“Help?” Brandon asked. “What do you mean?”
Paige looked down on his diminutive partner as if he were contemplating knocking him over. “Suicide,” Fuentes murmured, “it’s a bad thing, is it not... the sin of despair?”
“What do you mean?” Brandon repeated a little more loudly. A middle-aged couple several tables over glanced nervously at them and then hastily away again.
“Her soul,” Fuentes continued, oblivious to the heat in Brandon’s voice. “It is lost to God. Was she Catholic?” he inquired gently.
“Drink your coffee and be quiet, man,” Paige calmly commanded Fuentes. “You are upsetting our guest.”
Brandon recalled drops of water, cold and unexpected, splashing his face as the priest blessed the coffin that concealed his lover. “Yes,” he whispered, “she was a Catholic.”
“Well,” Fuentes continued, as unaware of his partner’s disapproval as he was of the depth of Brandon’s feelings, “there are exceptions, of course — insanity... an altered state of consciousness... the Church understands these things.” He rose unsteadily to his feet and said, “I’ll be back presently. Please continue in my absence.” Brandon watched the disheveled little man shuffle off towards the far end of the restaurant, his pace picking up as he drew near the double doors that concealed the bar.
Brandon turned back to find Paige regarding him solemnly, small beads of sweat dewing his hairline. “Do forgive him,” he said. “He is not a well man and this... this business... Ms. Catesby, I mean, has upset him very much. It has upset us all, of course; you as well, I suspect.”
“Yes,” Brandon admitted. “Yes, it has.”
“Did you know the young woman well?” Paige asked.
Brandon hesitated, stirring his forgotten eggs with his fork. He hadn’t known her, he thought; hardly at all, he realized now. “Did she seem unhappy here?” he asked in return, evading Paige’s question.
“No, not at all,” Paige boomed once more. “Quite the contrary. She appeared very interested in our resort here... our culture, as well... very inquisitive. No one could have been more surprised than me.”
Outside, Brandon saw a huge frigate bird lofting in the thermals made by the rapidly heating beach. It hung in the air like a kite over the few sunbathers who languished beneath it, rocking to and fro with the feigned indifference of the predator. “Someone was bothering her at night, Mr. Paige... someone kept coming to her door. Were the police told of this?”
“Please call me Claudell,” Paige responded. “Oh yes, of course I heard of her complaint and we did look into it. I had the security guard posted just yards from her door. But it was to no avail. The following morning she complained of someone knocking at her door once again. My man saw nothing.” He let this last piece of news hang between them for a few moments. “He’s a very reliable man... Brandon, isn’t it? May I call you Brandon?”
“Yes,” Brandon agreed. “Was there any other way to her door?”
Paige regarded the younger man for a moment. “Brandon, if you look out you will notice that we rake the sand each evening.” He made a sweeping gesture meant to include the entire grounds. “Whenever anyone strays from the walkways they must leave behind their prints... yes? My security man placed his chair on the walkway that led to Ms. Catesby’s door and saw nothing. But, even had he fallen asleep, the... visitor, shall we say, could not have passed him without stepping into the sands. So you see, unless our culprit is an angel... or a ghost, he must have left footprints in his wake.”
“Then what did happen?” Brandon asked hoarsely.
“Why did anything have to happen?” Paige replied, sitting up a little taller. “She did what she did, and I must say, Brandon, that she did us little good in the act. Have you considered that? It is clear to me that you have considerable feeling for the young woman and I am wondering now why you have come here. Can we expect you to be objective about us, Mr. Highsmith? Will we receive a ‘fair shake,’ as you say in the States, with your investors? We had nothing to do with this young woman’s death.”
Fuentes stumbled out from the bar, righted himself, and then set his sights for their table. His walk was more vigorous, his color better. He waved at the two men as if they were a great distance away. “I am coming,” he assured them happily. “Everything is arranged now.”
“Perhaps we could begin your tour now?” Paige offered.
Brandon stood up, suddenly angry. “Security is a concern of our investors, Mr. Paige.”
Fuentes sidled up to Brandon and gripped his elbow, his breath a fog of brandy. “We’d best get underway before the day gets too hot, my friends,” he said. “I have made all arrangements.” He struggled to situate his snap-brim hat on his small head.
Paige stood as well, towering over his two companions, his jet skin glistening in the growing heat of the day. “You two go ahead, I have some business to attend to here, and then I’ll catch up to you.”
Undeterred by his brush-off, Brandon asked, “Can I see Julia’s room?”
Both partners went silent. After a moment, Paige answered, “You already have, young man. It’s the best bungalow on the beach; naturally, when we received word that you were coming, we assigned it to you.” He turned for the kitchen, then added, “Of course, I didn’t know then of your personal involvement — I’ll have your things moved at once.”
“No,” Brandon blurted out, then went on more quietly, “that won’t be necessary.”
Paige gave a shrug, then continued on into the kitchen.
Fuentes, having finally settled his hat, tugged Brandon toward the entrance, the grounds beyond glowing whitely in the late morning sun. “Not to worry, my young friend,” he assured Brandon with a sweep of his arm, “the room has been exorcised. We paid good money for the priest to do it.” He leaned into Brandon and whispered confidentially, “These people are very superstitious, you know.” He waggled his eyebrows at the black waitresses in their colorful head scarves. Several seemed to be laughing at the little man behind their hands. “We can’t allow ghosts around here, you know, or we’d have no one to work the place — they’re more afraid of them than they are of jaguars.” He put a finger to his lips. “Let’s just keep that between ourselves, my friend, shall we?”
Brandon said nothing, as the image of Julia’s displaced soul, tormented and now cast out to wander in this foreign land, floated before his eyes. But as the two men crossed the threshold, it was burned away like a scrap of paper in the roaring furnace of the sun.
That night the knocking came before he had fallen asleep. There were three loud raps and then silence. He lay in the darkness of the bed, his eyes wide and his heart hammering within him, and could not move. The reverberations of the summons recalled the previous visitation, which he had forgotten. He struggled to rise and look out, but the image earlier that day of Julia’s homeless spirit rose unbidden in his mind’s eye and transfixed him with horror. He had never given any thought to the nature of the soul before this day, and now could not set it aside. What if it was she who summoned him to the door, demanded to be returned to her room? In the stygian darkness of this steaming backwater, anything seemed possible. And though he had traveled thousands of miles to find some evidence of Julia’s passage, he lay in rigid, sweating silence awaiting the next blow to fall.
After what seemed like ages, the howler monkeys began to scream and cry to one another in the near distance, and with that, as if they heralded the return of the natural world, Brandon was released and fell into a deep, troubled sleep.