Two to Tango (Nick Madrid)

by Peter Guttridge

  There was a party afterwards but I was tired and we had an early start the next morning for Machu Picchu.The government had offered a helicopter but Otis suggested everybody take the spectacular train journey.

  The train left at six and even Bridget was up in time, although she went to sleep as soon as she boarded it and remained so until it had completed its three-hour journey.

  We were travelling in a special carriage on the daily tourist train-an old diesel in colorful red and yellow livery. Another carriage had been loaded with the equipment in the course of the night. Men with rifles were guarding it and us.

  It was a chilly morning and the station was a colorful bustle of tourists, backpackers, Indian vendors, hawkers, and thieves. (Actually, I'm not sure whether there were any hawkers there-I don't really know what they do-but it sounds right.)

  Had the train been a steam engine belching out plumes of steam it would have been perfect. As it was the diesel coughed up greasy black smoke, which wasn't quite the same.

  Our carriage was packed with goodies and a few people hit the beers, which at that time of the morning showed remarkable commitment.

  The train's first challenge was to leave Cusco. It did this in fits and starts, a hundred yards forwards, fifty yards back, zigzagging up a steep series of switchbacks to emerge, eventually, on the high plains of the Andes.

  An hour into the journey Richard came over to me.

  "Otis wants a word."

  "What's up?"

  "Dunno. He'll only tell you."

  Still unable to forget the awful thing Otis had told me about killing his parents, I approached him cautiously. I really didn't much care for him any more.

  "Madrid, just the man. Thanks Rick, you can leave us together."

  He handed me a beer. It was nine o-clock by now. Still too early for me, but what the hell?

  We were running alongside the Urubamba River, which flowed down from the high valleys to the Upper Amazon then down to the real thing. It almost felt like Bridget and I were coming full circle.

  "Did you have your talk with Horace?" I said, looking for a reaction.

  "Bastard must have got wind that I knew. I was going to talk to him after the gig but I couldn't find him. Hadn't checked out of his room this morning. Probably skulking somewhere until we've moved on then he'll run back home"

  "I thought you might have had a chat with him earlier," I said hesitantly.

  "At the reception? That would have been timely-I don't think."

  "And you didn't see him after that?"

  "I thought I just said that. Didn't I just say that? Anyway, Horace isn't why I wanted to talk to you"

  "But aren't you worried he'll be ripping you off even as we speak?"

  "No chance. I phoned through to my London office, got a block put on everything as soon as you told me about all this. Maybe that's how he guessed the game was up."

  He reached into his pocket, pulled out another folded sheet of paper.

  "I got another one of these last night.And this one was in my frigging bedroom. Waiting for me when I got back after the gig"

  He took a swig of his beer. "Whoever is doing this is really pissing me off."

  As best I could remember it was the same handwriting as before. It was the last two lines of "Sinner Man," when the Devil as the Sinner's doppelganger finally catches up with him.

  I looked at it blankly for a moment. What was occupying my thoughts was the fact that Otis had denied seeing Horace after the reception, yet I'd seen them together with my own eyes. I had a sudden, horrible thought. Otis was sending the death threats to himself.

  "How could someone get into your bedroom?"

  "That's what I wondered and then I thought they'd probably bribed the chambermaid to leave it there. But I guess the how is less important that the what. Clearly I'm about to get my

  "At the concert at Macchu Picchu?"

  "I guess so"

  He looked at his big hands. Flexed them. "Well, we've all got to pay for our sins sometime. I'm definitely overdue."

  Ralph had gone ahead by helicopter to Machu Picchu to sort out security. Presumably that was why Otis had spoken to me instead.

  "What are you going to do?" I said.

  "Keep on keeping on," he said with a shrug.

  Conchita came over a few moments later so I excused myself and went back to my seat.

  I was thinking that I only had Otis's word for the last two messages. The very first had been written on his hotel's stationery in Bogota. I pondered his mental health. When I heard two hours later that Horace's dead body had been found down an alley near our Cusco hotel, I pondered even more.

  Our train journey took us from the high plains down through gorges so narrow you could reach out of the window and touch the sheer rockface, then on into tropical forest known locally as the "eyebrow of the jungle."

  The train finally stopped at a place called Aguas Calientes, named after some dubious hot springs.

  "What'd I tell you?" Perry said. "Butch and Sundance country right here."

  Aguas Calientes was indeed like a frontier town, a one-horse town without the horse though with runty pigs wandering down the main street. The only street actually, running either side of the railway line. It was full of cheap restaurants and tacky tourist shops.

  The river was a series of foaming rapids here, tumbling over hidden rocks, a sheer cliff face on the far bank towering over it, the water booming as it rushed so you had to shout to make yourself heard. All around us high green peaks with one of them shrouded in cloud, a blue sky above. And somewhere hidden above on a rocky spur was the holy Inca place, Machu Picchu.

  Ralph was on the platform with a dozen men when we pulled in. He looked very solemn. He took Otis to one side. Watching through the train windows I saw Otis slump, lowering his head and shaking it slowly.

  Bridget stirred.

  "Have I missed much?" she said, yawning.

  "Five hundred years of history, but apart from that, no."

  She looked out of the window, took in the ramshackle shop front.

  "I assume you booked the first-class hotel through the same agent you used for the Amazon one," she said, deadpan.

  Actually Richard had booked us all into some sumptuous place here in town-where it could be hiding, I didn't know.

  We got off the train to see Otis and Ralph walking away down the line. A solemn-faced Richard waited for us to tell us Horace was dead.

  "Battered to death in an alley just across from the hotel."

  "A robbery?" I said, though I felt sure of the answer.

  "His credit cards and wallet had gone but he'd lain there all night so someone could have rolled him after death."

  Bridget grimaced. I felt nauseous. I recalled the beating Otis had given to the man outside the club in Bogota.

  Richard led us down the platform onto the railway line.

  "Ralph thinks it's linked to the threats-he's doubled the security on Otis."

  I was remembering Otis's weirdness, almost a lethargy when we talked in the bar. He definitely seemed to be on the brink of something. And if he could kill his own parents ...

  But what was he intending to do? Was he aiming to kill himself? Would that end the death threats for good?

  The problem with suicidal nutters-excuse the technical term, it's all the therapy I've been doing-is they like to take other people with them.

  We left the town and continued to walk along the track between breeze-block shanty houses, most with no roof, some with a wall or two missing. Half a dozen pigs rooted among garbage. Some ten yards to our right and maybe twenty feet below us the Urubamba roared and boomed.

  "Whoa, Richard," Bridget said. "This is the way to a five-star hotel? I've been this way before with dickhead here"

  "Trust me, I'm in PR," Richard said reflexively. "Thing is, I didn't like Horace much-who did?-and then you told me, Nick, that he was ripping Otis off-hey, this is bad news for Otis isn't it?"

  "How do yo
u figure that?" I said, stepping out of the way of a small black pig intent on keeping me company. It was quite cute, actually, but my mind was on what I should do about Otis.

  "Horace is dead before Otis could sue his ass to get his money back."

  "He can sue the estate," Bridget said, stopping abruptly before a large pool of some unidentified liquid. She looked back.

  "Where's our luggage?"

  "They're going to shunt the carriage back down the line to the hotel and offload everything."

  I was only half-listening. Puzzling over what to do I therefore only half-heard the words "President's wife."

  "Say what about the President's wife?"

  "It won't affect her visit tonight."

  "The President's wife is coming tonight?" I said, stopping in my tracks-well, track.

  "Where is this fucking hotel, Richard," Bridget shouted as she turned her ankle yet again. Four-inch heels weren't perhaps the best footwear for this kind of terrain.

  "There," Richard said, pointing off to our left. And there, sure enough was a smart hotel sign and a flagged path leading up through the exotic foliage of hibiscus, bougainvillea, and big yuccas.

  "She's flying in by helicopter just before the concert starts. She'll open the event then fly out again. Be gone in thirty minutes. They'll pretend she's staying for the concert but of course she won't."

  The hotel was a series of white-painted, timber roofed bungalows set among the jungle trees and bushes. It was the kind of hotel our hotel in the Amazon aspired to be one day-roughedged enough to make you think you were roughing it but with constant running water and a mini-bar in each room.

  The hotel's main building was expensively primitive-tiled floors, wooden roof, great slabs of wood for tables. The bar and restaurant both looked out over the Urubamba River rushing pell-mell below

  I went to my bungalow and lay on the bed. I needed to tell Ralph about Otis and Horace, but first I had to find him. Bridget came with me to Machu Picchu by bus. The site was already closed to the public in preparation for the concert.

  "Is Ralph inside?" I asked Raoul, who was on guard at the entrance gate. He nodded.

  "And Otis?"

  He nodded again.

  I walked in-slowly, because it was steep. Machu Picchu was quite a sight. The collection of ruined buildings took up relatively little space. The ruins, perched above deep gorges, included majestic staircases, temples, palaces, towers, fountains, and a sundial.

  Several higher peaks towered over it, the closest of which was Huayc Pichu right beside it.

  There was one large stage but also a series of smaller stagings in different parts of the site. The concert was going to be an ambitious sou et lumiere display. Light-cannons would project an alphabet of universal human symbols-recognizable and pleasing shapes-across the mountains.

  The light-cannons were giant projectors that cast light over an area of 10,000 square meters at a distance of up to a kilometer. They were on the hills around-one was up on Huayc Picchu.

  We wandered across the site-carefully, for breath had to be conserved. It was easy to forget down at Aguas Calientes that whilst you might be in a deep valley, the valley itself was already high in the mountains.

  I saw the Joe Blows and Fertile Lands gathered over by the sacred altar.We walked over to join them.

  "Hi," Catherine said, walking across to us. "We're fighting over who gets to play where. Everybody wants to be here-the backdrop down to the river valley is fantastic when they shoot from up there-" She pointed up behind us to what was known as the sacristy. The stage would be in front of the "hitching post of the sun," a tall slab of stone.

  Modern archaeologists refer to them as gnomons-a vertical column that every Inca center had and which was used for astronomical observation and to calculate the passing seasons.

  Catherine shrugged.

  "Otis will be here, I guess." She pointed behind her across the wide grassy plaza below. There was a large rock there, the Sacred Rock, shaped to match the mountain skyline behind it. "We'll be over there-what a place to play, eh?"

  "Have you seen Otis?" I said, rather more abruptly than I intended.

  "Didn't know he was here yet," she said.

  "Ralph?" I said.

  "He's in a huddle somewhere with some government people."

  She was watching my expression.

  "Is there a problem you should share with the group? Some of us are feeling it's become a bit us-and-them around here."

  "Can you spare ten minutes?" I said.

  Catherine led the way back into the main plaza.

  "Did Otis ever tell you about his childhood?" I said.

  "Of course. And pretty brutal it was, too. His father sounds a nightmare."

  "Did he tell you about the arson attack?"

  "Arson? No."

  "The mental homes?"

  Catherine stopped.

  "No."

  "Otis told me he killed his parents either by or before setting fire to their house."

  Catherine looked bewildered. Bridget looked as if she wanted to speak but felt she shouldn't-a first for her.

  "He must have been having you on."

  "I don't think so."

  "Some strange joke-how drunk was he?"

  "Hard to say. He was acting peculiarly."

  Bridget was bursting to speak.

  "He used to get pretty weird with the drugs."

  "It sounded like a confession."

  "But it can't be," Catherine said.

  "Why?"

  "Well, for one thing his mother is still alive. He bought her a bungalow in St. Annes. I've visited here there, for goodness' sake"

  "His father?"

  "He buggered off years ago. Died in a pub brawl in Doncaster. Otis went to the funeral."

  I pondered this, then looked at Bridget, who could hold herself in no longer.

  "He's been peculiar with me. Really friendly at first then cutting me dead then being friendly again."

  "That's the drink," Catherine said.

  "Do you think he's having a breakdown?" I said.

  Catherine shrugged again.

  "Sounds like."

  I was relived that Otis hadn't done the terrible thing he'd claimed but I was worried by the state of mind of a man who would make up such a story. Then another thought began to form.

  I decided not to tell them about seeing Otis with Horace.

  "And you've not seen Otis here?"

  "I didn't know he'd arrived," Catherine said again.

  I looked round.

  "He's here somewhere. I can't see Conchita either. Maybe he's with her"

  "Probably," Catherine said, rather tartly. "But if you still want Ralph, last I saw of him he was up at the watchman's hut." She pointed to a terraced hill that rose behind the main complex of buildings to the west. At the top of a dog-leg flight of stairs there was a stone hut with a recently thatched roof. Bridget and I set off over there. I was about to share my new thoughts with her when she said: "So you think Otis is two verses short of a song?"

  "Maybe. It's a shame, I kind of like him.

  "Me too. Those shoulders. Lousy in bed though-drinks too much."

  "Where did you hear that tittle-tattle," I said, puffing slightly as we started up the wide staircase.

  "What-you hadn't noticed he drank too much? Haven't you seen the tankers pulling up outside whatever hotel he happens to be in?"

  "I mean about being lousy in bed."

  "Oh that." She paused to catch her breath, unusual color in her face. "Around," she said vaguely.

  "Bridget you haven't? You have. When, for God's sakeyou've only been with the tour three days and he's scarcely been out of Conchita's sight."

  "Just long enough, honey"

  She resumed the steps at a fast pace. I lagged behind, struggling for breath.

  When we reached the top of the steps the hut was on a final spur of rock some twenty yards above.

  "I was thinking Otis may have killed Horace,"
I said when I'd caught my breath. "Horace was ripping Otis off big time. I told Otis-"

  "You told Otis?" she said. "You have been a busy bee."

  "I saw him with Horace last night in the entrance to an alley about ten yards below the hotel. I saw Otis take him in the alley."

  "The alley where he was found."

  "Presumably, but that doesn't matter. On the train he told me he hadn't seen Horace at all last night. That's what I need to talk to Ralph about."

  Bridget was looking back down to the entrance gate.

  "Wrong place, wrong time, pardner."

  I followed her glance. Ralph was standing by the covered entrance in conversation with someone hidden under the roofing. When the person stepped out, putting something in his pocket, I could see it was Otis.

  "Double that," I said, adding absently: "We must have missed him going back out when we came in" I looked around then at the little map of the Machu Picchu site. "I'm not going to slog back down there now when we've only just got here.There's an Inca Bridge just down the trail here worth looking out for."

  "That's your idea of a good time is it?"

  "Well, yes, actually."

  She led the way up past the so-called watchman's hut. The trail to the Inca Bridge was signposted due south.

  "So you think Otis did for Horacce in Cusco?"

  "It looks like it. He had a good motive and I did see them together."

  "How was Otis when you told him about Horace's perfidy?"

  "Perfidy?"

  "Perfectly good word."

  "That's why I'm surprised you're using it. He was subdued. As if it was just one more disappointment, one more person who had let him down."

  The trail wound along the west flank of the mountain, among trees and shrubbery.To our right we had a staggering view of the Urubamba River curling through the valley far below.

  As we turned the next bend Bridget suddenly drew me back.

  "Perry"s up ahead. One more daft conversation with him and I swear I'll throw him off this mountain."

  I peeped round the corner. Perry was standing motionless in jeans and T-shirt. God knows how his winklepickers were coping with the narrow trail. He was sideways on to us and I could see he had a pair of binoculars trained off to our left.