“Brown-gray hair, good tan, bangs, gold mesh ring.”
“Yes, that’s him. He lives here. He described you and, boy, did I ever remember you! He said he found out there was some kind of scene and wanted to know what went on. I asked why, and he said that a girl had died accidentally, the Bowie girl, and I knew about that, of course. Everybody who was here knew about that. And he said you were an investigator trying to turn it into a murder or something so you could make more money off her parents, and you were trying to make trouble for innocent people who live here. So I told him that what happened had nothing to do with anything like that. He wanted to know who else you talked to, and I said you had talked to the big fellow named Mike, with the Jesus beard, the one who paints, and the black girl named Della who’s living with him, but I didn’t know what you talked about to them. And that was all.”
Meyer returned and gave her a pat on the back of her hand and said, “You can pick up two air tickets at the travel desk in the lobby after eleven tomorrow morning, dear. For your protection more than mine, I’m arranging it so they can’t be turned in for cash.”
She nodded. “I think that’s the best way. I… I won’t believe it until I’ve got the tickets in my hand.”
“You leave here at two tomorrow afternoon. You’ll have three hours in Mexico City, so you better stay in the airport.”
She tried, almost successfully, to smile. “Is there anybody you want killed?… Sorry. I guess that isn’t very funny.”
“You might be able to help us with one little problem. We’re looking for three people Bix Bowie traveled with. There were five altogether, but the Sessions boy died. We’d like to find Minda McLeen and Walter Rockland, known as Rocko, and Jerry Nesta.”
“Those last two, Rocko and Jerry, if anybody wants to kill those two, I’ll help. They are rotten human beings, especially Rocko. Look I’m not going into any details about it. A bunch of us went back to that camper with those two, for like a fun party for one evening. So that Rocko gave me something that ran me up the walls. It ended up a girlfriend of mine named Gillian and me, we were there for I think it was three days. It taught me why the blonde and the little dark one split and lived in that crummy hotel room. Mostly that lousy Rocko had me. He is strong as a bull. I mean I knew that if I went there I might end up getting balled, and that it would be taking that risk right? Look, there are things you say you won’t do. You know. Stopping points. But when people keep hurting you and hurting you, then it’s easier to do any sick thing than keep getting hurt. It was all rotten. The kids who should have gotten us away from those two didn’t do a damn thing. They just left us there. Jerry wasn’t so bad. Gillian had the idea he’d be all right if he’d get away from Rocko. Jerry has this fantastic black beard. It’s the biggest, blackest beard I ever saw. All that shows are his eyes and a little bit of cheekbone and the end of his nose. I saw her in the market two or three days ago and she said they’d been out to Mitla and she saw Jerry walking along with a kind of ugly little Mexican woman walking behind him, so she made Ricky stop the car and she went back, but he was very strange. He didn’t want to talk to her at all. He’s living out there someplace, but he wouldn’t say where. I haven’t any idea where Rocko went, and I couldn’t care less. I heard that the dark one, Minda? Yes, Minda. She’s supposed to be up in Mexico City and her father is here waiting for her to come back. So that’s all I know.”
She got up and smiled good-by and said she couldn’t say thank you or she’d start crying again. But she bent over and kissed Meyer in a very quick, shy, small-girl way. And fled.
“How did you know she’d grab at it?”
He shrugged. “I didn’t. But sometimes you can smell despair. Besides, all generosity is selfish. It made me feel good all over.”
Quickly I told him about Bruce Bundy’s quest. It was logical, Meyer agreed, that Bundy would have a good contact among the waiter staff, because it would be useful to know what was going on at all times.
“But,” asked Meyer, “what is he so damned jumpy about?”
“That is what we now go to find out.”
He looked doleful. “A minute ago I felt good all over.”
Nine
So I left the car at the end of the block and once again, this time by night, we walked along Calle las Artes, to the narrow front of number eighty-one.
Hundreds of years of dedicated and diligent theft have made Mexican homes very hard to crack. They grill everything you can reach. They put that busted glass into the tops of their patio walls. And they listen for thieves all the time without knowing they are listening. Thievery is a recognized, though not highly respected, profession. Artists use a limber length of bamboo with a hook at the end to snag the tourist trousers and pull them through the bars of the bedroom window.
There was a light upstairs, and the patio area, seen through the entrance corridor, was lighted. We stood in the shadowed darkness across the narrow street, and I said in a low tone, “I do not think we can talk our way through the gate. He won’t buy a drunk act. He won’t be bluffed, and he won’t be hustled. And it would take a trampoline or a Tarzan act to pop in there uninvited.”
“I’m still afraid you’ll think of something, Travis.” I was afraid I wouldn’t. And then luck took a hand. If you sit still, you don’t give that lady much of a chance to operate-for or against you. But if you moved around, she can get into the act oftener. She sent the tired old clattering cab down the street to pull up in front of Bruce’s house. When the back door opened the dome light went on. Bruce got out. David Saunders was in the back seat. Bruce went a few steps and looked back and then came back to the cab. He leaned in. The rough idle of the motor made it impossible to hear what he was saying. But his expression, seen through smeared glass, was animated, amused, coaxing. He made little shrugs and hand gestures. And at last David hitched himself along the seat. Bruce reached in and lifted a large suitcase out, put it down, paid the driver. The cab drove away. They moved toward the gate, Bruce carrying the suitcase. They talked outside the gate in low tones. Bruce unlocked the gate and swung it open. He began to lead David through the gate, with a quieting, comforting arm across David’s back in such a way that it reminded me of that classic, The Specialty of the House, when the plump customer is being taken into the restaurant kitchens.
So I was on my toes with good knee action, angling across, hoping Meyer was reasonably close behind me. When Bundy spun, hearing the sudden unexpected sound, I was coming through the gate full out, shoulder already dipped, and a tenth of a second from impact.
Karate, judo, boxing, jiujitsu, wrestling-not one of the formal schools of unarmed combat prepares a man for the special problem of suddenly catching a sack of bricks that has fallen out of a third story window. It was a driving, rolling block coming in from the blind side, and the impact was impressive. It took us both ten yards down that tiled corridor, right to the end of it where it opened up onto the patio. We picked up a small table en route, along with some decorative crockery that had been on it. I rolled up onto my feet, my back toward him, and spun and was bemused and disconcerted to see him bounce up in a springy way and land in the dangerous balance of the expert, hands low and slightly forward. I did not want him to start that business of Hah! and Huh! The table was on the corridor floor between us, the three remaining legs aimed toward me. So I punted it at him, getting a lot of leg into it, and getting a nice lift on it. He got his hands up in time, and as the table fell away, I was right there to pop him with a short overhand right, slightly off target, and correct the error when he came back off the wall. He had been obliging enough to wear a leather thong as a belt for his vermilion stretch slacks, and I yanked it loose, rolled him onto his face and took two fast turns around the wrists and two fast hitches that would hold long enough for me to solve Meyer’s problem, even if Bruce woke up right now, which didn’t seem plausible.