by M. S. Karl
It was interesting reading, these jottings of a man who probably never meant them to be read. But the most interesting part, of course, was at the last. For that was the portion telling of his meeting with Paul LaCour.
Feb. 15. What the hell am I doing up here? They haven’t left their cocoons. Maybe just to get away. So many things. Rather be back there. I’ve been here almost a year. Except for quick trip back to get new tourist card. Too damn early. All day I haven’t seen a thing and he wants a theseus. I don’t like the man. Egotistical bastard. Thinks all he has to do is flash money. Just because he saw one in another collection. How the hell do I know how it was gotten? Only four in Mexican collections. Told him there was zero chance this time of year. But if he’s willing to pay for time in the field at five hundred pesos a day, I’ll do it. Stupid bastard.
He had found nothing that trip, but had stayed on two weeks and collected, presumably, his seven thousand pesos, which was just over one hundred fifty dollars. Then, just a week ago, he had returned to Chiapas. For three days nothing, and then:
March 17. I got it. How the hell? A Morpho theseus. I saw it three hours ago, just in the tops of the trees and I thought I’d never have a chance. Morphos never come down low. Watched it go out of sight. Rich coffee-colored wings. Just left the cocoon. First of the year? Does that mean luck? Went on ahead to check the trap and there it was. Fluttering up against the wire with a couple of Monarchs and Sulphurs. All for a little spoiled banana.
Why is it lepidoptera are so stupid? They never think to fly out of the trap by going down through the open bottom. Always try to fly up and out.
Too stupid to survive, and yet when we’re gone they’ll inherit the world. Almost makes me want to let it go. Watch it fly away. But I can’t. Not for a ten thousand peso bonus.
And so now I had a cortex of facts about Harold Bassett. He was a man who had left his last work under a cloud, an ex-professor of biology who seemed to have involved himself with a female student and left in the middle of a term. A self-pronounced failure, who sought seclusion with butterflies in the jungles of Chiapas and who had, passively, no doubt, acquired a live-in maid and perhaps mistress. A man who hated Paul LaCour.
But they were a cortex of data, not a core. Because they could all be a clever lie, a fabricated piece planted for someone like me to find. If so, however, he was taking a hell of a chance. Because he gave himself a motive for killing LaCour. It was simple: LaCour could have refused to pay.
But somehow I didn’t think so. I didn’t believe the journal had been invented, and I didn’t believe he had killed LaCour. My logic wasn’t compelling. It was just a gut feeling, which went something like this: I thought of the butterflies, I thought of the way he had run away from his previous life, and I thought of the female students he had used, and I just didn’t believe he had it in him.
The truth was I didn’t much like the man.
Maybe it was personal, I told myself as I dressed. He had had a good life and managed to screw it up. He had run away from his problems and chosen to hide out in Mexico, collecting butterflies. He had copped out on his work and his wife (for I supposed that was who Clarisse was), and whined about it in his notebook. And he kept a “journal” to convince himself that what he was doing was of value. Somewhere a man has to take responsibility. That was what I kept telling myself, while I wondered if it was a concept that had been drummed into me by my parents, at Amherst, or later on during the course of my work. I was a good agent. That’s what Kestering had said. And maybe that was part of the answer. But it wasn’t enough!
I ate at a little café, where you could get huevos rancheros for twenty pesos, and watched the traffic go by. A man passed on a three-wheeled bicycle, exuding the good smell of hot bread, and across the street an ancient white bus with El Tabasqueno lettered on its side chugged to a halt at the corner and waited for the light. People passed on the sidewalks, the women in shapeless, store-bought dresses and the men in short-sleeved shirts, open at the neck. I thought of Chiapas and some of the little villages in Oaxaca, where Indian costumes could still be seen. It had been a long time since Indian costumes had been worn in this city.
I took a long time with my breakfast, ordering another orange juice, and then reluctantly called for the bill. I did not want to confront Harold Bassett today. There was nothing I could say or ask. And so I decided to wait.
Perhaps a visit to the scene of the crime was in order. I went back to the hotel and called Teniente Obregon.
“The house of LaCour? In the Calzada Juarez. I would be happy to take you.”
“You’re very kind. But I know you’re busy. I’ll take a cab.”
I had been prepared for him to argue, but he didn’t. Perhaps because my being here was extra-legal, and if I was willing to do it on my own … He gave me the street address and I thanked him.
The Calzada Juarez was definitely in the better part of the city. Flamboyant trees, which would explode in red within another month; shaded, closely cut yards and, here and there, walled estates, each wall belying the friendliness of the open-doored house by the cut glass along its top.
The house I sought was in a cul-de-sac, a white, brooding mansion the cab driver said had been bought from an out-of-favor politician. I told the driver to wait, and stepped out into the sun.
The iron gate was locked and I pressed the call buzzer. Five minutes later I was still waiting, but just as I had decided no one was there, I heard a sound of metal clanking from inside and the front door moved. A weathered little man with white hair and a stooped gait came slowly down the steps, a ring of keys in his hand. He paused to spit, then faced me.
“¿Qué quiere? What do you want?”
“Buenos días. My name is David Dennison. I’m a periodista, a newspaperman. I work in the United States. I’m doing a story on crimes. Crime in Mexico. The police told me that perhaps you could help me. I wonder if I could see where Señor LaCour was killed.”
“The house is closed,” the old man said.
“You can open it.”
“Maybe you’re a thief.”
It was unusual bluntness for this culture, but what did I expect? “I’m not a thief,” I said. “I’m a writer. I’d be willing to reward your kindness.”
The old man stared at me a few seconds longer, then spit again, and opened the gate. “This time …” he said, and I slipped him fifty pesos, which he stuffed away in a pocket without looking.
LaCour had played the part well. The garden was a maze of manicured shrubs through which passed a sidewalk that looked as if it had been scrubbed daily. But the marble steps of the house were a grin, and the black wreath on the door a skull’s eyesocket squinting into the brightness of day. The old man shuffled up the steps, through the front door, and then stopped. “The wreath,” he said. “I bought it. It seemed like the patrón should have a wreath.”
“Very kind,” I said.
“No one should be dead without a wreath, without someone to mourn,” he said. “The other servants left the next day. Who would pay them? The patrón lived alone. I said I would stay until things were settled. A man has to have a place to live.” He gave a shrug and took me into a hallway where a candle flickered in a niche that held a plaster saint. He switched on the lights, and I saw a vaultlike living room, cool and high and full of the echoes our feet made on the tiles.
My eyes scanned the walls with their portraits, and a display case of precolumbian pottery, which had been taken from an ancient tomb. Someday someone would excavate the house, and when he did he would find the portraits of nineteenth-century Mexican officers and write of the inhabitant as the scion of a distinguished family. So much for archaeology.
I turned to the bookcase on the other side of the room. Most of the volumes were old and, though I did not recognize many of them, I guessed that they were first editions: There was a Nahuatl dictionary by Molina, a Maya grammar by Beltran, and an ancient work by Villagutierre on the conquest of the Itza, with a hole burn
ed in the part of the title page that should have given the date. Some meticulous hand, either that of LaCour or a previous owner, had neatly penciled in 1701. There was also, surprisingly, a well-thumbed biography of Pope Pius XII and a current issue of the annual report of the Banco de Comercio system.
“Los demas se conservan en la recamara,” said the caretaker and shambled off, not waiting for me to follow.
I should not have let myself be lulled. That’s what I told myself afterward. But LaCour was dead and the old man opening the bedroom door was not many years behind. So I went in.
“Alla, la coleción de maripositas,” the caretaker mumbled, glumly indicating one wall. My eyes followed his thin arm to a large board. There, in concentric rings, they were arranged: Monarchs, Morphos, Swallowtails, leading the eyes inward to the center. The center was blank.
“Alla las monedas,” my guide went on and indicated a board on which were pasted coins. “Y las estampillas.” He tapped a stamp album and I opened it perfunctorily. “Y alla murió el patrón.”
He said it so naturally that it took a moment to register, and then my mind translated it: And that’s where the master died.
I looked at the ornate canopied bed, so out of character. There was an antique telephone beside it, on a Maximilian table, and a bell pull hanging from the ceiling. I gave it a tug and heard a tinkle far away. A shiver ran through me, and I dropped it and went over to the bookcase. The volumes were bound in rich leather, the titles in gold. I picked out a few. De Sade’s Justine, Defoe’s Moll Flanders, Frank Harris’s psuedo-memoirs. All considered obscene in their day. There was even a set of the only four volumes of the journal Eros, which had been banned in the early sixties. A collector, I thought, and looked up into the rococo-frame mirror over the bookcase. And if he was a collector, what if …?
I went across to the side of the bookcase, opened the bathroom door, and went in.
I saw a toilet, an ancient bathtub on four legs, a sink, and a bidet. There was also an armoire, but I didn’t get a chance to examine it because just then something hit me in the head, and I went black.
Chapter Five
I wasn’t out for more than ten seconds, and even then was dimly aware of the other door of the bathroom slamming. When I came to, I was on my hands and knees, looking down at the tiles while the caretaker shoved the door against me, trying to open it. I lurched to my feet and made room for him. “Someone was hiding in the bathroom,” I explained limply. “The other door—where does it go?”
His thin old arm shook as he pointed. “The other bedroom. For Díos, a burglar, all the time we were …”
I jerked open the door and hoped I wouldn’t take a bullet at chest level. But whoever it was had fled through the open french windows, into the garden.
“Is there a way out?” I demanded, blinking in the sunshine.
“Claro que no. There is a wall. Señor, you are hurt.”
I looked down at the blood on my hand and felt my head again. But I could worry about that later. Right now the quarry was trapped, somewhere in the back yard of the estate. I gave the grounds a quick scan: trees, a tennis court, swimming pool, and flowerbeds along the wall. I stumbled over the wicker furniture on the patio and grabbed a tree for support. What could I do if I caught him? He might have me in his sights right now, and his finger could be squeezing the trigger.
But I need not have worried. From over the wall somewhere I heard the cough of a motor starting, and my intuition told me the caretaker had been wrong about lack of escape. And my intuition was right. It was an iron door in the far side of the wall, so much in the shadows that I had not seen it as first. I ran toward it, the old man making a feeble attempt to follow.
It was open and faced a street, and somewhere in this street I had heard a motor starting. I stepped off the curb and shaded my eyes with my hand. There was nothing from that direction. By the time I turned around it was on me, a blue Chevelle, coming down the slot like a hammer toward the firing pin, sun smearing the windshield and blinding me, and I was caught for the second time like a fool, standing there, waiting.
My head spun, and the street seemed to shimmer. There were two blue cars now, and I didn’t know which one to avoid. There were two of me, too, standing there with an open mouth, swaying as the cars bore down, but at the last instant both of me jumped and the Chevelle whipped by.
I dusted the knees of my pants and struggled over to the gateway. The caretaker was breathing hard.
“Did you see him?” he asked.
“No.” I swung the metal door. “No way out?”
“I forgot. It is always locked. But the lock has not worked right for a long time. The patrón was to call the locksmith but …”
“Well, that’s how they got in.” I winced as I touched my head. We reached the bathroom door. “Would you mind if I washed?”
“Of course. But this is terrible. A burglar. This has never happened.”
I closed the door on his lamentations and went to the big wooden cabinet against the wall. Just as I thought I remembered from the seconds before I had run out, the door was open. Someone had jimmied the lock. I nudged it all the way open with my elbow, not wanting to touch anything. The armoire was a fake, with a cutout back allowing a view through the one-way mirror and at the bed. And someone had looked, because there was a 35mm reflex camera on a fixed mount, bolted to a shelf. Someone had also looked in the camera, because its back was open and it was empty of film. On the shelf below, however, was a manila folder and I stuffed it under my shirt and shut the door of the cabinet. I ran a little water and then came out.
The caretaker was wringing his hands. “I wonder if the police should be notified. After the death of the patrón …”
“I’ll talk to them,” I said. “Just now, perhaps you could recommend a doctor for my head. Perhaps the man that treated your patrón?”
“Sí, sí. A doctor. Of course. He went to el doctor Peón, in Calle 45. Yes, of course.”
I left him shaken from his complacency and walked back down the front steps. If the cab driver was watching, he would wonder what I had drunk inside. But he was not, and I had to rouse him from a nap.
Doctor Peón’s office was a pale-blue stucco building in a street of stucco buildings, just off the main plaza. It was ten-thirty and the sign said his hours began at eleven. I could have checked in at a hospital, of course, but then I would not have been able to discuss Paul LaCour with someone who may have known him well.
The doctor’s receptionist opened the door, started to tell me that the office would not open for half an hour, and reconsidered when I had to clutch the frame to keep from falling. Her austerity changed into gray-haired motherliness and she helped me to a chair. “Voy a ver si llegó el doctor.”
She slipped away into the consulting room. “Gracias.” I looked around for a magazine and put the manila envelope in a copy of a Mexican medical journal.
A moment later the doctor came out. He was a handsome, dark man in his early forties, with slicked-down hair and black horn-rimmed glasses.
“Good morning,” he said in English, and reached forward to touch my shoulder with sympathy. His unbuttoned lab coat showed haste, and now he helped me into his office and sat me on his examination table. “You seem to have taken quite a blow. How did you get to my office?”
I watched him collect his instruments. “Cab. By the way, my name is David Dennison. You were recommended to my by Paul LaCour.”
His hand froze in mine. “LaCour. The man who was killed. He was a friend of yours?”
I bowed my head and let him feel my skull before answering. “No. I only corresponded with him. I wanted to do a story on the government plywood industry in Chiapas and the new oil discoveries here in Tabasco. He was recommended to me.”
“You work for a magazine?”
“Freelance. Anyway, I wrote LaCour and set up an appointment with him. As a precaution, I asked him to mention a good doctor. I seem to be accident-prone.”
/> He smiled grimly and began to check my pupils with his ophthalmoscope. “Yes, it’s good to be safe,” he said, and I smelled a heavy toilet water as his face looked into mine. “How did it happen?” he asked, straightening.
“Slipped on the bathroom floor,” I said, thinking it sounded close enough to the truth to pass.
Peón shook his head, “Very dangerous. In your hotel?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I cannot find a fracture. Although—he bent again to look at my head—“you have had a skull fracture sometime in the past. There is a small dent in your occiput.”
“Car accident last year,” I lied. “You don’t think I’ve opened it up again?”
“I don’t think so.” He probed and the pain sent red streaks in front of my eyes. “It wouldn’t hurt to have some X rays, of course. Right now, I think I’d better clean it off.”
“Terrible thing about LaCour,” I said through gritted teeth. His tongue made a clucking sound from behind me.
“Terrible,” he agreed. “A very terrible thing.”
“Does anyone know who did it?”
“Ah, that, fortunately, yes. The police arrested another American, a man called Bassett. Apparently, he and LaCour had an argument over, of all things, butterflies.” The nurse handed him a wad of cotton and I felt his breath on my neck as he bent over to make a pad. “Very strange, in my opinion. If it had been women or money—” He chuckled. The gray-haired nurse looked through us.
“Did he have a weakness for women?”
“Well, I’m speaking generally. He wasn’t married. I don’t think he was a monk, you know.”
I wished the woman would leave, but it seemed unlikely. “Maybe the devaluation hit him hard.”
“Possibly. But he never showed it. A very strange business. Tragic.”