The House of Special Purpose

by Paul Christopher

  The garage owner nodded down towards his trousers.

  ‘What did you ask him for?’ asked Black.

  ‘The key to the door. If someone comes along trying to find our friend here I think we want the door locked.’

  ‘Good idea,’ said Black. Wrinkling his nose, he went behind the man in the chair, reached down into his pocket and pulled out a pair of long old-fashioned keys tied together on a loop of the same wire that bound his hands and feet.

  ‘Si?’ asked Jane. The garage owner nodded.

  ‘Let’s get him behind the desk, then lower him down onto the floor, keep him out of sight,’ said Black. Jane nodded and they rolled the chair and its heavily breathing contents to the back of the office. Jane helped lower the garage owner to the floor. The two headed for the door but Black put a hand on Jane’s shoulder.

  ‘We need a map unless you have an idea of where we’re going.’

  ‘Cuernavaca,’ said Jane. ‘I saw a brochure at the hotel this morning. It’s the closest big town to Mexico City. We can hide out there until we figure out how to get out of this mess.’

  ‘All right,’ Black responded. ‘But you can’t go out on the street looking like that.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Your blouse is covered with blood.’

  ‘Oh, Jesus,’ she whispered. ‘I almost forgot.’ She rubbed a hand across her forehead. ‘Poor Cesar.’

  ‘It wasn’t your fault or mine,’ said Black quietly. ‘And it could just as easily have been you or me.’ The detective glanced around the office and spotted a moth-eaten navy blue cardigan hanging on a nail. He took it down and handed it to Jane. She looked at it for a moment, sighed and slipped it on. The sweater was ridiculously large but at least it covered the blood. They stepped out of the office and Black closed the door, locking it with one of the silver keys.

  ‘Which motor car?’

  ‘The green Chevy,’ Jane answered, leading the way to the parked car. It was a large square four-door touring car, the rubber on the running boards rotted through to the metal and one of the bug-eye headlights cracked. The windscreen was filthy with old bugs and dried mud and the spare tyre was missing from its place in the driver’s-side fender. Jane unlocked the car, eased behind the wheel and plugged the key into the slot on the dashboard. She pressed the starter button and the engine coughed to life. ‘Get in,’ she said to Black. He did so, gingerly closing the squeaking door.

  Jane put the car into gear and slowly drove over to the pumps. She got out quickly, put the nozzle from one of the pumps into the car’s tank outlet and wound up the meter. She switched it on and gasoline began to fill the tank. While it was filling, she took a rag from a rack between the pumps, dipped it into a galvanized bucket of grimy water and did her best to clean the windscreen, managing to remove at least some of the dirt and petrified bug matter. She went back to the pump, waited until gasoline began to spill out onto the dusty ground at her feet, then switched off the meter and hung up the hose. As she climbed back in behind the wheel and slammed the door, a pair of state police cruisers roared past the gas station, sirens moaning.

  ‘That was a near thing,’ said Black.

  ‘Miss is as good as a mile.’

  Jane put the car in gear again and they headed back out onto the street. Looking into the rear-view mirror, she checked to see that everything appeared normal at the gas station behind her. ‘Siesta time,’ she said, nodding to herself, pleased. She drove off the lot and onto the narrow street.

  She eventually found a sign for Highway 9 and an arrow pointing to Cuernavaca. Soon they were driving through a heavily populated and clearly very poor district that seemed to be given over to small manufacturing concerns. Ten minutes later the landscape changed dramatically as they reached the broad streets and attractive homes of the Loma de Chapultepec, one of Mexico City’s wealthiest suburban ‘colonias.’ By now they were well away from Coyoacán and there was no sign of the police. Eventually the colonia gave way to open, hilly farmland, filled on either side with fields of the spiky maguey plant, used for making the rough, working-class liquor known as pulque. Dotted among the maguey were pepper trees, cacti, melon patches and truck vegetables. Above it all was a perfect azure sky made pale by the burning sun.

  ‘What did you mean when you said we’d been set up?’ Jane asked, keeping exactly to the speed limit and checking the rear-view mirror every few seconds.

  Black cocked a thumb and forefinger, making a shooting gesture. ‘Those shots were fired from the villa across the road from where we were. The upper floor. The only person who knew we were going to be there was Morales.’

  ‘The state police?’ Jane frowned. Somehow it didn’t seem possible.

  ‘No, I don’t think so, at least not officially. I think Morales is bent. On the jake.’

  ‘Jake?’

  ‘Take, as in taking bribes.’

  ‘On the pad, you mean.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Who’s doing the bribing?’

  ‘Someone closer than we think, I’m almost sure of that.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘We appear. Watts or whatever he calls himself disappears. Think about it. We flew from Washington to New York for the exhumation. Who the bloody hell knew about that?’

  ‘Fleming?’ Jane’s frown deepened. ‘Surely not him. I thought you two worked together or something.’

  ‘We did and I find it hard to believe as well. The only other people who might have known are Donovan and that other British person, whatshisname?’

  ‘Stephenson. William Stephenson. But they just hired us, for Christ’s sake,’ Jane continued. ‘Now you’re saying they’re trying to kill us? Where’s the sense in that?’ She dropped down a gear as the highway began to climb. The fields had slipped away, replaced by dense stands of pines. The air coming in through Jane’s partially opened window was also a great deal cooler.

  ‘I don’t think the objective was to get us killed,’ said Black. ‘Whoever was firing that weapon knew precisely what he was doing. Cesar was killed with a single shot to the chest. I counted half a dozen rounds fired after that, all of which missed.’

  ‘We were being pinned down on purpose.’

  ‘I think so. Cesar dead, those guards we found.’

  ‘That’s crazy. Those guards had been dead for at least a couple of days. I’ve covered enough crime scenes to know that. And if we killed Cesar, what did we do with the rifle we shot him with?’

  ‘Of course it’s crazy but it would have had us tied up with the police for God knows how long. Out of the way.’

  ‘Out of whose way?’

  ‘Whoever ordered Cesar’s killer to fire on us.’

  ‘This is all going around in circles.’

  ‘For now we’ve got to concentrate on getting away from Morales and his people.’

  ‘And how do we do that?’ Jane asked. ‘That fat guy we left in the garage is going to get loose eventually or someone’s going to find him. Every cop in Mexico is going to be looking for us. This car is going to turn into a death trap if we don’t do something about it pretty soon.’

  ‘We’ll think of something.’

  ‘I just did,’ said Jane, pointing to an open meadow on their left. She slowed, struggling with the wheel, taking the old car across the highway, where she drew up at a roughly painted sign beside an open gate.

  AIRPLANE RIDES

  CONDUCIRA AEROPLANO

  FOR TOURISTS

  POR TURISTAS

  $40

  (PESOS)

  Resting on the grass a dozen yards away, a very run-down aircraft sagged on its undercarriage. The body of the aircraft had been bright red at some time in the past but the old Shell Oil identification could be seen quite clearly through the thin coat of paint. At some later date the plane must have been used for crop dusting because Jane could see the thin metal tubes and nozzles bolted to the underside of the nearest wing. There were long streaks of oil and exhaust on the cabin and the underside
of the wing and the tail of the single-winged aircraft was coated in oily filth. There was also no visible antenna running from the head of the cockpit back over the fuselage, which probably meant there was no radio. From the looks of it, the aeroplano wasn’t conduciring many turistas these days, even though forty pesos was a perfectly reasonable price.

  ‘Dear God,’ said Black, staring through the windscreen at the machine in front of him. ‘What on earth is that?’

  ‘Sweet deliverance,’ said Jane. ‘Give me twenty simoleons and don’t let the guy who owns that thing see your gun.’

  ‘Simoleons?’

  ‘Bucks, dinero, dollars.’ She shook her head. ‘I’m going to have to hire us a translator.’ She put the car in gear and drove through the open gate and onto the meadow.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Wednesday, November 26, 1941

  Afusco, Mexico

  A man wearing brown dungarees and a navy blue pullover sweater was lying under the wing of the aeroplane, his head pillowed on a rolled-up leather jacket that looked as old and grimy as the plane itself. He had a battered tan fedora pulled over his eyes and a pair of lined flying boots on his feet. As Jane pulled up beside the wing, the man stirred, tipped back the fedora and got up, ducking out from under the wing, blinking and yawning in the bright sunlight.

  Jane got out from behind the wheel of the Chevrolet and pulled her own sweater tighter around her so the pilot wouldn’t notice Cesar’s blood, now drying to a deep brown. Black got out of the car on the other side, keeping his right hand in the pocket of his jacket.

  ‘Por favor,’ Jane began.

  ‘Relax, I’m an American,’ said the man, grinning. He was fox-faced, his cheeks bony, his nose and chin sharp. His skin was deep brown and weathered, his lips cracked by too much exposure to the sun. He swiped off his hat and ran one hand through thick, slightly reddish brown hair. His eyes were the most extraordinary colour of blue Jane had ever seen, bright, laughing and as full of youth as Cesar’s had been, set in the face of a man who had seen and done far too much. ‘Name’s Lindbergh, believe it or not. Arnie Lindbergh. No relation, of course, or I wouldn’t be lying on my kiester in the middle of a Mexican beanfield, would I?’ He wiped his right hand on the thigh of his dungarees and offered it to Jane. She shook it.

  ‘Pleased to meet you, Mr Lindbergh.’

  He smiled. ‘If you want to be formal it’s Lieutenant Lindbergh but I’d be obliged if you’d call me Arnie. I’m not the stuffy type.’ He picked up the leather jacket and shook it out. Jane could see gold wings stitched onto the chest and a circular patch on the shoulder that had a laurel wreath wrapped around the Roman numeral IX.

  ‘Lieutenant in what service, if you don’t mind me asking?’ said Black.

  ‘Ninth Aero Squadron, U.S. Army Signal Corps, out of Camp Kelly, Texas, to France via Winchester and Grantham, England, flying Sopwith Scouts. Called us the Night Watch in Vavincourt. We flew the Breguet fourteen. Specialised in night recon.’ He paused. ‘You’re a Limey, right? How about you?’

  ‘Runner for the Cherryknobs. Motorcycles.’

  Jane gave Black an odd look. Arnie Lindbergh laughed.

  ‘Military police. Boy, I remember you guys. See those funny red hats coming into the pubs after hours and you knew the jig was up.’

  ‘How’d you wind up here?’ Jane asked.

  Arnie shrugged. ‘They disbanded the squadron. I wanted to go back to Texas but there wasn’t a whole lot of work. Wound up flying for Shell Oil.’ He patted the side of the old plane fondly. ‘That’s how I inherited Gertie here. When Mexico nationalised all the oil companies a few years back, Shell pulled out overnight and here I was. Bought the plane from them for a dollar ’cause they didn’t want to haul it back to the States. I went into crop dusting for the big pulque plantations. When the plantations started getting broken up, I took out the dusting tanks and started flying the turistas. Which is what you people are, I’m guessing.’

  ‘Newlyweds,’ said Black quickly.

  ‘That right?’ said Arnie. ‘Well, in that case it’ll be thirty pesos instead of forty. How’s that for a deal?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Then climb in.’ Arnie made a sweeping gesture, bowing low then gave Jane a hand up on the step into the aircraft. There were two seats up front and two behind. The front seats were faced by two large wooden steering wheels exactly like the one in the Chevrolet and both places had identical foot pedals. Jane noticed there were fewer instruments on the dashboard of the plane than there had been in the Chevrolet. The windscreen was divided into three sections and the seats behind each had their own window.

  Arnie climbed in and dropped into the left-hand pilot’s seat. Black clambered in after him, closing and latching the hatchway. It smelled like a combination of insect spray and kerosene.

  ‘Stinson Detroiter,’ said Arnie, patting the nominal dashboard. ‘First diesel airplane ever built so smoke ’em if you got ’em. You’d need a blowtorch to set fire to Gertie. Also the first electric starter.’ Arnie pulled out a pair of knobs on the dashboard, threw a single toggle switch, then turned the big white starter knob to the right. The engine coughed, died, coughed, then caught, the propeller jerking, then spinning madly as the engine spooled up, sending deep, shuddering vibrations through the plane.

  ‘What’s Gertie’s range?’ Jane asked, raising her voice over the bellowing howl of the engine.

  ‘’Bout seven hundred miles, you want to pray real hard,’ Arnie yelled back. ‘Hang on.’ He set his feet onto the pedals then hauled back on the single tall throttle lever. Instantly the aeroplane jerked forward and began to gain speed as they roared down the meadow. Looking between Arnie’s and Morris Black’s shoulders, Jane was horrified to see that the meadow canted to the left less than two hundred yards ahead of them, the ground leaning down into a narrow, ravine-like valley. Fifty feet on from that a line of tall pine trees loomed like a green cliff. Jane could see Black’s shoulders stiffening and she gripped the back of Arnie’s seat, digging her fingers into the old cracked leather.

  ‘Relax, ma’am,’ said Arnie. ‘Gertie and I have been sweethearts for a lot of years now. We know each other pretty well.’

  As the meadow began to tilt away, Arnie simultaneously pushed his foot down on the left pedal and pulled back on the wheel. Almost magically, engine screaming in protest, the Stinson seemed to leap into the air. Hitting the right pedal and pulling back the wheel even more, Arnie used the slump in the landscape to give him instant altitude and enough room and acceleration to get them over the trees by what seemed to be a matter of a few feet. Arnie leveled off. ‘Anything special you want to see?’

  ‘What’s north of here?’ Jane asked, leaning forward in her seat and speaking directly into Arnie’s ear.

  ‘Other than Mexico City?’

  ‘Other than Mexico City.’

  ‘The Altiplano Centrale, the Central Plateau, the Sierra Madres.’

  ‘Beyond that.’

  ‘Cost you more than a few pesos,’ Arnie answered. ‘Gertie’s easy on fuel but not that easy.’

  ‘How about a few hundred dollars?’ said Jane. She glanced to the right and caught Black’s eye. He nodded briefly.

  Arnie reached his left hand into the canvas chart pocket on the pilot’s door and brought out a massive Smith & Wesson .44 calibre revolver that looked older than he was. He thumbed back the hammer and aimed the huge old gun at Morris Black’s temple, the muzzle less than an inch away from his skull.

  ‘How about a few answers?’ asked Arnie. ‘But first I’d appreciate it if your husband, so-called, would very slowly take his right hand out of his jacket pocket and drop whatever it’s holding onto the floor. Immediately or sooner if you don’t mind.’

  The Scotland Yard detective did exactly what he was told, moving extremely slowly.

  ‘What if I told you I had a pistol like that and it was aimed at the small of your back?’ said Jane.

  ‘Well,’ said Arnie, his gun hand
steady, ‘I’d say, number one, it’d be a matter of who shot quickest, me or you, number two, whether my hand might spasm and shoot this fellow even if you did get off a round first, and number three, even if you shot first and my hand didn’t clench up, just who the hell do you think would fly Gertie?’

  ‘He makes several valid points,’ said Morris Black. ‘The last being the most telling.’

  ‘Shit,’ was all Jane could say.

  ‘So how about you tell me what this is all about?’ Arnie asked. ‘You two aren’t newlyweds, are you?’

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ said Black.

  ‘Cops after you.’ It wasn’t really a question.

  ‘He is a cop,’ Jane offered.

  ‘Not around here he’s not.’

  ‘It’s a long story.’

  ‘We talking the Federales here or some kind of small potatoes?’ asked Arnie. ‘Soon’s you drove up I knew there was something out of whack with the two of you. No turista badge on the windshield and that old piece of tin you were driving wasn’t from any rental garage I know about. You need special plates.’

  ‘Shit,’ said Jane again.

  ‘Rough mouth there, lady.’

  ‘She’s from New York,’ said Black, as though that explained everything.

  ‘And it’s not small potatoes.’

  ‘So it is the Federales.’

  ‘The state police.’

  ‘That’s what I said.’

  ‘Bad trouble.’

  ‘I’m afraid it couldn’t be much worse,’ said Black. ‘If you knew we were lying, why did you take us up?’ Jane asked.

  ‘Idle curiosity,’ said Arnie. ‘That blood on your blouse, ma’am?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Not yours.’

  ‘No. Not mine. A young man’s.’

  ‘You or hubby here do the shooting?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Any reason I should believe you?’

  ‘Reasons, no proof.’