The key would not turn. She tried one hand and then the other, and finally both together. She was a strong woman, used to heavy work, but the key wouldn’t budge.
She rapped sharply on the door and called out, “This is the chambermaid. I must change the towels. Please let me in. I have lost my key. Please open the door? Please?”
She caught her lower lip with her teeth to stop its trembling. The room is empty, she thought. Escamillo is right, God is punishing me. I hear voices no one else can hear, I talk to people who are not there, I listen at walls that say nothing.
She hesitated only long enough to cross herself. Then she turned and ran down the corridor to the service stairway. In flight, she tried to pray. Her mouth moved but no words came out, and she knew it was because she had not said her beads for a long time; she could not even remember where she had put them.
Four flights down, and she was in the little room behind the bar where Emilio and his assistants came to sneak cigarettes and finish off the dregs of bottles and count the day’s tips.
She had made so much noise crashing down the steps that Emilio himself hurried back to see what the fuss was about.
“Oh, it’s you.” Emilio was bold and elegant in a new red bolero trimmed with silver buttons and orange braid. “I thought it was another earthquake. What do you want?”
She sat down on an empty beer case and held her head in her hands.
“How’s Joe?” Emilio said.
The American was waiting in Escamillo’s office, pacing up and down as if he couldn’t find a door to escape through. He looked worried, as worried as Escamillo felt. Escamillo, from the beginning, had had grave doubts about the situation, but Mr. Dodd was very persuasive. He’d made the plan sound both reasonable and practicable.
Escamillo was afraid it was neither, although so far he hadn’t indicated his misgivings. He said simply, “Everything is in readiness. They are arguing very well together, very real.”
“And Consuela is listening?”
“Certainly. Listening, it is a long habit with her.”
“Did you have the lock changed?”
“Just as I was instructed, so everything has been performed. She can gain access to the room only when the ladies are ready to receive her. Also, the silver box — I gave it to Emilio as you told me to do. However, I do not understand about the silver box. Why was it necessary to purchase an exact duplicate? I begin to wonder.” Escamillo’s face, normally as bland as a marshmallow, was contorted in anticipation of disaster. “I begin to have doubts.”
“That makes two of us.”
“Señor?”
“We all have doubts,” Dodd said flatly. “Let’s just hope hers are bigger.”
“She is not a fool, you know. A cheat, a liar, a thief, all those, but not a fool.”
“She’s superstitious and she’s scared.”
“She is scared, ha! And who is not? I feel my liver turning cold and white like snow.”
“There’s nothing to be scared of. Your part in this is finished.”
“I must remind you that this is my hotel, my reputation is at stake, I am responsible for...” The telephone on Escamillo’s desk began to ring. He darted across the room and picked it up. His small pudgy hands were quivering. “Yes? That is good, very good.” He put the phone down and said to Dodd, “It has worked so far. She is with Emilio. He is very clever, you can trust him.”
“I have to.”
“Señor Kellogg will be here soon?”
“He’s waiting in the lobby now.”
“Suppose there is violence? Violence distresses me.” Escamillo pressed his hand against his stomach. “You have not taken me entirely into your confidence, senor. A little voice keeps telling me that there is something questionable about all this, perhaps even something illegal.”
A little voice kept telling Dodd the same thing but he couldn’t afford to listen.
“How is Joe?” Emilio repeated.
“Joe?” She raised her head and stared at him blankly. For a moment the blankness was genuine — Joe was long ago and far away and dead. “Joe who?”
“You know Joe who.”
“Oh, him. I haven’t seen him. He was no good. He ran off with another woman.”
“An American?”
“Why do you say that?”
“He sent me 250 pesos that he owed me. It was marked on the envelope, San Francisco.”
“Ah, so? Well, I hope she is very rich so he will be very happy.”
There’d been two rich ladies, Consuela thought. They were ready to be plucked like chickens, but all Joe got out of it was a second-hand car and a few clothes to be buried in, because he lost his nerve, he began feeling sorry for people. His mind had turned soft as his belly.
No, no, I must not think of that, of the blood...
“What happens with you?” Emilio said. “You look bad, like a ghost.”
“I have a — a headache.”
“Perhaps you would like a bottle of beer?”
“Yes. Thank you. Thank you very much.”
“Do not thank me so hard,” Emilio said dryly. “I expect you to pay.”
“I will pay. I have money.”
She thought, I have money I can’t spend, clothes I can’t wear; I have bottles of perfume, yet I must go around smelling like a goat. You would steal the smell off a goat, Joe had said.
It seemed funny to her now. She began to laugh softly, cupping her mouth in her hands so that no one would hear her and want to know why she was laughing. It would be too hard to explain; she wasn’t quite sure of the reason herself.
Emilio returned carrying a bottle of cheap beer. He gave her the beer, then held out his hand for the money. She put a peso in it, grudgingly, as if it were her last.
“This,” he said, “is not enough.”
“It is all I have.”
“I hear different. I hear you had a winning ticket last week.”
“No.”
“This is what I hear, that you took all your money and hid it away. If this is so...”
“And it is not.”
“But suppose it is. Then you are in luck, because I have a fine bargain for you.”
“I have seen too many of your fine bargains.”
“Not like this.” From one of the higher shelves behind the door Emilio took an object wrapped in a copy of Grafico. He removed the newspaper and held out, for her to see, a box of hammered silver. “A beauty, is it not?”
She pressed the cold bottle against her burning forehead like a poultice.
“As you can see,” Emilio said, “it has a damage, a dent. That is why I am offering it at the absurd price of two hundred pesos. Go on, take it, feel its weight. It’s genuine silver, as heavy as a mourner’s heart, and what could be heavier than that, eh, Consuela?”
“Where,” she said, “where did you get it?”
“Ah, that is my little secret.”
“You must tell me. I must know.”
“Very well. I found it.”
“Where?”
“A lady left it behind in the bar, on one of the seats.”
“What lady?”
“If I knew the lady I would return the box,” he said severely. “I am an honest man, I would never keep what belongs to another, never. But,” he added with a shrug, “since I do not know the lady’s name, and since she looked very rich, with many gold bracelets, yes, even gold on her eyelids...”
The telephone rang in 404. Both the women jumped, as if they’d heard a shot. Then the one in the red silk suit crossed the room and picked up the telephone. “Yes?”