Dress Her in Indigo (28 page)

We shook hands. Successful conspiracy warms the blood. He told me that the girl had pretended to place the call, and had told him the circuits were busy and she would try again in a little while. So, when Alfredo Gaona did not hear, he would try again, and it would go through normal channels, and there would be a certain amount of confusion and apology.

He checked the schedules and discovered that if I could get to the airport in fifteen minutes, I could be in Mexico City at twenty after twelve. He said he would explain to Elena. I was not dressed for the trip. He ran me back into the suite of bedroom, dressing room, and bath off his office, grabbed some clothes, and jammed them into a small suitcase.

I gave him my car keys and told him where I was parked. He said he would inform Meyer and have the car taken up to, the hotel and the keys left at the desk. I changed to his shirt in the car on the wild ride out, and finished putting the necktie on as we got there. I knew the jacket was going to be uncomfortably snug. They were so close to departure they would not have waited for me. But they were all pleasantly glad to do a favor for Senor Fuentes. He slipped a tip into the hand of the stewardess, patted her on her behind, said he would sign inside for my ticket. We got on, and the stairs came up, and she spun the lock, and I got the belt buckled as the aircraft reached the end of the runway and turned for final check and takeoff.

I checked into the Camino Real at five after one on Friday afternoon. No reservation. A single.

Any single. Yes sir, of course sir, thank you, sir. Twelve twenty-eight for the gentlemen. Enjoy your stay with us, Senor McGee.

I unpacked the assorted garments. I sat on the bed and read the instructions on how to dial other rooms in the hotel. But there was no clue as to how to dial FD. I tried the operator. With hardly a pause she said, 'I am ver' sorreeee, but I am ask to put no calls to that number, Senor."

Hmmm.

Sat at the desk and used the elegant stationery and elegant envelope. Am very anxious to speak to you on a matter of the greatest importance. Name and room number. Sealed it. Senora Eva Vitrier.

Took it down to the desk. The man checked the indexed list of guests. Handed it back.

"I am sorry, sir. We have no one of that name in the hotel. Perhaps if you check the reservation desk they might know if she is coming in." Thank you very much.

Hmmm.

So I went down to the shop near the coffee shop and bought razor, toothbrush, and the other essentials. Went into the coffee shop. Hamburger and coffee. Very touristlike.

Obviously the lady had built walls here also. She liked walls around her, with broken glass on top. Big money plus a passion for privacy makes an effective combination. How long since anyone has seen Howard Hughes?

Went back to the lobby area and roamed about until I found a bellhop with a very amiable expression. Laid ten pesos on him to tote my little sack of toiletries up to twelve twenty-eight. It was enough to make him look even more amiable. It established me as a guest. When he came back down I intercepted him again, my hand in my pocket. He looked delighted.

"Say, all these rooms have numbers, but there seems to be phone numbers with letters instead of numbers."

"What, senor? What, please?"

"Suppose a phone number is F.D. Where is that?"

"What, senor? No understands."

"Si el numero de telefono es effay day, donde esta el cuarto?"

"Oh! Oh, yes, senor. Isss not a room. Isss a suite. Other part of hotel, that way. Effay means is Fiesta Suite. Effay ah. Effay bay. Effay-"

I thrust another ten onto him and told him that was very interesting. And something was nibbling at the frayed edge of my memory. Yes indeed. Fiesta D, in Rockland's little red book.

With a name I could not remember. I found a writing desk and made some tries at it. I. V.

Rivatera. I. V. Traviata. Close. But not close enough.

Eva Vitrier. And there is the old game of anagrams. So take out an "i" and a "v," and you have the letters E A V T R I E R. And in three tries they assemble into Rivereta. I. V Rivereta was exactly right.

New envelope. Same note. Tear open and reseal. Mrs. I. V Rivereta. Walk to desk.

"Would you please see that this is delivered?" Checks the index. "Yes sir. Thank you, sir."

"Thank you."

Walk back up to room and turn on the television and watch an episode of Gunsmoke and wonder how come they all speak Spanish; and wait. And wait. And wait. Start to give up and wonder what the hell to try next.

Quarter to five. Got the phone on the second ring.

"Mister McGee?" A throaty and charming voice, with that strange French bit with the vowels, and the little clickety R's of the Parisian.

"This is he." Grammar reassures.

"I 'ave your note. What is this thing of so much great importance?"

This was a crucial moment. I had the feeling that if I said the wrong thing she would hang up, and that would be the end of it for good and all.

"It concerns Beatrice Bowie, Walter Rockland, Minda McLeen, Walter McLeen and, of course, you."

"Perhaps it is important to you, yes? But not to me."

At least I had not lost her yet. "I want to remind you that it is a matter of record in Oaxaca that Miss McLeen and Miss Bowie were staying with you. It is a matter of record that you identified the body. It is a matter of record that Miss Bowie was under suspicion of complicity in an attempt to smuggle narcotics into the United States."

"This has nothing to do with me. Nothing. I should not have... done the kindness of helping them find out who that poor child was, and giving them her possessions to send home to her family. I do not become involved in such matters."

"But the point is you did become involved. I agree with you, Mrs. Vitrier. Things should always be handled privately and with discretion. I find myself in an awkward position. I must return to Florida and report to the Bowie girl's father. He wanted to know the circumstances of her death.

If I go back to him with a lot of unanswered questions, he has the resources to pursue this matter through diplomatic channels. I have talked to your attorney in Oaxaca, Alfredo Gaona. He refused to give me any help in getting in touch with you. But from talking to him, I think I know how much you value your privacy."

"Do you now have a desire to threaten me in some way, Mister McGee?"

"No. But should Mr. Harlan Bowie pursue this further because I could not give him any answers, I would think that the Mexican government would make a complete and official investigation, as a matter of diplomatic courtesy. And I do not think that you could... stay behind your walls under such circumstances."

There was such a long pause I began to be afraid she had hung up very quietly. Then she said, "I have always enjoyed this country. But you see, it is not entirely necessary to me, is it? There is nothing to prevent my leaving tomorrow and never coming back here. What I have would be sold without difficulty."

"I think that would be a very odd thing for you to do."

"I cannot be impressed with what you might think of what I do or do not do."

"I merely meant that it seems like such an extreme reaction to a very simple thing. I just want to fill in the blanks. It would not take much of your time. And then I would leave you alone, and I could make my report to Mr. Bowie. It's that simple."

"I think... you are a clever person, Mr. McGee."

"Not particularly."

"To learn the name I use here was a clever thing. Poor Alfredo was dreadfully upset to learn there had been no call from me. So it is to understand you found where I am by tricking that old man. But certainly he did not tell you this name I invented."

"Sometimes there is luck."

"Luck is something one makes for oneself, I think. Mr. McGee, I think I will give you that little time to ask your questions. You will present yourself at this suite at seven promptly?"

"Thank you very much."

"This is done only because I must believe you are a person of some discretion and privacy."

"I will be there at seven."

The wing of the hotel that was given over to the suites had wider and more luxurious corridors, was more deeply carpeted, more boldly decorated. The Fiesta Suites were on the fourth floor. I had gone in and talked to the reservation people about accommodations and had learned that suites were available from forty dollars a day to three hundred dollars a day. The wing was five stories high, and the several Fiesta Suites were duplex, with the living areas on the fourth floor, opening out onto spacious, walled roof gardens, and with two bedrooms and two baths on the fifth floor, and an internal staircase. The reservation girl was friendly, not busy, willing to chat.

She said that the largest suite, the presidential suite, had four bedrooms, a servant's room, a baronial dining room, and, on its larger roof garden, quite large shade trees and a large heated swimming pool. She said that several of the suites were permanently rented, some by businesses, some by individuals who had taken them when the hotel had opened and either lived there most of the year, or used them whenever they visited the city.

I pressed the bronze button by the door. I noticed one of those little peepholes set into the door, a wide angle lens, and I repressed my usual impulse to put my thumb over it.

The door opened six inches, as far as the heavy brass safety chain would let it. Eva Vitrier looked out through the gap at me. Enelio's description had been apt. Her face had all the striking thrusts and angles and slightly vulpine harshness of Nefertiti.

Black hair piled high. A long muscular throat, graceful but not delicate. It was as broad as the slender face. The mouth was small and plump and fleshy. Her eyes were set oddly, one more sharply tilted than the other. She was wearing some sort of hostess gown, deep aqua, floor-length, with a wide scooped neck, a metallic golden rope belting it at the natural waistline.

She had a look of extraordinary sensuous vitality kept under such exacting control, such practiced control, that she was an immediate challenge.

I could see beyond her into a hushed and handsome room, with a high ceiling and glass doors beyond, through which I could see a patio garden so verdant and substantial it was difficult to adjust to being on the fourth floor. Sizable trees, and muscular flagstones winding through heavy plantings.

"You are Mr. McGee? I do not care to ask you in, or feel the need to apologize. I am quite alone here. There is no reason why I should even give you this much time. But I was curious to... put a face and body with your voice, perhaps."

"I'm what you imagined?"

"Does it matter? I thought you would be a large man, but with more of the American look of softness and baldness and the quick clever eyes behind glasses, the look of the ones who find their way to the money so easily I would rather you looked like that, because as you look now you disconcert me. To be so muscular and fit and brown, and to have about you a look of laughing at me somewhere inside you, and to look so... indolent-perhaps it is a part of cleverness to create an illusion of being a faithful dog one can scratch behind the ears, and send bounding off to fetch some object or to kill some animal. Now if you will tell me the blanks I will give you the little words to fill them, and everything will be tidy and proper for your report."

So the day was fading quickly, the room darkening behind her, and I was sorry I could not be reassuringly balding and soft with little shrewd economic eyes so she would be reassured.

"Okay. What day did Minda McLeen leave and go to Mexico City?"

"The twenty-eighth day of July. A Monday."

"What did they quarrel about?"

"I have no idea. She was a tiresome girl, nervous and restless and irritable. She asked me to lend her money so she could leave. I was glad to."

"How much?"

"I do not know exactly. Perhaps two thousand pesos."

"How did she travel?"

"I have no idea. Something was said about someone driving to Mexico City. I did not listen. I was not interested. I do not know if she even came here, nor do I care."

"Why did you invite them to stay with you, when it must have been obvious to you that Miss Bowie was on drugs?"

"I felt sorry for them. One makes certain impulsive gestures from time to time, and usually regrets them. I had room for them, or for a dozen of them, at my Oaxaca home. And servants and money. It was a human impulse. I thought I might help them."

"Did you try to do anything about the Bowie girl's addiction?"

"Of course! I had a discreet doctor fly in and give her a complete physical examination. She was in very bad shape from the addiction, malnutrition, intestinal parasites, several small chronic infections. The McLeen girl needed medical attention too, but mostly rest and nourishing food.

Soon she was able to help with the Bowie girl. I gave her much personal care. I have had some practical experience. My first husband was seriously ill for a year and a half before he died, and he would not permit anyone else to care for him. I gave her the prescribed injections to quell the withdrawal symptoms of heroin addiction."

"And you knew what you were taking on?"

"One becomes bored and feels a bit... unnecessary from time to time. Then it is an affirmative act to make oneself needed. I would not have gone on and on with it, certainly. I had planned to have someone take her back to Florida to her home when she was well enough."

"When did Miss Bowie leave your home?"

"She was becoming more alert and responsive. On Saturday in the early afternoon, a young man came asking to see her. I told my gate man that he could see Bix. Then Bix came to me and asked me if she could go for a ride with the young man. She said he was a friend. I thought it would be constructive to give her a test of her will and her desire to be cured. So she left with him. When she did not return Saturday night I was annoyed and disappointed, and quite alarmed. She had become a likable personality. But I had no reason to report it. One cannot keep a houseguest locked up. Then she did not return Sunday night either. My cook went to
Page 130