Misdirection. Nice footwork. Toss in a thought that warps the mind. Maybe it was true. So how to test it?
It took me quite a segment of silence to come up with the leverage. "You are a clever man, Bruce. Look at it this way. Nobody knows where Rocko is. It wouldn't be hard to prove he lived here with you. You are very nervous about the whole thing. I can get the information to Sergeant Martinez that you fought with Rockland. I can tell him that he can find traces of human blood on the stone floor of the shed out behind this place. I can tell him your story about Rockland going to Acapulco, and I guess they could check that out and see if he did. Then I would suggest that they take this place apart looking for a body and take you apart to see what you know about it."
"You are such a cruel son of a bitch."
"So?"
"All right! All right! All right! I nearly moved away from here after the first four months. I had a stupid mishap with the car I had then. A drunken old fool on a bicycle ran right into the side of the car. And so I... enjoyed the hospitality of the local prison. My dear friend Freddy, now deceased, tried frantically to get me out, but they managed to hold me there five days. Police the world over seem to have this compulsion to mistreat men of my particular sexual pattern. They treated me with contempt. I did not mind that. I considered the source. The brutality from the jailors could be endured. But each night I was locked into a very large cell with the very dregs of Mexico, who had been informed, of course, of what I was. And so I was used and abused. They degraded me. It put me into a depression that lasted for months. Freddy talked me out of leaving Mexico. He said it would be the same anywhere in the world. That is a valid observation. We have no recourse in the law, really. And Walter Rockland knew that when he tried to make off with some very valuable things. He knew that I would not report the theft, that I would not dare report it for fear they'd think of some pretext for locking me up again. I don't think I could endure that a second time. If you understand that, Mr. McGee, and understand my absolute terror, then I can tell you what happened."
He told us that Walter, as he called him, had stayed in bed all day Friday, and had said on Saturday morning that he still felt unwell, but begged to be allowed to leave. Bruce told him to rest. At noon on Saturday while Bruce was in the kitchen fixing something for a light lunch, he had been struck from behind and knocked unconscious. When he regained consciousness, Walter was gone. So were his car keys, a couple of hundred pesos from his wallet, and his yellow English Ford. At first he had been afraid Walter had broken in and taken the valuables which he had locked up after the first atiempt, but they were still there. He had no intention of reporting it as a theft. He still had the truck and camper, and they were worth more than the car Walter had taken.
On Monday, in the middle of the morning, the police had come to see him. They had asked him about his car, asked him where it was. He had thought they had picked Walter up, and he remembered Walter's hints about needing the money for some illegal act. He could not be tied in with any illegality, so he had invented the fictitious young American named George, and had described him in a way that would fit half the young Americans in Mexico on summer vacation. Only after they had made him go over the story several times did they tell him that an unidentified girl had gone off the mountain road, that his car was a total loss and the girl was dead.
Later that day, before learning that Eva Vitrier had identified the body, Bruce had gone to Becky and told her the whole story and had asked her what she thought he should do. He was frightened that Walter was involved somehow in the girl's death, and that if they picked up Walter he would manage to involve Bruce somehow.
Becky thought it was logical that Walter Rockland would come back after his truck, and that Bruce should leave the shed unlocked and leave the keys in it, and replace the rotor. Maybe somebody would steal it, or Rocko would retrieve it. And if neither happened, she would help him get rid of it some dark night, follow in her car while he parked it somewhere else in the city; and bring him back. In the small hours of the night, at a little after two o'clock on Tuesday morning, he heard the truck start, heard the backing and filling in the narrow alleyway, heard it speed away, the drone fading into the normal night sounds. And he did not care whether Rocko had taken it or a thief had taken it. He thought he was out of it.
"So weeks later," he said bitterly, "you show up at my door, telling your lies about insurance. I had to let you in, because I had to be certain Rocko hadn't sent you on some kind of blackmail project. But you didn't say the right things because you had no way of knowing."
"Like I have no way of knowing that all this is true."
"It is true. And the Bowie girl is dead. Eva telephoned me to say good-by. She said she did not know when she would be back."
"Where did she go?"
"She never says. I have no idea. I know she was very upset. It was unlike her to... identify the body. I think she had to be certain in her own mind that it was the blond girl, and she was too impatient to wait for them to identify her in some other way. I think it was quite a strong and unusual infatuation for poor Eva."
"Infatuation?"
"You aren't as aware as I thought, McGee. It seemed to me that Becky made it obvious last night that Eva and I are opposite sides of a very old coin. But the approach is not the same. She is very rich and quite impersonal about her... requirements. When she arrives here she will usually have a personal maid with her, never the same one. Girls of a certain type. Bovine, Nordic, bursting with health, quite young, tailored drab uniforms, terribly submissive and polite and humble. Northern Europeans. I suppose it is a great deal more efficient and less wearing than forming emotional attachments, and of course she can afford it without pain. I must say I did get a certain dirty satisfaction out of hearing how distressed she was, and realizing she is just as human and vulnerable as the rest of us. My hands are getting awfully numb. And poor David is in misery. And I have told you the whole thing."
I looked over at Meyer. He had several small purple knuckle-lumps on his forehead. "Do you buy it?" I asked him.
"I buy it."
"How terribly kind!" Bruce said acidly.
"Meyer, I would not like to untie him and have him start making out like we are pine boards and cinder blocks and going into that yelling and grunting bit. So why don't you just take that same walk again, and take a cab from the square to the hotel, and if I'm not there by the time you think I should be..."
So I gave him five minutes and then untied Bruce. He flexed his hands and went at once to David, turned and asked me where my car was and would I please bring it to the front.
They sat in the back. I heard Bruce coaching him in what to say at the hospital. Bruce told me the turns to take. They talked in low tones. I heard Bruce say at one point, "But really! Somebody is going to have to wait on you hand and foot, and shouldn't I have that right? Besides, Davey, it was all settled, wasn't it? And your things are at my place, aren't they? Be practical, darling!"
They got out. Bruce said he could manage from there on, thank you. He gave me an absent nod, and walked David slowly toward the ambulance entrance.
I managed to get lost and ended up back in town rather than out on the Mitla Road. I got lost because my mind was too busy trying to make order out of too many fragments. I went up the hotel hill and around past the lobby entrance and down the cobblestone drive to the cottage carport.
Meyer hadn't left any lights on. I stumbled on the steps to the front porch of the cottage, and I heard the legs of the metal porch chair scrape on the cement as he moved. I groped for the other chair and sat down, feeling a few twinges from the tumble along the tile, and wondering if they would turn into morning aches.
"Hoo, boy," I said. "Dandy little village they've got here. These sweet kindly folk tear me up, they really do. I'm even beginning to wonder about Enelio Fuentes. He'll probably turn out to be a retired female wrestler going around in drag."
"Never fear," said Lady Becky from the neighboring chair. "Enelio is muy ho
mbre. I can so certify."
"How the hell did you get here?"
"That's what I like, dearest. A warm welcome."
"Where is Meyer?"
"He's really a dear man. Did you know that? Oh, I packed him off. I expect he's settling down for the night in one of the other cottages. Things are thinning out, you know. We had a nice little visit, and he went puddling off carrying his little kit. He's marvelously tactful and understanding."
"And treacherous."
"I was driving around and about looking for you, darling, and saw him walking toward the zocalo, so I gave him a lift back here. Thought you might spot my car and turn into a ninny and drive away again. So I parked it discreetly. Travis dear, such a lot of nuisance and nonsense for you to hammer poor Bruce about. All you had to do was come to me. I should have told you all the rest of it."
"If I lived long enough to hear it all."
"But darling, you'll want to hear it from me too, to see if it all matches up, won't you? So doesn't it come out to the same thing? You do struggle so. One would think I was quite sickeningly ugly or a horrid bore."
"If you would kindly be ugly or boring, I would be very grateful."
"But I shall be both soon enough! Any day now one ghastly wrinkle will appear, and all of a sudden I shall be... Doriana Gray? Or like that carriage one of your sentimental poets wrote about. Quite suddenly I shall dwindle into a scruffy little old lady in tennis shoes, peering through bifocals, fussing with her hearing aid, who, in a quavery little old voice, will bore everyone with her memories of lovemaking. I am here because I forgave you."
"Thank you very much, Lady Rebecca. But you see, I wrote you down in one of the pages of my life, and now the pages have been turned, and we cannot go back and reread them because... because..."
"Because the book is very long and life is very short. Nice try, ducks. But I did the writing, and all I wrote was a preface. I told you. I was being a horrible show offy person. I shan't be like that at all. Promise. Besides, you would be cheating me dreadfully. I granted myself a few little moments of climax, dear, but then I nipped the poor struggling things in the bud because, should I let one get truly started, it goes on and on and on, quite unendurably. It is so terribly lasting and intense and exhausting that I have to ration myself carefully. Even so, I go dragging about for days, looking quite puffy and done in. It would be wicked at this stage to deprive me."
I stood up slowly and made a wide circuit of her chair to reach the door. "It may be wicked, Becky. It may be unforgivable. It might even be a shocking lack of courtesy. But I am going to deprive the hell out of both of us, and I am going to get a long night's sleep, alone. Sorry about your pride and all that. Someday I may think back and kick myself. Sorry. Go drive that bubblegum car home. Good night, Lady Rebecca. Bug off, please."
I opened the screen door and reached in and found the switches for the room lights and porch lights and clicked everything on. She stood up and turned to face me, eyes sparkling green through the sheepdog ruff, mouth broadened in a delighted bawdy grin.
"You know, I thought you might be stuffy and standoffish and difficult. So one does what one can to make it a fait accompli, what?"
She wore a wine red hotel blanket gathered closely around her. She laughed and said, "It would take you hours to find where I hid my clothing, dearest."
She dropped the blanket to the porch floor. "What is that quaint Americanism you people use? Peekaboob?"
I flapped a weak and frantic hand at the switches until I hit them back the way they were and we were in darkness. Well, shucks. And puh-shaw, fellas.
"That's right," I said, as she found me, locked on, and strained close. "Exactly right. Peekaboob. Very quaint old saying."
Ten
I SAT out on the cottage porch in the Sundaymorning clang-bang of church bells and rooster announcements. Blue-gray smoke of breakfast fires hazed the morning bowl of the city.
Meyer came tentatively around the corner and looked up at me on the porch. Dopp-kit dangled from one hairy finger.
"Yoo-hoo," he said.
"Yoo-hoo to you, too, my good man."
"I didn't see her car, so I thought... "
"Come, on up. You live here, Meyer. Remember?"
So he came up onto the porch, started to say something, and changed his mind and went silently into the cottage. He came out in a few minutes and sat in the other chair.
"McGee, I thought that you had gotten back and somehow managed to send her on her way, implausible as that may seem. But I can see from the... the wear and tear... that she stayed for a while."
"She went tottering out of here about forty minutes ago, Meyer. She claimed she could walk to her car unaided."
"But... how do you feel?"
"Vibrant, alive, regenerated, recharged."
"I... I'm sorry I let her talk me into moving out for the night, Travis. But I guess you know you can't argue with that woman. She doesn't listen. And after all, it was your personal problem and-"
"Stop apologizing, my good man. No trouble at all. Quite a pleasant night. Active, but pleasant. Now if you would pick me up and take me up to breakfast, we can begin the long day."
We went back to Los Pajaros trailer park. The office and store were closed and locked. We left the rented car outside the gates and walked in. In the space numbered twenty, a Land Rover was parked under a tree with dusty leaves, near the travel trailer of Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin Knighton. The Rover was battleship gray, dusty and road-worn, with tools and gas cans strapped abroad.
He was sitting at an old table, typing with two fingers at respectable speed, apparently copying from ,ycillow handwritten sheets. She was hanging some khaki shirts on a line to dry. They both stopped working as we approached, staring with an air of expectant caution. They could have been brother and sister, slat-thin young people, deeply sun-weathered, small statured, with colorless eyes, mouse hair, that elusive pinched and underprivilaged look around the mouth that seems typical of slum people, swamp people, coal mine people, and mountain people. He wore steel-rimmed glasses, and she had a plastic clothespin in her mouth. "Good morning!" I said.
He took off the glasses and she took out the clothespin. "Howdy" he said, in a voice more appropriate to a seven foot cowboy. "'Morning," she murmured.
"Sorry to bother you. My name is Travis McGee. This is my friend Meyer. The manager said you were acquainted with a man who stayed here for a while, right over there in number seventeen. His name is Rockland."
"Why do you want to talk to me about him?"
"I thought you might have some information that would help us locate him, Mr. Knighton."
"Why do you want to find him?"
"To ask him about a girl who came into Mexico with him."
"Afraid you're wasting time, Mister McGee, covering ground already covered. I think he should have told you he was already here over two weeks ago."
"Who was here?"
"That girl's father. What was his name, hon?"
"McLeen," she answered softly.
"This isn't about the McLeen girl. This is the girl we're asking about." I moved over to the table and handed him the picture.
He looked at it, tilting his head, squinting one eye. "I don't want to tell you something that isn't true. Maybe could you tell me this one's name?"
"Bowie. Beatrice Bowie. She was called Bix."
He was quick. "Was called. Then I wouldn't be breaking news, would I? You know she's dead."
"Yes."
"But you want to ask about her? You related to her?"
"No. Friends of her father. He's unable to travel. He wants to know what things were like for her down here, before she died. They were out of touch."
His wife had hung up the shirts. She came over to the table to look at the photograph. "Never knew she'd been such a pretty one," said Mrs. Knighton.
"We don't want to interrupt your work." Meyer said.
Knighton studied us in turn. He shrugged and stood up, hand out. "I'
m Ben. This here is Laura. Hon, you want to bring us out some of that coffee?"
"Surely," she said. "We take it black with a little sugar." We both nodded acceptance, and she responded with a thin smile and went into the travel trailer. The three of us moved over to the cement picnic table and benches that were, with the fireplace, part of the permanent installation at each site.
"Set," Ben Knighton said. His wife brought coffee, poured it and sat with us. They were comfortable people. He explained that he was on a sabbatical year from Texas Central University, and it was nearly over, and they had to leave in a few days.
He was obviously fond of young people, and he was also well acquainted with the drug scene on campus. It was natural that they would be curious about the five young people who had arrived in the camper back in April.
"Some of them dabble a little, without knowing the least damn thing about what the direct effects and the side effects might be. And some of them turn into heavy users. So you give them what help you can, what help they'll take from you. After a while you learn the categories. There's the predators who get their kicks out of, turning the weaker kids on and taking monetary advantage or sexual advantage of them, or both. And some of the kids are such victims natural born, they seem to be looking for their personal predator. You can tell when a kid is so susceptible he is too far gone before you can manage to get to him. There's a faculty expression. D.T.O.D. Down The Old Drain. Black humor, but so true. They slip through your fingers. I watched them, those five. Rocko is a predator, and one merciless son of a bitch."
John D MacDonald - Travis McGee 11 - Dress Her in Indigo Page 12