“Not legally, no.”
“Who cares about the law? I’m talking about feelings.”
“All right. Feeling-wise, he’s sort of related to you. But please bear in mind that he has a mother and that Mexicans are very much family-oriented. There’s also the possibility that the child may be dead, depending, among other things, on the degree of his congenital impairment. I realize that you’re living under great stress right now, and people in such circumstances sometimes make plans based on an unrealistic assessment of the facts.”
“You realize that, eh? Well, I realize that lawyers often like to use twenty words when one will do.”
“How about two?”
“All right.”
“Cool it.”
“What does that mean exactly?”
“Even if I find the kid he won’t be for sale.”
She looked almost stunned for a moment. “Perhaps we should go back to the twenty-word system.”
“It has certain advantages.”
“Your style takes a little getting used to, Aragon, but then, so does mine. We might be able to work together satisfactorily. What do you think?”
“I don’t pick the clients,” Aragon said. “They have to pick me.”
“Okay . . . I pick you.”
“Fine.”
She had a check ready for him, $2,500 made out to Tomás Aragon and marked “Legal Services.”
“This should cover your airfare, car rental, living expenses, and of course, bribes. If anyone asks you, you can say you work for the local police. They may not believe you but they’ll believe the money. Are you familiar with Baja California?”
“I’ve been to Tijuana.”
“Then the answer is no. I’ve done a little research on my own. You can fly down as far as Rio Seco and rent a car there. It has the last car-rental agency until the southernmost tip of Baja. Bahía de Ballenas is roughly halfway between. It’s not marked on most maps. Just keep driving south until you come to it. There’s a new road that goes part of the way along the coast. They call it a highway but you’d better not expect too much.”
Aragon put the check in his wallet and then returned the letter from B. J. to its envelope. “Do you mind if I keep this for a while? The references might be useful.”
“Take it. By the way, let’s get something clear. I could hire any investigator for a job like this a lot cheaper than you’re going to cost me.”
“Why don’t you?”
“I’m paying for discretion, for the privacy of a lawyer-client relationship. You’re not to tell anyone the nature of our business, not Smedler, not the authorities, not even your wife. Do you have a wife?”
“Yes. I haven’t been seeing much of her, though. She’s in her first year of residency in pediatrics at a hospital in San Francisco.”
“Smart, eh?”
“Yes.”
“What’s her name?”
“Laurie Macgregor.”
“Why didn’t she take your name?”
“She already had one of her own.”
“All very modern and with it. I see . . . I bet she’s pretty.”
“I think so.”
“Describe her, nonlawyer style.”
“Nonlawyer style, she’s a dynamite chick.”
Gilly was staring pensively at her image in the copper hood of the barbecue pit. “I wonder, if I were in my twenties again, would anyone call me a dynamite chick?”
“On the evidence presented so far I would assume that you were and that you would be so designated.”
“Hey, that’s nice, Aragon. You and I are going to be pals. You know what else? You’ll make a very good lawyer.”
“Well, if I don’t, I hope I’ll be married to a very good pediatrician.”
Aragon hadn’t intended it to be funny, but she laughed as if he’d made the joke of the century. He suspected that the dynamite-chick business had left his new pal, Gilly, a little intoxicated.
5
Violet Smith picked her way carefully around the side of the house past the thorns of the carissa and the spiked leaves of the century plants and the gopher holes in the lawn. She had seen Aragon’s car parked in the driveway and had been on her way to the barbecue room in the hope of overhearing something interesting when Mr. Decker’s bell rang. Reed was off duty and the day girl had already left, so it was Violet Smith’s Christian obligation to answer the bell. Mr. Decker had to go to the bathroom, which was messy and took forever, so that by the time she finished cleaning up, twenty minutes or more had elapsed.
Crossing the patio, she stooped to retrieve a stray leaf caught between two flagstones. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Mrs. Decker talking to a strange man. She couldn’t make out the words but they must certainly have been funny because Mrs. Decker suddenly began laughing like some giddy young girl. Violet Smith transferred the leaf to the apron pocket of her uniform and slid open the screen door.
Mrs. Decker immediately sobered up and looked her age again. “You can see I’m busy, Violet Smith.”
“Mr. Decker is agitated. I think he heard a strange car come up the driveway and wants to know what is it doing here.”
“It’s waiting for Mr. Aragon,” Gilly said brusquely.
“Do I go back and tell him?”
“No. No, I’ll do it . . . Aragon, please stay here for a minute while I check my husband, will you?”
“Don’t hurry,” Aragon said. “I have lots of time.”
`After she’d gone Violet Smith studied Aragon carefully and at length. “How come you have lots of time? Don’t you work?”
“I’m working now.”
“You give a good impression of just standing around.”
“Practice, Miss Smith. Years of practice . . . Mrs. Smith?”
“Violet Smith is my true name, both here and There. When people don’t call me that, I pay them no mind. I figure they might be talking to someone else. There are millions of Smiths.”
She had a point and Aragon guessed that she would cling to it even if it impaled her. He said, “I hope I haven’t disturbed Mr. Decker.”
“He’s agitated. That could be good or bad, depending. I never know. I can’t understand those monkey noises of his, meaning no disrespect. He heard a strange car and we don’t get many strangers around here.”
“Why not?”
“Mrs. Decker had Reed put up a lot of signs to scare people off, like No Peddlers, No Trespassing, Private Property, Beware of Dogs. We don’t even have a dog, except one of the gardeners brings his Airedale along in the truck which howls. The gardeners are both long-haired heathens . . . Have you been saved?”
“I think so.”
“Aren’t you sure?”
“It’s not the sort of thing one can be sure about until—well, until later.”
“If you think there’s any doubt, it would be better to find out now than then.”
“Yes, I guess it would.”
“You know, you kind of remind me of my son. I don’t see much of him anymore. I never raised a hand to that boy until the day he vilified the Lord. He diminished Jesus and I had to slug him. My hand pained me for several weeks. I could hardly hold my Bible.”
She began dusting the glass table with a piece of tissue which she produced from one of the half-dozen pockets of her uniform. It was apparent from her vigorous movements that her slugging hand had been completely cured and that Violet Smith was ready for another round at the sound of the bell. She was a powerful woman with thick wrists, and shoulders as wide as Aragon’s.
He said, “Why does Mrs. Decker want to scare people off?”
“They might disturb Mr. Decker. He’s pretty far gone, a real sorrowful figure. I overheard Reed asking the doctor one day if it wouldn’t be more humane to pull out the plugs. I couldn’t understand what
they were talking about until the doctor used the word, ‘euthanasia.’ Then I stepped right up and said I was against it. The doctor was polite enough, but oh, that Reed has a dirty tongue in his head. I felt duty-bound to report the incident to Mrs. Decker. Maybe I shouldn’t have.”
“Why not?”
“Wow, she threw a terrible fit, crying and carrying on and screaming how she wanted to have her plugs pulled out, too. Then she drank a lot of booze. I told her, ‘You can’t drown your troubles, Mrs. Decker, because troubles can swim.’ Well. If you think Reed has a dirty tongue in his head you should have heard her. My ears cringed. ‘Sticks and stones,’ I said to her, ‘sticks and stones can break my bones but words will never hurt me.’ She told me what I could do with every stick and stone between here and Seattle.”
“It wasn’t one of your more popular nights, apparently.”
“Oh, I forgave her. I knew she was just scared like everybody else who won’t accept Jesus. Scared of the old man dying and leaving her alone, and scared of dying herself. I’m used to her bad language, anyway. She’s not a true-born lady like the first Mrs. Lockwood. Mrs. Decker was the second Mrs. Lockwood.”
“You’re acquainted with the first?”
“I see her at church twice a week. We often share the same hymn book. She’s a soprano but not one of those screechy ones, just soft and ladylike as befits her birth.”
“Is she aware that you work for Mrs. Decker?”
“Sure. At our regular evening meetings we’re encouraged to stand up and talk out our predicaments and troubles. Then afterwards we all sit around and help each other.”
“Or not.”
“Or not,” Violet Smith agreed crisply. “We aren’t geniuses, you know. It’s the feeling that counts, the realizing you’re not alone, someone else cares and wants to help.”
“Your church meetings sound very interesting.”
“Oh, they are. They’re what really converted me. I didn’t mind giving up carnality, jewelry and red meat in return for comradeship and an afterlife.”
“I think you made the right decision.”
“You do?”
“Yes.”
“You’re not being sarcastic like Reed or Mrs. Decker?”
“No.”
“I’m glad. You know, when you’re stuck in a place like this most of the time, you’ve got to have something lively, something hopeful, going on outside. The death house—that’s what some of the employees call it. All the pretty flowers and trees, the sun shining, the pool, the birds singing, none of it makes any difference when you’re waiting for someone to die. You want to tell the birds to shut up and the sun to drop down and the flowers to fold their petals and blow away. Imagine telling a bird to shut up. But I did one day. There was this little red-headed creature singing on top of the T. V. antenna and I screamed at him, ‘Stop it, shut up, don’t you know someone’s dying down here?’ ”
“Did you ever express these feelings at any of your church meetings?”
“No. They’d think I was a loony . . . Listen, I hear Mrs. Decker coming back. She’s suspicious. Pretend I never said a word, not one word, agreed?”
“Agreed.”
Gilly re-entered the room through the inside door that connected it with the main part of the house. She looked flushed, as though she’d been engaged in some strenuous physical or emotional exertion. She said, “I suppose Violet Smith has talked your ear off.”
“No.”
“That’s peculiar. She does it to everyone else.”
“Oh, I do not,” Violet Smith said coldly and went outside, pushing the screen door shut behind her as hard as she could.
Gilly waited for her to disappear around the side of the house. “My husband’s all right. He sometimes reacts badly when Reed goes off duty or when something unusual happens.”
“And I’m an unusual happening?”
“To Marco, yes. I’d like you to meet him. He sees the same people day after day and I’m sure he’d enjoy some different company for a change. No matter what impression Violet Smith gave you, Marco can hear and often understand as well—or almost as well—as you and I can.”
“It might be better for me to see him some other time.”
“This is the time I want you to see him, right now. I have my reasons.”
“Very well, Mrs. Decker. You’re the boss.”
Gilly spoke his name softly. “Marco?”
Nothing happened for a minute. Then the wheelchair, which had been facing the patio, suddenly and noiselessly turned and Aragon had his first glimpse of Marco Decker. He seemed a little smaller than life. His face was pale and shriveled, and around his head there was a fringe of sparse silky hair like a baby’s. Under the lap robe his knees showed almost as thin and sharp as elbows. A mohair shawl was wrapped around his shoulders and fastened at the front with a safety pin, the extra-large size used for diapers. It heightened the image of an old man returning through the maze of years to his infancy.
This was Aragon’s first time in the presence of a terminally ill person and he understood more clearly what Violet Smith had been talking about. The imminence of death altered the meaning of things. The plants outside the window looked too grotesquely healthy, the hummingbirds among the fuchsia blossoms were too lively and brilliant, the warmth of the sun useless, even offensive. Aragon felt the reaction of his own body, the increased flow of adrenaline that increased his heartbeat and signaled his muscles to fight or flight. Run away, man. Drop down, sun. Shut up, bird.
“Marco dear, this is Tom Aragon, the young man from the lawyer’s office.”
“How do you do, Mr. Decker,” Aragon said.
The fingers of one of Marco’s hands twitched slightly in acknowledgment of the greeting.
Gilly said, “I thought I’d introduce Aragon to you and tell you exactly why I sent for him, Marco. I’d rather have kept it secret to spare you any worry, but I know you’re bound to hear hints about it from Reed or Violet Smith or one of the maids, or even from me unintentionally. When very little occurs in a house, whatever does occur is repeated and blown up out of proportion. This is a small thing, actually.”
Marco’s right eye blinked. The movement was slow and labored but the expression in the eye itself was clear: Hurry up, get on with it, I haven’t much time.
“I won’t tell you if you’re going to fuss about it because it isn’t that important.”
Hurry, hurry, giddyap, giddyap.
“Now, don’t be upset . . . I’ve often talked to you about B. J., haven’t I? And I’ve told you what happened. We have no secrets from each other. Well, I’ve been thinking, what if B. J. struck it rich, down in Mexico, I mean rich rich. Some of these developers rake in millions and millions, and while he was always a lousy businessman, maybe this time he struck it lucky. I talked to Smedler. He said I’d be a fool not to try and cash in on it if really big money is involved. He said I should make an effort to find B. J.”
Aragon stared at her. There wasn’t the subtlest change of expression on her face or the slightest quaver in her voice to indicate that she’d just told three lies in three sentences.
“Well, now you know what Mr. Aragon is doing here. He’s collecting material on B. J. so he’ll know where to look first, and so on. I showed him some pictures of B. J. and also the last letter I received from him five years ago. There now. That shouldn’t upset you, should it?”
Marco’s paralyzed eye remained half open but the good one was closed. He might have gone to sleep out of weariness or boredom; he might have died.
“Don’t do that. Don’t pretend you’re sleeping when you’re not, Marco, just to make me go away. I’ll go away in a minute when I’ve finished explaining to you . . . Listen, he treated me badly, he almost destroyed me. It was a long time ago and everything ought to be forgotten and forgiven by now. But it’s not. He owes me. I wa
nt to see him pay a few more damages.”
The wheelchair turned, as it had before, without a sound and faced the patio again, the plants, the birds, the sun.
“All right, Marco, I’m leaving. I won’t bother you anymore.” She opened the door and went out into the corridor. With a final glance at the man in the wheelchair, Aragon followed her. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have told him but I felt I’d better. He’ll be quite reasonable once he gets used to the idea. If he is or isn’t, I must go ahead with the project anyway. I’ve been considering it a long time and I have no intention of giving it up. You think—you may think I’m doing all this out of revenge.”
“I may.”
“In fact you do.”
“Well, I was just wondering what the going price is for a pound of flesh.”
“The same as it’s always been,” Gilly said quietly. “A pound of flesh.”
Outside, the wind had gone down and all the billowy clouds had broken up and were strung across the sky in shreds. The plastic hose of the pool vacuum was floating in the water where Reed had dropped it. It looked like a giant white sea snake coiled to strike.
Later in the evening he called his wife, Laurie, at the hospital in San Francisco. The background noises and her crisp confident voice indicated she was on ward duty. It was the professional voice she used to intimidate germs and head nurses and to calm frightened children and their parents.
“Dr. Macgregor speaking.”
“Tom Aragon here. Remember him?”
“Vaguely. Describe him.”
“Dark-haired, kind of funny-looking, pale, could probably use some medical attention.”
“Sorry, that’s not the Tom Aragon I know who happens to be very handsome, well-built, healthy, intelligent—”
“Listen, we’re in the money, Laurie.”
“You robbed a bank.”
“No.”
“Blackmailed an old lady.”
“Close. One of Smedler’s clients wants me to find her first husband, who’s somewhere in Baja California. I’m not sure why, exactly. She’s given half a dozen reasons, which is five too many. But I took the job—and her money—and I’m leaving for Rio Seco tomorrow morning.”
Ask for Me Tomorrow Page 4