Los Monos was down near the mouth of the bay, tucked in between the water and a series of low jungly hills — maybe fifty buildings in all, most of them old, built around a central plaza with a fountain in its middle and a church at one end. At the other end was the shrimp cannery and a network of little piers and boat moorage, where three or four dozen fishing vessels writhed under the lash of the wind; the bay and the sea beyond were a dazzling blue laced with whitecaps. What looked to be the only hotel was on the west side of the square, a threestory tile-roofed adobe structure painted pink and called El Cabrillo.
The place looked like a ghost town: there wasn’t another human being in sight, nothing moving anywhere except a lot of dust and leaves and things swirled up by the wind. It gave me a vague eerie feeling, until I remembered that the afternoon siesta was practically a second religion in Mexico. That was where everybody was, inside out of the heat and that hammering wind, having themselves a short snooze. It seemed like a pretty good idea. But not as good as a cold cerveza, if they had cold beer in Los Monos, and a bucket of water to douse my head with.
Hernando slammed the Dodge to a quivering stop in front of the hotel. My legs felt a little weak when I got out; it had been some wild ride. I paid him the price we’d agreed on, plus a tip, and asked him to wait. If Carlton Ferguson didn’t live here I wanted a ride straight back to Los Mochis, even if it meant another hour and a half of fear and trembling. And if Ferguson did live here I might need a ride to wherever his house was. Hernando was cheerfully agreeable, and when I left him he was about to attack the contents of a huge straw lunch basket.
The lobby of El Cabrillo was small, hot, strewn with sturdy native furniture, and empty except for a round little man dozing in a desk area about as large as an elevator shaft. He didn’t speak English, it turned out, but he went and got somebody who did — a middle-aged guy with a Pancho Villa mustache, the fierce effect of which was spoiled by a ready smile and pleasant brown eyes.
“I am Pablo Venegas, owner of this first-class hotel,” he said. “You wish a room, señor? Two are available, one on the top floor with a magnificent view of water and jungle—”
“Thanks, but I may not be staying the night. That depends on what you’re able to tell me.”
“Por favor?”
“I’m looking for a man named Carlton Ferguson, an American engineer. Does he live in Los Monos?”
“Ah, Senor Ferguson. Sometimes he comes to have dinner in my first-class restaurant. He is my good friend.”
So far, so good, I thought with some relief. “Can you tell me where he lives?”
“On a hill beyond the village,” Venegas said. “Perhaps two kilometers from here. A fine villa. It was formerly owned by a general in the army, but his family moved away after he was blown up by guerrillas.”
“Would you know if Ferguson is home?”
He shrugged. “I have not seen him.”
“When did you see him last?”
“Perhaps two days ago.”
“Did he have a little boy with him? About seven years old, with light-colored hair?”
“Little boy? No, he has no children I know about.”
“Does he live alone in his villa?”
“Ah, no. With a woman who is not his wife, I think. A very beautiful woman.”
“How do I get there?”
He told me, and the directions seemed simple enough. I wasn’t quite ready to leave when I had them straight — I wanted to ask him a few more questions about Ferguson — but he must have thought I was. He said, “You seem hot and tired, señor. Some food before you go? My wife prepares the finest huachinango — what you call the red snapper — that you have ever eaten.” I started to shake my head, and he said without missing a beat, “A cold cerveza, then? Dos Equis, Tres Equis, Tecate, Carta Blanca?”
“Cold?”
“My first-class hotel is equipped with a gasoline-powered refrigera tor. The cerveza is very cold indeed.”
The inside of my mouth and throat felt like a sandpit; I didn’t need any more persuading. I followed Venegas into a little bar, where a pair of ceiling fans stirred the air with sluggish monotony and gave free rides to a colony of flies as big as bees. The bottle of Dos Equis he sold me was as cold as advertised.
“Tell me, Senor Venegas,” I said, “what sort of man is Carlton Ferguson?”
“You do not know him?”
“No. I’m here to see him on a private matter.”
“Ah, he is a fine man. He gave the padre ten thousand pesos to fix the roof of the church.”
“A generous man, then?”
“Yes. Very generous.”
“How long has he lived here?”
“For almost one year.”
“And what does he do?”
“Do, señor?”
“For a living. How does he make his money?”
“Ah. He is a very great engineer. He works on the government project to improve the port of Topolobampo.”
“Would you say he’s well liked?”
“Oh, yes. Everyone likes him.”
“So there’s been no trouble with him since he came to Los Monos.”
“None,” Venegas said. He was frowning now, so that his mustache bristled and he looked a bit more like a bandit. “Why do you ask these questions, señor? They are very odd questions.”
“A private matter, like I said.”
He lowered his voice, even though there was no one else around. “You are policia?”
“In a way,” I said.
“Ah,” he said. “A matter of seriousness, señor?”
“No. It’s nothing for you to concern yourself about. You can just forget I was ever here.”
“Of course,” he said solemnly. He had misunderstood: he thought I was some sort of government official, from the State Department or maybe even from the C.I.A. He was very impressed. He said, “If you desire to have a room later on, I will see to it that you are accommodated to the utmost. The finest room in El Cabrillo — I guarantee it.”
I thanked him and went back outside. Hernando was asleep on the front seat of the Dodge, which he had moved over into the shade of a date palm. I woke him up, climbed into the back seat, repeated Venegas’s directions, and off we went in a screech and a roar.
Beyond the church, an unpaved road climbed up into the low hills that flanked the bay to the north. That road connected with another one, and we climbed higher through lush jungle, an open area dotted with papaya trees, then more jungle, toward the crest of one of the hills. Here and there, high stucco walls with wooden gates marked the location of villas hidden among the vegetation. We passed three of these; the fourth we came to was almost invisible behind a screen of mango trees that had pink-flowered tropical vines climbing through them. This, according to Venegas, was where I would find the villa that belonged to Carlton Ferguson.
Hernando skidded the car over under the mangoes, narrowly missing their trunks, and braked to a stop about an inch from one of the gateposts. I asked him again to wait, and he nodded and smiled and lay down on the seat to continue his siesta. I got out, went over to the gate. It wasn’t nearly so windy up here, but it was just as hot and more humid; the air had that wet drippy feel I was beginning to hate.
You couldn’t see anything through the gates because they were made of solid wood. And you couldn’t see anything over the wall because it was a good eight feet high. I looked for a bell or something for a visitor to announce himself, but there wasn’t anything at all. So now what? I thought. Climb the wall like one of the monos? Beat the gate down? Stand around and wait until somebody comes out? Start yelling? Use my private-eye cunning?