Pete rose quickly and pulled one out for her.
6
Karen lay on a surfboard and studied the man she had just met. He was smiling up at her, his compact body half-in, half-out of the water. He was attractive, all right. A little nervous, perhaps. He had a funny twitch in his cheek and seemed to be under some kind of strain, but so are lots of men when they first come to Acapulco. They get cured. The sun baked the strain out of them, the sea washed it away.
Pete Welles. He was a widower; that had been one of the first things he had told her about himself. She had filed the information for possible future references. She smiled. It was amusing — the thought of keeping a file on eligible males.
“It’s not polite to laugh at a man who’s pushing you,” he told her. “Furthermore, you’re getting lazy. Time you had a swim.”
She lay on her side, one hand in the water. Shaking her head, — “Too tired” — she flicked a little water in his face.
“That’s disrespectful.” He tilted the board, let her slide into the sea. His arms encircled her as she went under the water. She let him hold her, let him lift her up...
All morning he had been troubled by a headache. He remembered it now, saying goodbye to her, and was surprised to find that it had gone. She walked away, and he watched until she’d disappeared.
Chucha called to him as he crossed the parking lot. “You come back mañana, boy? Talk me inglé?” He pretended not to hear.
On the way home he stopped to lay in a supply of Scotch. Four fifths and, for more immediate consumption, an extra pint. He had lunch when he got back to the house. Then he lay down for a nap.
He awoke refreshed and thinking of Karen Brewer, remembering the curve of her full lips when she laughed. He walked over to a window and looked down at the road.
A car was coming up the hill. Its paint job was light khaki, the official color of the Acapulco police. He backed quickly to the center of the room, and stood there listening to the approaching motor. It grew louder until it was directly below the window — and then it passed. The car had gone on up the hill.
The pint bottle was on his dresser. He took a drink.
The bottle was empty when he went to bed that night. About midnight he was roused from sleep by the sound of a closing door. There were footsteps in the car port down below. He got his revolver, took a flashlight and tiptoed down the stairs.
The moon was bright. He could clearly see Pedro sleeping on his cot, the handle of a machete projecting from under his pillow. No one was in the kitchen. Moonlight flooded the area around the dining table. No one was on the porch. He went to the car port.
A bicycle leaned against the open gate. A slight figure was putting something in the basket strapped to the handlebars. Pete raised the flashlight, clicked it on. The beam fell on a boy’s frightened face.
It was Martin, his landlord’s son.
Pete let out his pent-up breath. “What’s going on?”
Martin was frightened. “It is my father, señor. He forget. He leave things here in kitchen closet. He say to me, when you finish work, go get them. You are sleeping and I don’t like waking you. I have key.”
“Okay,” Pete said. “You get the stuff?”
“You want to see these things I take?”
“Of course not. Sorry I scared you.”
“I am not scared. Good night, señor.”
Pete watched him lock the gate and push his bicycle down the road. He was wide awake now, and went into the kitchen for a drink. He opened the closet and felt on the shelf for the four bottles of Scotch he had bought that afternoon. The bottles were gone.
He ran to the gate. Down the road he saw a moving shadow. “Come back here!” he yelled.
The shadow hesitated, then kept on moving down the hill.
“You little thief! I ought to beat the hell out of you. Tell your father I said so. Tell your father—!”
The shadow mingled with other shadows and was lost. Pete went angrily to the stairs. Pedro was sitting on his cot. He spoke to the old man.
“Tomorrow I will buy a new padlock for the gate. You will have one key and I the other. No one — understand me? — absolutely no one is to enter this house without my permission.”
“Si, señor. I understand.”
7
Jack Pascault’s lower lip projected like a segment of ripe orange. It was late afternoon, and he sat with Pete on a stone wall above the bay. Below them some of the world’s most expert swimmers and water skiers were putting on an exhibition. Jack paid no attention. A girl had promised to meet him here, and had failed to keep her date.
Pete had watched impossible jumps, astounding acrobatics and a graceful water ballet. Now the feature attraction of the afternoon was coming up. It was a man who started off on a single ski. Pulled by a speed boat, he gingerly lifted his left foot from the ski and put it in the water. He was drawn for fifty yards like that; then, so quickly that it was impossible to see how it was done, he kicked the ski away and dropped his right foot, too. The crowd rose to applaud as he sped past, skiing on the soles of his bare feet. Pete rose with the others.
Jack got up, too, and stretched. “Let’s get some beer,” he said.
They made their way through the crowd and climbed to the clubhouse. There were tables on the veranda, and Fran Garvey was at one of them. She tried to catch Pete’s attention but he was purposely looking the other way.
Jack caught the small by-play. He got bottles from the bar and drew Pete inside out of sight. “That’s using your head. There are times when Fran’s a little too rich for the ordinary palate.”
“Thought she was a friend of yours.”
“I like her. I like butter, too, but a steady diet would harden my arteries.” Jack sucked at his bottle. “Got too much money, for one thing. She spends it collecting beautiful boy friends.”
“Such as the guy who was with her yesterday?”
Pascault nodded. “Andy Shultz. He’s about due to be replaced. Poor fellow’ll be on the beach without so much as a swan’s-down pillow on which to lay his curly head.”
“Tough.”
“Tougher than you know. Fran likes you. She’s got her eye on you for next in line.”
“Not in the market, thanks.” Pete drank his beer. “Where does Karen fit into that kind of set-up?”
“She’s just visiting. And looking for a husband, incidentally.”
Pete shrugged. “A husband should be easy for her to find.”
“Not in Acapulco. The men here, myself included, think in terms of less permanent arrangements. But Karen’s a romantic.” Pascault gave him a knowing grin. “Given to moonlight strolls along the beach. I’m fair. I tell you that much so we can get off to an even start.”
Pete stiffened. “Devoted a lot of study to her, haven’t you?”
“Why not? She’s worth a little spade work.” Pascault finished his bottle. “More beer?”
“No.”
“How about some Scotch?”
“No.” He said it brusquely.
“Hey!” The fat man frowned at him, surprised. “I didn’t know you were serious about the girl. Don’t get sore.”
“I’m not sore. I have a headache. For Christ’s sake, is that a crime?”
It was Pascault who was sore now. “It’s your head. I don’t give a damn if it falls off.”
He turned away, and Pete went out to his car. He drove to the Zocalo. Sitting outside a cafe he watched the sun go down. It was dark when the waiter brought his check. Paying it left him short of cash. His money, with only a small part of it converted into pesos, was hidden in an olla hanging on his bedroom wall. He returned to the house, took three hundred pesos from the olla and drove down the hill again. Passing the parking lot behind the Tahiti, he impulsively turned in.