There were enough people around so that I could follow them into the grounds. I shoved money at the cab driver. I got such a wide grin I knew it was too much. I went in. The cabañas were on either side of long walks behind the hotel. Tropical foliage was lush around them. I kept them in sight. They turned into the last but one on the central walk and I saw Talley unlock the door.
I strolled around. I went by to the end of the walk, came back, and when I was sure I wasn’t observed, I ducked into the thick brush beside their cabaña. The windows were open. Through the screen I heard the buzz of a fan, the clink of bottleneck on glass, the girl’s thin giggle. They kept talking Spanish to each other. They stopped talking after a while. I didn’t risk raising my eyes above the sill until I heard the roar of a shower. Then I looked in.
It was Talley who was taking the shower. I could see the girl. She had changed into a white dress. She went over to the bureau and started making up her face. I walked away from there. I had vaguely planned to have Talley lead me to Torran and Anne. If Joe Talley could take Torran, it was all to the good. If he couldn’t, he’d knock Torran off balance long enough for me to take him. But Talley was playing. He was like a guy with nothing on his mind. It bothered me. He ought to be pretty well tightened up. Just the thought of coming up against Torran ought to keep him nibbling on his hands. Something had gone wrong in my guessing.
An hour later the girl came out of the cabaña alone. She had a big bright red purse slung over her shoulder. I tossed a mental coin and decided to stay with Joe Talley. So I intercepted her where I could keep Talley’s cabaña in sight.
“Do you speak any English?” I asked her.
She gave me a long cold look, then wrinkled her nose in a very charming little smile. “A leedle.”
“Can I buy you a drink?”
“Dreenk? No, gracias. Other time, maybee.”
A nice old lady schoolteacher walked by, glanced at the girl and gave me a sour look. I tried to make a date with the girl, but she walked on.
I shrugged and found a bench where I could see Talley’s cabaña. The long hours went by. I was hungry and thirsty and out of cigarettes. I cursed Talley, Torran, Anne Richardson, Mexico and the three hundred and seventy thousand dollars.
When Anne Richardson came by me, it caught me by surprise. I was waiting for Talley to come out. It shook me to see her and know that it could be the one. I went over the ticket agent’s description. Hair like harvest wheat, he had said. Moon-pool eyes, whatever those are. The funny, tough, scratchy little voice would be the payoff.
I had to make a quick revision of all my guesses. It was like coming in on the third act, not knowing your lines or what has happened so far. I moved in behind her as she headed down the walk. She wore an aqua cotton two-piece dress with a bare midriff. She walked on high cork soles, and she was tall enough not to need them, and her walk was something to remember and speculate about and bring back to mind on long cold winter nights. A man like Torran should pick inconspicuous women. She was as noticeable as a feather bed in a phone booth.
She went to Joe Talley’s cabaña, tried the door and went in. My play was to walk slowly by and see if I could duck into the shrubs again. This time they’d be speaking English, at least. But before I could get by, the door banged open and she came out again, blanched to the color of roquefort, sucking at the air through parted lips. I took a quick step back, caught her wrist and spun her around.
“Let go, let go!” she panted, fighting me. The voice was small, scratchy.
“Get back in there, Anne!” I said, pushing her toward the door. Her ankle turned because of the high cork soles and I caught her before she fell. My using her name took a lot of the scrap out of her. Her eyes were wide and hot as she looked at me. Moon-pool eyes, to that ticket agent, are the ones so dark that you can’t see where the irises leaves off and the pupils begin.
“Who are you?”
I shoved her again, reached around her to the door and pushed it open, pulled her in. She turned her back to me and I spun her around and caught her hand just as she yanked the small automatic out of her white purse. I tore the gun out of her hand and it hurt her fingers and she yelled with the pain. But I heard it as though it came from a long distance.
I was too busy looking at Joe Talley. He was pretty messy. Through the open bathroom door I could see the top half of him. The shower was still on and turned too hot so that steam drifted around him. He lay on his back with his legs still in the shower and the big knife was stuck through his throat at an angle so that the tip of it came out under his ear.
The girl made a dive for the door and I caught her in time, whirled her back, picked her up bodily and threw her onto the bed. “Be good,” I said. She lay there and stared at me. I opened her purse, took out cigarettes, lit one. I looked around the room. The search had been pretty complete. The bottle on the bureau. Two glasses had been used. The third was still clean, still upside down on the tray. I poured some of the defunct’s bourbon, a liberal dose, took it over and pushed Anne’s legs out of the way so I could sit on the bed.
“I could use some of that,” she said in a wheedling tone.
“Tell me some things and maybe you’ll get some.”
“Why did you kill him, honey?” I knew she hadn’t. I knew she didn’t have time to do it. But she didn’t know I knew.
Her eyes darkened curiously. “I’m asking you that, mister.”
“I’m turning you in to the local cops. I think they have cells with dirt floors. I think the jailers will give me a vote of thanks for putting something like you in there. The bugs are bad, but they’ll keep you entertained.”
“You can’t bluff me, mister. Who are you?”
“How did you get here so fast from National City? You and Torran.”
“Who’s Torran? Somebody I ought to know?”
“From way back,” I said.
“Why did you kill Joe Talley, mister?”
I took another pull at the drink. Her eyes kept flicking to the glass and now and then she’d lick her underlip.
“We’re going around in circles, Anne. I didn’t kill him. And I know you didn’t. But I do know who did. Interested?”
She sat up, pulled her knees up, hugged them. “Who?”
“I’ll give you a little. You give me a little first.”
She shut her eyes for a long three seconds. “We got here fast because there was a light plane staked out for us at Ensenada.”
“A girl killed him. A Mexican girl wearing a white dress and carrying a big red purse. She was pretty. He brought her back here from the beach around noon. They both looked a little high.”
Still hugging her knees, she said five or six words that she shouldn’t have known. Her lips writhed like bloody worms as she said them.
I asked, “Where’s Torran?”
Suddenly a thought seemed to strike her.
Her eyes went wide. She scrambled off the bed, took one hesitant step toward the door and then stood there. “Look, I just realized that maybe . . .”