My approach drew a blank with the guest service director’s staff, and it drew a blank with the travel agency office, and I struck out with the switchboard girls, and then I started hitting the shops, all open at that time of the evening, on the lower level, showing my white teeth and finding out which clerk had the most English. I varied my pitch to fit the shop situation.
“You do speak English? Good. Golly, I sure hope you can help me out of an awful spot. I just had a drink up in Fiesta Suite D as a guest of Mrs. Rivereta, and she did me a real important favor. Now what I want to do, honey, is send up a couple of little gifts. But I must be losing my mind, because I’ve drawn a blank on any name except Mrs. Rivereta, and I thought maybe you might have sold stuff and sent it up there and know the names.”
So you walk and talk, and it goes clunk, clunk clunk, and in a little silver shop it goes DING!
She was a brisk cute little thing and she had pale streaks dyed into her black, black hair, and she frowned and went thumbing through records, and asked questions of the other girl, and then finally pulled a card out.
“Yessss! I thought I remember something. But I don’t know if this is a guest living there or it is something she is taking outside the hotel to a fiesta, a birthday. These things Mrs. Rivereta signed for and they are put on her hotel bill. Very nice. Let me show you one thing.” She scampered off and came back with a thing that at first glance looked like a silver cigarette case, but turned out to be a purse gadget, with space for coins, notebook pencil, identification.
“Across here, inside, people like the name engraved. We can give two-day service. And here, see, on this copy is the name. Meenda McLeen. Also, many, many sets of our initials for luggage and personal things. M. M. In silver and gold, different esstyles. And also one bracelet with the initials. I can show you the kind of bracelet. Senor? Anything is wrong?”
‘No. You’ve. been a big help to me. Yes, you’ve been a big help, and I certainly appreciate it more than you can know.“
She was glad she had helped. Her smile was eager and pretty. I found the door without walking through the glass, and went down a corridor and came upon the coffee shop and sat at the counter and had coffee.
So it sorted out with a dismal and feral logic. Lose the first choice off a mountain road, so pick up the trail of the little brunette and cut the loss by settling for second choice. The door had stayed chained. Maybe second choice wasn’t exactly a willing guest? Want to indulge in a dramatic rescue attempt, McGee? Adolescent emotions. The thing to do is talk to Minda, because she was the one who was closest to Bix, and she would know the story and be able to guess how it must have ended.
I did some exterior surveying. I found a place where I could walk from the end of one of the buildings, parallel to it, far enough out to look up and see the night-lighted green of the fourth floor garden patios, and, above them, the narrow balconies outside the fifth floor windows of the bedrooms of the Fiesta Suites. So I got back up to the fourth floor and paced the long straight corridor, counting the strides to her door, took my count back outside and paced from the same basing-point and found that the bedrooms of Fiesta D had to open out onto the seventh and eighth balconies from the end.
Eighteen
THE ROOF areas by the tennis courts and the heliport were too popular as a place to get kissed and a place to gawk at the great humming city. The chill of nighttime at seven and a half thousand feet didn’t seem to discourage either pastime.
And there was one of the hotel guard staff wandering around from time to time, on no schedule. I spent almost an hour and a half noodling around, knowing exactly the route I had to take, but unable to make my start because people get very edgy about watching other people go over the edge of a roof.
When the crowd was down to one couple and they moved toward the stairs, I moved to my drop zone, and as I did not know how long the privacy would last, I swung over, hung by my fingertips, kicked myself away from the wall, and dropped, landed on balance, and scuttled over and stood behind a bank of floodlights waiting for somebody to start yelling.
Of course somebody could have been looking out of the window of one of the rooms and might now be phoning the desk to complain about people sneaking around at midnight. So move along, aware of the residual stiffness in the leg where Wally had popped me that good one. Down the cornice, behind the spots and floods, over to the higher one. Jump and grab. Hear the shoulder gristle pop as I pull myself up. No lights on the roof at this level. Angle across. Look down, count the shallow balconies. Seven and eight. Pick any number from seven to eight. Because seven is lucky, I chose eight. High ceilings in their hotel. Looked like a thirty-foot drop into the fourth-floor roof garden.
Make it fifteen down to the floor of the little balcony. Cement railing maybe four and a half feet high, so call it ten and a half down to the railing. And it was about four inches wide and had a flat top. Drop to the balcony floor and it is not going to sound exactly like a stray birdfeather floating in. And hang by the fingertips and it is going to be a blind two foot drop to the railing.
Shoes off. Tie the laces. Hang around the neck. Check the pockets for any jingle-jangle of keys or change. Take a long long look around to see who might be watching the fun. Wave and see if they wave back. Momma, momma, look at the funny man on the roofl
Get it over with. And, for God’s sake, McGee, in the future why don’t you try to believe what people tell you? Just pray for a nice landing, drawn draperies, and an unlocked door.
I let myself down, hung, rehearsed it in my head and let go. I turned toward my left to land with feet at right angles to the balcony edge. Less chance of straddling it, which would sting like crazy. Landed, by design, leaning in, off balance. Landed on the railing, then dropped like that birdfeather to the balcony floor. Looked through a screened gap eight inches wide into a room with a brighter focus of light than I could have guessed from above. It did not illuminate the balcony because it was a recessed prism light in the bedroom ceiling. It shone straight down onto a tufted blue carpeted area. Beyond it I could see, in the dim glow, an open door and bathroom fixtures beyond. To my left I could see a low couch, a chair, a coffee table. To my right I could see the bottom corner, apparently, of a bed that was against the wall to the right, said corner perhaps six feet from the narrow opening created by opening the sliding door that far. and pulling the draperies open to the same distance.
It seemed a little bright for a night light. But maybe it would serve. More probably the room was empty. I stayed down below the railing height. Less chance of being noticed from a nearby building or from one of the other balconies.
Knelt and found the edge of the sliding screen and gave it a very gentle and cautious tug. It opened silently, a full inch. Another. Another. And somebody made a groaning sigh. Just as I was getting back into my skin, somebody said something, half mutter, half whisper, and I had to steady myself down again. Whoever you are there, talking in your sleep, why the hell did you leave the light on? One small advantage, however. Enough light, maybe, to be able to distinguish one dark head and be able to see whether it was Eva Vitrier. If so, I could then make my well-known death-defying leap across empty space to the other balcony.
I got the screen open as far as the door, and knew I would need a few more inches before I could go through it sideways. Had just put my palm against the edge of the door and the screen when I heard breathing. Not the deep breathing of sleep. This was more like the long distance runner. Bellows, getting deeper and faster, a huffing and a panting, then a cough and then the unmistakable, wide-open-throated, strained, soft, have-mercy cawing of woman in climax. It ended. There were some whisperous murmurings, too faint to catch. Then silence. A new set of rules had just been posted.