Aragon swallowed a chunk of pride, washing it down with a second glass of Scotch. “When Jenkins called me here late last night he was pretty high, not on drugs or alcohol, on hope and anticipation. He said he had a pigeon. I don’t think so. I think he was the pigeon. The only description I could get of his companion was that he was wearing the clothes of an ordinary Mexican workingman. This doesn’t jibe with what Jenkins told me, that the meeting offered him the chance of a lifetime, that his so-called pigeon had come down to Mexico — note the word ‘down’ — to scout around for investment opportunities and that he was ready to put money into the chicken tortilla business which Jenkins was touting. We’re faced with quite a few contradictions if we look at Jenkins’ death from only one viewpoint.”
“I have only one viewpoint,” Gilly said. “My own.”
“I’m aware of that, Mrs. Decker. But others do exist. Jenkins had a pretty shady past and he’s undoubtedly been involved in dozens of scams in the past couple of years. That was the way he lived. Maybe it was the way he died, and B. J. and Tula and you and I had nothing to do with it.”
“Naturally, I like the idea. I don’t want a man’s death on my conscience if I can help it.”
“Let’s leave it at that, then. Jenkins had other enemies.”
“What do you mean by other?”
“Other than B. J.”
“B. J. wasn’t his enemy. That was the trouble — he should have been. B. J. was nobody’s enemy.”
Emilia has a different idea, Aragon thought. But she’s in jail and crazy with grief and crazy without it. Nobody will believe her. Except me, dammit. Except me.
“Tell me about the girl, Tula,” Gilly said. “Though she isn’t a girl anymore, is she? That’s some consolation, I guess.”
“When B. J. was arrested she followed him to Rio Seco.”
“How touchingly faithful.”
“Not exactly. She went into business for herself.”
“What kind of business, a taco stand or something?”
“She’s a hooker.”
Her little gasp of surprise sounded genuine. “I... I’m sorry. I didn’t expect — I didn’t want that kind of fate for her.”
“People’s fates don’t depend on what you want, Mrs. Decker, not even your own.”
“I wish you’d have something nice to tell me for once instead of all this ugliness and death and dirt.”
“You gave me a dirty job,” Aragon said. “I’m glad it’s over.”
“Wait a minute, don’t hang up. Reed’s here trying to — I wish you’d stop interrupting, I can’t listen to two people at once. All right, I’ll ask him — Reed wants to know if you’ve been to the American consulate.”
“No.”
“They often get information about American citizens which the Mexican authorities don’t have or won’t admit having. Reed thinks you should go there and ask questions before you come home.”
“It’s a good idea.”
“Will you do it?”
“Yes.”
“That means you’re still working for me?”
“I guess I am.”
“Try sounding a little happier about it.”
“Yippee,” Aragon said and hung up.
Ordinarily it was Reed who put Marco to bed after dinner. Tonight Gilly did it herself. She gave him a sponge bath, then she rubbed his back with alcohol and dusted it with baby powder. She cleaned his teeth and applied moisturizing cream to his lips and drops to lubricate the eye that never closed. She gave him his shots, one to help him sleep, another to keep him free of pain for a few hours. She wasn’t as quick or thorough as Reed and she did some things the hard way, like the bath in the wheelchair instead of on a rubber sheet on the bed. But in the end everything was done and Gilly had a real sense of accomplishment. She’d always been full of natural energy and it was a relief to use some of the surplus on a constructive task.
Violet Smith came to say good night before she left for her evening meeting at the church of the Holy Sabbathians. She assisted Gilly in lifting Marco out of his chair and into the bed. He was very light and brittle, like a hollow glass child.
“Upsy-daisy,” Violet Smith said cheerfully. “My stars, he’s getting skinny. It casts a reflection on my cooking.”
“Why shouldn’t it?” Gilly said. “You’re not a very good cook.”
“I never claimed I was. Anyway, cordon bleu would be wasted in this house, what with sickness and booze and that fancy-pantsy male nurse who thinks he’s Mr. Wonderful. I do good plain cooking for good plain folks.” She emphasized the word “good.” It might not help, but it certainly wouldn’t hurt. “Nighty-night, Mr. Decker. We’ll all be praying for you at the meeting.”
Gilly waited until Violet Smith was out of earshot. “Reed thinks we should try and stop her from going to these meetings. He doesn’t trust her discretion. What do you think?”
She often asked his opinion to make him feel he had a hand in running the house. She even waited a few seconds after each question as though giving him a chance to consider and to answer. He had no answer. If he had, he couldn’t have spoken it, and if he could have spoken, he wouldn’t. Answers were useless when there were no issues left to be resolved, only time to be put in.
“She and Reed are beginning to feud over everything. Someday when you’re better I’ll fire both of them, and you and I will take a long trip together. Maybe I’ll buy another home on wheels like Dreamboat... Just think, if B. J. and I had gone away together in Dreamboat the way I’d planned, none of these terrible things would have happened. He wouldn’t have deserted me for Tula and wouldn’t have gotten involved with Harry Jenkins and been sent to jail. Tula wouldn’t be walking the streets in Rio Seco, and Jenkins himself would be alive. You’ve often heard me talk about Jenkins, B. J.’s old partner in crime.”
She watched the fingers of his right hand to see if he raised them to indicate interest. They didn’t move. Perhaps the sleeping hypo had already taken effect; perhaps he couldn’t remember Jenkins and didn’t want to. She went on talking anyway. Nothing could have stopped her now.
“Jenkins died last night and was buried late this afternoon. They bury people as soon as possible in Mexico, I’m not sure why. The funeral only cost fifty dollars, imagine that. In this town they don’t even allow you to look at a coffin for fifty dollars. Since he’s already buried, there won’t be an autopsy and probably nobody will ever know for sure what killed him. Aragon thinks some kind of drug was slipped into his drink. He didn’t say so directly but he gave the impression that he suspects B. J. did it. That’s rather funny, isn’t it?”
He didn’t think it was funny. Laughter had been lost longer and farther back in his brain than speech.
“Naturally, I told Aragon the idea was ridiculous. I’m not so sure it was, though. Oh, I know B. J. could never have done anything violent. But merely putting something in a drink, that’s such a quiet little crime, hardly more than running off with one of the servants.”
He willed her to stop talking and go away. It was useless. His will had no more power than the rest of him. He could only listen and wish he was deaf and hope for an earthquake, a thunderstorm, the ringing of a phone, a dog barking, the sound of a car in the driveway, a low-flying plane. Shut up and leave me alone, leave me be.
“And Tula,” she said. “Poor little Tula. I drove down to Rio Seco years ago before B. J. and I were married. It was an evil place. You could smell it rotting, the garbage, the sewage in the streets, the decadence and decay. What a strange fate for such a pretty young girl. A ‘nymphet’ I believe they’d call her nowadays. You know what a nymphet is? I looked it up in the encyclopedia. It’s a young nymph. And a nymph is like a larva and a larva is sort of a worm. Wormlet — that doesn’t sound quite so flattering or mysterious, does it? Wormlet. It describes her perfectly.” Her brief laugh was more like a cough. “If the worm turns, I wonder if the wormlet makes a turnlet. B. J. would have thought that was funny. He had a nice sense of humor.”