Where Fortune Lies

by James Short

  “A lost gardener? Had you seen him before?”

  “He seemed familiar, but he must have been new because he kept on asking where to go to do his work. Carmen gave him a private tour, so he could see where everything was.”

  “Mexican?”

  “From some place south of the border.”

  “Ahem! Ahem! Ahem!” Frank McBride was starting to launch his verbal assault.

  At the same time, Elaine McBride thrust out her arm and pushed the manager out of the way with such ease that you could not doubt she was practiced in the art of pushing hotel managers out of the way. She started in on the other flank: “Now I want some answers, and I want them…”

  Middleton inclined his head in her direction and noticed how her lips curled unnecessarily. With a slow purposefulness, he then turned his head towards the husband and was somewhat surprised at the nearness of the flashing teeth and purplish tongue. Middleton unholstered his revolver and with great deliberation pointed it at a distant object across the lawn. The McBrides magically fell quiet.

  “Do you see that?” Middleton whispered.

  “What? What?” Frank McBride asked.

  “Did the thief take all of your cash and jewelry?” Middleton kept his gun trained on the imaginary object. The McBrides couldn’t tear their eyes from the place where he was aiming.

  “What do you think? Of course, he did! He was a thief!” Mr. McBride sneered at what he took to be R. T. Middleton’s idiocy.

  “He didn’t leave an item of obvious sentimental value like a locket with a picture or a wedding band with an engraving…”

  “I told you, no!” Frank McBride bristled.

  “Yes, he did.” Elaine McBride seemed happy to score a point by contradicting her husband. “He left my wedding band. I haven’t worn it in years, but I always carry it because… I might need it.”

  “Might need it?” Her husband’s sarcasm brimmed over.

  “There! Look!” Middleton moved his gun hand three inches. Worried expressions came over their faces as they tried to see what Middleton saw.

  “By the way, what’s your room number?” Middleton continued.

  “You’re toying with us!” Frank McBride quaked with indignation.

  “340,” Singh whispered hoarsely.

  Middleton put his gun back in the holster. “Mr. and Mrs. McBride, I am very sorry for your loss. I would like you to return to the lobby, make yourselves comfortable, and with the pen and paper supplied by the management, write down a detailed list of your missing items. And by the way, do not return to your room for the next two hours. We need to dust it for fingerprints.”

  “Like hell, I won’t!” Elaine McBride declared.

  “Make it three hours to be safe.”

  “You think…” She continued.

  “I think,” Middleton used his strong full baritone voice to talk over her, “if you break the yellow tape, you will be arrested for impeding a police investigation, and your insurance company might find uncooperative behavior a reason not to compensate you fully. Now, please, you have a job to do. Afterward, you can file a complaint against me with the department.”

  Their reptilian faces snarled as they retreated.

  After they left, Middleton finally had time to think about the odd conversation with Harriet. She had never called him before, so he expected a real emergency. When he comprehended that she was railing against an act of indecent exposure, he was annoyed and amused. Now, he sensed the shadowy outline of a pattern. Could the appearance of the man and naked woman be related to the dress tangled in the fallen trellis and his burglar? Was this a bizarre challenge on Hornby’s part, or a deeper strategy like the chess move of a grandmaster with no apparent explanation, which later on opens up a series of devastating combinations? And who was the naked girl?

  Middleton glanced up at the two balconies within arm’s reach of where the trellis had disengaged from the wall. “I imagine that will be the room which belongs to the card key,” Middleton pointed.

  “I do not think so sir,” Singh replied. “The Ives—newlyweds---are staying there, and they hardly cause any trouble at all.”

  “Really. Do you know whether they are in? I would like to speak to them.”

  Singh called the front desk and had a bellboy knock on the door ascertaining they were out.

  “May I see their room?”

  “I believe it is proper to obtain a search warrant,” Singh ventured.

  “I’m afraid Mrs. Ives may be in harm’s way.”

  On opening the door and seeing the cut lamp cord knotted into a hangman’s noose and the spilled pills, Middleton immediately rushed into the bathroom. Failing to find a body, he returned and simply stared at the rumpled bedclothes as close to dumbfounded as he had ever been in his life. A thief who masqueraded as a priest and a new bride who was trying to commit suicide had gone off together? How did this fit into a pattern?

  Although not reconciling all the facts, the deduction that seemed to come nearest to the truth was that this was a case of kidnapping. Even if it weren’t, the girl could only make Hornby’s situation awkward. Middleton pondered another minute then made the call: kidnapping in progress, all off-duty personnel to report in.

  This brings up an interesting question: why in the operation of the law of unforeseen consequences are the consequences always unfortunate?

  Now we come to young officer Doug Dougal who was conscientious, ethical, and competent, but who loved his darts and his ale. Enjoying a virile bachelorhood, he spent much of his off hours at the West Shore Pub with friends playing darts and drinking and occasionally trying to impress the female creatures who flitted in and out. The window of West Shore Pub opened onto the sidewalks of Via Playera, so the patrons could watch the streaming throng, most particularly the college girls—more than a few being perfect visions of loveliness.

  “Look at that!” A half-drunken forklift operator said pointing out the window at Aquino and April, not ever imagining that his fantasies for the last half hour would be so literally fulfilled.

  Young officer Dougal got an eyeful, which he enjoyed. There was then a tug at his conscience. The lady was breaking the city ordinance against indecent exposure after all, and if he had really been a superior upholder of law and order, he would have rushed out and made an arrest. On the other hand, it was cruelly inhuman to expect him to be on duty twenty-four, seven. Dougal went back to his darts. Two minutes later his cell phone rang.

  “Kidnapping?” Dougal shouted over the din because he had difficulty hearing the dispatcher May Caitlin. His strong voice caught everyone’s attention, and the pub fell quiet. “Why, yes, a man dressed in black, and a young woman dressed in, well, not much. I just saw a couple like that come by a minute ago. You’re saying she has been kidnapped?”

  Dougal closed his phone and rushed outside followed by his buddies who were followed by their buddies.

  Franklin Wanders the World and Comes to a Conclusion

  As they talked, Aquino led April down to the water’s edge. For a quarter mile, they walked along the wet firm strip of sand left by the receding waves. The few couples strolling on the beach were far enough away for the darkness to give sufficient cover. With no moon and few clouds to reflect back the light of the town, it would have been hard to tell what April was wearing or not wearing from any distance. With admirable self-discipline, Aquino avoided looking at her.

  April started to have a shivering fit, but when she remembered Philip and that woman, a hot flush counteracted the shivering. Philip’s infidelity seemed to her the lowest of low behavior. It didn’t matter she had driven him away, the idea that he would be enjoying the pleasures of the flesh while she was strangling with a lamp cord wrapped around her neck and a blue face seemed hugely unfair. As for the story Aquino was now relating to her that he had somehow dug out of an old letter which was never sent, she decided to be generous and half believe it.

  A servant of the Bollers named Franklin had written the lette
r. Perhaps he was writing to himself to explain himself. Perhaps it was merely a fictional tale with himself as the central character. The story did not lack interest in whatever way you took it.

  In Franklin’s adventurous life which began as an obscure slave in a plantation in South Carolina and eventually brought him to the position of a trader in gems and other precious things in Paris, the episode with Penny wasn’t too much out of the ordinary—not so desperate as fighting off Malay pirates whose greatest joy after rape and plunder was mutilation, not so unusual as having the pick of a Chinese Prince’s concubines for a price break on a ruby as big as a fist, nor so exotic as hunting elephants with pygmies.

  Yet, that episode came at a nadir in Franklin’s life. The City of Lights had not been so for him. He had always been an outsider. French courtesy didn’t translate into acceptance of the color of his skin. Franklin resolved to travel again, revive old contacts and search out new. His dark skin closed doors opened to white traders, of course, but let him in other ones.

  He sailed to the horn of Africa where he had heard rumors of large diamond mines. He gained a small fortune in profits by going into the countryside and dealing directly with the natives. He then secured passage eastward, booking his own cabin on a steamship, and as it was his habit to avoid trouble with other passengers, mainly stayed inside, except for an early morning and late evening stroll on the deck. He deposited his treasure with a trustworthy agent in Goa, traveled up the subcontinent until he came to the old Silk Road, and then followed the Silk Road over the mountains into China. Throughout it all, he was detached. The sights and sounds of these exotic places didn’t jar him, didn’t fascinate him as they had as a young man.

  Upon arriving on the shores of the Pacific, he gazed eastward. He hadn’t thought much about the small girl who had been more interested in cups of chocolate than in getting back to her mother. Inexplicably, Franklin now experienced an intense curiosity as to her fate. It was the closest he had come to a passion in years. Surprisingly, he heard himself laugh.

  Aquino laid a light hand on April’s shoulder reminding her of her nakedness and causing her to flinch. “The locals called this stretch of beach Madagascar I think because Franklin used to take….”

  Suddenly, April became aware of a commotion nearby. A strong beam of light directed from the boardwalk zigzagged along the water until it highlighted them. A shrill voice pierced the air. “We’ve made contact!”

  Aquino studied the situation then said, “I believe we have upset a few people.”

  “They’re heading this way.” April spotted several dark figures climbing down from the walkway and jogging towards them. She looked around for an avenue of escape. None appeared.

  “We seem to be caught in a difficult predicament, but escape is not impossible.” Aquino was silent for an unforgivably long moment. “Ah, I have it. We won’t need drainage pipes this time. You will have to trust me again, yet I think I’ve already proven myself. Can you swim?”

  April would have asked him how exactly he had proven himself if there had been time for a debate. There wasn’t, so she replied, “Yes, I swam a mile once.”

  Keeping close to the tide, Aquino and April jogged along a patch of marshy sand until they came to a tapering rocky ridge jutting into the ocean. The beam lost them, confusing the mob which was less than a hundred yards away. They waded through the breaking waves and beyond until they were neck deep in water. They were spotted again. Several pursuers had also begun to wade into the waves.

  Aquino stopped and shouted into her ear, “Can you feel the surge around your legs? The water is coming through a tunnel that leads to a cove on the other side. The tunnel is about thirty feet long and winds to the left. When you come up, there will be a shallow cave behind you, quite out of sight. Wait for me there. I’ll be along in a few minutes.”

  No nightmare April had ever suffered could compare to the thirty feet of pulling and twisting herself through the narrow, blind underwater passage. April would have sworn it stretched to over a hundred feet, but how could one measure? Scraping hands and feet on the rocks, feeling terror every inch of the way, she finally did emerge near a shallow cave. Greedily gasping mouthfuls of air, she pulled herself out and sat down shivering.

  About a quarter hour later, Aquino’s head popped out of the water. “I led them into a clump of seaweed. Some believe we got tangled up there and drowned, but we still need to hurry.”

  “Hurry where?”

  “Where they can’t follow.”

  “No tunnels, no caves, no pipes!” April shouted over the din of the waves.

  “This way.”

  He pulled April back into the water, which was too deep for her feet to touch bottom. They swam a few yards towards the shore. Although April was deaf to her own panting breath, she believed she could hear the voices of the pursuers and was certain that hundreds of them were swimming around the promontory. Aquino clambered onto a small ledge. After watching April flail at the rocks, he impatiently yanked her out. He then led her up a bare cliff wall on a trail as narrow as the width of her foot. When they were about fifty feet above the water, April became aware that if she leaned out a little bit, she was just a few painful bounces away from ending her misery.

  “This isn’t a good place to jump,” Aquino warned, reading her mind. “No, you need at least a hundred and fifty feet for a quick, sure death.”

  “I’ll take my chances,” April said as her right foot hovered in the air.

  The Mayor of the Flats

  Jacinto led Philip down the knoll towards the gate as he recounted the story, seemingly as much for his own pleasure as for Philip’s enlightenment.

  Tomàs did return to Solvidado eventually. Although he could have lived the high life anywhere, he came back to the Flats—the poor section of town where he was able to enjoy the society of his scores of aunts, uncles, first, second, third cousins, boyhood buddies, first, second, third loves, drinking companions, and other assorted friends. He built a comfortable house notable for its large parlor with a dining table that could seat twenty because he never turned a hungry visitor away. It was the fanciest house in the Flats and perhaps in Solvidado with the exception of the Boller mansion, of course.

  Jacinto explained: “We all knew that Tomàs wasn’t straight with us. For one thing, he never talked much about his work. He explained his prosperity by giving out that he had become a mining engineer, very much in demand and frequently called to the mines to fix those newfangled pumps and other machinery. He hinted that he also had an exceptionally good eye for claims and had invested shrewdly in the most promising ones. He’d usually end that topic of conversation by saying, ‘A man must be thankful for his living,’ then divert the listener with prideful comments about the size and number of the strawberries in his garden or a commentary on politics or pretty girls.

  “The story that Tomàs made his living traveling with a gang of cutthroat poker players in a parlor car rang true. We all played poker with him, and it was an open secret the games were fixed. Tomàs didn’t win very much, and he didn’t lose very much, and the funny thing about these games was if you lost one night, you had to go to the next game because then you’d win. Now that wasn’t natural. A fool at cards couldn’t expect to win or lose just as much as a sharp at cards. You might lose big if you were drinking up your family’s money. The Mayor of the Flats—that’s what we called him—would win it all and give it to your wife or mother. Nobody could ever spot how Tomàs fixed the games. We couldn’t insult him by asking to look at the deck. So wasn’t it reasonable for us to conclude that to replenish his funds he’d buy a train ticket, ensconce himself in the parlor car, win a pile of money from people who didn’t know him, then come back to where he was comfortable and could enjoy his friends?”

  Tomàs earned the title of “Mayor of the Flats” because he often represented the interests of the Flats’ people to the American half of the town. When cousin Erminio was thrown in jail for drunkenly insultin
g the Methodist pastor’s wife, or when cousin Constancia was impregnated by Swen Sved, the son of Ingmar Sved, the area’s largest dairy farmer, Tomàs became an advocate for them, not as a lawyer, but as a man with the reputation for fairness. With Erminio, Tomàs suggested that they increased his sentence, so he could dry out; and with Constancia, he arranged a secret marriage so that Ingmar Sved would be confronted with a fait accompli of a baby. Frequently, the gringos went to him when they had business to transact in the Flats, such as hiring extra laborers or a maid or resolving a controversy over a deed.

  James Albert Thornton, the sheriff, wouldn’t dream of serving a warrant in the Flats without consulting Tomàs. To do otherwise would be considered a breach of protocol. There was a ritual to their meetings. While Tomàs and James sat in the parlor sharing a bottle of bourbon and talking about common interests such as horses or fishing, the offender would just appear as if for a visit. Sometimes a trial would be informally conducted with Tomàs and James reasoning out the causes and faults. They would frequently trade prosecutor and defender roles in the middle of a deliberation. This might be maddening to the offender, yet he usually understood that this was better justice than he would get anywhere else.

  The affair of Pierre’s theft of Mrs. Barton’s pig was a typical example of the cases they adjudicated. Pierre stole the pig to make up for back wages Mrs. Barton wouldn’t pay because she accused him of being lazy. Pierre sold the pig to Tomàs’s cook, Matamoros. Tomàs paid for the pig, minus Pierre’s wages and added a large ham as a gift to Mrs. Barton. Pierre was drafted to repair the roof of Tomàs’s house. Neither Mrs. Barton nor Pierre was happy with the compromise, but their tempers had cooled. In many towns, a stolen pig would instigate murderous feuds that lasted for generations.