The Zebra-Striped Hearse (11 page)

“José tells me business is slow all over,” I said noncommittally. “It’s like the migrations of the birds.”

He looked around for José, who was leaning against the wall, and called for another drink. José replenished his glass from a bottle of tequila.

“Did you ever talk to Damis?”

“Not what you’d call intimately. He’s an attractive chap but I never got to know him. He was usually with other people. Do you know if he’s still in Ajijic?”

“No. Can you name some of the other people?”

“The one I saw him with most often was Bill Wilkinson.”

“How can I get in touch with Wilkinson?”

“You might find him at The Place. I hear he’s taking most of his business there since we had our little run-in.”

“Run-in?”

“Actually, it was Mrs. Wilkinson I had the run-in with. She’s one of those Southern California types who fancies herself as an art collector simply because she has money. I told her what she could do with her money, and Bill would be better off if he did the same. I’m not a woman hater—”

“Neither is Damis, I understand. Did you ever see him with women?”

“Almost invariably. He spent a lot of time with Annie Castle. That was before he took up with the blonde girl, what was her name?” He sat locked in combat with his memory.

“It doesn’t matter. Who is Annie Castle?”

“She runs an artsy-craftsy shop on the other side of the plaza. As a matter of fact, Damis has or had his studio on the same premises. No doubt propinquity did its deadly work. Annie’s a cute enough kid if you like them dark and serious. But he dropped her when the big little blonde showed up.”

“What do you mean, ‘big little’?”

“Quien sabe?
Big girl, little ego, maybe. She hasn’t made the breakthrough, into womanhood, you know.” He refreshed his alcoholic insight from his glass. “Whenas she ever does, she could be quite a thing. Beauty isn’t in the features so much as in the spirit, in the eyes. That’s why it’s so hard to paint.”

“You’re quite an observer,” I encouraged him.

“I’m a people watcher, my friend. If you’re a detective, as you say, you must be something of a people watcher yourself.”

“I’m a walking field guide,” I said. “You seem to have paid pretty close attention to the blonde girl.”

“Oh, I did. What was her name? Miss Blackstone, I believe. Her mother introduced us some time ago. I haven’t seen her lately. I tend to take special notice of the tall ones, being rather outsize myself. Gladys is nearly six feet,
mirabile dictu
. She was once a burlesque queen on the Bowery, whence I rescued her and made a model of her, foolish man. With the consequence that I am here on my personal Bowery.” His eyes strayed around the empty rooms.

I got up. “Thanks for all the information. Can you tell me how to get to The Place?”

“I can, but look here, man, I’m enjoying this. Drink up your beer, and I’ll have José make you a proper drink. Where is José? José!”

“Don’t bother. I have to see Bill Wilkinson.”

He rose cumbrously. “Whatever you say. Do you feel like telling me what this is all about?”

“I could make up a story for you. But that would be a waste of time.” I got out my wallet. “How much do I owe you for the beer?”

“Nothing.” He fanned his arm in a lordly gesture which threatened to overbalance him. “You’re a stranger within my gates, I couldn’t possibly accept your money. Besides, I have a feeling you’re going to bring me luck.”

“I never have yet, Mr. Reynolds.”

He told me how to get to The Place and I set out through the midnight streets. The children had been swallowed up by the doorways. Some men and a very few women were still out. Wrapped in blankets, with faces shadowed by volcano-shaped hats, the men had a conspiratorial look. But when I said “
Buenas noches
” to one small group, a chorus of
“Buenas noches”
followed me.

T
HE
P
LACE
was closed for the night. Steering a course by dead reckoning and the sound of the town clock chiming the quarter, I made my way back to the central square. It was abandoned except for one lone man locked behind the grille of the unicellular jail.

Followed by his Indian gaze, I took myself for a walk
around the perimeter of the square. Seven eighths of the way around, I was stopped by a sign in English hand-lettered on wood: “Anne’s Native Crafts.” The shutters were up but there was light behind them, and the thump and clack of some rhythmic movement.

The noise stopped when I knocked on the door beside the shutters. Heels clicked on stone, and the heavy door creaked open. A smallish woman peered out at me.

“What do you want? It’s very late.”

“I realize that, Miss Castle. But I’m hoping to fly out of here in the morning, and I thought since you were up—”

“I know who you are,” she said accusingly.

“News travels fast in Ajijic.”

“Does it not? I can also tell you that you’re here to no purpose. Burke Damis left Ajijic some time ago. It’s true I sublet a studio to him for a brief period. But I can tell you nothing whatever about him.”

“That’s funny. You know all about me, and you never even saw me before.”

“There’s nothing funny about it The waiter at the
Cantina
is a friend of mine. I taught his sister to weave.”

“That was nice of you.”

“It was part of the normal course of my life and work. You are distinctly not. Now if you’ll take your big foot out of my doorway, I can get back to my weaving.”

I didn’t move. “You work very late.”

“I work all the time.”

“So do I when I’m on a case. That gives us something in common. I think we have something else in common.”

“I can’t imagine what it would be.”

“You’re concerned about Burke Damis, and so am I.”

“Concerned?” Her voice went tinny on the word. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“I don’t either, Miss Castle. You would have to tell me.”

“I’ll tell you nothing.”

“Are you in love with Burke Damis?”

“I certainly am not!” she said passionately, telling me a great deal. “That’s the most absurd statement—question, that anyone ever asked me.”

“I’m full of absurd questions. Will you let me come in and ask you some of them?”

“Why should I?”

“Because you’re a serious woman, and serious things are happening. I didn’t fly down from Los Angeles for fun.”

“What
is
happening then?”

“Among other things,” I said, “Burke has eloped with a young woman who doesn’t know which end is up.”

She was silent for a long moment. “I know Harriet Blackwell, and I quite agree with your description of her. She’s an emotionally ignorant girl who threw—well, she practically threw herself at his head. There’s nothing I can do about it, or want to.”

“Even if she’s in danger?”

“Danger from Burke? That’s impossible.”

“It’s more than possible, in my opinion, and I’ve been giving it a good deal of thought.”

She moved closer to me. I caught the glint of her eyes, and her odor, light and clean, devoid of perfume. “Did you really come all the way from the States to ask me about Burke?”

“Yes.”

“Has he—done something to Harriet Blackwell?”

“I don’t know. They’ve dropped out of sight.”

“What makes you suspect he’s done something?”

“I’ll tell you if you’ll tell me. We both seem to have the same idea.”

“No. You’re putting words into my mouth.”

“I wouldn’t have to, if you’d talk to me.”

“Perhaps I had better,” she said to me and her conscience. “Come in, Mr. Archer.” She even knew my name.

I followed her into the room behind her shop. A wooden
hand loom stood in one corner, with a piece of colored fabric growing intricately on it. The walls and furniture were covered with similar materials in brilliant designs.

Anne Castle was quite brilliant in her own way. She wore a multicolored Mexican skirt, an embroidered blouse, in her ears gold hoops that were big enough to swing on. Black hair cut short emphasized her petiteness and the individuality of her looks. Her eyes were brown and intelligent, and warmer than her voice had let me hope.

She said when we were seated on the divan: “You were going to tell me what Burke has done.”

“I’d rather have your account of him first, for psychological reasons.”

“You mean,” she said carefully, “that I may not want to talk after you’ve done your talking?”

“Something like that.”

“Is it so terrible?”

“It may be quite terrible. I don’t know.”

“As terrible as murder?” She sounded like a child who names the thing he fears, the dead man walking in the attic, the skeleton just behind the closet door, in order to be assured that it doesn’t exist.

“Possibly. I’m interested in your reasons for suggesting it.”

“Well,” she hedged, “you said Harriet Blackwell was in danger.”

“Is that all?”

“Yes. Of course.” The skeleton had frightened her away from the verge of candor. She covered her retreat with protestations: “I’m sure you must be mistaken. They seem fond of each other. And you couldn’t describe Burke as a violent man.”

“How well did you know him, Miss Castle?”

She hesitated. “You asked me, before, if I was in love with him.”

“I apologize for my bluntness.”

“I don’t care. Is it so obvious? Or has Chauncey Reynolds been telling tales out of school?”

“He said that you were seeing a lot of Burke, before Harriet Blackwell entered the picture.”

“Yes. I’ve been trying ever since to work him out of my system. With not very striking success.” She glanced at the loom in the corner. “At least I’ve gotten through a lot of work.”

“Do you want to tell me the story from the beginning?”

“If you insist. I don’t see how it can help you.”

“How did you meet him?”

“In a perfectly natural way. He came into the shop the day after he got here. His room at the
posada
didn’t suit him, because of the light. He was looking for a place to paint. He said he hadn’t been able to paint for some time, and he was burning to get at it. I happened to have a studio I’m not using, and I agreed to rent it to him for a month or so.”

“Is that how long he wanted it for? A month?”

“A month or two, it wasn’t definite.”

“And he came here two months ago?”

“Almost to the day. When I think of the changes there have been in just two months—!” Her eyes reflected them. “Anyway, the day he moved in, I had to make a speed trip to Guad. One of my girls has a rheumatic heart and she needed emergency treatment. Burke came along for the ride, and I was impressed by his kindness to the girl—she’s one of my best students. After we took her to the hospital we went to the
Copa de Leche
for lunch and really got to know each other.

“He talked to me about his plans as an artist. He’s still caught up in abstraction but he’s trying to use that method to penetrate more deeply into life. It’s his opinion that the American people are living through a tragedy unconsciously, suffering without knowing that we are suffering or what the source of the suffering may be. He thinks it’s in our sexual life.” She flushed suddenly. “Burke is very verbal for a painter.”

“I hadn’t noticed,” I said. “Who paid for the lunch?”

Her flush deepened. “You know quite a bit about him, don’t you? I paid. He was broke. I also took him to an artists’ supply house and let him charge four hundred pesos’ worth of paints on my account. It was my suggestion, not his, and I don’t regret it.”

“Did he pay you back?”

“Of course.”

“Before or after he attached himself to Harriet Blackwell?”

“Before. It was at least a week before she got here.”

“What did he use for money?”

“He sold a picture to Bill Wilkinson, or rather to his wife-she’s the one with the money. I tried to persuade him not to sell it or, if he insisted, to sell it to me. But he was determined to sell it to her, and she was determined to have it. She paid him thirty-five hundred pesos, which was more than I could afford. Later on he regretted the sale and tried to buy the picture back from the Wilkinsons. I heard that they had quite a ruction about it.”

“When was this?”

“A couple of weeks ago. I only heard about it at second hand. Burke and I were no longer speaking, and I have nothing to do with the Wilkinsons. Bill Wilkinson is a drunk married to a woman older than himself and living on her.” She paused over the words, perhaps because they had accidentally touched on her relations with Damis. “They’re dangerous people.”

“I understand that Wilkinson was Burke’s boon companion.”

“For a while. Bill Wilkinson is quite perceptive, in the sense that he understands people’s weaknesses, and Burke was taken in by him for a while.”

“Or vice versa?”

“That was not the case. What would a man like Burke have to gain from a man like Bill Wilkinson?”

“He sold his wife a picture for thirty-five hundred pesos.”

“It’s a very good picture,” she said defensively, “and cheap at the price. Burke isn’t ever high on his own work, but even he admitted that it was the kind of tragic painting he was aiming at. It wasn’t like his other things, apart from a few sketches. As a matter of fact, it’s representational.”

“Representational?”

“It’s a portrait,” she said, “of a lovely young girl. He called it ‘Portrait of an Unknown Woman.’ I asked him if he’d ever known such a woman. He said perhaps he had, or perhaps he dreamed her.”

“What do you think?”

“I think he must have known her, and painted her from memory. I never saw a man work so ferociously hard. He painted twelve and fourteen hours a day. I had to make him stop to eat. I’d walk into the studio with his
comida
, and he’d be working with the tears and sweat running down his face. He’d paint himself blind, then he’d go off on the town and get roaring drunk. I’d put him to bed in the wee hours, and he’d be up in the morning painting again.”

“He must have given you quite a month.”

“I loved it,” she said intensely. “I loved him. I still do.”