"We set the schedule. I gave him five thousand dollars and suggested he take her to Coatzacoalcos on the Gulf of Campeche, on the pretext of taking her to where Bix was. Transportation is awkward from there to Oaxaca. He had a car. He could drive far into the night. It is something over three hundred miles from Oaxaca. He was to abandon her there, without funds, and return quickly. I would wait until a nine o'clock flight out of Oaxaca Monday evening. I would give him the rest of the money then, and he would, if ever questioned, swear he had loaned Bix money to fly back to the States."
But, she related, she had been awakened at midnight on Sunday night to be told that the young American was back, that he was on foot, that he was at the gate demanding to be let in. She dressed and went down to the gate and they talked in the courtyard. He said he had been too tired to drive so far. He thought it would be just as good to take her up into the mountains. She had gone willingly when he said that Bix needed her and he was taking her to where Bix was. But she became suspicious. He had found a place to pull off the road when night fell. He had kept her there with him. He had wanted to wait long enough so that she, Mrs. Vitrier, would think he had taken Minda a long way away. He had not wanted to lose track of her because of her resale value. It was his plan to tie her to a tree or something, out of sight of the highway on Monday, and go down and get the money and come back, and pick her up again and make his deal with Wally.
Late Sunday afternoon while she was napping in the back seat of the little car, he had fallen asleep in the front seat. He had slept so heavily that apparently she had been able to work the car keys out of his pocket, put the key into the ignition, silently open a front door, brace her back against the other door, put her feet against him and suddenly shove him out onto the ground, yank the door shut and lock it. As he tried to break in, she got it started and pulled out and headed down the mountain, accelerating. He had picked a spot, after a long walk, where trucks would have to shift way down to negotiate a steep uphill curve. He had to wait hours before one came along with a tailgate he could climb onto. He had dropped off in the city and made his way to Eva's house. When he found that Minda had never arrived, he was certain she had gone off the mountain. And if she had, she was dead.
"I took him to the sitting room which adjoins my bedroom. We discussed the possible repercussions of this event. It had been a car he had taken without permission, but he was quite certain the owner would give very little if any information to the police, and he explained why. By then, you see, I knew that a car had gone off the mountain, and they would look for it by daylight. It sickened me to think of it. She was being very difficult, but I had not wished that for her. But it had happened. And in many ways it simplified things. One must be mature and accept facts, yes? So he said he must have the rest of the money because it had been promised. He was looking at me strangely I thought. He said that in addition, I would give him the ten thousand he would have gotten from the father. I told him that was not my affair. He said it had become my affair. I had given him money to get rid of the girl and he had gotten rid of her. He said it would all be difficult to explain.
"By then I began to see that he could be of some danger to me. He was greedy and crafty and brutal, but not intelligent. It had been a mistake to make an arrangement with him. I knew that to disarm him I had to appear to be... manageable. I said I did not have so much in American dollars in the house, but I could make up the difference in Swiss francs. I got it all for him and explained the rate of exchange. I even told him the name I use in this hotel. He counted the money too many times and, also, too many times he told me that it was the last time I would have to give him money. It meant that he was thinking that he would ask again.
"He began looking at me in another strange way and said that we were now associated in this affair. He said he knew from Minda what I was, but that it would please him to come into my bed and use me as a woman, just to verify our trust and friendship. I told him there would be no pleasure in it for me, and he said that it did not particularly matter whether there was or not. At such times one must be very careful. And so I pretended fear and begged him not to, then seemed to accept the inevitable, and asked him if he minded if I had some brandy before all this would take place. He said, as I expected, that he would enjoy some also, and that we could drink a toast and seal the bargain. I got a special bottle kept in a special place, and silver glasses so that he could not tell that I would let it run out of my mouth back into the glass. In a little while he smiled foolishly and his words blurred and soon his head toppled forward and he began to snore. I took the money from him and replaced it in the wall safe in the back of my bedroom closet. I felt as if I were moving through a dream. I had quite a lot of the meperedine left, which we had sometimes given Bix when she became unmanageable. Ten little ampules. I had been taught how to administer hypodermics when my first husband was dying, and of course I had given Bix injections. I prepared him properly, with an alcohol swab, and knelt by his chair. But I could not. One wonders if it is possible to kill a human being. I had a dozen reasons to do this thing. But I could not. I could touch the point to the vein on the inside of his arm, but I could not shove it through the skin, no matter what I told myself."
So in the end she had tied him securely, binding his wrists and ankles to the heavy chair. She had paced the floor until dawn, wondering what to do. When he began stirring, she had sedated him heavily. On Monday morning, early, Wally McLeen had arrived, having at last tracked his missing daughter to her house. She had taken him to the garden house and had given him some of the vivid highlights of Minda's Mexican vacation, throwing in incidents that had happened to Bix as though they had happened to Minda, including how Rockland had taken her into the cornfield to service the men who had showed up out of the night at the campsite. From his reactions she was afraid he was having a massive coronary. When he was at last more normal, she had said that it was possible that Minda was dead and that Rockland was responsible. She did not say more than that. She said that if he would get hold of some vehicle and if he would come to the vehicle gate at ten that night, there was a possibility she might be able to deliver Rockland over to him, so that he could take Rockland to the police. She showed him where the vehicle gate was. She would not answer his questions.
She had then decided, later on in the day, hearing that the body could not be identified, that if she made an appearance and made the identification and then said that the last she had seen of the girl was when she had driven off with Rockland on Saturday, it would help insulate her against any further accusation.
"But when I saw how... the terrible condition of the body, I knew that one could identify it as almost anyone. There was the chain, of course, that Minda wore about her ankle. But who could say that Bix did not wear one and it was not that one? Or could say those were not Bix's red shoes? I had the personal papers and personal things of both of them. My mind raced. I stood holding the perfumed handkerchief against my nose. I saw how it could be. If it was Bix who died, she would be mine without question. So I identified her and the police came to my house and I gave them Bix's things. I brought Minda's papers here, and I arranged to have the permit renewed under Minda's name without Bix having to appear. I sent all the servants out that night. I opened the gate for Mr. McLeen. I helped him get Rockland down and into the trunk of an American sedan Mr. McLeen had rented. Mr. McLeen was very strange. He whistled and he walked on his toes, and he said that everything was splendid, that Minda was going to come back to Oaxaca and he would wait around for her until she returned. Rockland was very groggy. When he was curled up in the trunk compartment on his side, Mr. McLeen gave him little pats on the back and called him son and said everything would be arranged properly. I thought I was all right. I thought I was not feeling much of anything. But when I had shut the gate again, all of a sudden without warning, I vomited. Afterward, I felt so faint it took me a long time to finish packing the last few things. I flew from Oaxaca Tuesday on the early schedule. Bix wa
s happy to see me, happy as a Christmas child."
She was watching my face carefully.
Bix came out of the bathroom again. "Please?"
"All right, dear girl. Sit over there on the couch and be quiet. Mr. McGee, does she look abused? Surely you must have the right to make choices in your work. I am fond of her. I cherish her. I will take her to lovely secluded places. Look how splendid that color is for her. It makes those deep blue eyes look almost deep violet. I will dress her in indigo, and in the good blues and greens and grays. Cool tones suit her kind of beauty. I can control her... need for escape into drugs. She will not be sick, or lonely, or institutionalized. Can anyone else in the world promise that? Can her own people promise that? What do you return to them if you do your nasty little job, Mr. McGee? A young girl with a drug retarded mind. A committed and incurable addictive personality. A committed and incurable lesbian. A person the police of your country will be watching closely, as they promised. You will be taking back heartbreak. Isn't it kinder, by far, to let her stay dead?"
"Dead?" asked Bix.
"The kid asks a good question, French lady. So do you."
"Think about it carefully, please."
So I sat and thought about it. It was nice and easy, her way. Let the dead stay dead. Tell a happy story to good old Harlan Bowie. Feed Meyer the story Eva had fed me through the chained door. Go back and romp away the final few days of Elena's vacation. Mission accomplished. But should the father have the chance to undo the damage that he had started and others had finished? He had a lot of money, enough to buy penance, good clinics, sleep therapy.
"I have a wall safe here," she said. "In that closet. I think there is the equivalent of about forty thousand American dollars. I can give you that now, and I can have an additional hundred and sixty thousand here by the day after tomorrow."
"You buy the girl for two hundred thou?"
"That is a clumsy way to put it. I buy her happiness, and mine. I can afford it."
"I know. You earned it. The hard way."
I walked over toward her. She stood up and looked up at me, and I saw the hard mocking confidence in the back of her eyes. She was wearing the small smile of the winner. So I smiled too, and I sighed, and I wondered if it was getting to be too attractive a habit as I steadied her with one hand, chopped the side of that long muscular throat with the other, caught her as she dropped, and slung her onto the bed.
Bix had stood up. "Now what are you doing?"
"I am going to take you for a nice little ride in a nice murderous taxi, sweetie."
"To the movies?"
"Maybe. Why don't you go put some clothes on? Where are they?"
"In there. In that other room in the closet and all over."
"Go get dressed."
"Sure."
She went into the next room. I wanted to fix French lady so she would stay put for a nice long time, but not too long, in case nobody dared unlock the suite unless asked. I yanked the sheets out from under her and took them in and dropped them in the tub and got them sopping wet. I took them out and spread them out on the rug, took her out of her gray robe, put her down at one end of the soaked sheets, and rolled her up in them like a window shade. I put her back on the bed with the last wet end tucked neatly under her. As long as they stayed wet, she stayed still. When they dried out, she would wiggle loose.
I pried her jaw down and found that in spite of the plump little meaty mouth, there was room in there for a hell of a lot of Kleenex, if you packed it carefully. I knotted a nylon stocking in place, webbing it between her teeth and against the Kleenex so she couldn't tongue it out of the way and start yelling.
Then I went in to see how Bixie was progressing. She had lost ground, because she had shed the robe and added one lacy pale-green bra. So I told her I expected her to shape up better than that, which at the moment was the wrong expression, and I started digging around trying to find what you put on a naked young girl to take her to the Embassy in the middle of the night.
I heard some kind of disturbance, but by then I had found where the skirts and blouses and sweaters were. So I took time to match them up reasonably well. Bix had gone back into the first bedroom. I heard a lovely gasping delighted giggling, and I heard some kind of muffled grunting and thrashing.
When I hurried in I saw that Bix was bending over the bed, and she had grasped Eva Vitrier firmly with thumb and first two fingers, right by the Neferati nose, thus cutting off all air except what the woman might try to suck through all that Kleenex. French lady's face had turned very, very dark. Her eyes were bulging and blind, and she was spasming and grunting and flapping, looking very much like an oversized, dying whitefish in the bottom of a skiff. And, believe me, she did not have very far to go. Like twenty seconds more, possibly. I snatched Bix's playful fingers off lovergirl's nose, and Eva subsided, breath whistling as she hyperventilated through that noble beak. She opened her eyes and looked up at me, in combination loathing and appeal. Her effort had burst a blood vessel in one eye, and half the white had turned bright crimson.
I tucked her wet sheet firmly under her, patted her on the cheek, took Bixie in, and crowded her into her clothes. She passed inspection. In the elevator on the way down she said, "Wasn't Eva funny? Wasn't she funny, though?"
"She was a scream, kid."
"I wish you hadn't made me stop."
"So do I, sort of."
So we taxied to the Embassy, not far down Reforma, and stood on the wide sidewalk as the cab went away. She yawned.
"Is this the movies?"
"Bixie baby, things can get very, very, very rough for you. I don't even know if you can understand how rough they have been, or will get. I would feel a lot better if I thought maybe you could cut it."
"Oh hell yes," she said.
"Let's go in."
Nineteen
MEYER WAS at the Oaxaca airport to meet me when I came back from Florida via Mexico City five days later.
He looked fit and smug and amused, and he wore a straw hat from the market and a blue shirt covered with zippers with metal rings in them.
I peeled out of the inbound line and said, "Relapse? What the hell kind of a relapse are you having?"
"It's no worse than a bad cold."
"Then you could have all by yourself gotten on a plane and all by yourself flown home, right?"
"But I don't like to travel alone. Anyway, are you paying for the extra trip?"
"No. But this isn't the happiest place in the world to come back to, for me. I guess you know that."
"Oh, I guess I do. But I don't have to get depressed just because you do. That wasn't such a great phone connection. How did Harl take it?"
"How the hell did you expect him to take it? He's bursting with joy and hope and all that, in a good effort to hide the fact that what we took back there to him might be, in his code of values, better off dead. She started coming apart. She was very, very raggedy by the time the reunion happened."
"Nothing out of the Vitrier woman?"
"What could she do? Why should she try to do anything? And they had to buy my story. I saw the girl wandering around near Sanborne's. I was sure I recognized her as Beatrice Bowie, who was supposed to have died. In fact, I was in Mexico at her father's request, finding out how she died. Here you are, Embassy. Straighten things out. They would rather have had me hand them some armed infernal device. They hated it. They kept looking very Princeton and sighing and hunting for new forms to fill out. Meyer, goddamit, pack! I want to be home. I want to be on the Flush. I want to go to some island no developer has ever found yet, where no beer can has yet washed ashore."
"Enjoy beautiful Oaxaca."
And she hit me at a dead run, grabbing and laughing and saying if we were going to stand out here all day, she, Elena, could not wait for the surprise.
I told her she was supposed to be back at work. She told me she wanted a little more vacation, and so did Margarita, and so they took a little more.
"But ca
n they just do that?" I asked Meyer.
"When Enelio Fuentes owns that much of the insurance company they can, buddy."
So we had drinks and dinner at the Victoria, abundant and long and I tried to be festive, but it kept slipping on me. I kept worrying the whole thing. Picking at it. Meyer said impatiently, "Will you kindly get off that tiresome point of no return, McGee? Please? For me? And for these Guadalajara girls, and for your own sake? A grown-up man must make a lousy decision from time to time, knowing it is lousy, because the only other choice is lousy in another dimension, and no matter which way he jumps, he will not like it. So he accepts the fact that the fates dealt him two low cards, and he goes on from there. Or better, why don't you two go on from here. I seem to have been moved into another cottage, and only this insurance friend of mine seems able to find it after dark."
John D MacDonald - Travis McGee 11 - Dress Her in Indigo Page 25