by M. S. Karl
“For whom?”
His hands hesitated. “Why, for both of them.”
He came out from behind me, went to his desk, and looked carefully through the papers until he came up with a small bottle. “If you’ll take one of these every six hours for pain, four if the pain is intense …”
“Thank you.” I put the bottle in my pocket. “Did you know the other man?”
“Well, I had met him once or twice at a few parties, that’s all. I—” he looked down at his hands, palms down on the top of his desk, and then gave me a smile meant to charm—“I didn’t find him very interesting, really.”
“In what way?”
“In what way?” The doctor pondered, and touched his square chin with a finger. “Well, because he said very little, I suppose. He seemed to just … be there. To blend in. He was the kind of person who—” he leaned across the desk, his dark eyes intent on mine—“well, who agreed to everything you said. You’ve met people like that, no?”
I nodded and Peón let his easy smile return. “You aren’t planning to do a story on this crime, are you?”
“I must admit that the possibility is very attractive.”
“Ah, yes. The Butterfly Murder. That would make a good title.”
He got up smoothly, but I wasn’t quite ready. “One other thing, Doctor.”
“Yes?”
“You said you’d seen Bassett at a party. Where would that have been?”
“Of course. Probably at the American Consul’s Christmas party, or at Mrs. Whitcomb’s. I treat a good many of the American community here.”
I asked him the address, and he scribbled it on a piece of paper and made a little map to go with it. “In the Avenida Grijalva,” he said. “You can’t miss it.”
I thanked him and shook his hand. “Your family?” I asked, gesturing to the small framed pictures on his desk.
His face flushed with pleasure. “Yes. My wife and my three boys.”
“You’re very fortunate.”
“Yes. Thank you, you’re very kind.” He ushered me out and then squeezed my arm. “If you write that story, you will send me a copy?”
“Of course.” I paid the gray-haired lady eighty pesos and left. Or pretended to leave.
At the threshold I turned back, and while she was in the consulting room washing her hands, I retrieved the manila envelope. Next stop was the home of the Whitcomb woman. But first I wanted to see what was worth risking murder for. Of course, I thought I knew.
And I was right. Alone, in my hotel room, I opened the envelope and spread the glossy prints on the bed. Three women, two brunettes and a blonde, in a series of poses, all in the four-post bed that the one-way mirror framed, straight-on shots, closeups, different body positions—some sleeping, others waiting, others replete with the lethargy of love. I looked closer, separating them into three piles. At least two of the women seemed … But I did not know what word to put to the expressions on their faces, the slight blur to their eyes. Unwilling? One thing was sure, however. None of the pictures was posed. The women had not been aware that they were being photographed. Which meant that the pictures were made for one of two purposes. Either it was blackmail or the man had carried his collecting to pathological extremes.
There were no negatives, which meant that either they were still hidden away, or, more likely, the burglar had gotten them, along with whatever had been in the camera.
Kestering had not briefed me on every detail of LaCour’s work. It was possible that he was doing this in connection with some other project. Blackmailing agents through their wives, for example. But it was also just possible that LaCour had been a sick and vicious person, indulging his vices on agency money while occasionally throwing his bosses a crumb. In which case, his death might not only have been unconnected with his business, but also for the good.
I took one of the pain pills. Then I taped the manila envelope to the back of one of the bureau drawers. Right now I had to rest.
I lay down but my mind wouldn’t turn off. Instead, my head gave a drum-beat accompaniment to the parts of my past that I could remember, a two-dimensional flip movie of soulless figures who did their acts before my mind and then vanished. Like the dead man, I was a voyeur, watching scenes through a one-way glass. But in my case, the scenes were disjointed and the actors had no substance. The gray-haired woman with the lined face was my mother and I was the boy she scolded … but for some reason I could not remember why. My father was a balding, kindly faced figure whom I could see coming across the front lawn, from the Packard at the curb, calling my name, and I was the boy running to meet him. I was the boy in his arms, that he was calling “Davey,” and the bike in front of the middle-class house with the picket fence was mine.
The flip movie ground on relentlessly, scene tumbling upon scene without transition. I was the boy in the back seat of the car, and the girl with me was a classmate named Karen. I watched our hands touch each other, listened to her protests, and heard her shout my name with an epithet and slap my face. Surely I had felt something?
Then, for a moment, I thought I had it. It was a tawdry little room with a sagging bed, behind a highway diner, and the girl had peroxided hair and when she stripped off the stained waitress’ outfit, her breasts were hardly more than bumps under the camisole. The college boy was myself, watching her in anxious arousal, afraid and hopeful, hypnotized by the sight of her twenty-five-year-old body, by the truth of the hardly developed breasts and the dark pubic bush. She was completely unself-conscious, for she had done it many times, dropping the white uniform on a rickety chair and then flopping onto the dirty bedspread, legs bent like grapples to take me in. And so I saw the college boy doing it, hardly recognizing myself in the hasty disrobing and the nervous coupling that followed. For like the image, the act itself was mechanical, and when it was over there was no need for reflection or rest. She rose almost at once to go to the little closetlike bathroom and wash, and I put on my clothes, and when she returned she was the waitress once more, standing before me to take my check, with the only difference being that she was naked.
“What’s your name, honey?”
“David.”
“You come back some time, David. That was a lot of fun.”
And had it been? Lying in the room, light-years away, I did not really know.
Only Leah was real. This time I knew I had to follow through.
The desk clerk was stretched out in a couple of chairs and struggled sleepily to his feet. I gave him the number and he dialed. The pounding in my ears grew louder. What made me think she would be there? It was early afternoon, there were a million places … The desk clerk said, “Bueno,” and handed me the phone.
“Leah?”
“David?” There was surprise in her voice. “Where are you?”
“Mexico. I had to call. Are you all right?”
“All right? Of course. Why shouldn’t I be?”
“Just something I felt. I can’t explain. I shouldn’t even be calling you now. I had a feeling.”
“Are you sick?”
“No. I’m all right now. I’ve been worried. I thought you might be gone.”
“Poor Davey. Maybe I flew off. Well, you can see I’m still here. I’m just like a claim check. You just have to come back and get me.”
“I love you,” I said.
“I know.” Suddenly her voice changed with a new enthusiasm. “Say, do you remember my telling you about Phil Hartley? I used to go with him on occasion when I met you.”
Something twisted inside me. I remembered him. It was a name I might never have known, except that her saying it keyed a memory in me and I recalled it all. Philip Hartley. She had slept with him a couple of times before she met me. She had slept with a lot of men, back then. “What about him?”
“Oh, now don’t go jealous. I just got a call from him yesterday afternoon. He’s in Seattle now. But he was back for an exhibition. He took me out to dinner last night. Had a marvelous time. He hasn’
t changed a bit. We caught up on old times.”
“I’m sure.”
“Oh, shit. You are jealous. Well, Jesus Christ, it’s nice to be trusted. It’s—”
“Leah, the phone—”
“Screw the goddamn phone. Let ’em listen. I haven’t asked questions about you and what you’re doing down there. For all I know you’re screwing somebody different every night. But in line of duty, of course—”
“Leah!” I tried to cut her off, but it was no use. The man with earphones, in Langley, would be pushing a red button that buzzed the deputy director. “Drop it,” I said.
“Drop it? Why? So you can think the worst of me, just because one old friend happened to pass through town? You’ve always been this way, David. I see it now, you know—the reason for the call. You’re keeping tabs on me. You don’t trust me one bit. I see one male friend and I must be in bed with him, in your mind.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to. I’m not stupid. And so the hell what if it were true? So what if we had gone to bed? What’s so terrible about that? Would it be so unnatural if I did look for a little comfort?”
“Are you trying to tell me something?” I mouthed the words, but didn’t hear my voice. Kestering would be on the line now. He would have heard.
“Yes, dammit. I’m trying to say I don’t know whether it would matter if you quit your job or not. You know, I used to think the work had changed you. But now I begin to really see it, I mean really see it. Your job didn’t change you. You chose it because it fit your personality. I was just too damned blind to see it.”
“You’re wrong. Listen, Leah, please …”
“No.” The anger went out of her voice. “No, David, I’m not wrong. Not this time. I loved you once. Maybe I still do. But there are lots of different kinds of love. I don’t think what we have is enough anymore.”
“Wait—”
“For what?” Her voice was tired. “For something that won’t ever happen? Be honest with yourself, Davey. It was a mistake. We want too much from each other. Different things.”
“I didn’t call to—”
“You don’t have to explain. Goodbye, Davey. Good luck.”
The phone buzzed and I was standing at the desk, looking stupid. The clerk yawned and arched his brows, “¿Ya ’stuvó?” he asked.
“Sí, ya ’stuvó,” I said, handing him the receiver. “It’s finished.”
Chapter Six
It was cool compared with the furnace of afternoon, and the shadows had begun to creep out from their hiding places. The sun hung tiredly in the west, taking a last breath, and the sounds of crunching gravel that the tires of the rented Dart made seemed to split the sleepy air. The city was to the east, two miles away back down the avenue, and the walled estate would enjoy its isolation for at least another couple of years before the rest of the city caught up to it. On the other side of the wall were coconut palms, mangos, the ubiquitous flamboyans. I was glad the people at the rental agency had given me good directions.
I started walking up the driveway, not yet knowing what I would say to Mrs. Whitcomb, but whatever story I hit on, it looked like I might have to wait in line. There were already several cars in the shell drive, a VW, a couple of Scouts, and one blue Chevelle. Suddenly I had a flash of memory: I was seeing another house, with a carefully tended lawn, and a car in the drive, and I was running toward the front door, tripping and righting myself, trying the handle, shoving the door open, gun in hand. And there was a noon-bright flash of light and I was falling into a tunnel of darkness …
I was frozen, the sweat creeping through my clothes when I heard the voice of the houseboy.
“Buenas tardes. The señora is on the patio.”
I returned the greeting, and let him lead me through the garden and around the house. My muscles were tense, and I was ready to dive out of the way. But nothing came except the sound of glasses tinkling and water splashing. Whoever Mrs. Whitcomb was, she believed in an aristocratic lifestyle. The house spoke of rooms for guests and servants and formal dinners, while the grounds must have required a squadron of caretakers to maintain.
A peacock strutted out of the way with a loud complaint as we rounded the corner of the house.
There were perhaps twenty people on the patio and several more splashing in the pool. To one side was a tiled roof, and at the end of this covered area was a counter, where a white-coated bartender busied himself with a blender. The crowd had knotted up into little groups, some at lawn tables, some beside the bar, some watching the action in the pool. Both Mexicans and Americans were represented and there were also a few children. I went to the bar where a tall, thin man I took to be a geologist was expounding in very bad Spanish about the Mexican oil reserves. He turned and asked my opinion and I told him he was right.
“Precisamente,” he said, and gave me a wet hand. “I haven’t seen you for a long time. Where have you been?”
“On vacation,” I said.
“Well, you’re looking good. But what the hell happened to your head?”
“Slipped in the bathroom,” I told him, and drew a few polite frowns of sympathy from the little group of listeners.
“Well, you can still drink, can’t you? Alfonso, get a drink for this man, fer chrissakes, una bebida para el señor. He’s been standing here for an hour.” He tried to focus on my face and brushed back the long strands of hair that had fallen into his eyes. “I’m a little—” he gave a silly grin—”where did we meet, anyway?”
“The consulate, maybe,” I said, taking the gin-and-tonic the bartender handed me.
“Sure. The Newberrys’ Christmas party. Wait a minute—I wasn’t here Christmas.”
I left him wondering about it and drifted toward another group. A voice caught me and I turned.
“I don’t think we’ve met.”
Her head came no higher than my shoulders and she had to look up at an absurd angle to catch my eyes. She had straw-colored hair, blue eyes, and a mouth that was too wide to make her pretty, but the smile was friendly and there was something about her that made me feel I had known her for some time. Her body was still that of a girl, as the bathing suit clearly showed, but she must have been twenty, I judged.
“I don’t think so,” I said. “My name is David Dennison.”
“I’m Laurie. What do you do, David?”
“Well, I write articles for the magazines that are stupid enough to pay me.”
“Are there many?”
“Sometimes.”
“Is that why you’re here?”
“You guessed it.”
“How long have you known Alexandra?” she asked.
Watching her grin turn mischievous, I decided to play along: “Not long.”
“And what happened to your head?”
“He slipped while trying to escape a persistent young female who would not leave him alone,” said an accented voice. I turned to see Dr. Alfredo Peón. “Then,” he continued, the sardonic smile still on his face, “he came to the best doctor in Tabasco who fixed the wound, but advised him to have caution of persistent young females.”
I found myself shaking the doctor’s hand.
“Delighted that you could come,” he said with a wink, squeezing my arm with his free hand. “I took the liberty of mentioning Mr. Dennison to your mother, over the phone.”
“You were pretty sure I’d come,” I said.
“Just a little hunch.” He steered us toward a table. “Querida,” he said, bending over to touch a shoulder, “quiero presentar al Señor Dennison.”
The woman who looked up at me was striking with a smoky beauty that made my stomach tighten. Maybe thirty, she managed to freeze Latin womanhood in its prime, and I suspected she knew it.
“Encantado,” I said.
“Encantada,” she replied, giving me a polite smile and her hand.
“My wife Gloria,” the doctor said superfluously. I felt a twinge of déja vu.
“H
ave we met?” I asked her in Spanish. Her brow wrinkled into a slight frown and I shrugged. “Perhaps not. It must be from seeing you in the picture on your husband’s desk.”
She gave a little nod. “Perhaps.”
But I had seen her one other time today, and it was not in a demure portrait in a doctor’s office. It was in a series of glossy closeups that I had taken from a dead man’s house. And maybe she had seen me, the first time through a one-way mirror, and the second time standing in the middle of a street, but if so, she gave me no indication, and I did not get a chance to probe further because the water burst on the surface of the pool and a woman came up the ladder and toward us. Her bikini showed a body thirty years old, tanned and firm, and without the flab of middle age, but her face, seamed like a map, told the truth: she had not been thirty for two decades, at least. What the tropics had done to keep her body young had been reversed in her face. Her hair was white now, her eyes a faded blue, but she had been a looker in her day.
Alfredo Peón took her arm. “Alexandra, this is the gentleman I called you about—Mr. Dennison.”
Alexandra Whitcomb smiled and gave me a hand. “So happy you could come. I see you’ve already met my daughter, Laurie. I was just getting ready to announce our early dinner.”
She lifted a hand, and a white-coated servant nodded and began to move from one group of guests to the other. One by one, the little knots of people gravitated to the serving line. I followed Alexandra Whitcomb to the line and took a healthy serving of queso relleno and guacamole salad, and let the bartender give me a mug of draft beer.
Laurie Whitcomb pointed to a table. “There’s a place with us,” she said, and I followed her over.
A middle-aged man with a pencil-line moustache put down his plate and held a chair for a dark-haired woman.
Alexandra said, “Mr. Dennison, I’d like you to meet Jonah Newberry, the U.S. Consul, and Mrs. Newberry.”
We shook hands and took our chairs.
“I’m told that you have some of Alfredo Peón’s handiwork,” Alexandra said, glancing at my head.
I allowed a rueful smile. “I’m afraid I took a spill in my bathroom,” I said.