I followed the driver upstairs to the second floor, to a room at the rear, overlooking the garden. The windows had no bars on them, and it wasn’t much of a jump down from the little balcony outside. Getting out was all right, but I also had to figure on getting back in again before they missed me. I decided I’d put the lam off awhile, until they all started pounding their ears.
The driver started checking off the things I wanted on his fingers. “Wait a minute,” I said, “I’ll write you out a list.”
“I can’t read,” he grinned apologetically.
I stopped short and gave him a look. Then I grabbed a scrap of paper, scribbled on it in English: “Can’t sleep, give me something that will make me.”
“Here,” I said, “take this with you. Y’know that English pharmacy near Filthy’s? Show it to the guy in there, he’ll give you something that’ll scent up my bath. You wouldn’t know how to ask for it otherwise.”
Torres could read English and might intercept it, but he’d think I wanted it for myself. Who wouldn’t be jumpy the night before they were slated to kill a president?
He went out and locked the door after him. I went right out on the balcony and scanned the garden. It was so choked with banana-fronds and herbage it was hard to gauge how high the drop would be from where I was, so I decided the old bedclothes-rope stunt would be the best bet after all, instead of risking a broken neck. And right while I was looking, the tip of a cigarette glowed red down there in the dark. Probably the peon-gatekeeper was out there, set to watch me. I went back in again as though I’d just come out for a breath of air.
The driver came back again lugging all the stuff for my “celebration.” He also had a small pill-box labeled: “Only one to be taken at a time.” I stuck it in my pocket and got the cover off it after it was in. I could feel a lot of little things like aspirins.
He locked the door again, on the inside this time, and shoved the key into his pants pocket.
“So you’re staying around?” I said.
“I’m sleeping in here with you tonight — boss’ orders,” he told me.
I shrugged.
“You’re sleeping in here all right,” I said to myself, “but not with me, Sun-tan.” I busted the neck off one of the champagne bottles against the wall and got it into two glasses. You couldn’t notice the three little pellets dissolve in all that fizz. I don’t think he’d ever seen champagne before anyway.
We clicked glasses. He made a face. “Bitter,” he said.
“Y’gotta get used to it,” I answered. I got most of mine down the collar of my shirt. It ran down my sleeve, but he didn’t notice it.
“Open up the cards,” I said, “and I’ll teach you how to play rummy. We need somebody else, though. Who’s that guy down in the garden? Get him up here, there’s too much champagne for two of us anyway.”
He went out on the balcony and whistled down. “Hey, Jose,” he whispered, “want to come up and have a drink?”
“Tell him to climb up on the outside,” I said, shuffling. “They’ll never know the difference.”
By the time the gatekeeper had shown up in the room with us, I had his nightcap all ready for him. Then the three of us sat down and I started to teach them.
Chapter III
The Old Man
I let them stay right where they both were — both sound asleep in no time — just took the car-keys away from the driver and emptied both their guns, then put them back again. I could hear them still jabbering downstairs, so I didn’t try getting out the front way. I let myself down over the balcony on two sheets knotted together. I got out by a side gate in the wall, went around to where the Bugatti was, got in at the wheel. It made quite a racket turning over, but I counted on the bunch of greenery in front of the house muffling it. I lit out for downtown and the Villa Rosa.
It was about ten when I was ushered up the long marble staircase to the old man’s private office. He came in a moment later from his sleeping quarters in a dressing-gown, held out his left hand; the right had been shot off in some long-forgotten revolution.
“Well, it worked,” I said. “They swallowed the beachcomber disguise hook, line, and sinker! I told you it was better to find out what we were up against, than sit back and wait for it to happen. This way we know what to expect, at least!”
“And that,” he sighed wearily, sitting down across the desk from me, “is another attempt on my life, no doubt?”
I explained it all to him, how I’d been hired, too. “Tomorrow night, right at your own banquet table here in the Pink House,” I said. “You’d better call the whole thing off until you’ve rounded them up—”
“To do that would be to warn them that we have found out,” the old man explained immediately. “They would scatter and disappear. There is no use making the arrests until I am sure of getting them all, if one stays out of the dragnet that means the whole thing starts over again in a week’s time! I have a better idea. The banquet will take place, so will the assassination — but with blank cartridges! Then, in the darkness and confusion—” He leaned toward me, dropping his voice.
“Boy!” I couldn’t help blurting out admiringly, “no wonder you’ve stayed on top twenty years! They think you’re out of the way, and they take ever this place, give themselves away — then you come back with the loyal part of your army, surround them — and you’ve got ’em all in the hollow of your hand!”
He nodded and said: “You hurry back, now. You can see how important it is that they do not suspect you; nobody but you must be sent here to make this dastardly attempt, otherwise I am a dead man!” He placed his hand upon my shoulder and looked me in the eyes. “Señor bodyguard, I trust you, my life is in your hands!”
“You’re a brave old gent,” I told him bluntly, not being much on presidential etiquette. “But you’re not taking a chance this time, you’re dealing with a white man now! Are you sure you can count on that regiment down at Santa Marta?”
“They’re full-blooded Indians,” he said, “they’d die for me! It’s the half-breeds who are not to be trusted.”
“Then I’ll get you down to them tomorrow night, right in their own Bugatti. Y’better slip on that bulletproof vest I brought you from Chi, just to be on the safe side — and don’t let your valet see you do it.”
And going down the stairs after I’d left him, between sentinels that would sell out to the highest bidder, I thought to myself: “It must be tough to have to wait till you’re seventy before you find a man you can trust!”
I stopped in at the guard room on the ground floor and put in a requisition-slip he’d initialed for me for a round or two of blanks. They kept them there for firing salutes in the palace courtyard on holidays. Then I climbed back in the Bugatti and headed back where I’d come from. If nothing went wrong, we stood a good chance of outsmarting them between us, him and me. I’d get him safely to that loyal regiment of his tomorrow night if it was the last thing I did; what went on after that was none of my business — he was running the country, not me.
In front of 14, I braked the Bugatti exactly where I’d picked it up, right over the same gasoline-drippings. Then I went around and slipped into the grounds by the side gate, which I’d left ajar. The house was dead, the only light that showed was from the rear room that I’d left, and I could hear snores coming from there. The rope of sheets was still hanging from the balcony, like a white vine in the gloom. Getting up it wasn’t as simple as getting down it had been, but the gardener had managed it without any rope so why shouldn’t I with one?