The Long escape

by David Dodge

  The rollers under Parker's coffin were still there. I slid the box out carefully and let one end down to the floor. The niche was just high enough so that I could leave the other end propped up on the ledge. The coffin wasn't heavy, but it was plenty heavy enough for me not to want to have to muscle it back into place in a hurry if I could help it. I jammed the head stone under the floor end to hold it on the slant.

  Outside, bees droned back and forth amons the bushes. I stopped to listen. Something that might have been the faint pound of hoofbeats or the loud pound of my heart thumped in my ears. I waited for a while.

  1)111 the sound didn't get any louder. I thought, hold ihat line, Idaho.

  There were eight screws in tiie coffin lid. I had bought one of those automatic screw-drivers that work on a ratchet arrangement, and I ran the screws out as fast as I could pump my arm up and down. When the lid hung from one scrcAV, I took out my handkerchief, soaked it in a bottle of camphor I had in my pocket, and tied it around my face. The stuff choked me, but it might be better than what I had to look at next.

  It wasn't as bad as I had expected. The buzzards had picked the bones cleaner than had been shown by the alcalde's photograph. What was left besides bones had turned into leather. There was enough to hold the skeleton together inside its clothes, and that was about all. It had sagged down in the coffin when. I tipped it, without falling apart.

  I said, "Excuse me, whatever your name is," and reached for the dental mirror and flashlight that were in my bag. The skeleton's lower jaw fell open as I touched it.

  His teeth were still there, just as they had been when he was buried. The examination took me such a short time that I wasted another few minutes trying to find some evidence that he had been murdered. One rib on the left side was shattered, but I didn't know

  enough about bones to decide whether it had been caused by a bullet, a knife, or a fall off a horse. It would be hard to prove anything from what remained of him, except that the guys who had positively identified him from what the buzzards had left behind were damn fools. I put him back into shape and screwed the coffin lid down.

  There was a can of putty in the suitcase, but I didn't bother doing a neat repair job. I didn't want to crowd my luck too far. I heaved the coffin back into the niche, wedged the headstone in place by jamming the camphor-soaked handkerchief into the top crack with my screwdriver, and scraped up most of the loose mortar from the floor with my hands. The mortar I dumped into the suitcase on top of the burglar kit. With the paper flowers back in the middle of the floor, the cave looked pretty neat.

  I said, "You can descanse en paz now, friend. Good luck to you." Then I picked up my suitcase and peeked through the grille. Nobody was in sight but the bees, still zooming around the bushes.

  Going over the crest of the hill, I tried to -whistle. But the reaction had set in, and the muscles around my mouth twitched so bad I couldn't keep my face in shape. I twitched all over. My hands were wet, my mouth was dry, my nose burned from the camphor

  fumes, my stomach muscles hurt, I wanted a drink, I wanted to throw my head back and howl like a wolf just to get it out of my system. Instead, I scuffed along in the middle of the dirt road carrying my suitcase and trying to whistle "My Sweet Little Alice-Blue Gown," not getting a note out. I couldn't even wet my lips.

  The car was about a hundred and fifty yards down the hill slope. Sideburns' big bay stallion was munching grass by the side of the road. A barefooted roto had the hood of the car up, his nose in the engine. Another pair of bare feet stuck out from under the back of the car where another roto was peering at the muffler. Sideburns leaned against the car, one arm lying along the top of the car behind Idaho's head, talking into her ear.

  He didn't see me coming until I was practically in his hip pocket. In his position, I wouldn't have seen a herd of elephants coming down the road. Idaho was standing wath her back to the car, one heel hooked up on the running board so that her knee showed, her hands behind her and her breasts stuck out like a movie star posing for a pin-up. I don't know what he was saying to her, but from his expression it was pretty personal.

  Sideburns finally woke up to the fact that he had company. When he recognized me, he jerked his arm down from behind Idaho's head and put it closer to his gun. He scowled.

  I put the suitcase down in the dirt, wiped my face, and jerked a thumb questioningly in the direction the car was pointed, hitching a ride from a stranger.

  "The slob doesn't understand English," I said to Idaho. "How are you doing?"

  "He's awful." She turned a bright smile at Sideburns. "I can't listen to much more. He's awful!"

  "Would you say that you had been insulted?"

  "If I haven't been, it hasn't been because he didn't try."

  "That's fine."

  Sideburns gave me an ugly look.

  "What are you doing here?"

  "Walking, friend. I enjoy the countryside. The lady has offered me a ride. She says that you have insulted her."

  He sneered at me, as if he enjoyed sneering,

  "Vete," he said. "Continue walking."

  His hand stopped at his hip.

  I brought my own hands up chest high, making no sudden movements, and curled my fingers. He watched them, like a dope, so he didn't see me moving my feet at the same time. At the last minute he woke up, but he was really a dope. He tried to pull his gun.

  I hit him on the nose first, because I had promised to hit him on the nose, and then I cracked him good on the chin. Before he could fall down, I smacked him

  again. He wasn't completely out when he hit the dirt, but he wasn't good for anything. He didn't argue when I took his gun and waved it at tiic roto whose eyes were bugging at mc under the lifted hood.

  "Put the hood down, boy," I said. "Tell your friend to get out from imder the car."

  He did what he was told. I watched Sidcbin ns put his hand to his nose, take it away, and blink at the blood. He still didn't know what had happened.

  I said to Idaho, "Where's the fuse?"

  "In my purse. In the front seat."

  I foimd the fuse in her pmse and switched it for the dead one. By that time Sideburns was sitting up, holding his face with both hands. He wasn't interested in anything else. I threw my bag into the back seat, helped Idaho into tlie driver's seat, and climbed in beside her.

  "That's all. Let's go."

  Passing the hacienda, I tossed the gun out the window. We had gone another four or five kilometers before Idaho said anything.

  "How—what did you find?"

  "A skeleton."

  "Whose?"

  "Damned if I know. It wasn't Parker."

  m

  1 HEY slammed me into the can so hard that I made a billiard off three avails.

  It wasn't more than two hours after I got back to Santiago, so I guess it hadn't taken Sideburns long to wake up to what was going on, have a look at the grave, and get to the nearest telephone. I had let Idaho drop me on a side street and told her to go on home after she got rid of the car, promising to see her later in the day. First I had to wash the sweat, mortar and dust off myself. Not expecting the other side to work so fast, I took my suitcase full of burglar tools back to the hotel with me and stood it in a corner. When the carahineros came pounding on the door, it was the first thing they saw. They had me with my pants down.

  The cdrcel, as South American cdrceles go, wasn't bad. I was charged with asalto, roho, transgresion, violacion cle sepulcro, and destruccion de bienes, roughly, assault, theft, trespass, grave robbery and destruction of property. Senor don Rodolfo Ruano had made the charges.

  Even after the iron door clanged behind me, I wasn't

  too much worried. They might keep me on ice for a few days, but I could blow myself out with what I knew whenever I wanted to tise it. And I was a United States citizen. The carabineros didn't think it was safe to keep me from using a telephone, alter I howled about it for a while.

  First I called the embassy. The ambassador wasn't
there, so I talked to somebody else and told him I was in the clink.

  He wanted to know what for. I said assault, theft, trespass, grave-robbery and destruction of property, but that the theft charge wasn't justified. It had only been a gun, and I had returned it.

  He said. My goodness, what about the other charges?

  I explained that technically they might be made to stick. That was why I wanted the embassy to help me.

  He almost blew out the telephone system yelling at me. Didn't I know that I was subject to Chilean law just like everyone else in the country? Didn't I realize that the embassy couldn't interfere Asith the orderly process of justice of another sovereign state? (Those were his words) Did I think that my citizenship was a cloak under which I could do this and that and thus and so and the other until I hung up.

  Explaining things over the phone was out. I thought

  of calling don Rodolfo and talking turkey to him privately, but I wasn't ready to talk turkey until I held all the high cards. Idaho could help me, but she was in the clear and I wanted to keep her in the clear. Lee was my best bet.

  The carabineros said I could make one more call. I finally got through to Valpo and caught Lee in his office.

  "Hi, there," he said. "What's new?"

  "I'm in the can in Santiago."

  "What?"

  "I'm in the Santiago city hoosegow, charged with too many things to tell you about. I've got to talk to you. How soon can you get here?"

  "I can't get there. I'm a busy man. Why don't you call the embassy? What happened? Why do you do these things?"

  "I called the embassy. They want too many explanations, and I can't explain over the phone. You've got to come here and get me out. It's important."

  He groaned.

  "Al, I can't. You know I want to help you, but if the embassy won't interfere, what can I do? You haven't any official position. If it were a.diplomatic mattter . . ."

  "It could be."

  "What do you mean?"

  The jail-hoiisc boys were standing right beside ine all this time. I didn't know how much English they understood. I said, "False statements imder oath to one of Uncle's representatives. That's all I can say, but I've got solid proof. Will you come?"

  Lee was a good boy. All he needed was an excuse. He said, "I'll be there in two hours. Hold your hat."

  I went back to the calabozo and listened to the locks snick into place behind me.

  They opened up again half an hour later. The turnkey said I had a lady visitor.

  I thought it was Idaho. I was going to tell her to shut up and beat it before she opened her mouth, but when I reached the room where my visitor waited, there was Terry. And I'll be damned if she wasn't wearing a silver-fox cape, this time. Imagine anyone with three fur coats.

  "Ahl," she said. Her voice quavered. "Ahl."

  "Hello."

  Her face, white and worried, was still the best single arrangement of female features I had ever seen. I had to admit it, even though I knew where she stood. I couldn't seem to take my eyes off her mouth, with the raspberry lipstick on it. I could still taste those raspberries.

  "Ahl," she said. "what have you done?"

  "Didn't your father tell you?" She was speaking

  English, so I did. There was a carabinero in the room with us.

  "He told me that you broke into the grave. It was a terrible thing to do, Ahl. They can send you to prison for that."

  "Maybe I will send somebody else to prison instead."

  "For what?"

  "Murder."

  It didn't hit. She only looked blank.

  I said, "If not murder, I'll find something else. Your uncle Robert isn't buried in that grave."

  "You know that now. But what else do you know?"

  I wasn't going to answer her truthfully, so I didn't answer at all. She came up close to me and put her hand on my arm.

  "You found it out. But you know nothing else, and if you go to prison you will never be able to learn anything else. Even after you get out, they will not let you remain in the country, Ahl. And you may be years in prison. I can persuade my father to let you go, if you will promise to give this up, now. Will you promise?"

  Her honey-colored eyes were big enough to drown me like a fly caught in molasses. I thought of Idaho flickering her eyes and smiling a come-on at Sideburns on the road to the Hacienda Quilpue, while all the time

  he was making her sick to her stomach, I wondered if it made Terry sick to her stomach to stand there with her liand on my arm, looking up at me out of tliose big pleading eyes.

  I said, "Terry, I've got nothing against you. If you get hurt in this mess, I'm sorry. I'm sorry for your father and your mother and your brother if they get hurt, but there's nothing I can do about it. You—all of you—have made it impossible for me to quit. You've made me spend too much time and too much money that wasn't mine finding out something you could have told me at the beginning. I've got to learn the rest of it."

  "Can you do it from inside a prison?"

  "Your father won't send me to prison. If you think he is serious about trying it, remind him that I can put you and him and Fito away for perjury. The United States Government will be the prosecuting witness, in case he thinks he can buy his way out of trouble."

  She bit her red lips.

  I said, "I won't do it if I can avoid it. I don't want to hurt anybody unnecessarily. I'll overlook the fact that you had Idaho Farrell fired from her job because she helped me, and I'll . . ."

  "Idaho Farrell?" The name didn't mean a thing to her.

  "The girl at the bank. The one whom you met at my hotel."

  "I had her fired?"

  "You told your father that you had seen her with me, then, and he had her fired. You also told him that I was going to Antofagasta. He folloAved me there, and either shot at me himself or had me shot at. I'll overlook that, too. But . . ."

  I stopped. There was too much horror in her face to have been faked.

  "They—they tried to kill you?"

  "I won't say that. But somebody took a shot at me."

  "It wasn't my father! Believe me, Ahl!" She was holding my arm with both hands. "He wouldn't try to harm you. If I hadn't been sure of that, I would never have told him that you were going. Never!"

  She shook me, seeing my expression.

  "He followed me to Antofagasta."

  "No."

  "Yes."

  "No!"

  "I saw his name on the flight list of the plane."

  "You couldn't have! He hasn't left the house since we went to the consulate."

  "Rodolfo Ruano was on the plane that left before mine. If you want to see for yourself . . ."

 

  "Fito! He did it. ril—I'll . . ."

  She was so mad she couldn't speak. Her eyes blazed. As for me, I let my chin drop down on my chest like a suitcase lid.

  Because there was the key to the big puzzle, staring me right in the eye, and I hadn't seen it. I won't say I saw it all at once, even then, but I saw where the key went into the lock, and later I figured out how to twist it. All I could think of at that moment was: Fito means Rodolfito means Little Rodolfo. Al means Alvin means the original Peruvian Pinhead. Oh, you great big wonderful knot-headed dumb chowderbrain!

  What I said was, "That's right. Fito's name is Rodolfo, too, isn't it?"

  "He followed you! My father didn't know it, Ahl! I swear he didn't. I didn't know it either! I wouldn't have let him! I wouldn't let anybody—not even my father—h-hurt you. . . ."

  I simply wasn't paying any attention to what she said. My head was buzzing like a clock getting ready to strike fourteen. I just stared at her.

  The tears welled up in her eyes and overflowed. She didn't sob or sniffle or screw up her mouth. She just cried, holding her face together and her chin up while the tears streaked her cheeks and I stood there with a blank expression and watched her.

  It only lasted a moment. She turned away. The carabinero opened the door for he
r. Then he took me back to my cell.

  By the time Lee got there, I was as jumpy as a flea. I had to get out of hock and get busy clearing up the tag ends. Lee wanted to know what it was all about, of course—particularly the perjury angle. I stalled him. As long as he wasn't officially on notice about it, he wouldn't have to do anything. I didn't want anything done until I was ready for it. I had a tough time convincing him that he ought to bail me out just on my say-so, but after I promised to tell him the whole story when I knew it and gave him my word that I wouldn't skip the country and leave him holding the sack, he ^s ent to bat for me.

  I was on the street at five o'clock. The first plane for Antofagasta took off at five forty-five. I made it by the skin of my teeth.

  It got in about nine-thirty. I took a taxi from the airport to the Club Union and found Willie Humphreys exactly where I had left him, a gin rickey in his hand, his nose glowing like a red-hot poker, the double wing-back freezeout lined up against him at the far side of the cantina.

  I said, "Remember me, Willie?"

  "Sure. Glad to see you again, son. Siddown."

  He didn't remember me from a plate of spaghetti.

  I said, "My name is Al Colby. I was here talking to yon about Roberto Ruano a couple of days ago."

  "Always glad to meet a friend of Roberto Ruano. Fine lad. I remember once . . ."

  I pulled up a chair and sat down facing him while he wound up. As soon as he stopped talking long enough to suck at the rickey, I cut in.

  "Look, Willie. You knew Roberto Ruano in the old days, when you were both working in the nitrate fields. He went away twenty years ago, and you never saw him again. Is that right?"

  "That's right. Always wondered what happened to him. We used to play billiards. ..."

  "He was a young man then, under thirty-five. Is that right?"

  "Yep. He would have been about that, all right. I . . ."

  "I asked you the other night if you knew Rodolfo Ruano. I told you he was Roberto's brother, and you said you had played billiards with him, too. You said ..."