I donned another lightweight jacket. In the daytime, I couldn’t have gotten away with it. A 9mm Luger is a big handgun any way you look at it and the bulge under the jacket would have given me away. But, in the night, I could get by with it. That is, if no one stared at me too closely.
When I was ready, I left my room and cut down the corridor to the service elevator, heading for the back exit.
In less than five minutes, I was out of the hotel, scrunched down in the back seat of a cab, heading for El Centro.
As soon as we’d gone a few blocks, I sat up. We were driving west along the Costera. The Costera is too open and has too many police cars on it for me to feel comfortable, so I had the driver turn off when we came to the Calle Sebastian el Cano. After three blocks, we turned left onto the Avenida Cuauhtemoc, which parallels the Costera almost all the way in to El Centro. Where Cuauhtemoc joins the Avenida Constituyentes, we turned left again. I had him stop at the corner of the Avenida Cinco de Mayo and paid him, watching him drive out of sight before I moved.
I was only two blocks away from the zocalo, behind the cathedral, whose graceful, blue-painted onion-bulb spires make it look like a transplanted Russian Orthodox church. I picked up another cab and had him drop me off several blocks away from Hernando’s. I could have walked the distance, because it wasn’t that far away, but I’d attract less attention driving up in a taxi.
It was eight o’clock exactly when I walked into Hernando’s. The piano player was playing soft rhythms on the piano with his large, black hands, his eyes shut, swaying gently back and forth on his seat. I looked around. Consuela was not at the piano bar. I walked through the dining rooms. She wasn’t in any of them.
I sat down at the bar to have a drink while I waited for her. I looked at my watch. Five minutes after eight. I got up and went over to the public telephone and called the hotel. They rang through to Suite 903. There was no answer. Apparently, Susan was following my instructions to the letter. She wasn’t even answering the telephone.
Consuela was standing at my elbow when I turned away from the phone. She put her arm through mine and kissed me on the cheek.
“You’ve been trying to reach Susan Dietrich at the hotel?”
I nodded.
“Then you know that Miss Dietrich isn’t in her room,” she said. “She hasn’t been there for at least half an hour. She left with someone you’ve already met.”
“Brian Garrett?” I said, with a sinking feeling.
Consuela nodded.
“I suppose he told her a story about taking her to her father?”
“How on earth did you ever guess? That’s exactly what he did. She made no fuss at all.”
“Why?”
“Among other things, to make sure you’d cause no trouble when I take you to meet Carlos later on.” Her face softened. “I’m sorry, Nick. You know I have to go along with them, even if it means hurting you. How much does this girl mean to you?”
I looked at Consuela, in surprise. “I just met her last night,” I said. “Didn’t you know?”
“Somehow, I had the impression she was an old friend of yours.”
“Forget it. What’s the next step?”
“You’re taking me to dinner at La Perla.” She smiled at me. “We’re going to have a pleasant meal and watch the high divers.”
“And Carlos?”
“He’ll meet us there.” She reached up and touched my cheek lightly with her fingers in a gentle caress. “For god’s sake, Nick, don’t look so severe. I’m not so unattractive that you can’t smile at me, am I?”
We descended the narrow, stone steps built steeply into the innermost face of the Quebrada cliffs below the Hotel El Mirador. We’d eaten a light dinner at the El Gourmet restaurant on the Upper level, and now I followed Consuela as she picked her way down in the darkness to La Perla on the lowest level. She found a seat at one of the tables close to the railing that overlooked the narrow finger of the sea and the waves that came rolling in against the base of the cliff.
It was almost ten o’clock. Consuela had not tried to make small talk during dinner.
“How much longer?” I asked her as we sat down.
“Not long. He’ll be here soon. In the meantime, we can watch the high divers.”
By the time we’d finished our first drink, the divers had come out on the low, rocky escarpment to our left and climbed down to a ledge just above the water. There were three of them. One of them dove into the inlet from an outcropping of rock and swam across to the other side. Now, all the lights — except for a few spotlights — were turned off. The first diver came out of the water, his body glistening wet. The spotlights followed him as he picked his way slowly up the almost sheer face of the cliff from which he was going to dive. Toehold after toehold, fingers gripping the rock, he made his way to the top. Finally, he swung himself onto the ledge a hundred and thirty feet above the water of the inlet.
The young diver knelt briefly in front of a small shrine at the back of the ledge, bending his head and crossing himself before he rose to his feet again. He picked his way back to the edge of the cliff.
Now the spotlights went out and he was in darkness. Below us, there was the smash of a hard wave and the high toss of white spume against the base of the cliffs. On the opposite side of the chasm, a bonfire of crumpled newspaper erupted into flame, the glare lighting up the scene. The boy crossed himself once more. He stretched on his toes.
As the drums picked up a fast roll, he sprang out into the blackness, his arms whipping out from his sides, his legs and back arching until he was a bow in the air, falling slowly at first and then faster, dropping into the brightness of the bonfire light and finally into the great swell of a wave — his arms breaking the swan dive and coming up over his head at the last possible moment.
There was silence until his head broke water and then there were shouts and applause and cheers.
As the noise died away around us, I heard Carlos Ortega speak up from just behind me. “He’s one of the best of the divers.” He pulled out a chair next to me and sat down.
“Once in a while,” Carlos remarked pleasantly as he sat down and adjusted the chair, “they kill themselves. If his foot slips on the ledge as he jumps, or if he doesn’t spring out far enough to clear the rocks—” he shrugged. “Or if he misjudges a wave and dives in too steeply when there isn’t enough water. Or if the undertow sweeps him out to sea. A wave can smash him. against a rock. Angel Garcia died that way when they were filming a jungle movie here in 1958. Did you know that?”
“You can skip the sightseeing lecture,” I said. “Let’s get to the point.”
“You know that Senor Dietrich is my guest?”
“I managed to figure that one out for myself.”
“And you know that his daughter decided to join him?”
“So I’ve learned,” I said, unemotionally. “Now, what the hell do you want from me?”
Consuela spoke up. “Shall I leave you now, Carlos?”
“Not just yet.” He took out a small, thin cigar and lit it slowly. He lifted his eyes to me and said affably, “How would you like to go into partnership with us?”
I’d expected threats. I’d expected and thought about almost every eventuality but this one. The offer caught me completely by surprise. I looked at Consuela. She, too, waited for my answer.
Carlos leaned even closer to me. I caught the scent of his after-shave lotion. “I know about Dietrich’s formula,” he said, his voice barely loud enough to reach my ears. “I know about his conversation with you and what he can manufacture.”