A Deadly Shade of Gold

by John D. MacDonald

  Apparently one Miguel Alconedo, also Cuban, a servant in the household, evidently emotionally unbalanced, had become infatuated with Miss Hichin. Perhaps he had made advances to her and she had rebuffed him. At any rate, poor Mr. Day had been walking toward the swimming pool to ask Miss Hichin if he could bring her a drink when he had seen the aforesaid Miguel Alconedo go up behind the chair where Miss Hichin was sitting, grasp her by her blonde hair, pull her head sharply back and slash her throat with such a ferocity the head was almost severed from the trunk. Mr. Day had hidden in the brush. He had seen Miguel run to the gates, speak to the guard there, and swing the gates open. In terror, Mr. Day had run through the open gates and down the hill.

  The demented murderer, after trying to run him down, and succeeding only in injuring him badly, had sought to escape on the boat which he had made ready for flight. But, as everyone now knew, there had probably been an accumulation of gasoline fumes in the bilge, a highly explosive situation. It was a tragic thing that Miss Gardino should have been killed by the bit of flying debris. It was fortunate that more people were not injured.

  In the reports it would be clearly indicated that the murderer of the lovely young actress was also in Mexico without proper and complete documentation. Now the authorities had stepped in, of course, and would see what could be done officially about the invalid and the rest of the household and staff.

  I knew and they knew that Menterez had greased some palms, probably with the understanding that his cover would remain intact so long as he had no trouble. And they knew and I knew that it had been more than gas fumes. But the fun-lovers will not patronize a resort area where people go around wiring bombs into boats.

  It had to be a Columbine IV, of course. Perhaps they had worked their dinghy ashore in the dark of night. It had acted like a six stick blast, plus the added push of all that gasoline. Based on the habits of the pre-stroke Menterez, such a device had a good chance of getting him. And hate can be so strong you cease caring whether you get some other people too. You can tell yourself the other people would be either his friends or his employees, and the hell with them.

  It wouldn't have been hooked up after the stroke. No point. And the boat hadn't been used since the Columbine had been there.

  The rest of the staff knew absolutely nothing, of course.

  And there wasn't much danger of Nora getting much publicity Not with an Almah Hichin and a young pretty lawyer to write about. The hotel had no legal responsibility in the matter, of course. After all, the lady was in an area clearly marked as private.

  The wrist was a minor sprain. It throbbed when I let it hang. It was more comfortable if I walked with my thumb hooked over my belt. I had lost eyelashes, singed hair and eyebrows, lost the white sun-baked hair on hands and arms. I wanted to get to Mr. Day. Because his ankle was like a bag of marble chips, they were making complex arrangements about flying him to the nearest hospital with special facilities for that kind of work, in Torreon. They had him in room twenty. I got to him at ten in the morning. They were due to tote him down to the dock and slide him aboard an amphib at noon. He had a couple of the black-suited ones with him.

  He looked at me as I came in and said in a mild drug-blurred voice, "You are the man who saved my life."

  I asked if I could have a little time alone with him. They bowed and smiled their way out, like oriental diplomats. They liked us. We were being good boys. We had taken our indirect briefing like little soldiers.

  I took the straight chair beside the bed. Staring out of all that hair and hard white meat and handsomeness were two ineffectual blue eyes.

  "I lost my head," he said. "I would have kept running right down the middle of the road. They said your name is McGee." He put his hand out. "I'm very grateful to you." The handshake jiggled the bed, making him wince.

  "What kind of law do you practice, Gabe?"

  "Oh, theatrical mostly. Contract setups for independent producers. Special services contracts:"

  "Are you honest?"

  "Of course!"

  "Then how did you happen to team up with Almah Hichin in a conspiracy, boy?"

  The pain-killer had slowed him. He blinked at me. "What are you talking about?"

  "Almah's scheme to loot Menterez's lock box in Mexico City, boy."

  "Whose?"

  "Come off it!"

  "Who are you anyhow?"

  "I'm a tourist. Didn't they tell you that?"

  He put the back of his hand across his eyes. "Jesus, I can't think. You... you have no idea how it was, seeing a thing like that. The way he jumped back, and all that blood...."

  "Was the money the big thing to you, Gabe? Over six hundred thousand in U.S. dollars. And Menterez in no shape to lodge a complaint. You had the papers all set up, didn't you?"

  He nodded. "Power of attorney. Doctor's affidavit."

  "Was it the money?"

  He took his hand away, but kept his eyes closed. "No. If she'd asked me to crawl through fire, I'd have done that too. She knew I was hooked. She knew I'd been hooked for a long time. When she could use me, she sent for me."

  "It seems strange. You're good-looking, and in a show biz area, and I'd think you could round up forty duplicates of her in one month."

  He turned his head and looked at me. "Don't ask me to explain it; McGee. Infatuation. Sex. Put any word on it you want to. She was selfish and cruel and greedy. I know all that. She had a ring in my nose. And even when... it was the best for her, I had the idea it just happened to be me, and it could have been anybody. You know a funny thing? The closest I ever felt to her was the day before yesterday. She was out almost all afternoon. I don't know where she went. She didn't usually go out much at all. I didn't hear her come in. I didn't see her until she came out of the shower. She had a white robe on. She came to me and just wanted to be held. That's all. Just held close. She cried for a long time. She wouldn't tell me what was wrong. It was the only time... it was ever tender. He did it so quickly. He just yanked her head way back and.... Jesus, I am never going to be able to forget it. How could a man do a thing like that to so much loveliness?"

  "How did you meet her?"

  "Down here a year ago. I was at Claude and Ellie Boody's house, and the two house parties sort of got combined."

  I wondered if I should tell him that his little cruel darling had been a big help in getting four people murdered, and that was why Miguel had finished her off before leaving. A last minute errand.

  But Mr. Day had all he could manage. And I decided I might as well leave her one mourner. Suddenly he realized what he had been saying.

  "There was no conspiracy involved, Mr. McGee. Almah was going to get that money out and bring it back to Mr. Garcia. That was the basis on which I agreed to help her."

  "Sure, Gabe. They'll get a court order and open the box. A couple of bonded officials will discover about ten thousand dollars there, just enough to cover Menterez's hospital bills from now until he dies. But, of course, you didn t know his name was Menterez and his residency here wasn't entirely legal."

  There was one knowing glimmer in the mild blue eyes. "I thought his name was Carlos Garcia."

  "If we don't know our lines, they can make an investigation down here drag on forever."

  "I... I'm sorry about that friend of yours, Mr. McGee."

  I gave him a big empty glassy smile and got out of there. Later I watched them load him and his luggage aboard the amphib. They joggled him and he let out a very sincere yell. It taxied out and turned into the wind. There was a pretty good chop, and I could hear the distant sound of the aluminum hull going bang bang bang before they got up enough flying speed to lift off. Gabriel Day was paying for his sins out there.

  I went back into the lobby just in time to be told my call had come through. It was my first chance to get through the heavy traffic on the single phone line. Shaja's voice was very faint. Apparently she could hear me all too well. It was the first inkling of disaster she'd had. Nora had been accidentally kille
d when a boat had blown up. Her people would probably want the body sent to New Jersey. There was a lot of red tape. No need for her to come down. I was all right. I would try to handle everything. I heard that faraway voice break into drab little heartsick fragments. I told her to inform Nora's local attorney.

  The big league baseball players live by an ancient myth. Watch the next one get hammered in the shoulder muscle by a wild pitch, or get slammed in the meat of the thigh by a line drive. They believe that if you rub it, you make it hurt worse. The impulse is always to rub the place that hurts. They are very stoic. They walk around in little circles, moaning, but they don't rub it.

  That was the only way I could handle Nora. I would get right up to the edge of taking a second look at that deadly shard of mahogany, and then I would walk off in my little circle, not rubbing it. I didn't want to get into all the ifs. You can kill yourself with ifs. If I hadn't had my little emotional tantrum which had dropped me into the tequila bottle, we would have been long gone. If I'd told her to stay the hell away from the boat basin.... If she had been standing three inches to one side or the other.... If my luck had gone bad long ago, I wouldn't have been around to bring her down and get her killed.

  The ifs can kill you, and the never agains can gut you. Never again to feel the smooth and eager musculature of that smooth narrow back. Never again to hear the smug and murmurous little pleasure sound. Never again to watch the lilt and swing of those marvelous legs as she walked with the guile of the trained model. Never again to make her laugh.

  So what you do, if you have been down that road other times, is unhook the little hook and let the metal shutters bang down. When things have quieted down back there, you can lift them again. Time, divided by life, equals death every time. It is the deadly equation, with time as the unknown.

  I heard one of those heavy Germanic jokes one time. An enormously wealthy industrialist fathered an only son and, knowing death is often a matter of luck and circumstance, vowed to give the boy maximum protection. He was raised behind steel walls mid shatterproof glass, breathed filtered air, was tended constantly by doctors, dieticians, tutors. He was permitted no toy or tool which could harm him in any way. On his twenty-first birthday, when they let him out into the world, the kid died of excitement.

  Almah, Miguel, Nora. They had gone in quick succession like popcorn. And Carlos, the half-man, was still breathing. And his wife was still rocking.

  I completed the necessary arrangements, with plenty of official help. To the couple of wire service stringers who filtered in, I was a very dull party. I was the fellow who answered the first question with a half hour lecture on boating safety. Newsmen have a very short attention span. It is a prerequisite in the business. That is why the news accounts of almost anything make sense to all ages up to the age of twelve. If one wishes to enjoy newspapers, it is wise to halt all intellectual development right at that age. The schools are doing their level best to achieve this goal. For the first time in history it is possible to earn doctorates in obscure professional techniques without upsetting the standard of a twelve year old basic intellect.

  But after all the white-washers had moved along, back to other pressing PR problems, a little man moved in on me who was considerably more impressive. He was bald and wide and brown, and had a face like the fake Aztec carvings gullible tourists buy. He had an eye patch, and carried himself as if he were in uniform. His name was Marquez. I had been vaguely aware of him in the background, coming and going, keeping to himself. He came to me at the bar and suggested we go over to a table. He smiled all the time. He had a tiny gold and blue badge, and something that said he was Colonel Marquez, and something else that said he was in Investigationes Especiales for some kind of national bureau.

  "That boat went up with one hell of a bang," he said.

  I gave him my water safety lecture. He listened to it with total attention, and when I ran down, he said, "That boat went up with one hell of a bang, eh?"

  "Yes it did indeed, Colonel."

  "Down in Puerto Altamura, in the village, you're a pretty popular tourist, McGee."

  "Every tourist should be an ambassador of good will."

  "That Garcia house, it's like a fortress, eh?"

  "Maybe they have sneak thieves around here."

  "A man handles himself pretty well, and then he hides a gun in a john tank, for God's sake."

  "Colonel, you skip around so much, you confuse me."

  "This was the last place the Columbine IV was definitely seen."

  "Was it?"

  "How many women do you need for one little vacation, McGee?"

  "Now look, Colonel."

  "You pretend to be mad, then I'll pretend to be mad, and then we'll quiet down and play some more riddles, eh?"

  He looked perfectly happy. I said, "Can I play a game?"

  "Go ahead. But watch yourself. You're semi-pro. This is a pro league. Even if you're a pro in your own country, you're semi-pro here. We play hard ball."

  "Let's just imagine that a rich man hides himself away here because it's a place where he's hard to get at, and he expects sharpshooters. He would expect some because they plain hate him, and some because they think he might be in a situation where they can pick some of the loot off him. I guess they've picked him pretty clean. There's one thing left, maybe, like a lock box in a Mexico City bank with better than six hundred thousand U.S. dollars in it."

  The smile remained the same size, but suddenly looked hemstitched. He got up and patted my shoulder and said, "Wait right here, please."

  I had a twenty minute wait. He came back. He signaled for a drink, and said, "I suddenly thought of a phone call which could prevent a little error in bookkeeping. I am enjoying your game."

  "Thanks. We'll imagine a man comes down here after there's some trouble and tries to figure out who's been trying to do what to whom. The dust is settling, and he isn't too anxious to kick it up into the air again. How do we classify the little lady with the sliced throat? She brought along legal aid, so let's say she was after the loot. Maybe, along the way, she earned an assist on the Columbine thing, because she was anxious not to have anything drastic happen before she could get the loot."

  "And what have you been after?" he asked.

  "Just a little fun in the sun, Colonel."

  "Like looking at the pictures on Heintz's wall? Heintz wants to be a company man, but he thinks it was a hell of a bang too. What if Taggart thought he would sleep better if Miguel for sure, and maybe the Hichin girl along with him, had one of those boating accidents you give the big talk about?"

  The man had a very flexible and interesting mind. I checked his concept for about twenty seconds. Sam did have the opportunity. And it would be a horrid irony if the package he had prepared had waited right there until Nora was in range.

  "No. It wasn't his style."

  He shook his head sadly. "You spoil the fun. You tell me too much too fast, McGee. See what you told me? That you knew him that well and that he's dead."

  "I've lowered my guard because I trust you, Colonel."

  "My God, that is so unique, I don't know how to handle it. I seldom trust myself, even."

  I was fascinated by the computer mechanism behind that Aztec face, so I put another little piece of data into the machine. "Of course, Miss Gardino knew him better than I ever did."

  "So! An emotional pilgrimage. I'm disappointed in you, McGee. Or did I speak too fast, eh? Emotional for her? Loot for you?"

  "Something like that."

  "One little area of speculation is left. It will never be proved one away or another. I think these things entertain you too. Taggart and Alconedo do some very dirty work for Don Carlos. Certain people are getting too close to Don Carlos. Perhaps he has promised them much money for special work they have done. So he makes a sly scheme, eh? He will leave the house with Miguel and Taggart to go to the boat. His pockets are full of bank books, eh? Perhaps an old and trusted friend is at the hotel with a car. There is a hell of
a bang, and the car drives away, with Don Carlos hiding under a blanket, maybe." His smile broadened. "But it is so difficult to arrange, so intricate, so full of suspense, eh? With the strain, a little blood vessel goes pop in Don Carlos' head. How many times can a man successfully disappear?"

  "Son of a gun!"

  "It entertains me too. Taggart left with loot. What if he had left, or planned to, on that boat. Perhaps with Miss Hichin. The possible combinations are interesting. Ah, well. You are scheduled to leave tomorrow. You can leave."

  "Thanks."

  "You were discreet with those drab little news people. There is no need to kick up dust now. Let it all settle. The dead women are in transit. Don Carlos and his wife will be in institutions. We have the problem of those other Cubans. The land syndicate will find a buyer for the house. May I say a few things to you, McGee? On a personal level?"