A Deadly Shade of Gold

by John D. MacDonald

  "What's so professional about hacking him up like that?"

  "A professional with a personal interest, maybe. Or maybe that's the way he goes for kicks, when he has the time." He grinned. "I'm a pro too. That's why you're going to come along and sit in my car while I talk to Miss Gardino. It's the only way I can be sure you don't get on the phone."

  He couldn't trick her or trap her. All he could do was break her down to the tears and the truth. And he left me there at the shop with her, back in the office, steadying her down. The big sobs were less frequent. Shaj stared in at us and gave a little nod and went away. I patted Nora's lean shoulder. Her dark hair smelled grassy, like summer grass and clover. She gulped against my chest, sighs between the fading sobs.

  The little office was functional, rubber tile, steel, electrical computation, posture chairs. Out in the shop the women were drifting in the buying glaze, touching fabric, pursing lips, standing hipshot and pensive, the chic skilled clerks in attendance, amid a readiness of mirrors, a piped music barely audible. The office girl lurked in one of the store rooms, in impatient diplomacy.

  Nora launched herself back into self-dependence, giving a little push at me to turn herself away, delving for tissue, honking into it and then trying to smile.

  "He hits the nerve, doesn't he?"

  "He opens you up like a guide book. It's his trade."

  "Trav, I didn't... let him make me say anything about... the gold."

  "I didn't think you would."

  "But he got the rest of it. The loving." That narrow, vital, ugly-lovely face twisted into a grimace that pulled the flesh against the bone, showing the skull shape, the tooth-look of death.

  "So we can leave any time," I said. "As soon as you're ready."

  She looked flustered. The eagerness was still there, but the actual fact of departure made her uncertain. "I... I have a lot to do."

  "As soon as you're ready."

  Eight

  THE TRAVEL agent in Los Angeles was a darling fellow, in tight green pants, yellow shirt, green ascot, desert boots. At a distance he was still a subdeb, but at close range he wore a thousand wrinkles, fine as cobwebs, and his eyes were as old as tombs. Nora and I sat on his moulded plywood chairs and talked to him across a pale pedestal desk. I had made it clear to him that it was Miss Gardino and Mr. McGee.

  He looked pained and said, "If that is REALLY the sort of thing you have in mind, I think you would be TERRIBLY pleased with Mazatlan or Guaymas, or perhaps as far down as Manzanillo. Puerto Altamura is so DIFFICULT."

  "In what way?"

  "Transportation wise, sir." He studied the folder he had taken from the file, and went over to a large map of Mexico on the side wall. He put a manicured finger next to Puerto Altamura and said, "I could arrange some HORRID little flight into Culiacan, and from there you could rent a car and driver to take you to Pericos, and then over a DESPERATE little swamp road. Or perhaps a flight into Los Mochis, and a car over to Boca del Rio, and a rented boat from there. Or, I understand there is a little charter amphib at Navojoa. And then, of course, there is really only the one place to stay there... and suppose you are not comfortable?"

  "It's supposed to be pretty good, isn't it?"

  He shrugged, fluttered his hand. "The Casa Encantada. The literature always says they are luxurious. I've never been there, or talked to anyone who has stayed there. As you see here, sixty beautiful rooms, pool, beach, gourmet food, boating, fishing, tennis.... Really I can TRULY recommend a lovely place in......"

  "Puerto Altamura sounds pretty good to me," I said. "We'd like something... a little off the beaten track."

  His eyes moved sidelong toward Nora, a reptilian flicker of understanding. He gave up. "I'll see what I can do, sir. It may take some time to arrange. Such perfectly GHASTLY phone service. I'll try to book you through by the most comfortable means, believe me, provided I can arrange reservations. How long would you want to stay there, sir?"

  "A month. Six weeks."

  "My word!" he said, aghast. "Uh... two rooms, sir?"

  "Please."

  He looked at his watch. "I suggest you phone me in, say, an hour and I may be able to report some progress."

  We went out into the milky overcast sunlight of the March morning. She looked up at me with a crooked smile ancl said, "Isn't he a dear?"

  "He seems to know what he's doing."

  "Could we just walk for a while? I feel very tense and restless."

  "Sure, Nora."

  I phoned him at noon. He said, "I'm doing MUCH better than I expected, sir. I have you reserved there, beginning tomorrow night. The manager, a Mr. Arista, assures me the accommodations are most pleasant. He suggested a way of getting there, and I have ticketed you through to Durango, leaving at nine-twenty tomorrow morning. I am working on the link from Durango to Culiacan, where a hotel vehicle will meet you. Suppose you stop by at three this afternoon, and I shall have everything all ready for you."

  The Aviones de Mexico prop jet made one stop at Chihuahua, and then flew on to Durango. About thirteen hundred miles all told. It was one-thirty when we got there. It was a mile in the air, windwashed, dazzlingly clear, very cool in the shade. The men in the customs shack were efficient in an ofthand way, armed, uniformed, officially pleasant. The one who spoke English phoned Tres Estrellas Airline for us, and ten minutes later an ancient station wagon appeared and took us and our luggage on a fast and lumpy journey to a far corner of the field.

  We waited a half hour for the third passenger to arrive, a young priest. The plane was a venerable Beechcraft. The pilot looked far too young. He wore pointed yellow shoes, a baseball hat, and a mad smile. Between us and the sea were peaks of up to ten thousand feet, all jungled green with occasional outcroppings of stone. It was over two hundred miles to Culiacan. He did not waste company gas with any nonsense like climbing over the peaks. He went through the valleys and gorges, the tricky gusts tipping and tilting us, the treetops streaking by Nora's hand was clamped upon mine, her fingers icy.

  And when at last we came out of the crumpled terrain, he followed it downhill, building up more speed and vibration than the aircraft was built to take. Finally, when we reached Culiacan, he achieved some altitude, merely for the purpose of slipping it in, a very flamboyant gesture indeed, and set it down without a bounce or jar.

  At sea level the heat was moist, full of a smell of garbage and flowers, and a faint salty flavor of the sea. It was nearly four o'clock. There was a round and smiling little man there in a bright blue uniform. It said Casa Encantada on his hat, and it said Casa Encantada on the side of the bright blue Volkswagen bus. He kept smiling and saluting. He would load a piece of luggage and salute again. "Hello!" he kept saying. "Ah, hello!" But he had no other English.

  When I tried my broken Cuban Spanish, and Nora tried her fragments of Italian, his smile merely became slightly glassy. The back end of the bus was stacked high and heavy with supplies. In his own way he was as fearless as our pilot. He kept bouncing up and down in the seat, humming, muttering, swaying back and forth trying to achieve more speed.

  We whined north on Route 15 to Pericos, and there he made a violent left onto an unpaved road. We had twenty miles of it, part sand, part shell, part crushed stone, part mud. The tropic growth was dense and moist on both sides.

  At five-thirty we came bouncing out of the jungle, climbed a small ridge, and went dashing down into the town of Puerto Altamura, a grievous disappointment in spite of the blue bay and the low green of the tropic islands shielding it. Our driver was shouting and waving at everyone, blowing his horn as though he had just won the Mille Miglia.

  Unpaved streets of mud and dust, some clumsy churches, a public square with a small sagging bandstand, naked children, somnolent dogs, snatches of loud music from small cantinas, scores of small weathered stalls, squatting street vendors, ancient rickety trucks, a massive, pervasive almost overpowering stench composed of a rare mixture of mud flats, dead fish, greasy cooking and outdoor plumbing. The vil
lage was a semi-circle on a curve of the bay, and between the waterfront building we could see rotting docks, a scrabbly beach, nets drying, crude dark boats.

  "Paradise," Nora murmured.

  We made a turn around the bandstand and headed south. The houses became a little more elaborate, and then stopped; the road curved and ahead of us, and a half-mile away, perched on a continuation of the ridge we had crossed, we saw the Casa Encantada, low and white and cleanlooking, with many white out-buildings, all roofed with orange-red tile.

  The driver beamed, nodded at us, pointed and said, "Hello! Hello!"

  He drove into a cobbled front courtyard, banked with rainbows of tropical flowers, stopped with a great flourish at the broad steps leading up to the main entrance. Small boys in bright blue came hurrying to get our luggage. We got out.

  The hotel faced the sea. It was on a headland, projecting into the bay. We could see out through the broad pass to the southwest across water sparkling in the evening sunlight. There was a big pool down the slope to the south of the hotel; with a dozen or so people taking the late sun. In the small bay down beyond the pool, at the end of a long curving cement staircase was a small yacht basin, with a half dozen cruisers and sports fishermen gleaming bright down there, and space for twice as many more. Across from the small bay, on the opposite knoll, I could see several impressive-looking homes barely visible among the lush plantings.

  "Paradise?" I said to Nora.

  "It is absolutely unbelievably fantastic."

  A bald brown mustached man in a white suit came down the few broad steps and said, "Miss Gardino? Mr. McGee? My name is Arista. I am the manager here. I hope your stay with us will be most pleasant."

  "It's lovely here," Nora said.

  "Was your trip enjoyable, Senorita?"

  "Yes. Thank you."

  We went in and registered. The lobby was small, with a center fountain, tiled floor, massive dark beams, bright mosaics set into the walls.

  He said, "We are almost half full at the moment. Dinner is served from eight until eleven-thirty. We have our own water supply and it is tested frequently so do not be afraid to drink it. We generate our own electrical power and so, unfortunately, we halt all kitchen and bar service at midnight when we turn off the main generator and go onto the smaller one which handles our night lighting. It is switched back at seven in the morning. There are brochures in the rooms explaining the hours for everything and what activities are available. We are happy you are staying with us. Will you follow me, please?"

  He snapped his fingers and the boys picked up the luggage. He took us down a long passageway, with room doors on one side and, on the other, open arches overlooking the sea. We were two-thirds of the way down that wing, in rooms 39 and 40. The interconnecting door was open, thus saving him the minor awkwardness of unlocking it for us. If we chose to close it and bolt it, that was our affair. Blue tile floors, plaster walls, broad low beds, graceful straw furniture, coarse draperies in crude bright colors, deep closets, low chests of drawers, small bright tiled baths, with tub and shower and geometric stacks of thick white towels.

  "These rooms are satisfactory? Good." A shy brown broad-faced young girl in a blue uniform dress appeared in the doorway. Arista said, "This is Amparo. She will by your room maid while you are here. She has some English." The girl smiled and bobbed her head. She had coarse black braids tied with scraps of blue yarn. A wiry little man in blue with a face like braided leather appeared behind her, with gold-toothed smile. "And Jose is your room waiter," Arista explained. "You push the top button here for Amparo and the other for Jose. She will do laundry, pressing, sewing, that sort of thing. PIease tip them at the time you leave us. I have given you table ten, and you will have the same waiter each day, so arrange the tip with him in the same fashion, please." He gave a little bow to each of us in turn. "Welcome to La Casa Encantada," he mid, and left.

  Nora selected number 39. Jose moved her luggage into that room. Amparo went in to help her unpack and Nora closed the interconnecting door. Jose unpacked my two bags. I took out the two items I did not want him to handle, the zipper case which contained the statuette pictures, and my slightly oversized toilet kit.

  When he was through, and had asked if I wanted anything else, and had bowed himself out, with golden smile, I checked the room for a suitable hiding place for the five pictures. I did not hope to find anything that would defeat a professional search. I just wanted to thwart amateur curiosity.

  One table lamp had a squat pottery base. I dismantled the fixture. The base was half full of sand for stability. There was ample room for the pictures, slightly curled, shoved down partway into the sand. I put it back together again. Now the leather folder contained misleading information, a sheaf of typed sheets of computations, percentage returns on real estate and investments, detailed recommendation for purchase of things I would never buy.

  I took the toilet kit into the bathroom. It has a shallow false bottom, so inconspicuous as to be quite effective. I had debated bringing a weapon, and had at last decided on a flat little automatic pistol I had filched from an unstable woman's purse, a Parisian woman. It is a ridiculous little thing made in Milano, silver-plated, with an ivory grip, one inch of barrel, without safety or trigger guard. The six clip has a sturdy spring however, unusual in these junk weapons. It is 25 caliber. I'd brought a full clip and a dozen extra shells. At eight feet I could be reasonably certain of hitting a man-sized target every time. At fifteen feet I would be half sure. At twenty-five feet it would be better to throw stones. It is a bedroom gun, with a brash bark like an anxious puppy. Its great advantage is its size. It is very thin. The grip fits the first two fingers of my hand. I can and have carried it in my wallet, tucked in with the money. It makes an uncomfortably bulky wallet.

  I dumped the toilet gear out, pried up the false bottom and felt a little ridiculous as I looked at the toy gun. I had more faith in the other two items concealed there, the little vial of chloral hydrate, and the tin of capsules of a tasteless and powerful barbiturate, labeled respectively as nose drops and cold medicine. I checked the clip on the little gun and transferred it to the side pocket of my trousers. It was safe. It could not fire until I had jacked a shell into the chamber. I left my medicines and extra shells concealed.

  After I had showered and changed, Nora rapped on the interconnecting door. I opened it and she came in, in an ivory linen dress that darkened her skin.

  "Amparo is a jewel," she said. "Nice rooms."

  "Maybe the food will be good too."

  "I hope so."

  "Shall we walk around? Explore?"

  "If you'd like."

  "Why are we almost whispering?" she asked, and smiled nervously, her dark brown eyes glinting in the diminishing light of dusk.

  "Before we go out, is there anything in your room, anything that ties you to him in any way?"

  "You told me to be sure of that. I was. There's nothing at all, Trav. But... he could have talked to someone about Gardino and McGee. Old friends."

  "There has to be a scrap of bait left out, a hint of bait, nothing definite."

  "I have the feeling someone is listening to us."

  "Not from this room. You'll feel that way all the time we're here. Until we know. Until we're sure."

  "It isn't anything like I thought it would be."

  We walked to the far end of our exterior corriclor, away from the lobby and found a sun deck at the end, large, with an iron railing, with a short curved staircase leading down to a path that led to the apron of the pool. The sunbathers were gone. A couple swam, dived, the man full of the spurious peppiness of the mid-forties living up to the demands of a lovely young girl, making his youthful motions, keeping his belly tucked in, having a whee of a time.

  We walked to the far side of the pool and looked down at the little yacht basin. Two more sports fishermen had arrived, unloaded the customers, and the crew of two aboard each one was hosing down, oiling reels, slipping the canvas covers onto the boat r
ods, talking and laughing across the dock to each other.

  We took a flagstone path through the flowers toward the main entrance, watching the orange sun slip down beyond the far islands which guarded the bay from the hundred and fifty mile sweep of the Gulf of California.

  "We're almost opposite La Paz," I said. "I guess it's just a little south of us."

  "You've been there?"

  "Once upon a time."

  "Trav, tell me why I feel so strange and uncertain and... unreal?"

  "After we find the bar."

  "Okay. After we find the bar."

  It was on the level below the lobby, an upholstered little room hoked up with candles, nets, tridents, glass floats, but dim and pleasant enough. We got our drinks at the bar, took them to a banquette corner. Several tables had been pulled together to seat ten people, five couples-the men big and brown and beefy, and their women smallish, tough, leathery. I needed one glance for the whole story.