Weep for Me (21 page)

It was a twenty-minute drive to the airport. Car and driver seemed to be one functioning organism. At the airport gates Flores pulled himself forward by the strap and spoke in a low tone to the guard who approached the car. I heard the rustle as a bill was passed from his hand to the guard’s. We pulled in onto a runway and sped down to the far end, where a small twin-engine aircraft was waiting, props turning. I recognized it as a type the Army had called a C-45 during the war. The props stopped turning. The sedan was driven close to the plane. An attendant snapped a cigarette off into the darkness and pushed low steps into place.

Emily was gently urged aboard first by Manuel Flores. Then he bowed me aboard. The floor of the plane was carpeted and there were five comfortable wicker chairs arranged casually to give it somewhat the look of a small lounge. Flores and Emily sat in the two chairs farthest forward. I sat six feet away from the two of them.

The luggage was handed in, tied in place by an attendant. The pilot bowed to Flores, marched rigidly forward to the unenclosed pilot’s compartment. The door was slammed and latched and the motors caught at once.

I heard the pilot speaking in Spanish to the control tower. He revved up the motors until the aircraft trembled and the sound was deafening. Then the brakes were released and we moved down the runway with increasing speed. The runway lights flicked by, one at a time, and then became a continuous stream of light. After what seemed a long time, the plane lifted. Mexico City, a wide pattern of lights, tilted like a platter and moved slowly away. We climbed interminably through the rarefied air of the plateau and then leveled off. The sound of strain from the motors ceased.

Flores leaned close to Emily and spoke to her. It was an exceptionally noisy airplane. She obediently took off the small dark hat and the veil, placed them on a nearby empty chair. Her face shocked me. It had not changed in porportion. The features were the same. And yet something had gone out of it. Some glow of life behind it. The firm skin seemed to have died. She raised her eyes to mine and lowered them quickly. No more mockery. No more darkness, moving and shifting behind her eyes. Now they were just dark eyes, a bit dulled, a bit hopeless. Her hair had lost some of its black sheen, and thus looked more coarse, somewhat lifeless.

She sat with her head lowered, her hands folded in her lap, her feet placed close together. Something of what I felt must have been visible to Flores. He gave me a calm, dignified smile and a short nod, as though to say, See what I have wrought.

He edged his chair close to mine, bent toward me and said, “If you will look off to the east you can see the
snow-capped peaks of Ixtaccihuatl and Popocatepetl. They are very lovely by moonlight. Soon we will pass over Cuernavaca, then Taxco. I always try to make this trip by night.”

I looked numbly out the left windows as he had directed. I could see the volcanoes. They were, as he had said, very lovely. He moved back and spoke to Emily. He must have told her the same thing. She turned obediently and looked out the windows, then looked back at the carpeted floor again. I saw what had made her look so odd as she had stepped up into the plane. Her dress, of some material with a dull sheen, fitted too loosely. Her other clothes had fitted tightly around her slim waist, had always been snug enough to trace the line of flank and hip. This dress was like a sack.

And on her left wrist there were three barbaric bracelets of heavy silver. They made her arm look very fragile.

When Flores thrust a pack of cigarettes toward her, she flinched visibly. She looked at him as though asking permission, then took one cautiously. He held a light for her.

He moved back toward me again and said, “It is a short trip. Only one hundred and fifty air miles, about two hours from take-off to landing in this ship. A little less. So we should arrive at ten, or a little after.”

“What day is it?”

“The fourth of September. I am afraid Acapulco will be uncomfortably warm. It is the off season there, of course. I am sorry that you will not see it in December and January. Then it is very gay. Now the clubs are closed and the hotels are nearly empty. Many of your Hollywood people come during the season. It is a good place to play.”

At last we flew over the last crest, and dropped down toward the tiny lines of lights marking the Acapulco strip. As we turned into the landing pattern, I could see the moon path against the Pacific. Acapulco was southeast of the airport, and from the air it looked like a collection of children’s blocks spread along the curve of the harbor with its protecting headlands.

A car was waiting. This one was a black Lincoln Continental, as polished and gleaming as the day it had left the factory. Again I was placed in front with the chauffeur. Flores stood outside the car speaking to the pilot for a few moments and then got in. The thick heat was like that of Tomazunchale, but the night had a different flavor. A flavor of tropic sea. The smell of rotting vegetation.

The driver was less adept. When he took one corner too fast, Flores let out a stream of Spanish that popped and crackled. The driver slowed down immediately, murmuring an apology. After we went through the city proper, we turned onto a broad boulevard that followed the line of the harbor. Phosphorescent breakers were smashing against the sand in slow rhythm. A number of people were swimming at that hour.

Flores leaned forward and said, “Perhaps you wonder why they swim at night. Our women do not seek tans as yours do. And in the day the sun is much too hot, even in the little straw cabanas. And at night, of course, it is far easier to make a friend on the public beach, especially when the moon is bright.”

I guessed that his place was five or six miles out of the city. Again there was a gate and a wall. Beyond the wall the establishment was much smaller, and very modern. A place of sun decks and sheet glass.

After the car was parked, Flores turned Emily’ over to a maid and gave the maid instructions in Spanish. Emily followed the maid across an enclosed patio.

Flores took me to my room, a man following with my bag. It was a ground-floor room with a door that opened onto an inner hallway, and a second door that opened from the bath directly onto the beach. The furniture was pale blond, low-slung. The walls were a deep aqua.

“You will be comfortable here, I think,” he said. “You have the freedom of the house. But I should not try to leave the house or the grounds. In fact, it would be a most difficult feat. The single gate is always guarded. The walls are too high to climb. And in the daylight
you will see that the beach is very private. The walls march down to the water, and then become wire, which stretches out quite a distance.”

He smiled mildly at me. I said, “You haven’t told me any news about … the police.”

“Oh, that! They traced you to the Hotel del Pracro, of course. Every hungry little Mexican policeman who knows of you hopes that he will be alone when he finds you and the money. That is a great deal of money, you know. Over two million pesos. A fortune. And another amusing thing. Many of your countrymen of the gangster variety have come to Mexico in hopes of finding you before the authorities do. They seem to resent a successful amateur.”

“I notice you were quick enough about taking the rest of the money.”

“I did not imagine that you would object.”

“How long do I have to wait here?”

“Two days. Three. Who can say?”

“This isn’t some game you’re playing? You actually are going to get me out of the country?”

“I promise it on my sacred word of honor,” he said solemnly. “It is a service for which you have already paid. If you use reasonable care, you should do as they say in the books, eh? Live happily ever after. The little girls of the Argentine are pleasant. And they do not expect much, as your women do. I suggest you locate in a village, fairly close to Buenos Aires. Say Merlo or Escobar or Cañuelas. A house will cost you perhaps five hundred dollars. As an Argentine citizen, you can purchase one. Then select a pretty little girl who will cook for you, wash for you, and amuse you. She will cost you, at the most, ten dollars a month, and that is high.” He sighed. “In a way, I envy you. If I could only give up my responsibilities here … But when one has children, it is difficult. I trust you will sleep well, Señor Cameron. There will be a breeze from the east tonight. Press that bell near the door when you wish one of the servants to come. I have instructed that only those who speak some English answer your bell.”

He left with a stride that was curiously light-footed for so solid a man. A few moments after he left, I heard a thin scratching against my door, as though there were an animal out there. I threw the bolt and opened the door.

Emily came in. She turned and closed the door and pushed the bolt back into the latch. She grabbed my right wrist with both hands. Her fingernails sank into my flesh painfully. She whispered, “I hid from the maid, and followed you here and waited until he left. You’ve
got
to get me away from him. You’ve
got
to get me out of here!”

She whispered with convulsed, exaggerated lip motions, and there was a crazy light of fear in her eyes. “I thought you made a choice.”

“I was wrong! Wrong, wrong, wrong! Terribly wrong! He isn’t going to let me go. There’s no one else to help me. Please, Kyle. Please, please!” She was trembling violently.

“I’m as helpless as you are.”

“Kyle, I …”

She stopped whispering and turned her head. I heard it too, the unhurried step in the hallway. She had ceased to breathe.

“My dear?” Flores said, close outside the door. She buried her face in her hands and began to sob.

“Open the door, Mr. Cameron,” Flores said.

“Go to hell,” I said weakly.

Before I could stop her, Emily reached out her hand and pushed the bolt back. Flores opened the door. She stumbled toward him, still sobbing. He smiled at me and put one arm around her waist and led her down the hall, murmuring to her. I stood quite still for a moment, hearing his voice and her sobs recede, and then I yanked my shoes off and followed them soundlessly. Flores did not look back. They turned a right-angle corner in the passageway and I hurried to it and looked cautiously around just in time to see him urge her tenderly through a door similar to mine. He pulled the door shut after them.

I went down to the doorway, placed my ear against it. For a long time I heard nothing but her dry, harsh sobs.

Then she cried out. “Aaaaaaah!” Metallic, resonant.

“Aaaaah, no!” she cried, more sharply than before. “God!” she cried. I tried the latch. The door was closed. I rattled the latch and hammered on the door. “Oooooh,” she moaned softly. “Oooooh!”

Flores opened the door. Beyond him I could see Emily. She sat huddled in a chair, bent over from the waist, her eyes squeezed shut, her face greenish, her mouth writhing soundlessly.

Flores said, “I see you have charged to the rescue of the maiden fair. Aren’t you being a little ridiculous?”

“What’s he doing to you?” I shouted, trying to edge by him. He blocked my passage with firmness and dignity.

“My dear,” he said, without turning toward her, keeping a watchful eye on me, “did you want to see Mr. Cameron for any reason?”

She opened her eyes and stared at me as though she had never seen me before.

“Answer me, my dear,” Flores said softly.

“I … don’t want … to see … him.”

“Then you better tell him to go away, don’t you think?”

“Go … away.”

“And that would seem to be your answer, Mr. Cameron. I’m surprised and astonished that you could forget our little talk so readily. Good night, and sleep well.”

He pushed me firmly out into the hall and closed the door. I heard the lock click. I listened again. For a time I heard the soft affectionate murmur of his voice, quiet, relaxed, almost paternal. I heard no sound from her. I walked woodenly back to my room. I undressed and stretched out on the bed. The sound of the surf was loud. Mingled with it I heard that metallic cry of hers, echoing in my memory. I had hated her, all the time I had desired her. Now I no longer wanted her, and I pitied her. Emily Rudolph, the tough little Carbondale
kid, had at last come up against something she could not fight. Continual fear of pain.

This was an unreal world. She was as helpless as those suspected of heresy during the Inquisition. His was a brutality so refined that it had become, to him, a philosophical concept. I knew he would not mark her or damage her, because that would defeat his own purposes. To him she was merely a puppy of a rebellious breed. For a time you must swat it with the rolled newspaper. Eventually, all you have to do is flourish the newspaper. And at last your only weapon need be the tone of your voice to send it flat onto its belly, tail tucked tight, whining and whimpering.

In the morning, the maid who came and knocked at my door shortly after I was dressed was astonishingly pretty. Unlike most Mexicans, she had hair of a dusky red. She wore it in long heavy braids. She smiled shyly and said, “Come now for breakfast. I clean here. Take clothes for clean. Please to follow.”

She went out into the hall and looked back over her shoulder to make certain I was following her, smiling shyly again. She led the way upstairs to an open sun deck shaded by a horizontal lattice across which flowering vines had been trained.

She stood aside and gestured hesitantly toward a table set for three. Emily and Manuel Flores were already seated at the table.

“Ah, good morning, Mr. Cameron,” Flores said, beaming at me. “Do sit down with us.”

I pulled the empty chair out and sat down. Emily, without lifting her eyes from her plate, said, “Good morning, Kyle.” Her voice was very faint.

Flores chuckled and patted her arm. “You see, I have been explaining to Miss Rudolph that modesty and shyness are pleasant womanly traits. She has been one for the bold glittering look, and the flaunt of the hips. Such actions are cheapness. Now she is learning to be a lady. Isn’t that right, my dear?”

“Yes, Manuel.”

“And with the pale skin, almost a true Castilian skin, she looks well in black, don’t you think?”