A Game for the Living (26 page)

This happened in the time it took for Theodore to stand up and for Ramón to take his hands from his face. Then, as Theodore saw the figure lifted from the deck, he sprang forward and caught Miguel by the arm. “Stop it, man! What're you trying to do?”

Miguel swung out of Theodore's reach, keeping his grip on the dungarees. The body hung like a rag. “This is
my
boat and
I
say who're the passengers!” He made ready to heave him over, and Theodore hit Miguel in the jaw.

Miguel staggered back and would have fallen overboard if Alejandro had not caught him. Alejandro laughed.

Theodore turned the limp body over. More blood came from the head, giving a horrible red sheen to the black hair. He felt for pulses, for the heart. “Now he's dead,” Theodore said. He looked up and saw Ramón's terrified face looking at him.

“Good,” Alejandro grunted.

“
Get him off my boat!
” Miguel roared, coming at him.

Theodore clapped his arm around Ramón's shoulders, because Ramón looked as if he would let himself sway over the rail, or as if he were going to hurl himself over. One hand, like a stiff claw, Ramón held over his face. His sobs were like the sound of choking. “It couldn't be helped, Ramón—couldn't—” Theodore said stupidly, and looked just in time to see Miguel with an easy sideways swing hurl the dead boy overboard.

There was a loud, messy splash.

“Good riddance!” Alejandro said, and put a cigarette in his mouth. “He was a dirty fish!” He nodded affirmation of himself to Theodore.

Of course it was good riddance, Theodore thought. Now Miguel would have all that was left of Infante's money.

“And all his junk—” Miguel muttered, going towards the stern.

“The rum,” Theodore said to Alejandro. “If there's any rum left—”

Alejandro raised a grimy finger, smiled, and went to get it.

“And
this
!” Miguel was yelling from the stern, flinging overboard a pair of trousers. “This—” An empty bottle followed the trousers. Miguel bumped his head hard on the cabin door's lintel and cursed.

“Not that!” Theodore said, running towards him. He caught Miguel's wrist. “Give me that!”

Miguel relaxed his hold on the pencils, the red ribbon, and with his other hand threw some clothes overboard.

Ramón did not want any rum, he wanted water. Miguel had none, or at any rate refused to give Theodore any.

“Off my boat, all of you!” Miguel shouted.

“Is there water on your boat, Alejandro?” Theodore asked.

Alejandro nodded that there was, and took the rum and drank.

Theodore looked at the sea off the starboard and the prow, but the surface was smooth and empty. The sea rolled gently, as if nothing had occurred.

“Disappeared!” said Alejandro, chuckling. “He sank!”

“Can you take us back to Acapulco?” Theodore asked him.

Alejandro squinted at him knowingly. “To shore, maybe. Acapulco, no.
.
.
.
Miguel, are you throwing away money?” He went to the stern and disappeared into the cabin, where Theodore heard him opening cabinets, dragging things about as he searched the last corner for a possible cache of pesos.

Ramón's hand was still over his face, his body upright and rigid, though Theodore gripped his arm as if he would fall if he did not. They talked at cross-purposes, Theodore of the water on Alejandro's boat that he wanted Ramón to board, and Ramón of Lelia. Theodore did not try to hear what he said, because Ramón was talking to himself, or to her. Then Ramón took his hand down and jumped to the other boat. Theodore found some water in a large green glass bottle in the cabin. Ramón offered it first to Theodore, who declined. Then he knelt and washed his hands in the sea, and drank from the water that he poured into his palm. Theodore could hear Alejandro demanding money from Miguel, demanding two thousand pesos from the six thousand Infante had given him to hide him, or he would tell the police about all this; and at last Miguel grumblingly consented, and his grumbles grew fainter as he went into his cabin to get it.

A moment later, Alejandro came aboard and untied them from the anchored
Pepita
. “Miguel!” he said to the man slouching against the cabin. “Miguel,
adiós
! Have a long sleep and we forget what happened today! Okay, Miguel?”

Miguel nodded sleepily.

And strangely, Theodore thought, they probably would forget what had happened today.

The motor sputtered and caught. Alejandro swung the prow towards the shore, then turned a little left, murmuring something about a beach where he could put them off. There was something spry and cheerful in Alejandro's manner now, and he never once met Theodore's eyes with his own. Either murder had made him lively, or his primitive brain was going about its own process of forgetting, by seizing on its little business of running a boat.

Ramón said: “You may tell me I didn't kill him, Teo, but it was only the last blow that I didn't strike. He would have died from me.” He was on one knee, crouched beside the gunwale, staring down at the deck. “Revenge is not sweet, Teo. It's as evil as the rest.”

Theodore stood beside him, watching the shore for a spot where they might land. “Don't think about it now.” He squeezed the rolled-up muffler in his hand.

“I must—because that was how I thought I killed
her
—when I was beside myself, not even knowing what I was doing! I used to be afraid that I'd strike her like that when I was angry, you know, Teo—and wake up to find her dead. And that's what I did with Infante—struck him until he was dead.”

“He would have lived but for Miguel!” Theodore said forcefully, though he was not even thinking about what he said. He was wondering when Ramón would understand the significance of the muffler.

Suddenly the memory of Lelia's mutilated face came back to Theodore. He tried, but it was beyond his imagination that anyone could have done that. But, as Ramón was saying now, in a moment of anger anything was possible.

“Alejandro!” Theodore called over the sound of the motor. He took two steps and was beside him. “This muffler—Do you know whom it belongs to? Didn't Infante tell you?”

Alejandro glanced at the muffler, then looked at Theodore, smiling. “I don't know,” he said in a singing, jocular way.

“I will pay you to tell me. What've you got to lose?” Then, as Alejandro hesitated, Theodore realized that Alejandro probably didn't know, or he would have been glad to sell him the information, or he would have wanted to appropriate the muffler himself for blackmailing purposes. Theodore gave a sigh of fatigue and frustration.

Alejandro's brown shoulders shrugged. “That brat—Infante was always saying it was his most valuable possession. That's all I know.”

“And that's all Miguel knows?”

“
Quién sabe?
” Alejandro said indifferently.

The police would have to question Miguel, Theodore thought. Sauzas. Only Sauzas should question Miguel, or they would get into a terrible mess over Infante's death. Miguel would not be able to hide out now, assuming he even wanted to, with a boat. Or would he abandon his boat tonight or tomorrow, and disappear among the millions of other Mexicans who looked like him? And with how much enthusiasm would the Mexican
policía
look for him, anyway?

As Theodore had anticipated, Alejandro gouged him for more money as they neared the shore. “You've been paid enough,” Theodore said curtly, not even looking at him, and Alejandro subsided in shrugs and grumbles about wealthy misers.

But he drove his boat's prow on to the sand and jumped out to give them a hand, as if they were persons of importance. “You'll find a road at the top of the cliff,” he said, gesturing towards the steep, rocky hill that confronted them. “And listen, señor, I do not want any
policía
coming around to ask me questions, eh?”

“Understood,” Theodore said.

“Or else I'll tell them your friend here did it,” Alejandro said, with a nod at Ramón. “Understand?”

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

The sun touched the horizon lightly, like a buoyant orange balloon. Then rapidly the sea began to swallow it. Theodore stared at it out the window of the bus, felt its last burst of heat on his face, and tried to think what he must do next. Call Sauzas, of course, and leave it to him to inform the Acapulco police of Infante's death—otherwise the police would detain them indefinitely for questioning. Alejandro and Miguel would have to be found, too, and this prospect was ghastly to Theodore. He felt exhausted, as spent as Ramón, who had leaned forward with his arms on his knees and put his head down. There was a smear of dark red blood on the roll of Ramón's shirt-sleeve, and Theodore had discovered that the right knee of his trousers bore a stiff, dark circle, conspicuous on the grey cloth. Theodore wondered if they should try to get a plane out tonight, or find a hotel to sleep in.

The bus finished the sinuous Revolcadero highway along the cliff's edge and began the steep descent to Acapulco. Already a few lights had been turned on, and Theodore heard the restless, insistent beat of the cha-cha-cha as the bus passed some open door. He would get out at the plaza, he thought, and telephone Sauzas. Now, out of habit, he looked at the people walking under the trees on the Malecón.

Suddenly he caught Ramón's arm. “Come! We're getting off!”

Ramón stood up.

The bus was slowing for a stop. They got off.

“Back this way,” Theodore said. “I think I saw Sauzas.”

“Sauzas? Are you sure?”

Theodore was not at all sure. It might have been a hallucination. But he thought he had seen him talking to two men beside a palm tree. “There! See him?”

Ramón did not acknowledge it, but he walked more slowly, his eyes on Sauzas; and Theodore knew Ramón would be thinking ‘How little it all means', or something like that, even if they were going to put him in prison for fifteen years for the murder of a murderer.

Sauzas saw them from a distance also, and smiled a greeting. The two shirt-sleeved men with him stared at Theodore and Ramón and at the bloodstains on their clothing. “Señores! What luck!” Sauzas said. “I thought you had left for Mexico.” He turned to the two men and said: “
Muchas gracias, señores
. I'd like to speak to these gentlemen now. What has
happened
?”

Theodore told him of the encounter with Infante on the boat and of what happened there. He pulled the rolled muffler from his jacket pocket. “This is it.”

Sauzas's brows went up. “A bright one. Ah, now it all fits,” he said quietly.

“What do you mean?” Theodore asked.

“Do you know whose this is?” asked Sauzas.

“No. I have no idea,” Theodore said. “Have you?”

“Hm-m. Señor Schiebelhut, Carlos Hidalgo is not home yet, and that's why I'm here. I discovered he took ten thousand pesos from his bank—practically all the money he had. I put two and two together. The
policía
is now looking for Carlos Hidalgo.”

“I see,” Theodore said nervously. He had just told Sauzas that Infante had been paid ten thousand pesos for the muffler which he did not give up. “Lelia's keys—they were on the boat,” Theodore went on. “They told me that when Infante arrived, he found the door open and Lelia dead. Whoever the muffler belongs to—must have just been there. Infante took the muffler and the keys and some other things and locked the door when he left. I learned also that he brought the flowers—to get in.”

“Ah-hah. So Infante thought at first the muffler must belong to one or the other of you.”

“Yes,” Theodore said, watching Ramón's frowning face.

“Señor Schiebelhut, you're pale,” said Sauzas. “Let's cross the street and have something to drink.” He took Theodore's arm.

They went into a sidewalk bar with no front wall, ordered double rums, and Theodore added to the order a pot of tea and two cups.

“Señor Capitán, how can we be sure whom the muffler belongs to?” Theodore asked. “All there is is a few circumstances—”

Sauzas put his blue packet of Gitanes on the table, took one out and lighted it. “Señores—yesterday afternoon I spoke to Señora Hidalgo. I told her of the withdrawal of the ten thousand pesos, which she knew nothing about. I suggested they might have been for the purchase of the muffler, and I told her where the muffler might have been found. With that, señores, she broke down. She admitted she had begun to wonder about Carlos herself, because of his behavior since the murder. I would say now she really believes he is guilty.” Sauzas looked rather slyly from one to the other of them, as if he had just uncovered a winning card. “When I left Mexico at noon today, Carlos was not home and neither was his wife! Nobody had answered the telephone since I saw his wife yesterday afternoon at two. We went to his apartment. Nobody is there.” Sauzas spread his hands in a shrug, and looked at them brightly.

Theodore still could not think it was that simple. “Isabel might have gone to her sister's. She has a sister called Nina in Coyoacán—”

“Ah!” Sauzas shifted restlessly in his chair and watched the rums and the glasses of ice-water being set down on the table.

Ramón was staring at Sauzas with an angry, resentful expression. Then he looked at Theodore. “He thinks it was Carlos?”

“He is not sure. Nobody is sure yet,” Theodore murmured, feeling strangely embarrassed. He was aware, as he poured tea for Ramón and himself, that Sauzas was smiling, amused by him.

“Carlos may well be here, looking for Infante,” Sauzas said after his first sip of straight rum. “It wouldn't surprise me if he kills himself. So many cliffs to jump off in Acapulco.” Sauzas turned to a small boy who had come up to the table, trying to sell the thin daily newspaper of Acapulco, shook his head, and dropped a coin in the child's palm. “
Andale!
”

Theodore was thinking of Carlos's evasiveness in the last months, of Carlos's refusal to see him the times Theodore had called him. And it had been Isabel, he remembered, who had telephoned and wanted to go to Lelia's funeral. But was it possible that Carlos had mutilated Lelia's
face
?

“Well—I must telephone Mexico and tell them about Infante,” Sauzas said. “Or rather, I'll call the
policía
here and let them worry with their long-distance telephones.” He winked and stood up. “With your permission, señores.”

Theodore watched him walk away to the wall telephone by the bar counter. His gait looked more rolling and self-assured than ever. And it was all so casual to him, Theodore thought, all in the line of a day's work.

“He thinks it was
Carlos,
Theo?” Ramón asked.

A numb shock went over Theodore. “I don't know. But it was not Salvador. Salvador was only a blackmailer.” He looked at Ramón's eyes, where a dark comprehension was gathering. Ramón's face had changed. Though lines and signs of fatigue were there, the confused frown had gone; and Theodore realized that Salavador Infante had at least jolted Ramón out of the conviction that he was her murderer. In that, it was as if the frail Salvador had lifted a mountain from Ramón.

“I see,” Ramón said finally. “And I've killed someone for no reason. It's typical, typical, isn't it, Teo?”

Theodore gripped Ramón's wrist. “You have
not
killed anyone. Will you get that idea out of your head, Ramón?”

“Yes,” Ramón said obediently, nodding. “I did not kill him. Just almost.”

“And forget the almost. Miguel killed him. And the boy was evil, very evil, anyway. That's not a fact of importance for the
policía,
perhaps, that he was evil, but a fact for
you
. The boy himself had killed someone before.”

“The boy was evil,” Ramón repeated. “That is true.” He picked up his rum and drank it all at once.

Theodore released Ramón's wrist and signaled for another round of drinks.

Sauzas came back to the table and said with a smile: “What do you know? The Acapulco police knew already that Infante was dead! They sit here gathering news from their informers and never stir off their backsides!
.
.
.
Would you gentlemen like a room for the night in the hotel where I am staying? You have no hotel, have you?
.
.
.
Well, I know I can get you some rooms where I am, because the manager is a crook of the third or fourth order and is being investigated by both the
policía
and a couple of insurance companies. He will do anything for me, even throw the President out to give me a room!” Sauzas chuckled and slapped Theodore's shoulder.

“All right. We'll accept. Thank you,” Theodore said.

“It's a very comfortable hotel overlooking the bay. A marvellous view day and night. And after we go and wash up, I'll invite you both to dinner! With your permission again, I'll call—” He broke off, staring in the direction of the sidewalk.

Isabel Hidalgo was hurrying towards them.

Theodore and Ramón got to their feet.

“I've been looking everywhere for you!” she said with a frantic glance that took them all in. “Inocenza told me you were here,” she said to Theodore.

“Sit down, Isabel!” Theodore said, offering her his chair.

She sat down and looked at Sauzas. “He is here. I came with him yesterday afternoon—because, after all, I'm his wife,” she said with a quick, proud glance at Theodore and Ramón. “He is in our hotel room, and he wants to give himself up.” Her shoulders drooped as if this had taken her last strength to say.

“To give himself
up
? It's true, then, Isabel?” Theodore asked, as astounded by her words as if no suspicion had crossed his mind before.

Isabel was nodding, nodding miserably.

Theodore dragged up an empty chair to sit on.

“Thank you for coming to us, señora.” Sauzas touched her arm compassionately, but he had time to look at Theodore and there was triumph in his eye. “Now what hotel is he in?”

“He told me to tell you everything—how he cut her with the knife to make it look like a maniac's crime. He hit her first, then he got afraid because he thought he'd killed her. That's what he told me,” Isabel said in a quick, soft voice. She stared at the table edge in front of her. “He said he got the knife from the kitchen—and he threw it away when he went out. He knew about the muffler then, but he was afraid to go back.”

“Is this the muffler, señora?” Sauzas asked, reaching for it from Theodore.

Theodore pulled the muffler from his jacket pocket and put it into Sauzas's hand.

Isabel looked at it and nodded. “Yes, it's the one I gave him on New Year's. I remembered—I really remembered when you asked me, but I wasn't sure.
.
.
.
Oh, Teo!” Her hand slid towards his on the table and stopped.

Theodore patted her hand, and felt a terrible pity for her. He stared at a pattern of thin blue veins in the back of her hand. The hand slipped from under his and brushed back her disordered hair.

“There's nothing more, is there? Just go and get him,” Isabel said to Sauzas. “He wants you to come.”

“I shall, I shall,” Sauzas said. “Now which direction is the hotel in, and what is its name?”

“Hotel Quinta Antonia—just a little place, here to the left. Perhaps three streets—or five. But not far,” Isabel said, her voice shaking with tears. “Oh, what's he done, Teo? Done to you and Ramón and all of us? He said he was in love with her and yet he did—
that
.”

Theodore was remembering the way Carlos had used to help Lelia on with her coat, the way Ramón and he had joked with her about liking Carlos, and Lelia had said: “Not in a million years”, or something like that. Lelia had said to Ramón, in his presence, that he had nothing to worry about from Carlos, and of course there hadn't been anything to worry about—except that Carlos finally killed her. “You'll come with us to our hotel tonight, Isabel,” Theodore said. “There you'll be able to rest.”

Ramón, silent and pale, stood up as Sauzas did.

“You want to come, too?” asked Sauzas.

Ramón hesitated. “No. I believe. And maybe if I saw him, I would kill him, too.”

Sauzas smiled at Theodore. “Why don't you wait here for me, señor? I should not be more than ten minutes, if he's co-operative.”

Theodore walked with Sauzas towards the front of the place, unwilling to let him go without another word, and yet he did not know what the word ought to be, either from him or Sauzas.

On the sidewalk, Sauzas lifted his arm at a passing
libre,
which went on by without noticing him. “You know, Señor Schiebelhut, you showed great faith in your friend Señor Otero. Some people thought the police stupid not to hold on to a man who confessed to stabbing a woman to death. But we did know something that you didn't know. From the autopsy, we found that Señorita Ballesteros died from a heavy blow on the back of her head. We think her head struck—with great force—the back of her bed.
.
.
.
Ah, here's a
libre
. The knifing came later, and we thought we knew why. Well, we
did
!” He beamed and opened the door of the
libre.
“Until a few minutes, señor!
Adiós!
”

As he walked back into the restaurant, a shocking picture came to Theodore's mind—Lelia hurled to the bed by Carlos Hidalgo, who wouldn't take no for an answer. He stopped a waiter and told him to bring some more hot tea and another cup. Ramón and Isabel were talking, Ramón leaning towards her, Isabel with her head higher now, and apparently in better possession of herself. Theodore sat down quietly.