She said, “I remember you well now. You purchased cigarettes from me. Your eyes were bold.” Her voice sounded as if she were trying to sell me more Belmonts.
“Yes, that, uh ... the man?"
She shook her head. “I do not know him, I have seen him before, I think, but I do not know who he is."
“It's urgent that I see him. If you could give me any idea where he might be—"
“I am sorry, but I do not know who he is. Nor where I might have seen him before. I go with the cigarettes to other nightclubs, perhaps at another I saw him. I do not know."
“He gave you the note..."
“Sí. He gave me it, and some money, asking me to pass to you the note at exactly six o'clock."
“But you said the note was for the girl."
She frowned. “Is true. I did only what he asked. What is the matter with it?"
“Well, I wound up in jail last night."
“I know. You fight with him, no? I hear of it. He was not very nice."
“Yeah. I fought the whole police force. And a funny thing. I bought some cigarettes, Belmonts, from you. When I got to the police station, the Belmonts were marijuana. How would that happen?"
Her frown deepened. “You are joking.” Then her face brightened and she laughed. “How funny. You are making a joke."
“I am not making a joke."
“Then you are crazy.” She spoke more sharply, black eyes narrowing. “What is it you come here for? To find a man, or to speak cruel things to me? I do not know what you talk about. I think I do not like you any more."
“Miss, I don't enjoy saying cruel things. But the cops found the marijuana on me, in a Belmont pack."
“Then you got it from another. Maybe you are a dope-head. How do I know? I am tired of talking."
“Miss, a number of unpleasant things have happened to me in the last few hours. If you should not tell me the truth, it could—"
“Caramba! You tell me I am lying?” If eyes could flash fire she'd have burned me to a crisp. She forgot about holding the covers, and bounced straight up in bed, spitting words at me. The covers fell to her waist but for a moment she was too angry to think about that.
How can I keep her mad? I thought. Think of something infuriating! But hell, I knew now she was telling me the truth. She wouldn't lie. She had an honest face.
“Dog!” she spat. “I do not lie with you."
That, I thought unhappily, seemed certain now.
“I tell to you the truth! Go away! Out of the door, go!"
I guess I was looking at her with a simple, half-pleased expression on my face, because suddenly she snatched the covers and yanked them up in front of her. She almost flipped them over her head. Then she pressed them under her chin and said a whole mess of things at me in Spanish which, even though I didn't understand them, made me sad.
“Whoa, wait, simmer down. Honey, look. Wait.” I held my hands in front of me and finally the words slowed and stopped. She glared at me. I stood up.
“I'll leave now, but—"
“Good!"
“—but first I want you to know I had to ask these questions. I've been shot at a couple times lately, certain people have a large desire to kill me, and I'm merely trying to learn enough so I can stay alive. There's more, but believe me, I had to find out if you could help. Thanks, and I'm sorry.” I turned around and walked to the door.
I had my hand on the big doorknob when she said, “One moment. It is true? Your life has been shot at?"
I turned around. “Is true. They almost hit it."
Her eyes flashed that fire again, momentarily, as she said, “You are not lying with me?"
I grinned. “No.” I tapped the Band-Aid on my neck.
She moistened her lips. “Is different. And I am not angry for what you thought of me. If I see this man, I will tell you. Tonight I am at Monte Cassino again."
“Fine."
“Goodbye, then. How do you call yourself?"
“I call myself Shell Scott, Sarita."
She smiled slowly. The covers drooped, slid down a little farther. Not as much as before. Enough. I was still holding onto that little bit of doorknob. I turned it, opened the door, and made myself go out.
The cab driver let me out at the corner of Juarez and Luis Moya, half a block from Villamantes’ office. The sun was shining, as it usually does mornings during the rainy season, and the street was alive, brilliant with color. Far down on San Juan de Letran the steel skeleton of a new skyscraper reared high in the crisp air above the other buildings. An old, brown-faced woman sat on the sidewalk around the corner on Luis Moya Street with her wicker basket of tortillas, calling "Grandes ... grandes," in a high, cracked voice. On Juarez another woman, like a twin to the first, squatted on her haunches beside a small metal pan filled with chestnuts, fanning hot coals beneath the pan to keep the chestnuts sizzling.
I walked past sidewalk tables and stalls loaded with bright silver jewelry, necklaces, rings, hammered cigarette cases, pins and charms, maracas with the death of the brave bull painted on them. At one stall the salesman haggled over the price of a tooled-leather wallet with a well-dressed tourist carrying a rainbow-colored serape, a miniature camera hanging from his neck. A dozen times in the half block I walked, I passed men or women or children selling the inevitable lottery tickets. Ten million pesos was the top prize this time, eight hundred thousand U.S. dollars. A young Mexican took my picture and handed me a printed ticket. A parrot squawked in one of the stores, and a cat inside the entrance dozed at the edge of the sun. It was a lovely morning, brisk, bright with color, one of those days when it's enough just to be alive.
Villamantes’ office was in the Edificio Real in the middle of the block. I walked past a blind man holding a card of Gillette razor blades before him, went inside to the elevator. At the third floor I walked down to number 18 and stopped before the door. Villamantes: Exportadora e Importadora, S.A.
I went inside.
Chapter Twelve
There were two desks in the room—one inside the door, one in the corner on my left. A young Mexican man sat at the far desk scribbling on some papers. In the back wall near him was a closed door with a plain frosted-glass window. I stopped inside the entrance. A woman about forty years old, with a face like a prune biting a lemon, sat behind the desk. She glanced up, adjusted rimless glasses and looked at me.
I said, “I'd like to see Mr. Villamantes, please."
She shook her head and answered in English, “He isn't here."
“It's important. When will he be back?"
“Not for at least a week. He is taking his vacation."
“I see. Thanks. Where can I find him?"
She stared blankly at me, lips pursed. “I don't know. He is on vacation. Perhaps he went to Acapulco. Perhaps to Fortin de las Flores. I am not sure."
“It's a very important transaction, I've spoken to him."
“What is your name?"
“Bloom.” I said the first thing that popped into my mind. “Sam Bloom."
She squeezed her lips more tightly together and opened a drawer. She fingered through some white cards. “You have not spoken to him, Mr .... Bloom."
“He must not have mentioned it to you."
“He would have.” She bit harder on the lemon.
I looked at the closed door in back. The guy at the other desk got up and walked over to me. “What you want to see him for, amigo?"
“Business.” I looked from him to Sourpuss. “It's so important I'm willing to pay well for any information. I'm anxious to settle the deal."
The young guy smiled slightly and shook his head. “Can't help you,” he said. “Come back in a week."
I looked at that frosted-glass door again. I took a breath and walked toward it. The guy grabbed my arm.
I stopped. “Get out of my way."
He stared at me, mouth tight, then he shrugged and let go. So I figured the next office was empty. It was. I went back into the front office. Th
e man and woman were both at their desks. Just for hell I said, “Thanks, comrades.” The guy started to get up, then sat down and smiled stiffly. Pruneface swallowed her lemon, I went out, onto Juarez again. At the corner I looked back, up three floors in the Edificio Real. I could see the guy standing at a window, looking down at me. I flagged a cab.
It was already after noon, and I was a few minutes late for the meeting with Amador. I hoped he'd done some good; the threads, the leads, were melting away. Emilio was the last one. I paid the driver and got out on Zaragoza, then went inside the building, wiggled a finger at the middle-aged gal behind the desk, and trotted up the cement steps. Amador's apartment was up one flight, down the hall and around the corner. I reached the top of the stairs and turned to my left, started walking down the long hallway.
I saw him come around the corner at the hall's far end, maybe fifty feet away. At first I wasn't sure it was Amador; then I got closer and recognized him. There was something a little funny about him though. He stood for a moment a few feet from the corner, one hand outstretched and pressed against the wall, then he swung his right foot forward and brought his left hand up against his chest. He took another step, stumbled and almost fell.
I ran toward him. “Amador!” I yelled. “What's wrong?"
He had stopped and was standing in the middle of the hallway, both hands pushed out in front of him like those of a blind man finding himself suddenly in a strange place. His hands twitched, jerked a little. I reached him and stopped in front of him, fright making my heart beat faster. There was a lumpy gash at the side of his head, a little trickle of blood congealing there.
“Amador! What's wrong with you?"
There was an expression on his face that I had never seen on anyone else's face before, fear, panic, a gagged but screaming horror like a scream that shrieked only in his brain, echoing, crescendoing there behind his staring eyes. His mouth was open and his eyes were stretched so wide they seemed enormous in his head, staring, staring, staring. His hands pawed at my coat, flapped loosely against me, and breath hissed from his mouth; there were noises in his throat as if he were gagging. His knees buckled and he started to fall.
I grabbed him, tried to hold him up as he went to one knee. I could feel his body twitching, shaking, jerking in my hands. His head rolled loosely to the side, hung like a dead weight against his shoulder, and he rolled the staring eyes up toward me.
“Amador,” I said, “Amador.” I eased him down to the floor, laid him on his back and loosened his tie and belt. His knees came up from the floor and flopped down again; his hands slapped once together; there was a last faint rasping sound in his throat. He didn't move again.
I ran back to the stairway, shouted down it, “Get an ambulance. Quick. Understand?"
“Sí. What is it?"
“Quickly, quickly. A man is dying."
Her startled gasp followed me as I ran back down the hall. But Amador wasn't dying. He was dead. He had no pulse, no breath. I knew it was my imagination, but it seemed that already his flesh had begun to lose its living warmth, to cool, grow cold and clammy. And his eyes still stared, as now they would always stare, even after his lids were closed. I think the worst of it all was looking at his eyes, knowing they would continue to stare against his closed lids, until even those lids rotted and fell away within his grave, until the eyes themselves were gone.
And now I would never really remember him as the nice, smiling guy who had said, "She is one classy vegetable, you will observe—no matter who is wrong, the Captain is right—" Whenever I thought of Amador I would remember his eyes, the look that I had seen there. It had been like seeing a scream that shrieked of panic and strangeness and the knowledge of death.
I shut my eyes and pressed my hands against them, trying to think. I'd first seen him come around the corner; he must have been coming from his room. I thought of the gash on his head, as if he'd fallen—or someone had struck him. I straightened up, pulled out my gun, then walked to the corner and around it. The door to his apartment stood open.
I stepped to the door, gun ready. There wasn't anybody in sight. I looked around inside the room, inside all the rooms, but I was alone here now. In the front room again, I saw a chair tipped over on its side; near it on the carpet there was a small, dark spot. I got down on my knees, looked at it, touched it. It was blood. This must be where Amador had fallen. But he hadn't got that gash from falling; he'd been hit, his head cut, and then had fallen here on the carpet.
A few inches from the spot of blood, something glittered in the light. I bent closer, looked at it. It was glass. Little slivered pieces of glass, some powdery, some with curving sections, as if it might once have been a small tube, or tiny vial.
I felt dizzy all of a sudden. I got to my feet, shook my head. The dizziness went away, then came back again. My skin felt cold and I could feel perspiration clammy on my forehead. I squeezed my eyes shut, opened them, wiped my hand across my forehead and looked at the moisture on my fingers. My little finger trembled nervously, independently of the others, as if a tic were there, the muscles making it twitch erratically.
This was crazy. I felt weak, a little nauseous. All of a sudden, without reason. And a thin thread of fear wound itself in my thoughts. The dizziness swept over me again and I could feel my heart pounding rapidly, the blood hammering at my temples. What was wrong with me? What was happening to me? I tried to fight down the irrational fear but it swelled like a bubble in me, a bubble that burst and sent coldness all through my body. The coldness coursed over my skin, clutched at my throat and made it difficult to breathe. I looked at the tiny bits of glittering glass on the floor, backed away from them until my shoulders were against the wall, my hands pressed flat upon the plaster behind me.
I shook my head again. I was acting crazy, letting my imagination run away with me and fill me with imaginary symptoms, unreasoning fears. It was the strangeness of this, of watching Amador die, seeing that frozen scream in his eyes and the contortions of his face. It was that and my dream, my nightmare, and listening to the doctor tell me crazy things, crazy things that he had felt, the shortness of breath and coldness of skin, fright swelling into panic, faintness and dizziness, that and the death of shaggy apes, staggering and falling, suffocating and dying, and their bodies melting into black putrescence.
I couldn't think. It was as if my brain were ice and thought was frozen there. I couldn't remember now what was dream and what was true. And, unreasoning, I felt the fear growing in me, eating at my will. I fought it, on the edge of panic, held it with an intensity of effort that twisted my mouth, pulled my lips back against my teeth. Suddenly I realized I was staring blankly across the room, and that my eyes must look now as Amador's eyes had looked to me.
I slid along the wall and reached the door, went out and walked around the corner. My entire body was cold, as if coldness seeped from my flesh down into the marrow of my bones. I rounded the corner and stopped as I saw Amador again. He lay quietly, his arms loose at his sides, mouth hanging open and his head still almost touching his shoulder. Revulsion rippled in my stomach, slid in my throat. I went by him and down the hall, fighting to keep myself from running.
I heard voices when I reached the top of the stairs, and I looked down them feeling the dizziness growing, mounting, as if to make me fall, plunge down the cement steps. Below me, at the desk, I could see men, police. I heard a siren moaning outside, probably the ambulance. And then I recognized the policeman at the desk: Emilio. Captain Emilio.
He turned and started up the steps and I whirled around and ran the length of the hall. I didn't even stop to think. I just wanted to get away from him, not let him see me. I went down the back stairs and out of the apartment building, and in the sunlight I felt better. I leaned against the rough wall of the building for a minute, my heart pounding, breath short, dizziness still with me. I told myself that it was because of my running, and my fright. But my legs were weak. The back of my legs seemed almost liquid.
&n
bsp; I flagged a libre and climbed in, told the driver to go around to the front of the apartments on Zaragoza. Air blowing in the open window helped, made me feel less faint. Out front I could see the police cars and the ambulance from the American British Cowdray Hospital. I told the driver to park half a block away, remembering that Buff had been taken from the Prado in an ABC ambulance—but that didn't have to mean anything. The ambulance had undoubtedly been a fake.
Then I saw white-coated men bring out the body, covered with a sheet. A small crowd of the inevitable curious ghouls had gathered and were craning their necks for a look. Policemen came out and climbed into their cars, then they and the ambulance drove away.
“Follow the ambulance,” I told the driver.
I thought I knew now what had been wrong with Amador, what had killed him—and what was wrong with me. But I had to be sure.
I waited at the end of the hospital corridor, the heavy odor of ether, medicines, the almost indefinable hospital smell, in my nostrils. I could see Captain Emilio sitting in a chair tilted back against the wall down near the visitors’ desk, a big gun in the holster at his hip.
The ambulance had come here to the ABC Hospital—and so had Emilio, alone in his police car. He had spoken to the doctor briefly, then sat down in the chair. The doctor was an Englishman, James, who had given me a couple of prescriptions for the usual tourist disorders shortly after I'd hit Mexico City, and had taken fifteen minutes from his busy schedule for a little conversation. So he knew I was an L.A. detective—if he remembered.
He had gone into a room only twenty feet from where I stood, and I wanted to talk to him. I wanted it bad. The doctor was in there now with what was left of Amador. I'd been waiting more than an hour, keeping an eye on Captain Emilio, when the door opened behind me and I turned to see the doctor come out.
Pattern for Panic Page 12