I said: “Why did you import the accent? Dog?”
“Import? Accent? The way I speak? Is true.”
“Yes?”
“My mother, she is dancer, too. When I am born, she is in New York. When I am four, we go to Buenos Aires.” She glanced at me dubiously. “You no like it, the accent? It bore you?”
“It’s terrific.”
“I try,” she said meekly. “All the time to be better I try. Is hard. When all the time I speak with Spanish.”
We had reached the heart of the city. We passed a carnival ground festooned with coloured lights. I read a street sign. Calle Merida. We were almost home.
My anger was more in control now. Lena Snood was still in my mind. She always would be. But the prospect of New Orleans had steadied me. Maybe, after all, there would be an end. At least I should learn something from Mr. Brand.
But I wasn’t in New Orleans yet. There was still Mexico. I still had to settle the score with Halliday.
There are telephone booths in the Hotel Reforma. Vera went in, put in her anonymous call to the police and hurried out. We drove to my apartment. I went into the kitchen to make drinks. We needed them. There was some cooked ham and goat-cheese and bread. I made sandwiches, for we hadn’t eaten all day.
When I brought them to the living-room, Vera was combing her hair out at the mirror above the mantel. It was strange how many times my idea of her had changed in so few hours. First she’d been the bird-brained glamour girl out for a thrill. Then she’d been the devious, scheming siren. Now it was perfectly natural having her there in my apartment, frowning into a mirror with a bobby pin in her mouth. In less than a day she’d become an accepted part of my life, as if she’d always been in it.
We sat together on the couch, eating the sandwiches and drinking our drinks. We hardly talked, but her presence relaxed me. I’d never known a girl who could look so exotic and be so comfortable.
When I finished my drink I told her she’d better call up the airport and make her reservation for the morning plane. While she was trying to get through I left the room and slipped out of the apartment. I didn’t want her to know I was going to Halliday. She was stubborn enough to insist on coming with me, and this time I didn’t want a woman along.
Calle Dinamarca was only a few blocks away. I walked to the Plaza Washington. All the stores had their iron shutters down for the night. I turned into Dinamarca, and soon I was outside the Halliday’s apartment building.
I glanced up the façade to the windows of Apartment Three. A light was shining behind the half-drawn zebra drapes.
He was there. Perhaps Junior was there, too. I didn’t care. I almost hoped he was.
I wasn’t going to warn them of my arrival. I pressed the buzzer for Apartment Number One on the ground floor. When the door was released from the catch, I slipped through the modernistic hall and around the curve of the staircase before the occupant of the apartment had a chance to see me.
I reached the landing. I moved down it to the door marked three. I took out the Colt and aimed it level with the keyhole. In most modern Mexican apartment buildings, the walls are thin as plyboard. I waited a moment, listening for the sound of voices inside. I heard nothing.
I pressed the buzzer.
Footsteps came shuffling towards the door. I watched the handle turn. I kept the gun pointed. The door opened. A Mexican I had never seen before stood on the threshold. He was middle-aged and plump. He was wearing bedroom slippers and a fancy blue silk bathrobe.
“Yes?” he inquired in English. Then he saw the gun and his eyes popped.
“Put up your hands and back in,” I said.
His double chin started to wabble. He threw his hands over his head and backed gingerly into the apartment.
“What I do?” he babbled. “Please. Is my right. I have the deeds. Please.”
I followed him in and kicked the door shut behind me. The familiar yellow furniture gleamed opulently. The vase of carnations still stood on the coffee table. Suitcases were lying all over the place. Some of them were open. Clothes, pieces of bric-à-brac, screwed up pieces of newspaper were scattered on the carpet.
Halliday wasn’t there.
I jerked the gun at the man in the bathrobe. “In the bedroom.”
Sweat streamed down his face. His mouth was still open, but he seemed to have lost the power of speech. Clumsily he started to back through the suitcases. He reached the bedroom door and pushed it inward. I came after him. From the room behind him rose a shrill female scream.
I entered the bedroom. In the bed where I’d slept the night before a plump woman was propped against the pillows. She had been reading a magazine. It was slumped over her knee. She was peering at me around the man’s bulk, her face creased with terror.
There were two trunks and more suitcases in here. Clothes were piled neatly on the other bed. The closets were open.
“What you want?” Words suddenly flooded out of the man. “Is the money? I give the money. Please. All we have I give. But not to hurt the wife. Please not the wife….”
Still aiming the gun at him, I moved to the bathroom, kicked the door in and glanced inside. It was empty.
The woman was whimpering. She was wearing a sort of pink bedcap. It had fallen askew over one eye. She began jabbering in Spanish to the man. He answered her, presumably trying to comfort her.
I began to feel stupid.
“Okay.” I nodded to the living-room. “Get in there.”
Still chattering to the woman, the man scurried back into the living-room. I followed. I looked into the kitchen. It was empty, too. I sat down on the arm of one of the chairs and said:
“When will Halliday be back?”
The man blinked. “Halliday?”
“I want Halliday. I…”
“Oh.” A smile of wild hope spread over his face. “It is the other tenant. The American who leaves this morning?”
The suitcases, the woman in the bedroom… it was all becoming embarrassingly plain.
“He leaves,” the man was saying. “I no know the name. But this man this morning he leave. For months we search for the furnished apartment, the wife and I. At last we got it. I pay hundred pesos to the portero. Right away this afternoon we move in. And now…”
There wasn’t any point in going on with it. I knew when I was licked. I should have realized this place was no use to Halliday once I’d seen it. I didn’t even wonder whether the man in the blue bathrobe was lying. He wasn’t lying. Innocent householder was written all over the quivering chins.
I put the revolver in my pocket. He couldn’t believe it. The hands were still up in the air.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Apologize to your wife.”
He opened his mouth, but again no words came.
“Guess you don’t know where he went?”
He shook his head.
I grinned. “Look at it this way. Now you’ve got something to talk to your friends about.”
As I left, he was calling incredulously: “Mama, mama, esta bien. El loco Americano se fué.” I heard heavy footsteps thumping into the bedroom.
I ran down the stairs. I didn’t think he would call the police, but I was taking no chances. I slipped out into the street. A bleak feeling of helplessness caught up with me. Somehow in this dark, sprawling city were Halliday and his pretty little henchman. Somewhere. Where? In eight more hours I’d be gone. There wasn’t a chance in a million I’d ever find Halliday now—unless he came after me again.
Since last night the wheel had spun full circle. I walked home hoping I’d see the light-blue sedan parked outside my house.
But it wasn’t there.
Tormenting images of Lena Snood came again. Was she still lying out there in the darkness on that god-forsaken mound or had the police arrived? I’d abandoned her for a chance to get Halliday.
And this had happened.
I tried to raise my spirits by thinking of New Orleans. But in my gloomy mood even that hope seemed fairly futile. I could go to search for Deborah’s uncle. But what could I offer him? The only important thing—the book—was gone. All I had to bring was the news of his niece’s death.
And to warn him of Halliday.
As I started up the stairs, my thoughts shifted to Vera and I felt better. At least something had come out of the holocaust. There was Vera.
I reached the door of my apartment and felt for my key. As I brought it out I became conscious of a voice inside. My nerves alerted to danger. Had I been fooled again? Had Halliday or Junior seen me go out and slipped up to get Vera? I pulled the gun out of my pocket. I leaned closer to the door.
It was Vera talking. I recognized the quality of her voice, but I could not hear the words.
Cautiously I slid the key into the lock. I turned it. I inched the handle round and silently opened the door a crack.
Vera’s voice sounded clearly. My first feeling was relief. She was talking on the phone. I don’t know how, but you can always tell when someone’s talking on the phone.
But the relief vanished almost before it had come. A sort of stunned shock took its place. Because I heard her say:
“He doesn’t tell, but I think he go to your apartment in Dinamarca.”
She laughed a little gurgling laugh.
“Oh, he is mad—mad with you for killing the Snood. But do not worry. All is okay. At last he trust me. He’s going to New Orleans, and he is taking me with him….”