Without being asked, Pedro brought two more beers, wiped off the table with the hem of his apron and reminded Grady of their date to race the wind at seven in the morning.
“The essential thing now,” Aragon said, “is to get her back home under the care of her own doctor. She looks pretty spaced-out. What kind of stuff has Ortiz been giving her?”
“It’s powerful, I can tell you that much. Knocks her for a loop. Also, she’s beginning to ask for it too damn often. She uses the slightest excuse to send me over to get a capsule from Ortiz. He won’t let her have more than one at a time.”
“How long is she scheduled to stay here?”
“Another two weeks.”
“I don’t think that would be wise.”
“Then you tell her,” Grady said. “I already have, for all the good it did. Every time I try to tell her anything she gets a pain in her stomach, her head, her appendix, her butt, you name it. Then she takes one of Ortiz’s capsules and conks out. When she wakes up she can’t remember what I told her. Half the time I can’t either. She has me confused. She always makes me feel I’m in the wrong even when there’s no right or wrong involved, just ordinary things.”
“Equal alternatives.”
“Yeah, that’s it, equal alternatives. I’m beginning to think she’s a little crazy. She even talked once about having a child. It was grotesque. She’s fifty-two. She admitted it, but I knew anyway. Ellen Brewster, the secretary of the club, told me, she looked it up in the files.”
“Why would Ellen do that?”
“She wanted to clue me in. For my own good.”
“That was kind of Ellen as far as you’re concerned. Miranda might feel somewhat different about it.”
“It was the truth. I had the right to be told the truth.”
“Knowing the truth obviously didn’t alter your course of action.”
“It never has.” Grady’s voice was somber. “Maybe I’m crazier than she is. Give me your honest opinion, do you think it’s possible?”
“Lots of things are,” Aragon said. He didn’t give the rest of his honest opinion, that this was more possible than most.
It was after seven and almost dark when Aragon reached the outskirts of Tijuana. He had intended, if all went well, to stay on the freeway and drive right through to Santa Felicia, reaching there about midnight. But he was getting tired and the afternoon had been depressing. He checked in at an American franchise motel, had tostadas and beer at a nearby café and returned to his room.
He closed the windows to block out the noises of the street, which was just coming alive for the night. Then he called Charity Nelson at her apartment and told her he wouldn’t be in the office the next morning.
“Where are you, junior?”
“Tijuana.”
“What are you doing there?”
“Nothing.”
“Nobody does nothing in Tijuana.”
“Okay, I’m boozing it up with a couple of hookers.”
“That’s more like,” Charity said. “Did you find Mrs. Shaw?”
“Yes.”
“Can’t you say anything more than plain ordinary yes?”
“I can but you might not want to hear it.”
“Try me.”
“She’s at Dr. Ortiz’s rejuvenation clinic in Pasoloma with her friend Grady Keaton.”
“The lifeguard?”
“Yes.”
“Is he cute?”
“What do you mean by cute?”
“Cute is cute. You know, like Robert Redford.”
“He is not like Robert Redford.”
“Oh. I wonder what she sees in him, then. To me Robert Redford is—”
“You can tell me about your fantasy life some other time, Miss Nelson,” Aragon said. “I’m reporting in that the documents are ready and I’ll have them at the office by late tomorrow afternoon.”
“You don’t sound very happy about it, considering you might even get a bonus if I play your cards right.”
“Ha ha ha. Is that better?”
“What’s bugging you, junior?”
“This is a dirty business. The lady is doped up and a little crazy, maybe a lot crazy, and I walked out of there and left her.”
“You couldn’t very well bring her along. The lifeguard wouldn’t like it, would he?”
Aragon didn’t respond.
“Junior?”
“I’d rather not discuss it.”
“I never figured you for the emotional type. This isn’t such a dirty business when you look at other dirty businesses.”
“Thanks for helping me see things in a new light, Miss Nelson.”
“That’s my specialty.”
“I can believe it. Goodbye.”
“Wait a minute. I haven’t finished.”
“I have,” Aragon said and hung up.
He left a wake-up call with the operator for five thirty the next morning.
His return to Pasoloma was slowed by fog and by an unexpectedly heavy procession of vehicles heading into Baja, mostly vans and campers and motor homes with California license plates. The fog started to lift when he reached Pasoloma and the clinic was emerging from its shroud. There was activity around the main office and the hospital building, though it wasn’t the kind of activity seen around an ordinary hospital or clinic. People seemed to move very slowly, as though they had—courtesy of Dr. Ortiz—all the time in the world.
Aragon drove directly to the cottage shared by Miranda and Grady. The yellow Porsche was missing from the carport. In its place was Pedro, the boy from the café, talking to a stout middle-aged woman with a cartful of cleaning equipment. Pedro nodded good-morning but he didn’t smile or speak. As for the woman, she ducked around the side of the building in a surprising show of speed, pushing the cart in front of her. It sounded as if it had a square wheel.
Aragon said, “That cart could use some oil.”
The boy shrugged. “It’s old. My mother used to push me around in it when I was little.”
“How old are you now?”
“Thirteen. Next year me and my brother are going to the U.S. to get a job, make lots of money.” He glanced back at Aragon’s Chevy. “You don’t make lots of money like Mr. Shaw does.”
“Not like Mr. Shaw does, no.”
“He’s pretty important, I bet. He can’t waste time taking people for rides. Racing the wind, that’s a crazy idea. Nobody can race something they can’t see.”
“I’m sorry you missed your ride, Pedro.”
“I don’t care,” the boy said. “I never expected nothing anyway.”
Aragon knocked on the door of the cottage, softly at first, then more loudly when there was no response. The windows were closed and the blinds shut as if the people inside were trying to avoid the light and noise of morning.
He knocked again. “Mrs. Shaw?”
Another two or three minutes elapsed before Miranda’s voice answered, hoarse and sleepy. “Who is it?”
“Tom Aragon.”
“Go away.”
“I went away. Now I’m back.”
She opened the door. She wore a large loose pink-and-orange-striped robe that made her look as though she’d taken shelter in a tent that wasn’t quite tall enough and she’d had to cut a hole in the top for her head.
Her eyelids were swollen and blistered by the heat of her tears. She said, almost literally, “I’m not seeing anyone.”
“Are you feeling all right, Mrs. Shaw?”
“Close the door. I’m cold.”
“Let me order you some breakfast.”
“No, thank you. I know you’re trying to be kind but it’s quite unnecessary. I’m quite—quite fine.”
“Where is Grady?”
“Grady is fine, too, thank you.”
“I asked where.”
“Where? Well, I’m not really sure. He took one of the boys from the café for a ride in the Porsche. I wish he wouldn’t get so friendly with the hired help, it’s not dignified. He must learn to—”
“The boy is still waiting for him, Mrs. Shaw.”
She sat down on the edge of the bed, her tent collapsing around her. “So am I,” she said in a whisper. “But he won’t be back. He left in the middle of the night. I’d been very upset by the news you brought me, so Dr. Ortiz gave me a capsule and I went to sleep. When I woke up Grady was gone. There was a note on the desk.”
The note was still there. Though it had been crumpled and partly torn and marked by tears, it remained legible. The letters were large and uneven, the lines slanted downward:
Miranda
Things are beginning to close in on me and I need to get away fast and figure it all out how to do something and be somebody. I thought it was funny at first being called Mr. Shaw but then suddenly it wasn’t. Maybe I’ll see you in the U.S. after I get established and no more of that Mr. Shaw crap.
Please don’t go to pieces over my leaving so sudden. We both agreed it wasn’t going to be permanent, nothing is, how can we beat odds like that.
Take care Miranda and maybe I’ll see you in the U.S. and we can have fun like we use to.
Your friend
Grady Keaton
P.S. Don’t let the doc pump any more of that junk in you. You look OK as is. Why do you want to be young again anyway. Being young is hell.
The note ran true to form. Grady had told no lies, made no promises, expressed no regrets.
“Let me take you home, Mrs. Shaw,” Aragon said. “We can leave as soon as you’re packed.”
“Dr. Ortiz won’t like it.”
“Did you pay in advance?”
“Yes.”
“What about refunds?”
“He doesn’t give any.”
“Then he’ll probably be able to absorb the shock of your departure.”
“But what if—what if Grady comes back and I’m not here?”
Aragon didn’t want to play any what-if games, but he said, “It would serve him right, wouldn’t it, to find you gone? Now pull yourself together and we’ll head for home.”
“No.”
“I can’t leave you here, Mrs. Shaw. I feel responsible for what happens to you.”
“Why? You only met me yesterday afternoon.”
“Some people you get to know very fast.” Much too fast, Miranda.
He waited outside while she packed her bags. Fog still clung to the beach, so he couldn’t see the surf. But he heard it, loud and with a slow steady rhythm. Grady claimed every wave was different, every single one, but these sounded exactly alike.
Miranda came out of the cottage in about twenty minutes. She’d put on a white straw hat, oversized sunglasses and a sleeveless blue shift. Her arms were very thin and pale, as though they’d been tucked away in some dark place, unused.
“I’ll call a boy to bring out my luggage,” she said. “There are two suitcases and a garment bag.”
“Don’t bother calling anybody. I can do it.”
“I hate to put you to any trouble.”
“No trouble.”
She didn’t travel light. The suitcases were the size of trunks and too heavy to manage more than one at a time. There was no place in the Chevy to hang the garment bag, so he laid it across the back seat. It looked disturbingly human, like someone stuffed, head and all, into a sleeping bag.
She said, “Grady is very strong.”
“Is he.”
“He can lift almost anything.”
Including a Porsche. He almost said it. There was a possibility that she was thinking the same thing and being deliberately ironic, but he couldn’t tell for sure. Her expression was hidden by the brim of her hat and the dark glasses and a layer of pride thicker than her makeup.
When he turned the Chevy around he saw the boy, Pedro, watching from the corner of the carport. He waved goodbye. Pedro didn’t wave back.
For the first few miles she sat tense and silent, her hands folded tightly in her lap. But gradually she began to relax. She took off her hat and ran her fingers through her hair, she removed her glasses and rubbed her eyes, and now and then she spoke.
“It’s awfully hot. Could you turn on the air conditioner?”
“I don’t have one.”
“I thought all cars came with air conditioners.”
In her world they probably did.
Later she talked of Grady. “He left his toothbrush behind. Not that he’ll miss it, he’s quite careless about personal hygiene. Did you know that?”
“No.”
“It didn’t seem to matter. Every female in the club had a crush on him anyway, even Ellen, who’s a cold fish where men are concerned.”
He didn’t know that either.
“I wonder what’s going to become of me. I can’t earn a living. All I ever learned at boarding school was French and ballet and etiquette.”
She seemed to have forgotten some of the etiquette. While he was explaining the workings of the probate court she went to sleep, her head resting between the doorframe and the back of the seat.
She woke up at the border to answer questions put to her by an immigration official. Yes, she was a United States citizen, born in Chicago, Illinois. She had nothing to declare. She’d gone to Mexico for treatment at a health resort and was now returning home to Santa Felicia.
“That was a lie,” she told Aragon afterward. “I’m not going home. I don’t have a home anymore.”
“Certainly you do.”
“No. The house is mortgaged, it belongs to strangers.”
“Not yet. The law moves very slowly. You can continue living in the place until everything is settled.”
“I refuse to accept the charity of strangers.”
“The strangers are a couple of banks, they’re not in the habit of offering charity.”
“It makes no difference. Kindly don’t pursue the subject, Mr. Aragon. When I left the house I decided that I would never return to it no matter what happened.”
“What will you do?”
“Rent a small apartment, perhaps take a course and learn to perform salaried duties, the kind of thing Ellen does at the club.”
“Do you have any cash?”
“A little.”
“How long will it keep you going?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never had to keep going on my own before. It should—should be an interesting challenge. Don’t you agree?”
“Yes.” He agreed about the challenge. Whether it would be interesting, or even possible, would depend on Miranda.
They had a late lunch in San Diego. She ordered a double martini and a green salad with white wine. The combination wasn’t as potent as one of Dr. Ortiz’s capsules but it had its effect. She lost some more of her boarding-school etiquette.
“He stole my car,” she said. “That son of a bitch stole my car.”
“I believe he was under the impression that you gave it to him, Mrs. Shaw.”
“I gave it to him only if I went with it. It was supposed to be ours. Gave it to him, my foot. Do you know how much that thing cost?”
“You can get it back.”
“How?”
“Tell the police it’s been stolen.”
“What police? I don’t know what state, even what country he’s in by this time.”
“Maybe he’ll return it voluntarily,” Aragon said. “I don’t know much about Grady, but I got the impression he’s not a bad guy even if he’s not the beautiful person you thought he was.”
She began to cry, using the paper napkin for a handkerchief. “I thought he was�
��I thought he was such a beautiful person.”
“We all make mistakes.”
“Oh, shut up.”
He shut up. Back in the car so did she. She went to sleep again, this time with her head pressed against Aragon’s shoulder. For a small woman she felt very heavy.
She woke up as he slowed for the off ramp into Santa Felicia. It wasn’t a gentle and gradual awakening. She was instantly alert as if an alarm had gone off in her brain.
“Why are you leaving the highway? Where are we?”
“Home.”
She shook her head, repudiating the word. “I have an earache and my neck is stiff.”
“You look fine.” It was true. After her long sleep—plus, or in spite of, the last dose of Dr. Ortiz’s goat glands—she seemed oddly young.
“Not really,” she said. “You’re just being kind.”
“No. You look great, Miranda.”
She checked for herself, staring into a small mirror she took out of her purse, but she didn’t indicate who was staring back at her. “Where are you taking me?”
“To your house.”
“It’s not my house. It never was. Neville paid for it, I only lived there . . . Why did you call me by my first name?”
“I felt like it.”
“You really mustn’t. It’s not proper.”
She had remembered her etiquette. Maybe the French and ballet would come later.
Encina Road was only a couple of miles from the freeway, but it was difficult to find and Miranda offered no help. She sat gazing out of the window like a visitor seeing this part of the city for the first time: stone walls covered with ivy and bougainvillea, ancient oak trees draped with moss, rows of spiked cassias more treacherous than barbed wire, high impenetrable hedges of pittosporum and eugenia.
The ten-foot iron gate at the bottom of the Shaws’ driveway was closed, and when Aragon pressed the buzzer of the squawk box connecting it to the main residence, nothing happened. He tried the door of the gatehouse. It was locked and the Venetian blinds were closed
tight. He waited a minute, almost expecting the old man, Hippollomia, to appear suddenly and explain the situation: “There is no electric . . . Missus forgot to pay.”
He returned to the car.
The Murder of Miranda Page 13