was still

acting—making an entrance—or what

faced her when she entered the room

might have thrown her, like an

unexpected laugh at a serious moment in

a play.

The air was so thick with cigar smoke

that she could hardly see across the

room for the first moment or two, and the

acrid fumes caught at her throat. There

were six of them altogether, all men

sitting round a table covered in a green

cloth. There were bottles and glasses,

cards and a scatter of money, and she

felt bitterness rise in her throat as she

surveyed them. So this was the pressing

engagement which the hotel-keeper did

not want to disturb.

Her gaze flickered round the table. She

could read amazement on their faces,

and

the

beginnings

of

a

lewd

appreciation in some of their smiles.

And on one face—contempt. Her eyes

registered this and passed on, and almost

in spite of herself, looked back as though

she had not believed what she saw the

first time.

He was younger than his companions—

the mid-thirties at the very most—dark

as they all were, with raven black hair

springing back from a peak on his

forehead. A thin face, as fierce and

arrogant as a hawk's, its harshness

shockingly emphasised by the black

patch he wore where his left eye should

have been.

The man nearest the door pushed back

his chair and stood up, smiling

ingratiatingly at. her. 'Come in,
chica.

You want to take a hand with us?' He

spoke with a strong North America

accent. The man next to him said

something in Spanish, and a ribald roar

of laughter went round the table.

But the man with the eye-patch didn't

join in the general amusement. Rachel

found her eyes being drawn unwillingly

back to him yet. again. He was dressed

from head to foot in black, his shirt

unbuttoned

to

halfway

down

his

muscular chest. He leaned back in his

chair,

one

booted

leg

swinging

carelessly over its low wooden arm, but

it seemed to Rachel that he was about as

relaxed as a curled spring, or a snake

rearing back to strike.

Isabel's voice sounded in her brain:

'
Bandidos
and other evil men.'

The others seemed harmless enough—

lecherous, perhaps, but harmless, but the

man with the eye-patch was a very

different proposition. She could believe

that he was a bandit. She could see him

in black velvet centuries before, a

bloodstained sword in his hand as he cut

down the defenceless Indians who stood

between him and his dream of El

Dorado. She could see him on the deck

of some pirate ship, his face bleak and

saturnine under that eye-patch as his

ship's cannon raked the forts at

Cartagena and Maracaibo.

And she could see him on the other side

of this table looking at her as if she was

dirt.

'Have a drink,
chica.'
The man who had

got to his feet was leering at her, pushing

a tumbler into her hand. The spirit it

contained smelled sharp and raw, and

her nose wrinkled in distaste, but she

smiled politely as she refused. After all,

he might turn out to be this Vitas de

Mendoza, and she didn't want to offend

him.

She smiled again, but this time there was

a tinge of frost with it, setting them all at

a distance. All except the man opposite,

of course, who had already distanced

himself, and him she would just have to

ignore. She wondered what he was

doing here. The others were obviously

local

businessmen

enjoying

the

relaxation of a weekly card game. But

who was he? A professional gambler,

perhaps, if they had such things in

Colombia. Certainly he seemed to have

a larger pile of money lying in front of

him than any of the others—ill-gotten

gains, she thought, and caught at herself.

This was ridiculous. She was standing

here being fanciful and wasting precious

time.

She said quietly but making sure her

voice carried, 'I'm here to see Vitas de

Mendoza, and I'd like to speak to him

privately.'

She waited for one of the bronzed

perspiring men around the table to step

forward and identify himself, but no one

moved, and a cold sick feeling of

apprehension began to swell and grow

inside her.

She said, 'He is here, isn't he?' and her

voice shook a little because she knew

already what the answer was, and she

wished herself a million miles away.