A Deadly Shade of Gold

by John D. MacDonald

  "Yes."

  "I remember he say the name one time," she said in a forlorn voice. Surprisingly the dark eyes filled, tears rolled. "I remember. So sorry Trrav. Please tie me loose. Okay now."

  "No tricks?"

  "I swear by Jesus."

  She had pulled the knots fantastically tight. I had to slice them with my pocket knife. She worked feeling back into her hands. As I started to get up, she caught my arm and pointed to her foot. She turned it so that the lamps shone more squarely on the broad brown instep. "See?" she said.

  There were about a dozen little pale puckered scars on the top of her foot, roughly circular, smaller than dimes.

  "What's that?"

  "From the other ones who say questions about Sam." She pronounced it Sahm. "Where is he? Where he go? Where he hide. Sohns a beech!" She looked at me and firmed her jaw and thumped her chest with her knuckles. "Pain like hell, Trav. Not a cry from me. Nunca palabra. Fainting, yes. You know... proud."

  "Who were they?"

  She peered at my throat and made a hissing sound of concern. She slid off the bed and tugged me over to sit on the stool. She wiped my throat with something that stung, though not as badly as the gin, and put a Band-Aid on the worst part of the gouge. When she unwrapped my arm, she said, "Ai, como perra, verdad. Que feo!" She had iodine. That too was less than the gin. She wrapped it neatly, taped the bandage in place.

  "So sorry." she said.

  "Put something on, Felicia."

  "Eh?"

  "I want to talk. Put on a robe or something."

  "Some love maybe? Then talk? No pesos."

  "No love, Felicia. But thank you."

  "The skinny woman, eh? But who can know?" She stared at me, then shrugged and went to one of the cardboard wardrobes and pulled out a very sheer pale blue hip-length wrap. Before she slipped into it, she dried her body with a towel, and slapped powder liberally on herself, using a big powder mitten, white streaks and patches against bronze-brown hide. She knotted the waist string, flung her long hair back with a toss of her head and sat in the upholstered chair.

  "So?"

  "Who were the men who hurt you?"

  "Two of them, burning, burning with cigarette, Trrav. Cubanos I think. One with the good English. Then they want love. Hah!" She slapped her bare knee. "With this I finish love forever for one of them I think. Screaming, screaming. He say to other one, cut the bitch throat. But the one, the one with the English, say no. Help his friend into car. Go away. Leave me there, seven kilometros from here. I walk on this bad foot back to here."

  "When did this happen, Felicia?"

  "Perhaps five-six weeks. Sam gone then. Gone... three days I think. One night in this room. My friend is Rodriguez, with the fish truck going to Los Mochis. Sam walked before the day was light. Rodriguez, stop for him at a place on the road. I fix that. Every man thinks he is gone by boat. He..." She stopped and frowned. "Sam said come here?"

  "In a way"

  "How is that-in a way?"

  I sat on the tin stool, arms propped on my knees, and debated telling her. It is so damn strange about the dead. Life is like a big ship, all lights and action and turmoil, chugging across a dark sea. You have to drop the dead ones over the side. An insignificant little splash, and the ship goes on. For them the ship stops at that instant. For me Sam was back there somewhere, further behind the ship every day.

  I could look back and think of all the others I knew, dropped all the way back to the horizon and beyond, and so much had changed since they were gone they wouldn't know the people aboard, know the new rules of the deck games. The voyage saddens as you lose them. You wish they could see how things are. You know that inevitably they'll drop you over the side, you and everyone you have loved and known, little consecutive splashes in the silent sea, while the ship maintains its unknown course. Dropping Sam over had been just a little more memorable for Nora than for me. It would stay with her a little longer, perhaps. But I did not know how it would react on this one. He would be dropped over the side in this next instant. It would be brand new for her.

  "Sam is dead," I told her.

  She sat bolt upright and stared at me. "No," she whispered.

  "Somebody followed him to Florida and killed him."

  She made a gargoyle mask, the stage mask of tragedy, and it would have been laughable had it not been so obviously a dry agony. She thrust herself from the chair, bending, hugging herself, passed me in a stumbling run to throw herself face down on the iron bed, gasping and grinding into the bunched pillow. The rear of the little blue wrap was up around her waist, exposing the smooth brown slope of buttocks. She writhed and strangled and kicked like a child in tantrum.

  I went and sat on the bed near her. At my first tentative pat of comfort on her shoulder, she made a twisting convulsive leap at me, pulled me down in the strong warm circle of her arms, making a great WhooHaw, WhooHaw of her sobbings into my neck. I wondered how many women were going to hold me and cry for Sam. I endured that close and humid anguish, perfume and hot flesh and the scent of healthy girl.

  The storm was too intense to last, and as it began to dwindle I realized that in her little shiftings, changing, holdings, she was beginning to involve herself in seduction, possibly deliberately, but more likely out of that strange and primitive instinct which causes people to couple in bomb shelters while air raids are in process. I firmly and quietly untangled myself, tossed a towel over to her and went and sat in the chair near the window. I looked down and saw that the comic book on top of one of the stacks was an educational epic in the Spanish language. I guessed that she would call it Oliver Tweest.

  Finally she sat up in weariness, put a pillow against the bars of the headboard, hunched herself back and leaned there, ankles crossed. She - swabbed her face and eyes and blew her nose, and sighed several times, her breath catching.

  "He was a man," she said in a soft nostalgic voice. I sensed that she had wept for him, and would not have to weep again.

  "How did you meet him?"

  "I work in the kitchen there. I have seventeen years, no English, just a dumb kid. He is a boat captain, like Mario and Pedro. A little room he has there, not in the hotel. Near. Men and boys are after me, you know, like the dogs walking fast, tongue hanging out, so, follow the she? Sam chase them away, move me into his room. Ai, such trouble. The padre, my family, everyone. But to hell with them. We have love. I work in the kitchen all that time. A year I guess. More. Then he works for Senor Garcia. Big boat. Lives there in the big house. No so much time for love, eh? Time for the rubia... how you say... blonde. Yes. Blonde bitch in the big house. I work a little time more in the kitchen. They make laughs at me. Screw them all, eh? I am waiting like a mouse for when he wants love? Hell, no. I come here. Sam find me out. He beats me. Four-five times. Change nothing. He wants the rubia, I do what I like. Okay? More trouble from the padre, my brothers, everybody. Bad words. Puta. I have twenty years. By God I do what I want. Pretty good room, eh? Not so hard work. Dancing, copitas, making love. Sam come here sometimes. Give me pesos. I rip them in front of the face. I hear things about the big house. Trouble. Danger. Then he come in the night to hide. Marks from fighting. He is here all day. I fix with Rodriguez. Sam say he will send much money to me one time, so I am here no more. Such a fool! This is good place I think. Many friends. Then two man give a ride in a pretty car. Out the road and then into the woods, burning, burning the foot. Where is Sam? Then you are here. Sam is dead. In Florida." She made one stifled sobbing sound.

  "Who is that blonde? Is she still around?"

  "She is a friend with Senor Garcia. It is a hard name for me. Heechin. A thing like that, I think."

  "Hitchins?"

  "I think so. Many fiestas in that house. Very rich man. Very sick now, I think."

  "Is the blonde still there?"

  "They say yes. I have not seen."

  "Felicia, what was going on at Garcia's house?"

  "Going on? Parties, drunk, bitch blondes. Who knows?
"

  "Did Sam say anything?"

  "He say he keep what he earn. Some big thing he had, locked. He was sleeping, I try to look. Very very heavy. Big like so." She indicated an object about the size of a large suitcase. "Black metal," she said.

  "With a strap he fix to carry. Only a strong man like Sam can carry far."

  "He got to Los Mochis?"

  "Rodriguez say yes."

  "You were willing to help him, to hide him here?"

  She looked astonished. "How not? He is a man. No thing changes that, eh? I am wife for a time. This stupid girl pleased him good, eh? He... we have a strong love. It can not be for all my life, with such a one."

  "He never told you anything about what went on at Garcia's house?"

  "Oh yes. Talk, talk, talk. Persons coming and going in big cars and boats. Mucho tumulto. What is a word? Confusion. I do not listen so much to him, I think. When he is close I do not want all the talking. I say yes, yes, yes. He talks. Then soon I make him stop talking. I think misterioso y peligroso that house and those persons. No man from here ever works at that house. Just Sam."

  She got up from the bed and padded over and got a nail file and took it back to the bed and began working on her nails, giving me a hooded glance from time to time. The downstairs hubbub was vastly diminished.

  "Is now late, I think, Trrav," she said. "You can stay, you can go. I think those two man find Sam, eh?"

  "Perhaps."

  "Shoot him?"

  "A knife."

  She made the Mexican gesture, shaking her right hand as though shaking water from her fingertips.

  "Ai, a knife is a bad dying. Pobre Sam. You look for them?"

  "Yes."

  "Because you are a friend? Maybe you are a clever man, eh? Maybe what you want is in that heavy box."

  "The box is why he was killed."

  "Maybe you send me some money instead of Sam, eh?"

  "Maybe."

  "Down stairs you make me think of Sam. So big. Dark almost like me, but white, white, white, like milk where the sun is not touching."

  "Felicia, please don't tell anyone what we've talked about. Don't tell anyone he's dead."

  "Maybe only Rosita."

  "No one. Please."

  "Very hard for me," she said, and smiled a small smile. I took the fifty, folded it into a small wad, laid it on my thumbnail and snapped it over onto the bed. She fielded it cleanly, spread it out, looked content. As one is prone to do with animals, it was a temptation to anthropomorphize this girl past her capacity, to attribute to her niceties of feeling and emotion she could never sense, merely because she was so alive, had such a marvelous body, had such savage eyes and instincts. She was just a vain, childish, cantankerous Mexican whore, shrewd and stupid, canny and lazy.

  She had done all her mourning for Sam Taggart, and had enjoyed the drama of it. She was not legend. She did not have a heart of gold, or a heart of ice. She had a very ordinary animal heart, bloody and violent, responsive to affection, quick in fury, incapable of any kind of lasting loyalty. Sam had not made her what she was today. I suspect she was headed for the rooms over the Cantina Tres Panchos from the time she could toddle. Perhaps villages fill their own quotas in mysterious ways, so many mayors, so many idiots, so many murderers, so many whores.

  "Not even Rosita," I said.

  "Okay Trrav."

  I stood up. "I may want to come back and ask more questions."

  "Every night I am down there. I am not there, you wait a little time, eh?"

  "Sure."

  She yawned wide, unsmothered, white teeth gleaming in membranous red, pointed tongue upcurled, stretched her elbows high, fists close to her throat.

  "Love me now," she said. "We sleep better, eh?"

  "No thanks."

  She pouted. "Felicia is ugly?"

  "Felicia is very beautiful."

  "Maybe you are not a man, eh?"

  "Maybe not."

  She shrugged. "I am sorry about the biting. Good night, Trrav. I like you very much."

  I let myself out into the blackness of the corridor. Downstairs a single male voice was raised in drunken song, the words slurred. I hesitated when I reached the mouth of the narrow alley. The street was empty. There were no lights at night in the village. But I had the feeling I was observed from the darkness. The American spent a long time with Felicia. I walked in the middle of the dusty road. A warm damp wind blew in from the sea. When I reached the outskirts of the village I could see the hotel lights far ahead of me.

  As I crossed the small empty lobby, Arista appeared out of the shadows, suave and immaculate. "Mister McGee?"

  "Yes?"

  "There was some trouble in the village tonight?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "Over a village girl?"

  "Oh. Yes, a young fellow started waving a knife around and I knocked it out of his hand."

  "And you were drinking?"

  "You are beginning to puzzle me, Arista."

  "Forgive me. I do not want you to be hurt, sir. It would be bad for our reputation here. Perhaps you were fortunate tonight. Those men are very deadly with knives. Forgive me, but it is not wise to... to approach the girls in the Tres Panchos. There has been much violence there. People tell me things, and the story worried me, sir. I believe a girl named Felicia Novaro was involved."

  "People tell you very complete things, I guess."

  "Sir, she is a wild reckless girl. There is always trouble around her. She worked for me here. Her... behavior was not good. She cannot be controlled. And... that is a squalid place, is it not, sir?"

  "It seemed very cheerful to me."

  "Cheerful?" he said in a strained voice.

  I clapped him on the shoulder. "Sure. Local color. Song and dance. Friendly natives. Salt of the earth. Pretty girls. Man, you couldn't keep me away from there. Goodnight, Senor Arista."

  He stared at my arm. "You have been hurt?"

  "Just chawed a little."

  "B-Bitten? My God, by a dog?"

  I gave him a nudge in the ribs, a dirty grin and an evil wink, and said, "Now you know better than that, pal." I went humming off to my room.

  Eleven

  As SOON as I turned my room lights on, Nora came out of the darkness of her room, through the open doorway, wearing a foamy yellow robe with a stiff white collar. She squinted at the light, and came toward me, barefoot, looking small and solemn and strangely young.

  "You were gone so long I was getting.... What's wrong with your arm?"

  "Nothing serious. It's a long story."

  I held her in my arms. After a little while she pushed me away and looked up at me, wrinkling her nose. "Such strange smells. Alcohol, and kerosene and some kind of terrible cheap perfume. And smoke and sort of a cooking grease smell... Darling, you are a veritable symphony of smells. You are truly nasty."

  "It is, in some ways, a nasty story."

  "I am particularly curious about the perfume, dear."

  "First I need a shower."

  She sat on the foot of my bed and said, primly, "I shall wait."

  When I came out of the bathroom, the lights were out, and she was in my bed. When I got in, she moved into my arms and said, "Mmmm. Now you smell like sunshine and soap."

  "This is quite a long story."

  "Mmmmhmmm."

  "When I got there, that bartender with the mustache presented me with the change I left on the table when.... Are you listening? Nora?"

  "What? Oh sure. Go ahead."

  "So I split it with him. That was a popular gesture. He bought me a free drink.... I'm not sure you're paying attention."

  "What? Well... I guess I'm not. Not at the moment. Excuse me. My mind wanders. Let me know when you get to the part about the perfume."

  "Well, the hell with it."

  "Yes, dear. Yes, of course," she said comfortably.

  After breakfast, Nora and I walked up the winding road past the houses on the knoll beyond the boat basin. It was a wide graveled ro
ad with some kind of binder in it to make it firm. The drainage system looked competent and adequate. The homes were elaborate, and for the most part they were well screened from the road by heavy plantings, beautifully cared for. Each was so set on the hillside as to give a striking view of the sea. Gardeners worked in some of the yards.

  There were entrance pillars at the private driveways. There were small name plates on the entrance pillars. I made mental note of the names. Martinez, Guerrero, Escutia, in that order, and then Huvermann-who had to be the Swiss by process of elimination. Arista had said the Californian was not in residence, and I could see, in a graveled area, a man carefully polishing a black Mercedes, and a swimming pool glinting a little further away. The next one was Boody. There was a chain across the drive.