Merchants of Menace

by Joan Aiken

  The room had the scent of Nancy’s perfume, but that only spurred me on. I knew what I was after and went right for it. In Jerry’s medical bag he carried a leather card case with his professional calling cards. There were a couple of dozen. Carefully, I pulled out two. They would never be missed. Printed cards, they were—with name, address and office phone. If he ever got his hands on my insurance money, he’d have his cards engraved.

  I closed the bag, shut the closet door, threw a baleful glance at the bed, and slipped out of the room. In the corridor, I was about to return the DO NOT DISTURB sign from where it came, but obviously I was too late!

  A chambermaid had passkeyed her way in to turn down the bed and, judging from the angry voices and hastily donned bathrobes, she had found an embarrassed couple in it. I put the sign on another door, hurried down the stairs to the lobby and out into the street. End Step Two.

  From a hardware store, I bought a crowbar, a hammer, a pair of garden gloves, a flashlight and a small strip of felt. From a shoe store, I bought canvas sneakers; from a men’s store, a hat. I was pretty tired of people staring at my shaved head.

  Later, I sat in a cafe across from the Hermanos Rubeira Mortuary and waited for the Portuguese Customs officials to leave. They did, after a good deal of handshaking all around. A quarter of an hour later, all the Hermanos had locked up and gone.

  I went around to the alley, slipped on my gloves and tennis shoes. I used a pair of discarded crates to hoist myself up on the roof. I made it to the skylight. It was just as I left it—unlatched.

  I opened it and lowered myself into the small room. I landed on top of “Pete Ingersoll’s” sealed casket.

  I went right to work. With the crowbar, I pried open the lid of Colonel Durham’s coffin. I did the same to “Pete Ingersoll’s.”

  Then I switched bodies. The unknown Negro would be shipped to South Carolina to lie in state with the Sons of the Confederacy; Colonel R. K. Durham, to Mineola, Long Island. Reverently, I re-clasped each corpse’s bands in prayerful position and placed one of Dr. Jerry Hale’s calling cards between the thumb and index finger of each of the deceased.

  The felt strip muffled the blows of the hammer as I put the nails back into the coffin lids, sealing them.

  It had all worked beautifully. I’d had plenty of time and no kibitzers. I’d enjoyed every moment, anticipating the results.

  I hoisted myself up, through the skylight, onto the roof and down into the alley. End Step Three.

  The next day, I was deep in the shadowed background of Pier 26, mingling with the crowd of bon voyagers who’d come down to see the departure of the S.S. Santa Maria. Destination: U.S.A.

  I saw both coffins delivered dockside and winched aboard, all superintended by the dedicated Hermanos Rubeira. I saw the Colonel’s wife and family, clad in mourning, grieving up a storm.

  If they’d only known who was in that casket, they’d really have had something to cry about.

  I pulled my hat brim down over my eyes when I spotted Jerry, Nancy, and the kids. They weren’t in mourning. They were in love. She held on to him like Cher hangs on to Sonny. Everybody went up the gangplank. There was confetti and music and a lot of thrown kisses and finally the S.S. Santa Maria slid away from the dock

  Up on deck, I saw the Colonel’s family. They were still weep­ing away. On the fantail, I saw Jerry and Nancy. With their arms around each other and the wind blowing and the happy smiles, they looked like a travel poster.

  I turned on my heel and walked away, whistling.

  That same morning, I got my shots from a doctor who was used to asking no questions. He was a veterinarian. For fifty dollars I got smallpox, typhoid, yellow fever, and distemper.

  By two that afternoon I turned in my El Al ticket for a one­ way to Valparaiso, Chile. I’d heard the fishing in Chile was great.

  Besides, the only fish you get in Israel is smoked.

  From hometown newspapers and shortwave news broadcasts, I pieced together the events that occurred back in the States. In rapid events:

  The coffins were delivered to their proper destinations. At the cemetery of the Sons of the Confederacy, the Colonel’s coffin was laid in state. The town flags flew at half-mast. The tobacco factories were closed for the day, so the workers could attend the Colonel’s funeral. The Drum and Bugle Corps were in dress uniforms. Confederate flags were displayed everywhere.

  As the band played “Dixie” in funeral tempo, the Minutemen Drill Team fired a volley in salute.

  Then, the coffin was opened for everyone to file by and pay their last respects...

  The hysteria and confusion finally subsided, and was replaced by indignation. The cooler heads sought to fix the blame for this—the grisliest, sickest joke of the century.

  It was then they found, clutched in the hand of the smiling Negro, Dr. Jerry Hale’s calling card.

  At Mineola’s Haven-of-Rest Cemetery, there was no turnout to speak of for “my” funeral. The neighbors didn’t show up because there was a big barbecue at Larry Heath’s. None of my bosses at Sequoia Life and Casualty showed, either. They were in mourning over all my credit card bills that were starting to come in. So, there were just Nancy, Jerry, the kids, Nancy’s mother and a minister provided by the undertakers.

  As they were lowering “my” casket into the grave and the minister was doing the ashes-to-ashes stuff, Haven-of-Rest was suddenly filled with people.

  There were a dozen policemen, a bunch of red-faced angry­ talking people with Southern accents, Colonel Durham’s entire next-of-kin, and two field representatives from the N.A.A.C.P. All of them were pretty mad, and all of them were looking for Dr. Jerry Hale.

  The County Coroner asked Jerry just who was in the coffin. Jerry replied that it was Pete Ingersoll. He had witnessed the death and signed the death certificate himself, and so there was no need to open the coffin.

  “The hell there isn’t,” said the Coroner. “Open it up, boys. Open it wide.”

  They did.

  I wish I could have seen the expression on Jerry’s face when he saw the Colonel stretched out, big smile on his face, with Jerry’s calling card clutched in his fingers.

  Afterward, the Colonel’s body was taken South and finally buried in the Cemetery of the Sons of the Confederacy. The flags and bugles and the band playing “Dixie” and the Minutemen and all—but it just wasn’t the same. The heart had gone out of the whole business by now, what with the extensive au­topsy they’d performed on the Colonel to find out whether he’d died of natural causes.

  As for Jerry and Nancy, they had to answer everybody’s questions:

  District Attorney: What happened to Ingersoll?

  Police: When did you last see the Colonel alive?

  Medical Examiner: Doctor Hale, does the word “malpractice”’ mean anything to you?

  Sequoia Life: You expect us to pay you $150,000 without proof of your husband’s death?!

  District Attorney: What happened to Ingersoll?

  N.A.A.C.P.: What is your purpose for this die-in?

  American Express, Carte Banche, Diners Club: You expect us to believe that?

  Police: What happened to Ingersoll? What was he to you?

  C.I.A.: Are you aware, Dr. Hale, that the Negro you planted in the Colonel’s coffin was Chief of our African Bureau?

  Jimmy: Mommy, what did Daddy Jerry do to Daddy Pete?

  Long Distance Operator: Missus, if there was a Peter Ingersoll here in Tel Aviv, would I keep it from you? Shalom.

  Whoever said crime doesn’t pay was all wrong. With the healthy outdoor life I lead, not to mention no aggravation or high-pressure living, I’m good for another thirty years. By that time I’ll be too dead to care. Anyway, if I were to die today, I’ve got no complaints. I’ve lived. The three months I spent dying was the greatest time of my life.

  The Moon of Montezuma

  Cornell Woolrich

  This is a rare piece, and a beautiful one. It is long, but it weaves a spell. Surel
y no one but Woolrich could create such mood.

  The hired car was very old. The girl in it was very young. They were both American. Which was strange here in this far-off place, this other world, as remote from things American as anywhere could be.

  The car was a vintage model, made by some concern whose very name has been forgotten by now; a relic of the teens or early twenties, built high and squared-off at the top, like a box on wheels.

  It crawled precariously to the top of the long, winding, sharply ascending rutted road—wheezing, gasping, threaten­ing to slip backward at any moment, but never doing so; mirac­ulously managing to inch on up.

  It stopped at last, opposite what seemed to be a blank, biscuit-colored wall. This had a thick door set into it, but no other openings. A skimpy tendril or two of bougainvillea, burningly mauve, crept downward over its top here and there. There were cracks in the wall, and an occasional place where the plaster facing had fallen off to reveal the adobe underpart.

  The girl peered out from the car. Her hair was blonde, her skin fair. She looked unreal in these surroundings of violent color; somehow completely out of key with them. She was ex­tremely tired-looking; there were shadows under her blue eyes. She was holding a very young baby wrapped into a little cone­-shaped bundle in a blanket A baby not more than a few weeks old. And beside the collar of her coat a rosebud was pinned. Scarcely opened, yet dying already. Red as a glowing coal. Or a drop of blood.

  She looked at the driver, then back to the blank wall again. “Is this where?”

  He shrugged. He didn’t understand her language. He said something to her. A great deal of something.

  She shook her head bewilderedly. His language was as mysterious to her. She consulted the piece of paper she was holding in her hand, then looked again at the place where they’d stopped. “But there’s no house here. There’s just a wall.”

  He flicked the little pennant on his meter so that it sprang upright. Underneath it said “7.50.” She could read that, at least. He opened the creaking door, to show her what he meant.

  “Pay me, Señorita. I have to go all the way back to the town.”

  She got out reluctantly, a forlorn, lost figure. “Wait here,” she said. “Wait for me until I find out.”

  He understood the sense of her faltering gesture. He shook his head firmly. He became very voluble. He had to go back to where he belonged, he had no business being all the way out here. It would be dark soon. His was the only auto in the whole town.

  She paid him, guessing at the unfamiliar money she still didn’t understand. When he stopped nodding, she stopped giv­ing it to him. There was very little left—a paper bill or two, a handful of coins. She reached in and dragged out a bulky bag and stood that on the ground beside her. Then she turned around and looked at the inscrutable wall.

  The car turned creakily and went down the long, rutted road, back into the little town below.

  She was left there, with child, with baggage, with a scrap of paper in her hand. She went over to the door in the wall, looked about for something to ring. There was a short length of rope hanging there against the side of the door. She tugged at it and a bell, the kind with hanging clapper, jangled loosely.

  The child opened its eyes momentarily, then closed them again. Blue eyes, like hers.

  The door opened, narrowly but with surprising quickness. An old woman stood looking at her. Glittering black eyes, gnarled face the color of tobacco, blue reboso coifed about her head to hide every vestige of hair, one end of the scarf looped rearward over her throat. There was something malig­nant in the idol-like face, something almost Aztec.

  “Señorita wishes?” she breathed suspiciously.

  “Can you read?” The girl showed her the scrap of paper. That talisman that had brought her so far.

  The old woman touched her eyes, shook her head. She couldn’t read.

  “But isn’t this—isn’t this—” Her tired tongue stumbled over the unfamiliar words. “Caminode...”

  The old woman pointed vaguely in dismissal. “Go, ask them in the town, they can answer your questions there.” She tried to close the heavy door again.

  The girl planted her foot against it, held it open. “Let me in. I was told to come here. This is the place I was told to come. I’m tired, and I have no place to go.” For a moment her face was wreathed in lines of weeping, then she curbed them. “Let me come in and rest a minute until I can find out. I’ve come such a long way. All night long, that terrible train from Mexico City, and before that the long trip down from the border...” She pushed the door now with her free hand as well as her foot.

  “I beg you, Señorita,” the old woman said with sullen gravity, “do not enter here now. Do not force your way in here. There has been a death in this house.”

  “¿Qué pasa?” a younger, higher voice suddenly said from somewhere unseen behind her.

  The crone stopped her clawing, turned her head. Suddenly she had whisked from sight as though jerked on a wire, and a young girl had taken her place in the door opening.

  The same age as the intruder, perhaps even a trifle younger. Jet-black hair parted arrow-straight along the center of her head. Her skin the color of old ivory. The same glittering black eyes as the old one, but larger, younger. Even more liquid, as though they had recently been shedding tears. There was the same cruelty implicit in them too, but not yet as apparent. There was about her whole beauty, and she was beautiful, a tinge of cruelty, of barbarism. That same mask­-like Aztec cast of expression, of age-old racial inheritance.

  “¿Si?”

  “Can you understand me?” the girl pleaded, hoping against hope for a moment.

  There was a flash of perfect white teeth, but the black hair moved negatively. “The señorita is lost, perhaps?”

  Somehow, the American sensed the meaning of the words. “This is where they told me to come. I inquired in Mexico City. The American consul. They even told me how to get here, what trains. I wrote him, and I never heard. I’ve been writing him and writing him, and I never heard. But this must be the place. This is where I’ve been writing, Camino de las Rosas...” A dry sob escaped with the last.

  The liquid black eyes had narrowed momentarily. “The señorita looks for who?”

  “Bill. Bill Taylor.” She tried to turn it into Spanish, with the pitiful resources at her command. “Señor Taylor. Señor Bill Taylor. Look, I’ll show you his picture.” She fumbled in her handbag, drew out a small snapshot, handed it to the waiting girl. It was a picture of herself and a young man. “Him. I’m looking for him. Now do you understand?”

  For a moment, there seemed to have been a sharp intake of breath, but it might have been an illusion. The dark-haired girl smiled ruefully. Then she shook her bead.

  “Don’t you know him? Isn’t he here? Isn’t this his house?” She pointed to the wall alongside her. “But it must be. Then whose house is it?”

  The dark-haired girl pointed to herself, then to the old woman hovering and hissing surreptitiously in the background. “Casa de nosotros. The house of Chata and her mother. Nobody else.”

  “Then he isn’t here?” The American leaned her back for a moment hopelessly against the wall, turning the other way, to face out from it. She let her head roll a little to one side. “What am I going to do? Where is he, what became of him? I haven’t even enough money to go back. I have nowhere to go. They warned me back home not to come down here alone like this, looking for him—oh, I should have listened!”

  The black eyes were speculatively narrow again, had been for some time. She pointed to the snapshot. “Hermano? He is the brother of the señorita, or—?”

  The blonde stranger touched her own ring finger. This time the sob came first. “He’s my husband! I had to pawn my wedding ring to help pay my way here. I’ve got to find him! He was going to send for me later—and then he never did.”

  The black eyes had flicked downward to the child, almost unnoticeably, then up again. Once more she pointed to
the snapshot.

  The blonde nodded. “It’s his. Ours. I don’t think he even knows about it. I wrote him, and I never heard back...”

  The other’s head turned sharply aside for a moment, con­ferring with the old woman. In profile, her cameo-like beauty was woven more expressive. So was the razor-sharpness of its latent cruelty.

  Abruptly, she reached out with both hands. “Entra. Entra. Come in. Rest. Refresh yourself.” The door was sud­denly open at full width, revealing a patio in the center of which was a profusion of white roses. The bushes were not many, perhaps six all told, but they were all in full bloom, weighted down with their masses of flowers. They were ar­ranged in a hollow square. Around the outside ran a border of red-tiled flooring. In the center there was a deep gaping hole—a well, either being dug or being repaired. It was lined with a casing of shoring planks that protruded above its lip. A litter of construction tools lay around, lending a transient ugliness to the otherwise beautiful little enclosure: a wheel­barrow, several buckets, a mixing trough, a sack of cement, shovels and picks, and an undulating mound of misplaced earth brought up out of the cavity.

  There was no one working at it now, it was too late in the day. Silence hung heavily. In the background was the house proper, its rooms ranged single file around three sides of the enclosure, each one characteristically opening onto it with its own individual doorway. The old houses of Moorish Africa, of which this was a lineal descendant, had been like that: blind to the street, windowless, cloistered, each living its life about its own inner, secretive courtyard. Twice transplanted;­ first to Spain, then to the newer Spain across the waters.

  Now that entry had at last been granted, the blonde girl was momentarily hesitant about entering. “But if—but if this isn’t his house, what good is it to come in?”