I reached for the doorknob, but his body had collapsed against the lower panel and prevented me from opening it.
Outside, the thick carpeting of the hall muffled whatever footsteps there might have been. I let go of the knob and knelt beside the Frenchman’s slender body. I felt for a pulse. There was none. I turned his body halfway around and saw the bone handled haft of a switchblade knife standing out from Jean-Paul’s back like a strange, malignant growth.
CHAPTER TEN
The killer had chosen his time well. I heard no doors opening or closing. No one came out into the corridor. There was nothing but quiet in the hallway outside my room. I stood for a long time over Jean-Paul’s body before J reached down and grasped the entry hall rug, pulling the corpse further into the room, sliding it away from the door. Cautiously, I opened the door and looked out. The corridor was empty. I shut and bolted the door and knelt down beside the slim body of the Frenchman sprawled on the bloodied rug and looked at his face for a long time, all the while feeling an angry churning inside me because I had made a mistake.
I should have realized earlier at El Cortijo that Carlos had already put into motion whatever plans he had to get rid of me even before he and Brian Garrett met with me. I should have known that he never had any intention of letting me leave Acapulco alive, not while I knew what I did about his organization. I’d thought I had more time, at least until tomorrow morning, but I’d been wrong in that assumption. Time had run out and now Jean-Paul was dead because of it. I knew, too, that I could never get the Mexican police, especially Lieutenant Fuentes, to believe that I’d had no part in Jean-Paul’s death.
It was long past time for me to act. I looked down at Jean-Paul’s open, staring eyes and reached out with a finger to close the lids. I opened his jacket. A walnut handled, 38 calibre Smith & Wesson Airweight Model 42 revolver was tucked into a short holster in the waistband of his slacks. I transferred the gun to my own hip pocket. I checked my watch — too early in the evening for me to make any attempt to dispose of the body. Even though there weren’t many guests in the hotel, it would be taking too much of a chance to assume the hallways would be empty now.
Carefully, I rolled the thin rug around his corpse. It didn’t quite come down to his ankles but at least his face was covered. With strips of cloth that I tore from a pillowcase, I tied the rug at his chest and at his knees.
I looked around for a hiding place in the room. The clothes closet was too dangerous, so for the time being I settled for pushing the rug-wrapped body under the double bed, dropping the bedspread down the side so that its edge came almost to the floor.
With Jean-Paul out of the way for the moment, I turned my attention to cleaning up the evidence of what had happened. I turned on the hall light, checking the walls for spatters of blood. I found a few. The lower panel of the door was a mess. In the bathroom, I soaked a towel in cold water and went back to the entry hall and washed down the door and the walls.
The rug had prevented any blood from getting on the floor.
Afterward, I rinsed out the towel as much as I could and balled it up and threw it on the floor under the sink. I stripped off my own blood-stained clothes and showered.
I used two more towels drying myself off and balled. them up and threw them under the sink along with the other towel. Let the maid think I was a slob. At least, it would stop her from examining the first towel too closely.
After I shaved, I changed into a clean sport shirt, slacks, and a Madras jacket.
I was going to strap on Hugo and wear Wilhelmina, my 9mm Luger, but a 9mm handgun of any size makes a pretty hefty bulge. You can see it too easily under tropical weight clothes, so I left the gun and the knife in the false bottom of my attaché case.
I settled for Jean-Paul’s .38 Airweight instead.
Ordinarily, I wouldn’t have worn the jacket. In May, Acapulco evenings are too warm to make a jacket anything but unnecessary, but I was carrying Jean-Paul’s revolver and small as it was it was still too noticeable unless I wore something to cover it.
When I finished dressing, I went back into the bathroom one more time. I took a small vial of nembutal sleeping pills from my shaving kit. There were ten or twelve capsules in the vial. Occasionally, when I can’t fall asleep, I’ll take one of them. Now, I had another use for them. I put the small, plastic container in my pocket, along with a roll of half-inch adhesive tape that I had in my first-aid kit.
Back in the bedroom, I picked up my camera and slung the bulky camera equipment bag over my shoulder.
As I went out the door, I hung the DO NOT DISTURB sign oyer the outer doorknob. I put the room key in my pocket. Like many hotels, the Matamoros attached a heavy, bronze plaque to the key so that guests wouldn’t want to carry it around with them and would get in the habit of leaving the key at the counter. I don’t like to do that. I want to be able to get in and out of my room without attracting notice by stopping at the desk each time. The key and plaque sat heavily in the hip pocket of my slacks.
Going down to the lobby, I saw no one either in the corridor or in the elevator. At the front desk, I stopped to ask if there was any mail for me. I didn’t expect any, but as the clerk turned to the racks behind him, I was able to check the slot for Suite 903. Both keys were in the box. Apparently, Dietrich still had not come in.
The clerk turned back, smiling regretfully. “No, senor, there is nothing for you.” He wasn’t the same clerk that I’d talked to earlier in the day,
“Do you know Senor Dietrich?”
“Senor Dietrich?”
“Suite nine-oh-three,” I prompted him.
“Ah! Of course. He is the very nice gentleman who checked in yesterday. I registered him myself.”
“He’s not in now, is he?”
The clerk shook his head. “No. I saw him leave about half an hour ago.”
“You’re sure? A man in his middle sixties — I stopped. That was as much as I knew about Dietrich’s appearance. I hoped the clerk would go for the bait.
“Certainly, I know what he looks like! Quite tall. Very thin. Very distinguished. Silver hair. Blue eyes. He walks with a slight limp although he does not carry a cane. His daughter is most beautiful.”
“His daughter?”
“Si, senor. One does riot forget a young woman as beautiful as she! Such long blond hair!” Then the clerk caught himself as the idea struck him. He arched a knowing eyebrow. “Of course, perhaps she is not his daughter, eh, senor? We do not ask such questions.”
“That’s Dietrich, all right.” I passed a bill to the clerk. “I’ll get in touch with him later.”
“Shall I leave word for him, senor?”
“No, I’m not sure just when I’ll be able to see him. Thank you for the information.”
“De nada.”
At the Hertz office, I rented a sedan and drove to Sanborn’s where I purchased a detailed street map of Acapulco. In the dining room, I sat in a booth and ordered coffee and spread the map out on the table in front of me. I tried to trace the route to Bickford’s villa over which Consuela had driven me last night. The map didn’t show all the smaller byways, so I wasn’t completely sure that I had the right street. I remembered that it was a short cul-de-sac and that there were only a few houses on it. All of the houses overlooked the bay. I felt sure that I’d recognize the street if I could find it again. Bickford’s house was the very last one at the end of the cul-de-sac, isolated from the others.