"I'm looking for Inés Roja?"
"She expecting you?"
"She called me."
The teenager sized me up, then nodded and beckoned. I followed her through one door and immediately another. I thought of Louis Doleman's spacelock as my guide opened the second door.
Containing cages stacked from floor to ceiling, the room sounded and smelled like a menagerie. The crying of birds, the mewling of cats, the staccato barks and mournful howls of dogs. But also the chattering of monkeys, raccoons, and a few other mammals I couldn't place even by continent.
The teenager spoke in a command voice over the din. "Inés?"
"Right here, Deb." Roja stood up from behind an examining table of some kind, cradling a gaunt monkey and holding a baby bottle that the monkey eyed eagerly. Roja wore a green smock, too, which was covered with stains old and new. She seemed surprised to see me as she brought the monkey toward us.
"John, I did not want to drag you all the way over here."
"It was on my way. Don't worry about it."
Deb said, "I've got to go back out front. Ines. Let me know if you need anything."
"Right."
The monkey began making "eek" noises. so Roja moved the bottle to its mouth. The creature began sucking, almost shyly.
Roja said, "You got my message, then."
"I did. Another note?"
"No. No, it is probably nothing really. That is why I just wanted you to call me."
I rested my rump against one of the tables. "Well, I'm here. Tell me."
Roja shifted the monkey to the other arm like an awkward bag of groceries. "The professor and Tucker are going on a vacation."
"I thought she had some kind of visitor thing already lined up?"
"She does. In San Diego. This vacation is to Sint Maarten."
"The Caribbean?"
"Yes. Tucker was invited long ago to participate in a masters-of-the-game tournament there."
"And she's going with him?"
"Yes. The tournament is in January, so they will vacation first, then be together while Tucker plays."
"First I've heard of it."
"I believe she decided to go only last night."
"I just talked to her an hour ago. She didn't even mention it."
Shifting the monkey again, Roja held it on her hip, an interspecies Madonna and Child. "You must not be harsh with her, John. Her mind is… different. She can concentrate on something and not think to say something else to you."
"What made her decide to join Tuck on this trip?"
"I think the pressure of the notes and all. But I am concerned about her being… vulnerable outside the United States."
"So am I. Are you going too?"
"No."
"How about Manolo?"
"He is to stay here as well."
"How's he going to take that?"
"I am…" Roja looked down, but not at the monkey. "I am feeling disloyal telling this to you."
"I can't help you much with that, Inés. Is it important for me to know?"
"The professor told me I am to tell Manolo after they are gone that they have left."
"So Manolo sees them get into a cab, and…"
"And he thinks they are going out to dinner instead of to the airport."
"What about luggage?"
"They are not to pack much, and I am supposed to occupy Manolo with some task as they leave."
"I don't like this, Inés."
Roja looked back up. "I am sorry to have to tell you, but I thought you should know."
"When do they leave?"
"Tonight. Their plane departs at eight-thirty, and they said they would be taking the taxi about seven."
"I'll be there by six."
Roja smiled. "Thank you."
"How do you get here?"
"How? By the subway."
The Red Line would take her only to within eight blocks or so of the clinic. "Still a long walk. Why do you volunteer'?"
"The animals, they do not know how sick they are. They know only the kindness you show to them." She nuzzled the baby monkey.
"And many will get better."
As opposed to the last clinic Roja had seen.
Deb let me use the phone at the counter. I called the D.A.'s office, leaving a message for Nancy that I'd still see her that night, just after eight o'clock. I figured by that time, either I'd have persuaded Maisy Andrus not to go with Hebert to the Caribbean or they'd be on their way.
I sat around the reception area, eavesdropping on Deb and the girl who came to relieve her at five. They gossiped about one of the vets, but I had the feeling that they were more interested in his "totally" blue eyes than in his "radical" rabies research. When Inés Roja came out, I insisted on driving her to the Andrus house with me. At first she declined, saying that the professor would realize that she had told me about the trip. I replied that I'd tell the boss I'd forced it out of her. That brought a feeble smile and a nod. Outside, the wind was shrieking. I opened the passenger door of the Prelude for Roja, and she scooted in, flipping her coat away
from the door that closed a little too quickly from the gale.
Once I got behind the wheel, Inés said, "This is a very nice car."
"It's old, but well maintained?
"Like…"
"Like what?"
Roja shook her head as I started the car. "Nothing." She gathered the coat around her neck.
"We'll have heat as soon as the engine warms up a bit."
"I am all right."
To make conversation, I said, "It ever get this cold in Cuba?"
She started to look at me, then turned away. "No. But there are worse things than cold, John."
We drove in silence for half a mile through Broadway traffic, crossing the overpass for the train yards that anticipate South Station.
Roja finally said, "I am sorry."
"Nothing to be sorry about."
"In Cuba, my father did not support Castro. He was in prison. When your President Carter dared Castro to free those who would come to the United States, my father was one. He was too weak from the prison, but they said if we did not go then, perhaps there would be no time to go later, no boat to carry us. So we left Cuba, and my father got sick. He could not breathe… It was only ninety miles to Florida, but the other men would not keep his body on the boat with us. They simply threw him off, like he was… not a human being. Into the sea. Then my mother could not… Many of the men on the boat were prisoners too, but not political. Criminals, degenerados, do you understand?"
"I think so. You don't have to – "
"My mother tried. She screamed and she tried, but she could not… keep them from me."
More silence. No tears, just nothing.
"In the United States everyone tried to help us. My mother had relatives in New York, so we went there. We were poor but we were free. And the professor, she has been everything to me since I began to work for her."
I'd been keeping my right hand on the stick shift in the stop-and-go traffic. Roja placed her left over mine. Cool and dry, a hand that was washed a lot but never grew warm.
I looked at her.
She said, "Please keep the professor safe."
Roja withdrew her hand and buried it in the side pocket of her coat.
"If I didn't like you so much, John, I'd swear you were suggesting I can't protect my own wife."
Tucker Hebert was smiling at me, but just barely. He wore a long-sleeved Georgia Bulldog jersey and sweat pants, no socks, and had just turned away from the closet.
Maisy Andrus pushed the open duffel bag toward the pillows and sat heavily on the bed. "John, let's resolve this. First, just what is your objection to my accompanying Tuck on this trip?"
I leaned back against a highboy and crossed my arms. "I don't like the idea of you traveling outside the country, even with Tuck as protection."
"But why?"
"Whoever our note writer is, he might know that things are a lot looser in other countries."
Hebert said, "Sint Maarten is a pretty damned sophisticated island, my friend."
"Where an accident happening to a tourist might not be the most desirable subject for publicity or embarrassing investigation."