As I started to thank him, he slammed the little opening. It startled me. A rude Mexican is a great rarity.
I had to wait fifteen minutes before Senor Alfredo Gaona y Navares could see me. I waited on a rump polished wooden bench in a musty ten-by-ten office dominated by a large old lady at a large old typing desk, operating a machine that looked as if Mark Twain had invented it. At last two women in black came out of the inner office, arms around each other, sobbing soffly. I was directed to go in.
Senor Gaona was elderly. He had a small pale face and an expression of weary distaste. He did not get up or extend a hand. Complex aluminum crutches leaned against the wall behind him.
“What is your reason for wishing to see Senora Vitrier?” The English was precise, unaccented, with a delivery that sounded like a programmed computer.
“I wanted to talk to her about the two American girls who were staying with her as her guests.”
“With what purpose?”
“Senor Gaona, I am doing a personal favor for the Bowie girl’s father. He was injured in an automobile accident, or he would be here himself. He was out of touch with his daughter for seven months. He is curious about how she lived here, where she lived, what kind of life it was for her.”
“Senora Vitrier would not care to discuss it.”
“What makes you so sure?”
He hesitated. “I do not have to explain; but I will. Out of her generous heart she offered the two young women lodging when they had no place they could go. This was not a wise thing to do. One cannot judge by appearances. The young women might have been of a kind one does not want in the home. After they quarreled and one departed, the other one was killed, as you must know, in an accident in the mountains. Senora Vitrier appeared and performed the duty of identifying the dead young woman, and turned over her possessions to the police. It was a very ugly experience for her. I am quite certain she would not care to be reminded of it, or to discuss it.”
“Couldn’t you let her decide that? Where can I get in touch with her?”
“She is a very, very wealthy woman. The house she maintains here is one of several in various parts of the world. I am retained by her to keep her from being approached by strangers, and also to keep her house here in good order so that she can return, unannounced, and begin living here at any time.”
“What would happen if I were to write her a letter?”
“It would come here to this office and I would open it and read it and decide if it is a matter which she would wish to know about. If I so de cided, I would mail it to her bank in Zurich and they would forward it to whatever address she is using at the time.”
“What would you do if her house here burned down?”
“So advise Zurich.”
“And my letter would not get past you?”
“Assuredly not, sir. She gave explicit instructions to me that she did not want to hear any more of this affair, not even if the surviving young lady attempted to reach her by letter.”
“And has she tried?”
“No.”
“Has anyone else tried, I mean in relation to the death of the girl?”
“I have explained the situation to you, sir, in more detail than is my habit. There is no way you can approach Senora Vitrier, no way whatsoever. So we must consider the matter closed. Good day.”
And indeed it was good day. The old lady had entered behind me, unheard, and she startled me when she said, “Theees way ow.” I was on the sidewalk nine seconds later. And ten minutes after that I was in a briskly modern office where mini-skirted darlings came beaming in and out, emptying the “out” baskets and putting documents in the “in” baskets, and I was shaking hands with Ron Townsend’s friend in the local power structure, Enelio Fuentes. A glass panel in a wall overlooked, from about a thirty-foot height, about two acres of concrete shop space where bug-swarms of Volkswagens were being tuned, inspected, and repaired.
Enelio was thirty, or a little over, ruggedly handsome, with a yard of shoulders, a contrived casual lock of black hair across the forehead, a narrow waist, a big friendly grin, a massive and powerful handshake.
“Ol‘ Ron phoned me about you. Hey, sit down. How you like our town? How about that bird Ron has got himself? You meet her? That big Miranda. Fonny goddam thing. Ron spend half his life running like hell every time any bird looks at him with that marriage look. This big Miranda, she doesn’t want not any part of it, and he wants it so bad he can’t breathe deep. That one is some batch of girl, I tell you. Hey, you want a bloody mary? Good. Hey you, Esperanza, go make bloody marys for Mister Travis McGee, here, and me, and stop making the hot eye at him and waving that little butt around. Mr. McGee isn’t interested in short, ogly little girls.” She was a lovely little thing, and she went running out, giggling. “Soch a one that is,” he said fondly. “Can’t type, can’t file, can’t run the switchboard. But she can make any drink you ever heard of, man. My old man says, ’Nelio, why the hell did I waste my money sending you to the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University, all you do is hire pretty girls all the hell over the place?‘ Me, I don’t say a word, just give him the quarterly breakdown, show the profit we’re turning, ask him if he’d rather give it back to his brother, my oncle, hired women looked like dogmeat, worked their ass off on overtime, and sometimes didn’t even break even. Now my oncle is crapping around with the little feeder airline we bought las’ year, Aeronaves Fuentes, and from the way the books look, I got to pretty soon go shake things up over there. Hey, here she is. Try that, Travis McGee. Delicious? Don’ stand around bugging the boss fellas, girl. Go file something in the wrong place so nobody ever finds it again.” He looked out through the glass wall and suddenly stiffened, the smile gone. He pressed the bar on a call box and bent toward it, and the Spanish was much too fast for me to follow. I looked out at the shop area and suddenly saw a man in a white jacket heading at a half run toward a couple standing helplessly beside an old black Volkswagen.
Enelio grinned and stretched. “Chrissake, tell them five million times anybody comes in, you find out what the hell they want right away. Quick. Then you tell them how long it takes and how much it costs. And you do it in the time you say, and you charge what you say, and get them out on the street fast.” I saw something I had overlooked. The big grin did not change the eyes. They remained cool and shrewd and appraising.
A tall solemn girl came in with letters for signature. He nodded and motioned her closer. He read the letters swiftly, scrawled his big signature on each and handed them to the girl, then slapped her smartly across the seat of her skirt as she turned. She yelped and jumped, and he said something in swift, slurred Spanish. She spoke in tones of protest. He spoke again. She smiled and flushed and walked swiftly out.
“That one.” he explained, “that Rosita, she had the unhoppy love affair and now she has the long face. I told her I wanted to see if there was any feeling left in the back side. She told me I should have more respect. Then I said something it doesn’t translate. But it made her face hot and it made the smile, no? Hey, anything you want, just say what it is. Okay?”
I briefed him on the situation, and on what we were trying to do, and showed him Bix’s photo. He caught on quickly. He understood the father’s need to have all the blanks filled in.
He looked in the phone book and gave his switchboard a number to call. In a few moments his desk phone rang. He picked it up and, after a few minutes wait, got through to somebody he called Roberto. I could make out a word here, a phrase there. He asked some questions and then thanked the man and hung up.
“The sergeant who did the investigation has no English at all. Nada. Here is how it will go. At two o’clock today he will come over to the Marques del Valle. We close this place at noon today. I will come over in my car. You and your friend and the sergeant, we will go up into the mountains and he will show us the place and I will tell you what he says.”