“You can’t stay here,” Hooker said.
“Why not?”
“Because this is where I live, and I live alone.”
“It is not natural for a man to live alone.”
“I like it.”
Alita turned in a slow circle, taking in the scattered newspapers, the crumpled clothing, the unwashed dishes mounded in the sink, the unmade bed. “You could use somebody to tidy things up for you.”
“You can’t stay here.”
“Maybe just once in a while?” She moved forward until their bodies touched.
“Oh, what the hell,” he said.
• • •
During the two years since that night, Hooker found, to his surprise, that it was a growing pleasure to have the girl around. She kept just enough of her things at his place to stay a few days at a time and never hung around long enough to get tiresome or to disrupt his life.
After the unpleasantness with Zucci, Alita’s father wisely sold his poker concession at the old house and invested in a shop that sold authentic Mexican handicrafts he obtained cheaply from Japan. When Alita was not with Hooker, she helped Tulio in the shop and lived in the small apartment behind it.
• • •
Thinking about the warm brown girl who lay next to him now, Hooker had a pang of regret about accepting the job in Quintana Roo. He shook it off.
“I’ve got to go.”
Alita made a small sound of protest and hugged him closer.
“Save it, chiquita,” he said. “I’ll be back in two weeks. Maybe less.”
“I got a bad feeling about this job, Hooker.”
“I don’t want to hear any more about that.”
“Do you have to go right this minute?”
“I’m already late.”
“Just a little while longer?” Her hands moved familiarly over his body.
“Oh, what the hell,” Hooker said.
Half an hour later, he got out of bed.
CHAPTER 11
Connie Braithwaite stood in the dressing room of her suite at the Hotel Palacio and studied her reflection in the full-length mirror. She did not have to spend any time on her face. Connie knew she was beautiful. She had been blessed with good bones, a flawless skin, and blue eyes that could knock a man down. She appreciated these gifts and saw little reason for trying to improve on them. Well, maybe just a touch of mascara and a dusting of flesh-tone talcum powder. Rather, it was her outfit that occupied Connie’s attention. It had been purchased at Ambercrombie & Fitch before leaving New York expressly for the anticipated trek into the jungle.
She nodded approvingly at the tailored twill jacket and the sand-colored breeches. The soft leather boots were just right, and the light blue scarf at her throat added the necessary touch of color. She tried on the pith helmet. She adjusted it at various angles before putting it aside with an impatient frown. The stupid thing made her look like Maureen O’Sullivan in that Tarzan movie before she took her clothes off.
Her blonde hair had been cut short to make it easy to care for on the journey, but Connie was not satisfied with the set. The hair lay too close to her head and felt stiff. It was her own fault, Connie decided, for trusting the Mexican hairdresser who worked for the hotel.
• • •
Out in the sitting room, Earle Maples glanced without much interest through the open door at his employer’s self-examination. Vain bitch, he thought. Nothing but big blue eyes and a pair of tits, but they bought her everything she wanted. He transferred his attention out the window to the people six stories below going about their business or loitering in the park. Or maybe loitering in the park was their business. It did not really matter to Earle what Mexicans did as long as they kept well away from him.
Mexico was a tedious country, he decided. Tedious and dirty. Earle had come there well supplied with medicines and had assiduously avoided drinking the water, yet he had not escaped a mild case of the ubiquitous dysentery that was known by a number of supposedly humorous names. Montezuma’s revenge, Aztec two-step, tourist trots. Disgusting. The affliction had forced Earle to change his underwear three times a day. He could not bear the thought of soiled clothing next to his skin.
He looked again at Connie Braithwaite primping before the mirror. One would think she was going to a costume party rather than a trek into some filthy jungle. For all Earle knew, maybe that was the way she thought of this venture.
He wondered, without really caring, whether she would sleep with the big American called Hooker. He supposed a woman might find the man attractive, but he was too scruffy and rough spoken for Earle’s taste.
Thinking about Hooker reminded Earle of the dreadful experience with the two Mexican toughs outside the cantina. Nothing like that had happened to him since his early days at boarding school. He had been rescued that time by an understanding English teacher. He smiled at the memory of how very understanding the man had been.
His reverie was interrupted by Connie Braithwaite, standing suddenly in the doorway.
“How do I look?” she asked.
“Smashing.”
“I don’t know; I can’t seem to get the hair right. There isn’t time to have it done again, but I wanted it to look nice for starting out today.”
Yes, Earle thought, she’s going to sleep with Hooker. “Why don’t you brush it out in the back, make it more fluffy, and comb the bangs off at an angle?”
Connie went back and took another look in the mirror. “Yes, I think that might work.”
“Would you like me to brush it for you?” Earle said without enthusiasm.
“No, I can do it, but it will take me a little while. Will you be a darling and take my bags to the airfield? You can catch a taxi and wait there for me. Tell Hooker and the pilot that I’ll be right along. I’ll ride out in the hotel limousine; then it can bring you back here.”
Earle sighed and rose languidly from the chair. These delays were so annoying. He was anxious to have Connie on her way so he could have the suite to himself. There was a flirty-eyed waiter in the hotel dining room who might help make his stay in this wretched city more bearable.
While Connie worked on her hair, Earle had her three matched leather bags carried down to the lobby and loaded into one of the rattletrap taxis that prowled the streets of Veracruz. He directed the driver to take him to the airfield, then carefully spread his handkerchief on the back seat before sitting down.
The inside of the taxi smelled of unwashed bodies and other unpleasant things Earle did not want to think about. His view of the carbuncle on the back of the driver’s neck was hardly inspiring, either. For relief, he closed his eyes and sent his mind back to other places, other times.
His early childhood memories were of an angry, ineffectual father, exasperated by a son who took no interest in rough-and-tumble play, an older brother who treated him with contempt, and a strong-willed mother who would press his little face against her soft stomach to soothe him when he was upset. Try as he might, Earle could remember nothing happy about those early years.
Boarding school had started off badly, too, until the English teacher, Mr. Andreth, had taught Earle what he was and how to live with it. Then it was prep school, Cornell, and a job as a trainee with one of the better Wall Street brokerage houses. His winning way with elderly lady clients soon established Earle as a young man with a bright future in the business. Then came the damned crash, and his life was spun around and set on a new course.
There followed three horrid years of selling shoes, forcing himself to smile while handling people’s stinking feet. At night, he had to do secretarial work at home to make enough to keep his clean little room in Greenwich Village.
Then, in 1932, he had done a freelance stenographic job for one of Nolan Braithwaite’s companies and had fallen into a chance meeting with the great man himself. Braithwaite was one of the unique breed of men who actually made money during the Depression. He was impressed by Earle’s precise work, his promptness, and his t
horoughly professional attitude. And he did not give a damn about Earle’s sexual preferences.
Before he knew what was happening, Earle found himself hired as Nolan Braithwaite’s personal secretary, entrusted with company business that was withheld from men who had been with Braithwaite for many years. It did not take Earle long to realize that one of his attractions for Nolan Braithwaite was his trustworthiness as far as the great man’s stunning young bride was concerned. There were many whispered rumors of Connie’s escapades with some of her husband’s former employees. Emphasis on the former. Nothing was proved. As for Earle, he didn’t care who the woman fucked as long as it did not jeopardize his comfortable new position.
The six years he had worked for Nolan Braithwaite were the happiest by far of Earle Maples’ life. The surroundings were luxurious; the job was interesting without taxing his abilities. Moroever, he was treated with respect by the Braithwaite employees, who recognized that he had the ear of the boss. And there were the peripheral benefits like the regular trips to the fabled resorts of the world. Earle particularly enjoyed Paris and the French Riviera. In that enlightened country, his way of life was not only tolerated, it was encouraged. Now it looked as though the disgusting Germans were going to plunge the continent into war, depriving Earle Maples of so many of the things he enjoyed.
Since the disappearance and probable death of Nolan Braithwaite, Earle’s position had lost much of its security. Connie had kept him on in a semblance of his former job, although his duties now seemed more those of a companion than a personal secretary. He had no fondness for the woman, whom he considered a crass opportunist, but he was as anxious as she for some legal proof of Braithwaite’s demise so his own status could be clarified. He was sure that somewhere among the papers that would be unsealed with the old man officially dead, provision would be made for the comfortable future of Earle Maples.
“Señor.”
Earl’s eyes snapped open as he realized that the taxi driver was speaking to him. He looked out the window and saw that they had come to a stop next to a dusty stubble field.
“What’s the matter?”
“El aeropuerto está aquí.”
Earle looked up ahead and saw a barnlike building of rusty corrugated iron and several smaller sheds that looked ready to fall down. Standing in the field were a couple of worn-out biplanes of World War vintage and a sturdy-looking red and white monoplane that stood taller than the others.
“It’s not exactly Idlewild,” he remarked.
“Señor?”
“No es importante,” Earle said, giving the words his best Castilian inflection.
At Earle’s direction, the driver pulled the three bags from the taxi and carried them to the hangar. Each man’s attitude was heavy with contempt for the other.
• • •
Hooker jumped down from the truck of the papaya grower who had given him a lift to the airfield. He thanked the man, grabbed the canvas case that held the weapons and his few personal belongings, and trudged across the stubble toward the hangar. He found Klaus Heinemann standing inside with his arms folded and a puzzled look on his face.
“Sorry I’m late, Kraut,” he said. “I had a little trouble getting out of bed this morning.”
“I can well imagine,” Heinemann said, “but it doesn’t matter, since the boss lady is not here yet.”
Hooker looked down at the three matched pieces of expensive luggage. “What’s that?”
“Judging from the monogram CLB, I assume it is what the lady intends to bring along.”
“Three suitcases?”
“Three suitcases and no lady.”
“Who brought them?”
“I don’t know. I was out with the airplane, and I heard a car drive away very fast. When I got here, I found the bags.”
“Peculiar,” Hooker said. He nodded toward the ancient crank telephone that hung on one of the hangar walls. “Have you tried to call her at the hotel?”
“I felt that you, as head of the expedition, should be the one to tell our boss to get her tail down here.”
Hooker started for the telephone but came to a stop at the roar of a powerful automobile engine outside. He and Heinemann exchanged a look, then went to the door that faced the dirt road.
The Cadillac limousine from the Hotel Palacio veered off the road and roared toward them across the field, raising a cloud of red-brown dust. The car jammed to a stop in front of them, and the driver sprang out to open the rear door. Connie Braithwaite, immaculate in her jungle outfit and redone hair, stepped out and smiled brightly.
“Hi, fellas. Am I late?”
“A little,” Hooker said.
“Your baggage has preceded you,” Heinemann said.
“Yes, I sent Earle ahead with the bags to speed things up.” She looked around. “Where is he?”
Heinemann looked puzzled. “Earle?”
“My secretary. I told him to explain that I would be delayed, then wait here for me. Apparently, he went back alone.”
“I heard a car drive away,” Heinemann said. “I saw no one.”
“Don’t look at me,” Hooker put in. “I just got here.”
“Well, I guess he was in a hurry to get back to the hotel.” Connie fanned her face with a hand. “It’s already getting hot out here. Shall we load up the plane?”
Heinemann cleared his throat and looked at Hooker.
Hooker walked back inside the hangar and tapped one of the suitcases with his foot. “Were you planning on taking all of these?”
“Too much?” she asked innocently.
“It is, unless we want to leave either the gasoline or the pilot behind. How about cutting it down to one bag.”
“Impossible. I might be able to make do with two.”
Hooker sighed. Heinemann looked at him and said quickly, “Perhaps if it were the two smaller bags, we might be able to fit them in.”
“Oh, I suppose, if we have to,” Connie said. “That means I’ll have to repack and send the extra things back to the hotel with the driver. I wish Earle had waited. He’s much better at this than I am.”
At the moment Earle Maples had put down Connie’s bags in the rusty hangar, something happened that made him abandon any thought of waiting for her at the airfield. He had urged his taxi driver to use all possible speed in returning to the city. On the way, he had passed, unknowingly, the vegetable truck carrying Hooker in the opposite direction. Earle was too filled with a new sense of purpose in his life to pay any attention to trucks on the road. For the only time he could remember, he was actually taking action for the sake of someone other than himself. It was a feeling utterly foreign to him, yet exhilarating.
Even as he leaned eagerly forward in the back seat of the taxi, he wondered if he was a fool for getting involved now. Sternly, he reminded himself that John Hooker did rescue him from an extremely ugly situation. Perhaps even saved his life. It was a debt Earle might now be able to repay.
The taxi wound through the narrow streets of Veracruz and came to a stop before a nondescript building with a small grocery store on the ground floor and three floors of dingy windows above. A narrow entrance led into the building.
What a dreadful place to live, Earle thought. For a moment he considered telling the driver to take him back to the hotel, then he remembered his new-found resolve and stepped out of the taxi. He handed the driver a bank note without looking at the denomination and said, “Espéreme.”
Earle went through the entrance and stood for a moment blinking at the gloom. A hallway led back through the building to a rear exit. At one side was a flight of stairs. Earle started for them.
He had not seen the towering figure that came out of the next doorway up the street and followed him into the building. But the taxi driver saw, and the hairs rose among the boils on the back of his neck. He took one look at the strange blank eyes and the flap of raw flesh that hung loose at the side of the head and decided instantly that this was one fare he was not going to wait
for. He tromped down on the accelerator and roared away in a cloud of blue smoke.
Inside, Earle had climbed only three stairs when a huge rough hand clamped over his face. His eyes bulging in terror, unable to cry out, Earle felt an arm that was thick as his own leg wrap around his rib cage. He was dragged back to the bottom of the stairs and lifted off the floor with no apparent effort by whoever, or whatever, had hold of him.
The big scaly hand across his face obscured Earle’s vision and made it difficult for him to breathe. He suddenly lost control of his bladder, and a small part of his mind recoiled in disgust as he was carried the length of the hallway and out the back door. He seemed to be in an alley of some kind. The smells were garbage and urine. His own.
The arm wrapped around his chest was abruptly removed, and Earle had a moment of wild hope that he would be set free. Then the second enormous hand clamped onto his head so he was held motionless in the double grip. Earle Maples knew several seconds of terrible pain, then his skull cracked and crumpled in on itself like an egg.
From overhead came the drone of the Stinson’s engine as the red and white plane flew south toward Yucatan. The huge figure in the alley, its hands covered with blood and brains, did not look up. Earle Maples would never look at anything again.
CHAPTER 12
The air inside the Stinson’s cabin was warm and heavy with moisture despite the open ventilators. Klaus Heinemann kept a close watch on the instruments as the plane banked east to cut across the Bay of Campeche. The sky above them was a dull metal gray, reflected in the water below. Connie had removed her jacket and scarf and opened the top buttons of her blouse. Hooker, in the seat next to Heinemann, scowled out the window, straining to keep the coast line in sight.
“Does this thing float?” he asked, raising his voice to be heard over the drone of the engine.
“Oh, certainly,” the German said.
Hooker relaxed a little.
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