He stopped dead still. It was exactly as described: the house of Alexandra Muños de Santis Polk. More majestic than all the other houses in the neighborhood, probably older than most, overly ornate: too many columns, archways, porticoes—yet it was beautiful, with a unity that seemed accidental. But he could see it only at a distance, through the iron-barred breaks in the stone wall—a magnificent wall of volcanic red rock which Howard had called tezontle stone. Mike dawdled his way toward the huge front gates, the great elaborations of wrought metalwork connected to the red lava masonry, and gawped shamelessly up the long driveway at the handsome old edifice.
But he only seemed to be staring at the house; it was the gates themselves that preoccupied him. They were unassailable. Not only immense and conspicuous, they were fortified by an electrical signal case and a massive alarm box. And even if he could get through them once, he’d never do it a second time—carrying a boy.
But there was another gate, in an alleyway, that Howard had in mind. Scale a low wall to enter; use the rear gate to get out. He followed the wall down the side street to see where it might be low enough to climb. It didn’t seem to conform to the description—Polk had said it got lower as it proceeded, but it seemed to maintain an even height, unscalable. Then Mike realized that even in this detail Howard had been accurate. Although the wall wasn’t lower, the pavement itself had ascended gradually and, a few paces later, the stone ended only a couple of feet higher than his head.
He continued in search of the second gate. He had to be more careful now, as he entered the back alley; it was a private passageway. Narrow too, very narrow; he hoped it would be wide enough for the truck. He paced it across. Yes, it was just as wide as Howard had said it was. Then he saw the gate. It was only about four feet across, made of hefty iron rods quite close together, like the door to a prison cell. Unopenable from the outside, it was controlled from the inside by an electric button on an intercom box a good fifteen feet away. Not that Mike could see the button or the box but the diagram said so. By now he had complete faith in the diagram, but he still wished he could get a look at the box itself; it made him uneasy to think he’d have to spot it in the dark. He moved as close to the gate as he could, peering through the bars, toward the left.
He didn’t see the dogs. The first sign that they were there was when he got bitten. He yanked his bleeding hand from the metal bar, pulled back, cursed. It was only then that the dogs made a noise—barked, growled, jumped at the gate, snapped at him and at the metal bars. He’d never known dogs who bit first and barked later, but the two huge hounds were like no dogs he’d ever seen. Their heads were wide, ugly, their jowls heavy, yet their bodies were long and lean. He thought of a mean ferocious mastiff somewhere—was it in a dream or in a book?—yes, The Hound of the Baskervilles. But these savage animals were not in a book; he’d have to meet them again, right here, in the flesh, tonight.
Most worrisome of all: they were not in the plan. Accurate and complete in every detail, Howard’s directions had never mentioned dogs. His first bungle.
The barking of the hounds didn’t stop. Mike heard someone yelling from the house, then footsteps running. He ran too, the whole length of the alley, the direction from which he had come, then quickly down the other street, toward the boulevard. A stroke of luck, a taxicab. He got in and before long the vehicle was in the busy traffic of the Paseo de la Reforma.
Howard’s failure to take the dogs into account continued to disturb Mike. The animals must have been acquired since Howard had last seen the place. But what else did Howard not know about? What other security measures had Lexa taken? Come to think about it, even if Lexa had made no changes at all, how well could Howard reconstruct the house from a memory that went back so far? Mike wished he had had the foresight to ask a good many more questions. He hated being an amateur at anything and had presumed, simply because Howard seemed to have everything worked out, that Polk would never be caught being a novice. But Howard had blundered. It perturbed Mike that there might be other errors in the plan and left him, right now, with the problem: what to do about the dogs?
He toyed with the notion of throwing them poisoned food. But even if he had no scruple against killing the animals, which he had, it wouldn’t be that easy. There’d be the difficulty of getting the poison in a strange city: he didn’t know what questions he’d have to answer, what medical prescription he might be required to furnish; then the problem of whether the dogs had been trained to refuse food from strangers. He dreamed up a dozen plans, all of which were too complex, some of which were ridiculous. He even thought of using the Acetoform, but how would he get close enough to the animals without their chewing his arm off?
He worried about it all through the day. Then, just after nightfall, when he had decided he would have to waste the entire evening, he was struck with an inspiration and realized he could manage the whole thing tonight—handle the dogs, get the boy and go.
* * *
• • •
Well past midnight he went to the garage and claimed the truck. He drove out in it, turned west through the park, into the Lomas de Chapultepec section, toward Lexa’s house. He circled the area a few times to make sure there were no police cars around, then drew up to the alley that led to the rear entrance. He switched off the headlights and in darkness drove slowly into the passageway. He stopped the truck a healthy distance from the barred gate for fear the sound of the vehicle might alert the dogs. When he got out, he didn’t even shut the door behind him, again to avoid sharp noises. He opened the back door and as silently as possible found the tool kit. In the blackness, by touch alone, he selected the tools he needed and stowed them—the screwdriver, pliers and small flashlight in his left-hand coat pocket, the 3-IN-ONE Oil can and roll of black electrical tape in his right. He checked to make sure he was carrying his handkerchief and pocketknife. He closed the back door of the truck, leaving it slightly ajar, no noise. Then he walked out of the alley, down the side street.
He sauntered along the boulevard, near the house, as casually as possible, as if enjoying the peace of the neighborhood and the pleasant cool of the evening. He glanced at the cars parked along the curbstone parallel to the wall that surrounded Lexa’s property. Then he turned back in the direction of the main gates, the enormous ones. As he was getting closer to the end of the wall, where one of the gates joined it, he began to make a closer inspection of the cars parked at the curbstone on his left. He stopped now at the second car from the corner. In his mind he measured the distance from the entrance. He was satisfied it would be close enough. After a quick look around, he darted out in front of the parked car, pressed down on the front of the hood, then tried to lift it. It wouldn’t move. Quickly he moved to the door on the driver’s side, tried to open it. Locked. The other door was locked too. This car wouldn’t do, he would have to try another one. He stepped forward to the next car. It had the advantage of being closer to the gate but the disadvantage of being in the aura of a streetlight. He would have to risk it. Again he tried the hood, again the doors; this time there were four of them. No success. He didn’t like going to the cars that were parked on the side street because the alley was visible there—and he might be seen running into it. But this too he had to risk.
The first car on the side street was an old one and the hood gave. As he raised it he pulled the flashlight out of his pocket, turned it on for only a few seconds, long enough to see the layout of the wiring, put it back in his pocket and went to work with pliers, pocketknife and screwdriver. By touch alone he cut once, he cut again, stripped a wire, then another, spliced—and it happened. The car horn went off—loud.
He slammed the hood shut and as he started to run up the incline, up the side street, he was caught by anxiety—nothing was happening, his trick had failed. Then he heard the dogs, heard them rushing in the opposite direction, to the front gate, racing and barking, setting up a fierce clamor in the night.
Exhilarated, Mike hurried to the spot he had selected, along the wall. It was a good choice, not too high, with a weep hole a quarter of the way up, an excellent place for a foothold. Before raising his foot into it, he listened. The horn was as loud as ever; so were the dogs—he could imagine them snarling and snapping, throwing themselves at the locked front gates. Great.
But just as he was about to put his foot into the weep hole he heard another sound. A siren. The instant it wailed, he saw the flare of lights on the street that paralleled the boulevard. A police car appeared. At the intersection it stopped—the policemen hadn’t yet located the noise. Mike flung himself back against the wall, out of the circle of light from the streetlamp. The police car turned now, down the street, its siren still screaming, its roof light flashing. It barreled right past him on its way toward the car horn and the dogs. When it got to the corner it came to a screeching halt. Two policemen spilled out of the car and ran to the outlaw horn. Mike heard their Latin expostulations as they tried to overshout the horn, the dogs and the gathering group of spectators.
He slipped out into the light, ran a few feet, put his foot in the weep hole and climbed over the wall. The drop was higher than Mike had expected but he fell on soft ground, a flower garden. He looked straight ahead of him, at the house. There was a full moon, unclouded, and what he saw was a white castle out of storybooks, gleaming under a gauze of blue moonlight.
The front entrance was around the corner to the right, the rear was to the left. From where he stood he could barely make out part of the front driveway and a small patch of the parking area, with two cars close to each other. A faint spill of warm yellow light, presumably from the front of the house, illuminated the driveway but not as far down as the main gate.
He started to move, as he was supposed to do, toward the rear of the house. His sketch had not shown the two dog runs, of course, but it did picture the vegetable and flower gardens and the utility yard. All very well kept, neat. And there were the two windows, exactly to the scale of the diagram, and the fanlighted back door. Try the door and windows, Howard had said, you might have a stroke of luck, something might be open. They were all closed, locked tight. But the little balcony on the second floor had a bank of French windows which had been described as lightweight, so one of them would be easy to force. And it wouldn’t be difficult to climb to the balcony, for under it would be the wooden trellis that supported a bougainvillea vine.
He got his second setback: no bougainvillea, no trellis. Worse, the wall of the house was of the smoothest stucco, as glossy as marble, without any ledge, ridge or bump he could set a toe on.
Howard’s second bungle—and there was no time to do anything about it, for the dogs were getting quieter now, getting used to the horn, any minute they’d come thrashing back.
He reached into his pocket for his knife. Hurrying across to the utility yard, he found what he needed—clotheslines. There were perhaps a half dozen of them, taut between metal poles. He cut down two of them, tied a knot, then quickly twisted the ropes into a lariat. It’s been ten years, he thought, since I handled a catch rope; I wonder if I can lasso anything. He made the noose larger than necessary, giving his lack of practice a sizable margin for error. He returned to the balcony and fixed his attention on the metal corner post with a spherical brass finial. He turned the circle of the lariat wiltedly at first, then stiffened and tossed it. First shot, he had it. Yanking the slack out, he tested his weight on the rope once, then climbed. It was easier than roping calves, much easier than horses.
On the edge of the balcony now, he threw one leg over the balustrade, then the other. He was pleased with himself, excited. He had met two unforeseen obstacles and had overcome them resourcefully, with imagination. He was no longer seriously worried about future surprises—almost eager for them.
Too soon he had another challenge.
He was getting dizzy again.
He grabbed the balustrade tightly, as tightly as he could. He squeezed it with all his might, to feel the hurt in his fingers. Keep standing, he commanded himself, keep standing.
The moment passed. He had himself under control and steady once more. He turned to face the French doors.
The dizziness again. Painful now, like the blow of a fist. He could feel himself falling. Headlong, forward. He could hear the crash of glass. Then he could feel and hear nothing.
* * *
• • •
He heard dogs barking somewhere in the distance, in the far distance. He heard another noise, equally far. Then silence. The stillness was tangible enough to touch, covering him. It even had texture to it, like silk, and colors, pretty ones in a small design, blue, red, yellow, violet, a lovely downy quilt. Then the covering got as vague as clouds and like clouds drifted away. He regretted to see it go.
He heard a woman’s voice. He couldn’t tell whether she was too far away for him to be understood or whether she was not speaking at all but humming wordless music. Now he began to see faces, indistinct at first, unidentifiable.
He saw the beautiful person first, then the other two. Viewing all three together was too confusing, so he tried to fix his mind on her, whoever she might be. She was old—no, she was young, she was dazzling and young. No, she was none of those things. She was not beautiful in the easy way he had thought at first, but in a difficult way not meant to be understood. It was too hard to figure her out; his head hurt.
Then he figured one thing out—she was Lexa.
The other woman was middle-aged, her black hair faintly touched with gray. She had features so fine it didn’t seem possible they could compose a face so cruel. The man was, he thought, an Indian. He had seen pictures resembling him on travel folders, but in the folders he always seemed a warm and welcoming man, not hard, quiet, dark.
Lexa was talking to them in Spanish. Mike couldn’t understand the words but he sensed she was saying she could handle him, they could go. They replied softly to her, politely, but apparently they were refusing to leave her alone with a criminal. He heard the word policia a few times and she got increasingly annoyed. Finally she uttered a sound like an expletive that must have seemed terrible to them, so they fled. It seemed terrible to Mike too, and he wondered how such a little noise could be made to sound so dangerous.
But there was more than danger in her. There was charm, and a sensual hothouse quality, lush and overcultivated. And available, everything available, especially her mouth. She was younger than Howard had described.
She looked at Mike steadily, appraising him. Then she referred to the two who had just gone. Her English had only the faintest accent. “They are Alma and Pacas. My housekeeper and my . . .” she waited too long “. . . chauffeur. They did not want to leave me alone. They say I will be unsafe with you. Will I be unsafe?”
He started to speak but wasn’t quite up to disclaimers, not yet. He barely smiled, then looked around him at the elaborate and heavily brocaded room and the deep red damask davenport he had been lying on. He wanted to get up but wasn’t quite certain of his equilibrium.
She saw his indecision. “Are you feeling better?”
“Yes,” he said. “What happened?”
There was no reproach in her voice. “You were on the balcony. You fell.”
“Yes,” Mike said. “Dizzy.”
“Why? Are you ill?” Her solicitude sounded genuine.
“No.” He managed a smile. “Just the altitude.”
She smiled too. “The balcony’s less than ten feet.”
“Mexico City’s more than seven thousand.”
“Seven thousand feet is quite a fall, Mr. Milo.”
Well, she knew who he was. Then this was the end of the whole business, he thought, he might as well wrap up and go back to Texas, if she’d allow him to. “How do you know my name?” he asked.
She pointed offhandedly to the table. On it, spread out neatly, like a display in a
courtroom, were the contents of his pockets: pliers, screwdriver, flashlight, pocketknife, roll of black electrical tape, handkerchief, can of 3-IN-ONE Household Oil, small pile of coin pesos, money clip with dollars and paper pesos. And a leather billfold that contained tourist card, credit cards, driver’s license, employment cards. He felt completely humiliated: spread out, on exhibit, was the complete dossier of the bungler. Only the clumsiest amateur would be careless enough to carry his identification with him. No, not clumsy, but worse—arrogant. The telltale mark of the amateur—he had seen it with apprentice bronc riders—was that they took braggart chances. The greenhorn can foresee only the one way he must succeed. never the hundred ways he may fail. And there it was, baldfaced on the table, all the evidence that he was a tenderfoot.
Nor was she letting him off the hook. “Do you always carry your calling cards when you go kidnapping?”
Still fumbling. “What makes you think I’m a kidnapper?”
“One of those cards says you work for my ex-husband. And there was something else.” She went to the table, pushed a few objects around and found what she was looking for. It was the small snapshot of the boy. “Why would you be carrying a picture of my son?”
Slowly, laboriously, he got up from the couch. “I think I’ll leave now,” he said. He faced her candidly. “Unless you’ve got other plans for me.”
“The police, you mean?”
She said it in a way he couldn’t interpret. He thought, at first, she was going to laugh; then, illogically he thought: cry. Before he could figure it out, she turned away. He was aware for the first time that she had been drinking. The liquor in the glass she held was clear and colorless. It might be gin or, more likely, tequila. She took a sip of it, put the glass down and turned to gaze at him. It was a barefaced stare, assessing him, head to toe, taking his measurements.
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