“You look okay. You looked okay before.”
“I feel younger. I really do.” She giggled. It was a terrible effort.
The room was like that in any second- or third-rate motel back home. The furnishings were new but already showing signs of wear — a double bed with a forty-watt lamp on each bedside table, a bureau topped by a mirror and a small electric fan, a desk scarred by cigarette burns, a standing ashtray advertising Tio’s Tequila, a dressing alcove behind a wooden screen, a shoebox-sized kitchenette off the bathroom. An air-conditioning unit bore a sign, Fuero de Servicio, Out of Order, and the atmosphere was hot and humid.
Insects droned and buzzed and whirred and ate each other and ate Miranda, too, when they discovered a way into the room through a hole in a screen. Her thin delicate skin was easy to penetrate, and the scent of her perfume was irresistible to bees in the daytime and mosquitoes at night, and to fleas and no-see-ums at any hour. There were clusters of fleabites across her abdomen and under her breasts. Her feet and ankles were covered with tiny red lumps like miniature pimples, which sometimes itched so terribly she scratched them until they bled. On her head, hidden by her hair, were curious welts oozing a colorless liquid that crystallized. When the fragile crystals broke under her comb, the oozing started all over again.
She dreamed of being consumed, of calling to Grady for help, and he came knocking at the door.
“Miranda?”
She opened her eyes.
“Are you awake, Miranda?”
She said, “No,” not to be funny but because it was the truth. She was not awake, not hungry, not thirsty, not cold or hot, not in pain, not even itchy from the insect bites.
“Miranda, someone’s here to see you from Santa Felicia.”
She sat up on the bed, suddenly and fully awake. “I am not receiving visitors this afternoon. Who... who is it?”
“A lawyer named Aragon. Some legal technicality has come up and you’ve got to sign a few papers.”
“Wait a minute, please.”
She put on the robe that matched her gown and ran a brush quickly through her hair. With the blinds drawn, the room was nearly dark. When she passed the mirror on her way to the door her image was a white shadow, like the ectoplasm of a bride.
“Hey, Miranda, hurry up.”
“All right.”
She unbolted the door. Grady came in with a towel wrapped around his waist and immediately turned on the fan and began opening blinds and windows. The fan whined and whirred like a superinsect, scattering its inferiors across the room, muffling their sounds of protest.
Miranda shielded her eyes from the sudden sun. For a whole minute she could see nothing but a moving red blaze. Then gradually the stranger emerged from the blaze, a young man wearing college-style cords and a Hawaiian shirt and horn-rimmed glasses that gave him a rather shy look. He carried a briefcase.
“Mrs. Shaw? I’m Tom Aragon.”
“I don’t believe we’ve met.”
“No, we haven’t. I work for Mr. Smedler.”
“Smedler.” She repeated the name as if she was honestly trying to remember the man who went with it. “I can’t quite...”
“Smedler, Downs, Castleberg, McFee, Powell.”
“Oh, of course. That’s the firm handling my husband’s estate.”
Or lack of it. He resisted an impulse to say the words, though he was pretty sure they wouldn’t have shocked her. She didn’t fit Smedler’s description of her as a nice well-bred little woman who’d been insulated and protected from the world.
“I’m afraid this is not a very good place to entertain,” she said carefully. “Or to do business, Mr. Aragon. There’s a café in the main building but it’s closed during the afternoon.”
“I won’t take much of your time.”
“It will seem long to Grady. He’s easily bored... Grady, would you mind? This promises to be a very dull session and you might as well be doing something interesting. Go and surf, dear.”
Grady minded. “I surfed already.”
“It’s a private matter, Grady.”
“We’re not supposed to have secrets from each other,” Grady said.
“Well, we do. Hundreds.”
“He knows we’re here as man and wife. I don’t see what’s to hide. I’ve got a right to be in on—”
“We’ll discuss it later.” Go and surf, you bum.
As soon as he’d gone, Miranda switched off the fan.
“I prefer the heat to the noise, if you have no objection, Mr. Aragon.”
“None at all.”
“Please sit down.”
“Thank you.”
He took one of the green vinyl chairs. It had a broken spring in the middle of the seat. He couldn’t avoid it, so he tried to sit as lightly as he could, keeping some of his weight on his thigh, a posture that made him look as if he were waiting for the starting gun of a race. He thought about what kind of race it would turn out to be — low or high hurdles, quarter-mile, marathon — and how he wasn’t ready for any of them.
She sat in the other vinyl chair. If it had a broken spring, she showed no sign of it. She seemed composed, almost regal, a great lady willing to donate time to the problems of the little people, even in her nightclothes in a hot dingy little room in a foreign country.
“I find these circumstances quite extraordinary, Mr. Aragon. To begin with, no one is supposed to know where I am.”
“Someone guessed.”
“Smedler, I presume. It’s rather bad form for him to send someone after me like this. One would think that he, of all people, would understand, since he’s been married three times and heaven knows what else how many times. This is an affair of the heart.”
“It is also an affair of the California judiciary.”
“The California judiciary can wait. I’ve certainly been kept waiting long enough. Neville died last spring, leaving a legal and uncomplicated will which should have been settled months ago.”
“Probate is often a long procedure,” Aragon said. “You could have shortened it somewhat by cooperating with Smedler. Why these delaying tactics, Mrs. Shaw?”
“I was in a hurry. Some things can’t be postponed. I was due for another treatment at the clinic and Grady needed a holiday. I thought it was possible to combine the two.”
“And was it?”
The slight movement of her head didn’t indicate yes or no.
“In practical terms, Mrs. Shaw, all you’ve gained is a couple of weeks and the money Tannenbaum paid you.”
“How did you find that out?”
He told her about the Admiral’s daughters and the ruby necklace and bracelet. As she listened her eyes narrowed and her jaw tightened as though she was resisting the idea of Juliet and Cordelia wearing her jewelry.
He added, “Disposing of items belonging to a frozen estate is against the law.”
“The jewelry belonged to me and was not part of the estate.”
“What about the other things you sold?”
“I’m the sole beneficiary, so they were mine, too.”
“Unfortunately, you’re legally obliged to share them with Mr. Shaw’s creditors... You knew about the creditors, of course.”
Again the slight noncommittal movement of her head. “I didn’t know.”
“You suspected.”
“I was aware of odd things happening, phone calls at all hours, strangers at the door. And Neville acted so different, secretive one minute, talking a blue streak the next, never letting me open the mail. I didn’t understand what was happening.”
“Do you understand now?”
“I’m beginning to,” she said with a grim little smile. “He was making sure I didn’t inherit anything. If he changed his will, I could fight it in court. If he simply left me nothing but debts, it would be legal and I’d be safe from fortune hunters. He kept referring to fortune hunters as though there was one behind every tree. He took it for granted that I was too stupid to protect myself so he had to do it. Well, he protected me all right. From fortune hunters, if not from anything else.”