Message From Malaga

by Helen Macinnes

  Jaime was shocked. “Oh, no, señor.” Then he saw the joke, but resisted it. “My aunt does not behave like that. She is making the bed with sheets and—”

  “Not a romantic type,” Ferrier agreed. What had Reid called her? “Completely dependable.” But Jaime was already on his way to the pantry for the ice. Ferrier sat down at the desk, began making his list for tomorrow. He heard Concepción returning downstairs, exclaiming as she came about the blaze of lights. She had gathered a good head of indignation by the time she reached the big room, and made for the study at express speed with some angry comments on Jaime’s sanity. She stopped short at the door, almost sliding on the tile floor, as she saw it was Ferrier at the desk. She regained her balance, but not her tongue. He looked at the sallow face, now flushed either with haste or with dismay, at the straggling plaits falling over her shoulders, at her worried eyes. He lifted Reid’s bunch of keys into view. “I know,” he said. “You didn’t hear the bell.”

  “I thought Jaime—” she said haltingly.

  “He is getting me a drink. And then we’ll all go to bed.”

  She nodded. Her large dark eyes kept watching him, as if they could learn what he knew or didn’t know. “Jaime brought the car back,” she tried.

  “Most thoughtful of him.”

  Her eyes left his face, travelled to the telephone. She moistened her pale lips, frowned. She scarcely noticed Jaime as he returned with a tall glass on a small silver tray.

  Ferrier finished the list, pocketed it. “By the way,” he said quietly, “Señor Reid is all right. A fractured leg. But he is well.” He looked at them quickly, caught the open dismay and contrition on both their faces. He felt slightly better about that: they had forgotten to ask about Reid, not because they hadn’t been worried about him, but because they had bigger troubles. “Thanks, Jaime,” he said, and took the drink. Again he noticed Concepción’s glance at the telephone. “Do you want to call someone?” he asked bluntly.

  She flushed again. “Perhaps Esteban? At El Fenicio? To let him know that—that Señor Reid is all right? He would want to know.”

  I bet that’s the least of his worries tonight, thought Ferrier. “Go ahead.” Rising, he picked up his glass. Why feel aggrieved that I can’t finish my drink down here in peace? Why feel anything at all? This isn’t my house. This is none of my business.

  “Thank you, señor. When do you want to be awakened tomorrow?”

  “I usually waken myself.”

  “Perhaps your breakfast tray at noon? It is very late now. And it has been a difficult day.”

  Was it thoughtfulness, or some necessity for an exact timetable? He couldn’t help wondering about that. “Noon,” he agreed. Eight hours of sleep seemed a pleasant idea. “Good night.”

  “Good night, señor.” She nodded to Jaime to go with him, and picked up the telephone. Everything was all right, she was assuring Esteban as Ferrier began climbing the stairs.

  Yes, he thought, everything is all right: Jaime delivered the merchandise and I asked her no questions. He didn’t know whether to laugh or lose his temper. “You don’t have to see me safely into my room,” he told Jaime sharply. “I can find my own way. Good night.”

  “There may be a difficulty with lights,” the boy said, a hint of a smile at the back of his eyes. It spread over his solemn face as he saw Ferrier’s annoyance vanish. No more was said, but the silence was friendly.

  At the top of the stairs, Jaime put his finger to his lips, led the way along the upper hall with a catlike tread that increased Ferrier’s amusement. But he followed obediently. His room lay at the end of this hall, but before they were half-way there, Jaime paused at a narrow door. Again the finger went up to his lips as he turned its handle slowly, cautiously. What the hell is he doing? Ferrier thought in alarm; that man is bound to be awake. Who would want to look in on that furrowed face and wish him good night? Jaime opened the door just enough to let Ferrier see a steep flight of stairs leading upward between two walls of yellowed plaster. Then, carefully and silently, he closed the door. Ferrier pointed to the ceiling overhead, and raised an eyebrow. Jaime nodded, and resumed his tiptoeing toward the end of the hall. Again, Ferrier followed obediently. A couple of conspirators within a conspiracy, he thought, not knowing whether to laugh or worry. He returned Jaime’s whispered good night with a nod of thanks, and watched the boy walk soundlessly back along the corridor.

  A conspiracy? Ferrier looked around the bedroom. The word seemed ridiculous in this comfortable and welcoming place. Concepción had been in here and straightened everything out for him. Fresh pillows on that big, beautiful bed; mosquito netting undraped to encircle it. The room was high-ceilinged and cool; restful, too, with tall shuttered windows overlooking a quiet and peaceful garden. He would sleep well here, and all the better for knowing that the stranger had been tucked away in the attic and wasn’t in the next room.

  He locked his door—something he didn’t usually do in a private house—and tested it. Then he emptied his pockets quickly, heaping their contents on the dressing-table. He picked out Jeff Reid’s pencil and lighter, examined them closely. The pencil was of silver, as he had guessed, finely ornamented with a light tracery of arabesques. The lighter was a type he remembered well; it was made of steel, dark in colour, with its small Air Force emblem embossed in brass. It was just the kind of thing that Jeff would carry around with him as a memento of old times, a good-luck piece. There was nothing remarkable about it except for the intensity in his voice when he had said, “Keep it safe. Safe.” Ferrier found a clean handkerchief, wrapped the lighter and pencil in it securely, and placed it under his pillow. He felt like an idiot, but at this time in the morning, he had no better ideas. I guess I just don’t trust that man upstairs, he told himself, not even when he has been pushed into an attic.

  Why the attic? Why the secrecy? Of course, you could rationalise the whole sequence of events. Concepción didn’t like the man, was giving him no favours, no encouragement to prolong his stay. Yet, even if he was an unwelcome guest, her whole treatment of him jibed with the Spaniards’ ingrained sense of hospitality. Rationalisations were a nice easy way to find comfortable solutions, but they weren’t working tonight. The only answer he could find to his questions was one without any proof: Concepción had been instructed to hide the man as securely as possible.

  Why, why, and again why? His questions depressed him, because they brought back the feeling of some kind of conspiracy, and that was something he would rather not face at this hour. He needed sleep. The only questions that were worth staying awake for were those that could have definite answers. And he hadn’t any, probably never would. It was none of his damned business, he told himself once more, as he stripped off his clothes.

  He adjusted the louvres of the shutters to let in as much air as possible and stood at the window for a few minutes feeling the fresh coolness from the garden pour over his skin. The stars were fading. Shapes of trees were emerging more clearly; shadows were losing their rigid lines. The street was silent, the houses asleep. It was still and peaceful, and innocent. Not the kind of place where a man needed to carry a pistol around in a pocket of his silver-grey suit.

  “Oh, shut up!” he said angrily, heard the first flight of mosquitoes coming in for their dawn raid and made a dive for the bed, switching off the last small light, pulling the net curtains around him. Smooth sheets, soft pillows took over. His eyes closed, and the questions, as voracious as the female mosquitoes clinging on to the closed net, stopped biting at his mind.

  6

  The morning light, clear and intense, scored the floor with sharply drawn lines, spread over the bed to touch Ferrier’s face. He came alive slowly. Someone didn’t close the shutters properly, he thought; someone left those damned louvres too far open. There was the sound of water flowing gently. Fountains? Granada? He opened his eyes fully, stared at the crown of mosquito netting far above his head. Not Granada, but Málaga. Granada had been yesterday’s awakening. He cl
osed his eyes again, but he knew that sleep was gone. So he swung his legs off the bed, pushing aside the net draped around him—the mosquitoes had retired for the day, he noted with approval—and stepped from the small rug on to the cold marble of the floor. He headed for the bathroom, wondering if he had left a faucet turned on last night. The puzzle was solved as he halted at a window. One of the girls who had helped serve dinner and raise the chatter level in the kitchen afterward was now down in the garden, watering the plants with a hose. Jaime was there, too, hindering her with advice. They were keeping their voices low, by command obviously. Such restraint was scarcely natural to either of them.

  Ferrier swung back the shutters to let the morning air come unchecked into the room. Jaime glanced up as he heard them scrape. He looked so astounded that Ferrier, retreating with a wave of his hand, stopped at the dressing-table, where he had dropped his small belongings last night, and picked up his watch to check on the time. Twenty minutes past nine. Five hours of sleep. He was adopting Spanish habits with a vengeance; he’d probably start thinking a two-hour siesta was the only way to pass an afternoon. One thing, certainly: Concepción’s timetable had been thrown out of kilter. Jaime was no doubt now in the kitchen, spreading his astonishment.

  * * *

  Jaime was actually in the dining-room. There, his aunt was superintending the washing of the floor. He beckoned her away from Angela, who was down on her knees, into the privacy of the pantry. (Pépé was in the kitchen, finishing a long breakfast.)

  “He’s awake,” Jaime said.

  “Impossible.”

  “He’s awake.”

  “But he said—”

  “I saw him at the window.”

  “He will go back to bed. You must have been talking too loudly with—”

  “He has opened the shutters wide.”

  “Then he is mad. Does he want to turn his room into an oven?” Concepción, reverting to her usual role of capable housekeeper, fumed over that piece of stupidity, and then forced herself back to the problem. “I shall telephone El Fenicio and warn Magdalena. She can waken Tavita.” Yes, that was a good solution, Concepción decided. Let Magdalena handle this.

  “Tavita will not like—”

  “She will have to. That is her worry.” Concepción began preparing the breakfast tray. “This is ours.”

  “What about Pépé?”

  “Tell him to leave. And fetch Maria from the garden. I’ll send her and Angela down to the market.” She put a plate on the tray, took it off, frowned at it, put it back again.

  “I’ll set the tray,” Jaime suggested. “You had better telephone.” He had never seen his aunt so flustered. “What about the man in the attic?”

  “I took him food an hour ago.”

  “Is he really in such danger?”

  Concepción’s voice became vehement. “I do not care if he is.” She lowered it quickly, almost hissed out the words in her intensity. “But he is putting us all in danger—that is what I care about. The sooner we get rid of him—” She didn’t finish the sentence. As she left for the telephone, she added two descriptive words that left Jaime with his eyes wide and his lips breaking into an incredulous grin.

  * * *

  Ferrier had shaved, showered, and stowed away the lighter and pencil in his trouser pocket by the time the breakfast tray was carried in by Concepción. She looked better this morning, although her eyes showed nervous strain; there was a pleasant expression on her lips, a more amiable note in her voice, and competence in her movements. Her smoothly brushed hair and neat blouse and skirt became her more than the rag-tag effect of last night. Her confidence had returned, and she took charge efficiently. The tray would go on this low table, just here, before the opened windows; they must be closed, and the shutters too, before eleven o’clock, or else it would be impossible to sleep in comfort this afternoon; Señor Ferrier’s yellow jacket must be cleaned and pressed at once; was there anything else, was he comfortable, had he slept well last night?

  Ferrier gave up the idea of suggesting that he’d like his breakfast downstairs—he preferred his elbows on a table to picking off a tray—and asked for something to read. But that idea was forestalled. Jaime had been waiting outside the door with a bundle of American magazines and papers under his arm. He came in as Concepción left. And stayed.

  At first, Ferrier thought it was politeness; was the coffee strong enough, the orange juice all right? And then he thought that Jaime might be trying to practise his English. But after five minutes of aimless questions, Ferrier began to wonder. He finished a piece of heavily crusted bread, avoided the sweet rolls, ignored the two thick slices of golden cake, poured himself some more coffee, picked up the Paris Herald Tribune that was four days old and opened it determinedly. “Doesn’t your aunt need you downstairs?”

  Seemingly not.

  “You tell her,” Ferrier said, “that there’s no need to keep watch over me. I shall be here for another ten or fifteen minutes. After that, I’m going out. Simple, isn’t it?” Once more, he didn’t know whether to be annoyed or entertained.

  Jaime was neither. He said unhappily, “I only wanted to talk.”

  “Then talk. About the man in the attic. How long does he stay there?”

  “Not long.”

  “Who is he?”

  Jaime shook his head.

  At least, thought Ferrier, no more pretence about my cousin Pépé’s manager. “Where did he come from?”

  “From El Fenicio.”

  “And before that?”

  Again Jaime shook his head. “I wasn’t told,” he said.

  “His name? Come on, Jaime. You must call him something.”

  “We know him as Tomás.”

  “That is pretty indefinite.”

  Jaime nodded his agreement.

  “When did he arrive at El Fenicio?”

  “I only saw him last night.”

  “Last night seems to have been a strange one for all of us,” Ferrier said. His voice had lost its sharpness. The boy was telling the truth as far as he knew it. Which was, Ferrier reflected, just about the most that could be said for any of us.

  Jaime sensed the change and welcomed it. He liked to talk and he wanted to talk, as long as the man in the attic was left out of it. He said eagerly, “It was strange from the beginning. From the minute the four Americans sat down at that table in the back corner of the courtyard, it was very strange. The bearded one pointed out Señor Reid. And then the others—”

  “Hold it, hold it!” Jaime’s rush of words had brought a change in accent, and Ferrier wondered if he had misheard. “He pointed out Señor Reid? Are you sure?”

  “It was Señor Reid, not you.”

  Ferrier stared.

  “They were talking about your table. The black man asked. ‘Which? The one in the yellow jacket?’ The long-haired man added some words to describe you. I didn’t understand them all—sometimes English is difficult to follow. The black and the long-hair laughed. But they stopped when the beard said, ‘No. The other one.’ And then, at that moment Señor Reid turned around to signal to me. They were all silent. The man with the beard looked away. The long-hair said, ‘So that’s the big see eye eh man!’ And the man with the beard was angry. Truly angry. I came forward to serve you, so I did not hear the words he said. The others were laughing at him. And so—he left.”

  “What did the man with the long hair call Señor Reid?” Ferrier asked slowly.

  “A man who sees with his eyes.”

  “No, tell me—just as you heard it. Stop thinking of the meaning.” Ferrier rose, found his pen and address book. He tore out a page. “Write the words here.”

  “But I don’t write English. I don’t read it. I learn it by ear.”

  “Then use Spanish words that have the same sounds that you heard.”

  “It is difficult. Spanish sounds are different.”

  “I know.”

  Jaime took the pen and wrote Si. He paused to admire it. “Yes, t
hat is almost the same sound.” Then he wrote, after some thought, Ay. “That is not the same, but it is close.” He finished with E.

  “It’s close,” Ferrier said softly. So that’s the big CIA man... “What did Esteban or Magdalena think about this? Or Concepción?”

  “But I told no one. Only you.” Jaime broke into Spanish. “I thought you could help me understand that see eye phrase. It was new to me. How could Esteban or the others help me? Besides, Esteban gets angry if I listen to the foreigners talking. But how else can I learn English?” He put down the pen carefully. “I do not think Señor Reid was seeing so well with his eyes when he fell down the stairs.”

  Ferrier laughed in spite of himself.

  “Everyone is talking about that,” Jaime went on, encouraged. “Captain Rodriguez is asking questions about the American with long hair. He thinks he was carrying drugs, trying to hide them in the storeroom for someone else to pick up. Perhaps Señor Reid saw him, tried to get downstairs too quickly, and slipped and—”

  “Captain Rodriguez told you all that?” Ferrier asked in surprise. If so, their captain was the most communicative policeman he had ever heard of.

  “No, no. But it is easy to know what a man thinks by the questions he asks,” Jaime explained kindly. “He asked questions about the long-haired one. He asked about the storeroom and who had entered it. And he notified the narcotics police, because they came to search all through its barrels and crates. They even went upstairs. That was after the dancing ended, so the performance was not disturbed. But the police were everywhere. That’s why we—” He broke off abruptly, his excitement ebbing just as quickly. He wondered nervously if el norteamericano had guessed what he had almost blurted out. “Why do you look so serious, señor? The police found nothing. No drugs. Everything is well. No trouble for anyone. Except for the American with long hair. He will be in trouble when they catch him, unless he can give a good reason why he stayed so long in the storeroom. It is a private place. Señor, please do not look so serious.”