Puzzle for Pilgrims (13 page)

It was obviously a picture of Martin and Marietta. Even the cowslip hill was there, the hawthorn staffs, the nightgowns, the pilgrims. It was written with a gentle tenderness that gave me a new respect for Martin. But mostly I was haunted by the portrait of Marietta as the little girl with the green, green eyes, the flying dark pigtails, the dirty knees, and the great, tragic love in her heart.

After I had read the book, she was seldom out of my mind. I started to frequent the bars we used to patronize. I never saw her. Gradually she became almost an obsession. I would think I saw her dark head in the blue light that bathed the dancing couples at Ciro’s. When the peeling swing doors of the Cantina Delta were pushed open, I turned to look, sure it would be she. But it wasn’t.

The thought grew insidiously that she was with Jake, that they had made some secret arrangement, that they were together in Acapulco. I had visions of them on some lonely silver beach at Los Hornos, Jake big as an ox in swimming trunks, Marietta’s clean, firm body giving itself voluptuously to the sun.

One evening Iris called. Her voice sounded constrained, awkward.

“Hello, Peter.”

“Hello.”

There was a silence. I said, “How’s Martin coming along with the lawyer?”

“Everything seems to be going swimmingly. The will’s very uncomplicated. Everything to Martin. The lawyer says it’s just a question of getting it probated or something.”

“Fine.”

“Sally was an orphan, you know. There aren’t any near relatives to contest.”

“Finer.” I asked,” Has it ever occurred to Martin to refuse the money?”

“Why on earth should he do that?”

“Under the circumstances, do you imagine Sally would have wanted him to have it?”

“Really, Peter, that’s awfully rarefied, isn’t it? After all, he put up with her all those years. You can’t expect him to let the money go to waste. Someone has to have it.”

“Sure,” I said.

She seemed genuinely puzzled, and I might have expected it. Ethical niceties don’t mean much to the feminine mind. Particularly not to the feminine mind in love. Probably she had already managed to convince herself that there had been nothing out of the ordinary about Sally’s death.

I had guessed what she was having such difficulty in trying to say. I helped her. “With the money coming through soon, I guess you’ll be thinking about marriage. Want me to get the divorce wheels working?”

“Peter, it’s awful, but would you? That’s what I called about. Do you mind terribly?”

A few weeks ago I had minded terribly. Did I care now?

“You can put all the blame on me.”

“Don’t worry about that. I’ll find out what to do tomorrow.”

“I’m awfully sorry.”

“Don’t be.”

The silence came again, but she still stayed on the wire.

I said, “And how’s Martin?”

“Oh, he’s fine.” She added rather quickly,” Of course, I don’t see a great deal of him. He thinks it’s wiser that way right now.”

“And Marietta?”

“Marietta? Don’t you know?”

“I don’t know anything.”

“She’s living with Martin.”

“She is?”

“Yes, the apartment’s big enough for two. She moved in last week.”

I had been imagining Marietta with Jake. I saw now how shoddy a thought it had been. I should have known it was Martin. A blight seemed to descend. Absurdly, I found myself wishing that I had been right, that it had been Jake.

“Yes,” said Iris,” she’s being perfectly wonderful. She cooks for him, does everything.”

“She does?”

“She even helps with the new book. Every night they’re together, talking about—about old times, remembering things from the past, the governess from Scotland with the elastic-sided boots, whether it was apricot jam or strawberry jam they liked best with their muffins, whether it was five or six eggs in the double-breasted lapwings’ nest back of the third gardener’s cottage.” She laughed. “So English. So veddy, veddy English.”

I wished she hadn’t laughed. It hurts to have someone you’ve loved very much giving herself away like that.

Pity for her rose in me almost like physical desire. I wanted to say something to comfort her, to assure her, uselessly, that you didn’t get jealous of a man’s sister.

“All the time,” she said into the phone. “She never leaves him. That’s why I see him so seldom. All the time they’re together there in the apartment—remembering.”

Later, the Mexicana telephone rang again. I hurried to answer it, knowing it wouldn’t be Marietta but hoping. A familiar, bantering male voice said, “Hi, Peter. Guess who this is.”

“Hello, Jake,” I said with a sinking heart.

“How’s tricks with you, Peter?”

“Okay.”

“Just back from Acapulco yesterday. Boy, what a place, Acapulco. Boy, what a tan I got. Yeah. I intend to throw a little party to show it off. Got quite a fancy suite at the Reforma. How’s about coming over?”

“It’s late,” I said.

A cluck sounded over the wire. “Hey, Peter, what’s got into you? Who ever heard of not going to a party because it’s late?”

“All right,” I said.

“That’s more like it. How’s about the others—Marietta, Iris, the widower? This has got to be a real reunion.”

I said, “I don’t know where Martin and Marietta are, but Iris is at the Guardiola.”

“She knows where the others are at?”

“I guess so. Want me to call Iris?”

He laughed. “No, sir. I think they’d kind of appreciate it more if the old maestro called himself. Okay, Peter. Hop a taxi. Suite two seventeen.”

“Right away?”

“Sure. The whisky’s itching.”

My car was parked outside. I drove up the stately night quietness of Insurgentes, turned into the Paseo de la Reforma, and parked outside the Reforma Hotel. I had a pretty good idea what was coming.

Jake’s suite was indeed fancy. I wondered how much it set him back per day. I found him alone, in his shirt sleeves. He was fiddling around a dumb-waiter loaded with glasses and ice and whisky. His big forearms, thrusting out from the rolled sleeves, were red-brown from the sun.

He swung round, grinning at me cheerfully. He came over and banged me on the shoulder.

“Hiyah, Peter, old horse.”

The red hair was even more closely cropped. His blue eyes watched me, bland, friendly.

“Get a load of the tan.”

“Yes,” I said.

He yanked his shirt out of his trousers and pulled it up, revealing a broad expanse of brown chest and stomach.

“The real McCoy, Pete.”

“You’ve been working hard.”

“Sure. Want me to take off my pants too?”

“I get the general idea with the pants on.”

Leaving his unbuttoned shirt flopping outside his trousers, he crossed and poured two drinks. He handed me mine and lifted his glass.

“Salud.”

“Salud.”

“We can be boys together a couple of minutes, Pete. The others’ll be right along.”

“They’re coming?”

The blue eyes opened wide. “Of course they’re coming. I called Iris. She was charmed—absolutely charmed. She’s bringing Martin and Marietta.”

He sat on the arm of an overstuffed chair and propped the hand which held his drink on his knees.

“So Marietta’s moved in with Martin,” he said.

“Yes.”

He gave me a knowing wink. “Smart, that babe. Cashing in quick, ain’t she?”

I almost hated him then. “You don’t imagine Martin’s wallowing in Sally’s money yet, do you? Those legal things take time.”

He nodded soberly. “Sure. Guess they do. Still, she’s playing it the right way, getting in on the ground floor.”

The door buzzer rang. He jumped to answer it. The three of them came in, Martin between Marietta and Iris. Jake greeted them with a whoop of delight. He slapped Martin’s back. He grinned at Iris. He picked Marietta up and swirled her around with her feet off the floor.

“Hi, Marietta. How’s my girl?”

Martin looked like thunder but said nothing. Jake put Marietta down. She gave him a fleeting smile.

“Hello, Jake.”

She saw me and came straight to me. I was amazed at the change in her. I had never seen her so radiant. Her eyes weren’t the lost-child eyes. The snow had melted. She was like a goddess of spring. I wondered whether she knew I’d been waiting in night after night for her to call.

“Hello, Peter. Martin’s just finished work.”

Jake came up behind her, with a drink in his hand. He slid his arm around her waist.

“Scotch, baby. I’ve got everything else, but we’re drinking Scotch tonight. Scotch is a luxury in this country. Celebration.”

She took the drink absently, as if he was just a man bringing a drink. She was still smiling at me.

“Peter, why don’t you visit us sometimes? You’re so exclusive.”

Jake poured drinks for Martin and Iris.

“Sit down, sit down,” he said. “Get a load off those pretty feet.”

Martin and Iris sat down together on a couch. Marietta dropped onto the arm of my chair, balancing herself on my shoulder.

Jake stood in the middle of the room and lifted his glass.

“To our reunion,” he said.

We politely lifted our glasses.

“Sure and you’re a sight for sore eyes,” he went on. “Couldn’t get you all out of my mind. Know that? After you, the folks in Acapulco were colorless as cellophane.”

He strolled across to the couch on which Martin and Iris were sitting. The lazy grace of his big body was ominous to me. He grinned down at Martin.

“How’s things coming with the lawyer?”

Martin looked up at him, grave, polite,” They seem to be progressing.”

“That’s fine. That surely is fine. Quite a lot of dough coming to you, isn’t there?”

Martin said, “I believe there is quite a lot, yes.”

“How much?”

Martin’s dark blue eyes watched him rather dazedly as if he couldn’t believe his ears. “I… I think the lawyer said it was somewhere in the neighborhood of two million dollars.”

“Swell,” said Jake. “Swell and dandy. How about writing me a check? Fifty thousand, maybe, to begin with?”

His voice hadn’t lost its tone of amiable banter. I don’t think the others grasped what he said. I did, of course, because I’d been expecting the worst for days.

Martin was still looking at him, puzzled. Then his vivid, golden smile came. “A joke. I’m sorry. I’m always slow on jokes.”

Jake smiled back. “If it’s too early right now, I can wait a couple of weeks. But only a couple of weeks. That’s why I went to Acapulco. To give you time to get the ball rolling. Little breather. But after two weeks I’ll want action. If things haven’t panned out by then, I don’t imagine you with your prospects will have much trouble raising the fifty thousand from a moneylender. I can put you onto a couple right here in town. Reliable, discreet, easy rates of interest.”

Marietta’s hand was gripping hard into my shoulder. Martin got up and sat down again. Iris looked as if she had heard the knell of doom. She had, of course.

To me it was almost a relief having him come out with it at last.

Iris said in a voice that was meant to be calm. “Just why should Martin give you fifty thousand dollars, Jake?”

“Yes,” I said. “Why?”

He looked disappointed in me. “Now, Peter, we all want to keep this friendly, don’t we? We don’t want to wallow in ugly details.”

I said, “Fifty thousand dollars is an ugly detail. If one, why not more?”

“Well, well.” He sighed. “We live and learn.” He crossed to a chair from which he could keep us all under observation. He sat down, hitching his pants up at the knees. “I’d have thought nice people like you’d have felt a decent gratitude. I’d have thought you’d have wanted me to have a cut—after all I did for you.”

He was stripped for action now. The friendly rough-diamond act was over. The real Jake was as exposed as the big bare arms and patch of brown stomach visible behind the unbuttoned shirt. I had a pretty good idea what he was going to say.

“Well?” he said. “You want it?”

None of the others spoke. I saw that I, as usual, would have to take over. I didn’t have much hope of success.

I said, “Okay, Jake. Give with the ugly details.”

He was watching Marietta, the lids half lowered lazily over his eyes. She was pale now, cold and lonely as the snow on Ixtacihuatl.

He said, “Well, it’s mostly about dames falling off of balconies. Where I come from, if a dame leans against a rotten balustrade and it gives way, the piece of balustrade hits the ground
before
she does, not
after.
Check?”

“Go on,” I said.

“Then, where I come from too, a dame, taking a stroll out onto her own balcony, has to be powerful clumsy to lose a slipper and knock over a vase of flowers in transit. Check?”

“More,” I said.

He grinned. “I’m only just beginning, Pete. There’s this letter that was in her typewriter, for example. It’s a funny kind of letter for a dame to be in the middle of writing when she happens accidentally to fall off of a balcony. Like me to read it?”

This was where the real danger started.

“Read it,” I said.

He pulled a shabby wallet out of his pocket and made a great show of searching. “Where’s it now? I could have sworn—Oh, sure. Here we are.” He produced a piece of paper. He unfolded it.

“Quite a letter,” he said. “She was writing it to this Mr. Johnson, the lawyer guy here in Mexico. It says:

Dear Mr. Johnson:

I’ve tried to call you all day but the connections are terrible. I’m writing because this is very very important. You’ve got to come immediately because I’m going to change my will…”

He looked up from the paper at Martin. “Hear that?”

Martin glared back at him. Martin could look tough too. He reminded me of a golden-glove kid facing up to the heavyweight champ.

“Go on,” he said.

“Sure. Let me see now. Pretty sloppy typer, Sally. Guess she was het up. Here we are…”

I’m cutting my husband out completely. I don’t know where I’m going to leave my money and I don’t care, just so Martin doesn’t get any. He’s run off with another woman and wants me to divorce him. I won’t divorce him. But it’s not just because he’s run off that I want to change my will. It’s because I’m afraid. Mr. Johnson, you’ve got to believe me. I’m not being hysterical. I’m afraid he’ll murder me for the money, either he will or the woman will. And it’s not only that. I know something about him and his sister, something that could put them in jail for years. They know that too. I’m afraid of them all, Mr. Johnson, desperately afraid. That’s why I’m writing to…”