Candy Kid

by Dorothy B. Hughes

  Crossing the lounge, he stepped over to the open French doorway and looked out into the patio. From the spills of light slanting from the surrounding portales, he recognized a few town faces among the hotel summer guests. Tim Farrar’s beard wasn’t visible.

  “Looking for me?” The voice came from behind him. He wasn’t. Not yet. “You were up there a long time. Find out anything?”

  He turned a weary face to Harrod. “I guess so. Tim Farrar ran out on a murder in Mexico.”

  “He tell you that?”

  Jose said, “His sister didn’t deny it. I’m looking for him. There was another accident today.”

  “I heard about it.” Harrod didn’t say he was sorry, he had more appreciation of the fitness of things.

  “I went up there. With Dan Moreno of the state cops.”

  “I’ve talked with Moreno. He thinks you are suffering from shock. I told him you might be.”

  “What else did you tell him?”

  “To keep an eye on you. Was the wrong Aragon killed?”

  “No, it wasn’t that. It was a bottle of perfume.”

  “A bottle of perfume,” Harrod repeated. “From el Greco’s.”

  He had seen it in Jose’s luggage. And left it there. Timing things his own way. If an innocent bystander or so got hurt, Harrod couldn’t let it matter to him. He had to move on to the predetermined conclusion. Maybe he knew, maybe not, that there were two bottles.

  Jose said, “The wrong bottle. Beach must have asked the wrong questions.” It wasn’t jagged any more. It was a dull stone he’d have to carry inside of him for a long time.

  “And you’re looking for Tim Farrar,” Harrod said.

  “He’s a killer. Don’t you know that?”

  “I’ve had reports from Mexico. He might have killed a girl. Or an old man. Or a shoeshine boy. She was beaten to death. The viejo was hit and run. The boy knifed. Those are three unsolved cases about the time Tim went traveling.”

  “What about Ragsdale?”

  “He’s hung around Chapala for years. Never has cared who supported him so long as he was supported. They took him on there.”

  “They?”

  “The Farrars. She left Tim with him and went back to Mexico City alone. She stayed on another month.”

  “Who was her friend?”

  “Plenty of them. She belonged to the smart set, the international set as the society reporters call it.”

  She would. And Tim would be safe with a tutor, he liked tutors. Until she could arrange to get him out of the country.

  The shape of it wasn’t sharp the way he had seen it when it started. He’d found that out tonight from her, now from Harrod. Harrod had tried to tell him before but he’d insisted on her being the focal point. She was no more than a smudge on the edges of the pattern. An instrument, as Jose had been. Because he’d seen it wrong, Beach was dead. And he didn’t know whether underneath everything it had only been because he’d wanted to hang on to her; he couldn’t even now be that honest with himself.

  He said to Harrod, “I’ve got the right bottle.”

  “How do you know which is the right one?”

  He couldn’t go through anything more tonight. He was dried up. He said, “I have the clue.” The jangle of the music and the yapping and the laughter, drunk and sober, were like a knife in his head. He said, “Do you want to come up to the house and get it?”

  Harrod must have seen he was ready to fold. He said, “If it’s kept this long, it’ll keep till morning, won’t it? I’ll come then.”

  Jose moved from the door.

  Harrod said, “Go home and sleep. Don’t look any further for Tim Farrar tonight. He’ll keep too.”

  He said, “All right.” When reaction gave you the rabbit punch, there wasn’t anything else to do. He went out into the night. The Plaza was quiet now, everything dark but the hotel. The quietness of the mountain sky, the clean stab of stars was good. The chill of night was good. He wasn’t physically tired, he was only tired of thinking and feeling. He couldn’t face being shut into a gritty taxi.

  It was good to walk, to be alone in the emptiness of the night. It would be good to keep walking, on and on into the dark mountains fringing the horizon. But he had to go home. He had to be there in the morning to do all the things that must be done. He had to go home because he couldn’t leave Francisca alone there all night.

  She’d had too long a time now to search if that was why she had come to him. She’d had time to find the stuff and hitch halfway back to the border. Without realizing, he was striding faster; he knew he was climbing the Camino when his breathing grew heavy. He tried to slow down, to tell himself he didn’t care, that Harrod could handle her along with all the rest of it. It wasn’t true, he did care. One decent thing had to come out of this. The sorbita had to be given a chance. She couldn’t be allowed to turn into an animal like Tim Farrar.

  The house was dark. Habit took him around the back way. He hurried across the patio. Before he could open the door, he heard her speak from a distance in the dark corridor. “You have come back.” She had the eyes of a cat.

  He said, “Why didn’t you turn on the lights?”

  She didn’t answer him. Maybe she didn’t know how.

  He switched on a lamp in the library. She was still dressed in the skirt and blouse he’d given her. The small hearts quivered from her ears. He questioned again, almost angrily, “Why did you wait up? Why didn’t you go to bed?”

  She didn’t seem to know any answers. She stood there quietly, like a servant. “You can go to bed now,” he dismissed her.

  “Where do I go to bed?”

  He was angered. Not with her, with himself, with the world of men. “In the room I gave you. Where did you think?” It wasn’t her fault she was what she was. He said more kindly, “Good night, Quica.”

  She said, “Good night,” but she didn’t move. She was wanting to say more. He waited until it came.

  “The phone, it rang very much.”

  “Did you answer it?”

  “Yes, Senor.”

  “What did you tell them?”

  “I say you are not here.”

  “That’s right.” There was no use asking who had called. Even if she knew enough to take the names, she wouldn’t be able to write them. The family council, the family friends, the curious and the shocked and the kindly. The phone would have rung very much. It rang again now, a shrill prolonged sound. He didn’t want to answer but he couldn’t stand the sound.

  It was Adam. “Where have you been, Jo? I’ve called and called—I’ve called every place I could think of.”

  “Thanks, Adam.” He told part of the truth. “I’ve been with the police.”

  “That’s one spot I missed.” Adam was like Harrod, a sense of fitness. He didn’t say anything about Beach. “Do you need me?”

  He said no, and thanks again. “I’m too tired. I’m going to bed.”

  “Anything I can do, you know.”

  “I know, Adam.” He rang off.

  She was still hanging around. “That man came back,” she said.

  “What man?”

  “The big one.”

  “Oh.” Yes, Adam would have made a trip in when he couldn’t locate Jose by phone. “That was he just now.”

  “He waited for you.”

  “He’s my friend,” Jose told her. A man had so few friends. “Go to bed now.”

  It looked as if she weren’t going but finally, reluctantly, she left him. He gave her time to get there and then he went to his room. He bolted his door.

  Five

  DROWNED IN SLEEP, HE could hear the pounding without responding to it. Until it grew more thunderous, until his name came over the booming, and the wave of it washed him awake.

  Adam was thumping on the door, shouting, “Jo! Are you in there, Jo? Wake up, Jo!” It was as if he’d been at it a long time, there was a rumble of alarm.

  “I’m awake. Hold on.” He came slowly out of bed to open th
e door.

  “Why the barricade?” Adam’s shaggy brows lifted.

  He couldn’t say why. “Maybe I didn’t want to be disturbed.”

  “Sorry to be the one. But you have company.”

  “Captain Harrod?”

  “Yes. He was waiting in the patio. I just got here.”

  “Keep him company,” Jose requested. “Tell the kid to fix some coffee for all of us.”

  “Haven’t seen her.”

  Of course he hadn’t. She’d hide out with Harrod around.

  “Juana and her tribe are just arriving.”

  “What time is it?”

  “After nine.”

  “Ask Rosie to fix the breakfast. She makes the best coffee. I won’t be long.”

  He was fully awake after he sloshed cold water on his face. He’d had enough sleep, more than usual. Only the emotional weight of last night had kept him under. A cotton pullover, slacks, guaraches, and he was dressed. He joined Adam and Harrod in the patio.

  “I didn’t want to wake you,” Harrod apologized.

  He said, “I should have been up. It’ll be a heavy day.”

  “I figured it would. That’s why I came early.”

  Nancita was bringing a tray. She was subdued, more by the strange man in the patio than by death in the Aragon house. Death was no stranger. She whispered, “Rosie say what else you want, Jose?”

  There was orange juice and coffee. “More cups. You’ll join me?” he asked the others.

  Nan was in a hurry to get away. She brought two more cups and scuttled.

  Harrod said, “I’m seeing the Farrars at eleven.”

  “Tim?”

  “Yes.”

  “I want to go with you.” Jose’s jaw set.

  Adam pursed his mouth. “What good will it do, Jo?”

  He was as stubborn as he’d been with Dan Moreno. “I want to.”

  Harrod humored him, “Okay, okay. If you have time for it.”

  “I have time for it.” The coffee wasn’t bitter, the others were drinking it. “Will Struyker be there?”

  “He’s gone fishing.” Harrod was annoyed. With himself. “Sunday, I forgot. I called Los Alamos early but he’d gone earlier.”

  Adam asked, “You mean Struyker at the Lab? What do you want with him?”

  Jose had forgotten how little Adam knew. Adam had left Juarez too early, before things started. Better that he remain ignorant for the present, Adam’s temper was slow to rise but it was powerful. Some day when this was over and done with, Jose would tell him the whole story.

  He said, “Beach was with him yesterday. He was the friend Tim Farrar wanted to visit on the Hill.”

  Adam said laconically, “You’re putting yourself through a lot of grief, Jo.”

  Only then did he flare. “I’m looking for it. I want to carry it with me as long as I live.” Because deliberately he had involved Beach. Factually, he stated, “Beach was with Struyker before he started home. He was with him at a cocktail party. He was in his room.”

  Adam didn’t say anything more. He, too, humored.

  “I’ll get you the perfume,” Jose nodded to Harrod. At any other time he’d have laughed at the expression that burst on Adam’s big face. Adam was baffled, knocked for a loop. It did sound peculiar without a background; Harrod, the border patrol bloodhound, getting up early for a bottle of perfume.

  Harrod didn’t make a point of it but he was accompanying Jose. Adam’s curiosity brought him along.

  Jose said, “I stached it in my mother’s room.”

  “In the secret drawer, I bet,” Adam rumbled.

  “Sure.” Jose had to smile.

  Adam explained to Harrod, “Jose’s mother is so tickled with that secret drawer of hers, she shows it to everyone.”

  “Uh-uh,” Jose denied. “Only to friends. And not all of them—only to friends she can trust. Unless you know the way to open it,” he told Harrod, “it is secret.” He was talking up, in case the sorbita was in the corridor; she could hide herself before they entered the wing. No one was in sight when they appeared.

  He opened the door into his mother’s room.

  “That’s a fine credenza,” Harrod said. He was close behind Jose.

  “I guess it’s safe for you to know the secret. Nothing any safer than the police.” But like his mother, even when she displayed the drawer to the most trustworthy of friends, his fingers hid the secret. The panel moved and there was a sweet familiar smell before he opened the drawer. The smell was there; the drawer was empty.

  He was the one who made the groan of disbelief. The others peered silently over his shoulder into the emptiness. “God—” He broke the curse, shoved the drawer at Harrod, and ran for his sister’s room. It was neat and clean and empty as the drawer.

  Adam and Harrod had followed. They watched him as if he’d gone berserk.

  “What gives?” Adam demanded.

  Not even now could he give her away. She’d explain when she came out of hiding, when he got rid of Harrod. She’d explain if he had to chase her back across the border and beat it out of her. His face tightened and Adam repeated sharply, “What gives?”

  She was just a kid. She could have been hiding in the shadows watching when he secreted the stuff. She didn’t know right from wrong, she’d never had a chance to find out. He said to Harrod, “I’ll get it for you.” It was a vow. “I’ll get it.”

  Harrod had learned patience. He said, “All right. You get it.” He left the room first. At the front door he stopped. “Meet me at the hotel around eleven if you still want to talk to Tim.”

  He’d be there. He and Adam returned in silence to the patio. The coffee was yet hot enough, standing in the sun in a silver pot. Jose poured for both of them.

  “You think the kid you brought from the ranch has light fingers,” Adam remarked.

  He didn’t say yes or no. Although it wouldn’t mean anything to Adam without the background, he said it. “She’s not from the ranch. She’s from Juarez. One of the Praxiteles girls.”

  Adam’s face again exploded. “You mean old el Greco?”

  “Yeah.”

  “My God.” He slopped his coffee as he came to his feet. “My God, you turned one of those girls loose in your house! With something important—” He broke off. “I take it this perfume was important?”

  “Yeah.”

  Adam paced. He stopped at Jose’s chair. “Where is she?”

  “How the hell do I know?” Jose flared back. It hurt. Not that it hadn’t occurred to him she’d steal the stuff but because he’d believed, last night he’d believed it, that she’d wanted the kindness he was offering. Or because he’d been fool enough to think she couldn’t find the hiding place. “Maybe she’s gone back to the boss.”

  Adam subsided in the swing. “Praxiteles is a mean character. What are you mixed up with, Jo?”

  He attempted a smile, his thanks for Adam’s concern. “It’s too long a story to go into now. I’m an innocent bystander.” The smile went away. Beach was the innocent one. He said, “Beach was murdered.”

  It hit Adam between the eyes. “For God’s sake, Jo!” Maybe he was certain now that Jose was off his rocker. “Beach was in a car accident.”

  “Beach was murdered,” he repeated. “I don’t know how it was worked—there are plenty of ways. Moreno doesn’t believe it. Perhaps Harrod does.” He’d had enough coffee. “Tim Farrar may know. Or this Struyker. Or Tim’s friend from Chapala. I’m going to find out.” He stood up. “Give me a lift to town? It won’t take me a minute to change.”

  Adam said, “What about the perfume? And the girl?”

  “I haven’t forgotten. One thing at a time.”

  He changed to Sunday clothes and returned through the kitchen. Juana mourned, “El pobrecito! El pobrecito, Beechee. Oh, la madre, pobrecita….”

  She would have gone through the whole family, poor one by poor one, but he cut her off. “You needn’t stay around. I don’t know when I’ll get back.” He
smiled at the girls, touched Juana’s thin old shoulder. He didn’t want them in Francisca’s way if she decided to return.

  Adam led to the truck. “I’m going with you.”

  “No,” Jose said fast. He wasn’t bringing anyone else into this. “Harrod might object.”

  “The hell with Harrod.”

  “Look, Adam, you want to help me, don’t you?”

  “Sure.”

  “Then go up to Aunt Cat’s. The clan will be there. Tell them I’ll be along as soon as I can. Explain how it is.”

  “How is it?”

  Jose hesitated. “The police—” At the quick angle of Adam’s head, he said, “Not this business. Just Danny Moreno and the accident. So much to be done. You can fix it.”

  “I’ll take care of it while you’re at church. I want to hear what this Farrar has to say.”

  Jose sighed. Maybe Harrod wouldn’t permit it. It was a foolish hope. No one unmade Adam’s mind. Harrod didn’t say a word when they found him in the hotel lounge. He merely rose to meet them and headed for the elevator. As if he thought Jose had brought Adam for support.

  “Does he know we’re coming?” The palms of Jose’s hands had begun to sweat. Not because of Tim; because he had to wring her again. She wouldn’t let baby brother be tackled alone.

  “I called early and suggested he be here.” Harrod rapped on the door, a sharp, demanding rap.

  “Is Danny Moreno coming?”

  “He’s busy.”

  It was she who opened the door. She was surprised, not pleasantly, when she saw that Harrod wasn’t alone. She hadn’t slept much, there were purple swatches under her eyes. She was wearing the same checkered suit she’d worn that first morning in El Paso. She could be dressed for traveling.

  She said, “Good morning, Captain Harrod,” and nothing more.

  Tim was sprawled in the best chair, he didn’t bother to get to his feet. Rags stood in the farthest corner. The boys were dressed for tennis, it was a wonder they weren’t holding the rackets in their hands. They made it that clear how little time they intended to give to this intrusion.

  No one offered hospitality. Dulcy had retreated to the windows, then quickly away from them to the other side of the room. Harrod stood firm. “Tim Farrar?”