“I guess so.”
“And he did not take the advice of his doctors?”
“No.”
Dr. Heller shrugged. The dark eyes shifted sidelong from my face. “He has been dead for some time. You didn’t find him immediately?”
“No. I came in ahead of him. I went to sleep. I woke up and started wondering whether he’d got in safely. You see, I was always kind of worried. I got out of bed and came here. And I found him.”
Dr. Heller nodded. I felt excited, but also slightly guilty that luck should have sent me so minor an antagonist.
I said casually, “It was the heart, of course?”
He straightened his stooped shoulders. He tried to muster some shreds of professional dignity—to give me my money’s worth.
“Yes,” he proclaimed. “It was the heart.”
I wondered how many other wrong diagnoses he had made in the past. I felt less guilty about him then. Perhaps I was the only person whom Dr. Heller had ever genuinely assisted.
I asked, “What do we do, Doctor? I hate to make a fuss for the hotel. Anything like this is bad for them, obviously. I wonder… I mean, what is the procedure? There is a death certificate?”
“Yes,” said Dr. Heller.
“Which you sign?”
“Yes,” said Dr. Heller. He paused. “Of course, it is usually advisable to receive from his doctors in Mexico City the entire history of the case before the certificate is signed.”
Panic sidled out of some corner of my brain. “But his doctors weren’t in Mexico City. He comes from California. I don’t even know where. He’s only been in Mexico a week or so.”
His eyes had moved back to my necktie.
He repeated, “It is usually the case, Mr. Duluth, to obtain the history first.”
The slightly emphasized “usually’ made me realize he was hinting that this case need not necessarily be usual. I saw then into the pitiful, enforced little shabbiness of his mind. He didn’t suspect murder. He wasn’t smart enough for that. But he did suspect a rich American tourist who might be willing to pay extra to have a tiresome situation expedited.
He stood fidgeting with the soiled cuffs of his shirt.
I took out my wallet. “You’ve been awfully kind coming out at this hour. While we’re about it, why don’t we settle your account. How much do I owe you?”
The faded eyes glinted. “One hundred pesos,” he said so quickly that I knew he had taken the daring decision of the doubled fee.
“That seems very little,” I said, “I guess I’m used to United States prices. How about this?”
I handed him two hundred-peso bills. His hand clutched for them, but a flicker of exhausted sadness showed in his eyes, as if there was something in him, frail but still alive, which recoiled from venality. The ghost, perhaps, of an earnest, hopeful medical student in a foreign capital many years ago.
He put the money in his pocket. He moved shufflingly to a table and brought out a paper and pen.
“Perhaps, in this case, it is more simple for the certificate to be signed now. You are no intimate friend. It is a burden for you to wait, to try to find the doctors, to ruin your holiday, yes?”
“Yes.”
“Of course, Mr. Duluth, you try to locate his family, his friends through the turismo. Then later you obtain the records and send them to me for my files.”
“Of course,” I said.
He filled in the death certificate while I stood at his side, giving him the necessary information.
He murmured, “It is necessary to send a formal report to the police, to the American Consulate. And perhaps, too, a letter to the parents if they are alive. Perhaps I can take care of these things for you. But perhaps also it is good for you to stay here a couple more days.”
“That’s okay with me.”
He held the death certificate in his hand. Once again that tired look came in his eyes.
“Perhaps you do not know of an undertaker here in Veracruz?”
“No.”
“It so happens that I am familiar with a very reliable concern. I think you will find their work satisfactory—their charges reasonable.”
“Anything you say, Doctor.” I knew he would obtain his rake-off from the undertaker too. There had been an interested undertaker in Taxco. There was an interested undertaker here. We had been lucky with undertakers.
Dr. Heller’s soft, deflated monologue continued.
“As you say, Mr. Duluth, hotels are most averse to death in their establishment. I am sure they would wish us to—er—remove the corpse as quickly as possible. Unfortunately the undertakers do not have their own ambulances. But I happen to know the ambulance firm. I think you will find their fees…”
“Reasonable,” I said.
“Yes,” said Dr. Heller. “Reasonable.”
I thought of Jake being “reasonably” eased into a respectable coffin with this little commission for this little man and that little commission for that little man. It was somehow satisfying that someone who had made such a big noise in life should go out of it like this—to the rattle of small change.
Dr. Heller had stooped to pick up his bag. “We shall perhaps call the ambulance now?”
“Now,” I said.
Twenty-five
Dawn was graying the streets as I walked home from the undertaker. The last of the merrymakers had dispersed. These were the few hours of quiet in carnival. The blustering north wind made the streamers coil and recoil on the sidewalks and sent clouds of confetti dancing like colored flies through the cold air. Except for minor formalities, the episode of Jake was closed. I could still hardly believe that our huge deception had been so successful.
I was exhausted too. And now that the danger was past, my exhaustion turned into delayed resentment against Martin. I had perjured my soul away to protect him from a murder charge in which he would almost certainly have been found guilty. Now he was safe, relieved from all responsibility. In a few days he would be back in his old life, shaping his childhood memories into yet another novel of wistful, fragile charm, while Iris and Marietta hovered in attendance.
That prospect became suddenly unbearable to me. The danger from Jake had fused us into a dubious alliance, but the danger was gone now. The hopeless tangle of our lives showed itself in all its nakedness. Perhaps I could save Marietta by marrying her. But what of Iris…? I had visions of Iris drifting deeper and deeper into an infatuation which already she knew would bring her nothing. For weeks there had been no talk of that marriage which once had been Martin’s passionate goal. I had visions too of Marietta returning to woo her brother like a light-drunk moth beating its wings in a candle flame, Marietta succumbing, Marietta rebelling once again and flying back to me. Life would be unendurable for me with Martin around. Life was impossible for Iris and Marietta too. Martin would never resolve a relationship, begin it or end it. He gave nothing. He waited passively for worship, a worship that destroyed the worshiper. That was his danger.
Sally had ignored the warning signals. Stronger willed than the others, she had known what she wanted, raped it with the promise of security and fortune, and dragged it to the altar. Jake, in his way, had raped Martin too.
And Jake and Sally were dead.
An old woman with a window frame strapped to her back tottered toward me out of a side street. Life was starting again in Veracruz.
Preposterous as it sounds, the fact that Martin had almost certainly murdered two people meant almost nothing to me. He had eaten his way too far into my life for the fate of Sally and Jake to have more than minor significance. It was the thought of what would lie ahead for us that decided me Martin must go.
There were plausible reasons for his own good why he should leave Mexico immediately. It was possible that the lawyer in Taxco might ignore Jake’s written request to destroy the report. It was possible too that the death certificate of a doctor like Heller might be discredited. There were a dozen different, if unlikely, accidents which might send the whole edifice
of deception toppling. If anything happened, Martin would be trapped. Even he would realize that. And there was no financial difficulty connected with his departure. That very morning, the first payment from Mr. Johnson would be waiting at the bank.
I thought of the Argentine freighter, tied up in the harbor, ready to leave that evening. That was it, of course. Martin, a British subject in Mexico, certainly had a passport. Back at the hotel, I would insist that he leave for Buenos Aires at once.
I was too tired to consider how this might affect Iris and Marietta. The simplicity of the decision brought relief. Let him be gone. Let him wreak all the havoc he wanted to wreak in Argentina.
I reached the hotel. As I passed through the dawn-bleak lobby where the desk clerk was frankly asleep, I thought instinctively of telling my decision first to Iris. I felt a need for contact with a mind like my mind and the comfort of old acquaintance before I embarked into the foreign land of Haven.
I climbed the stairs to our floor, hoping that Iris would be alone in her room. She was. She had been lying on the bed, but she was still dressed. She looked as exhausted as I felt. There was no strain between us. Because we had suffered the same thing, it was easy being with her.
I said, “It’s all right.”
She had keyed herself up to face disaster. She couldn’t quite take this in.
I saw that.
“He signed the death certificate?”
“It’s all finished. A dingy little doctor with dirty cuffs. All he wanted was a jacked-up fee, a commission from the undertaker, a commission from the ambulance concern.”
“He didn’t suspect murder?”
“He didn’t suspect anything. Don’t worry. It’s fixed, settled. It’s all over.”
She dropped down on the bed. The gray early half-light played on her profile.
“It’s all over,” she repeated.
I sat down next to her. Her weariness and mine seemed the same, like a blanket spread over us both.
She said softly, “I talked to Martin. For a long time.”
“You did?”
In a curious voice, she asked, “Peter, do you think he killed them?”
“Yes.”
“He swears he didn’t. He swears he knew nothing about any poison. It’s the same bottle of pills he’s had since Taxco. He swears Sally was alive when he left her.”
“He might say that.”
She turned to me quickly. “I believe him.”
Anger spurted. “You! So goddam bedazzled!”
“No.” She shook her head. “No. Peter.”
“Then…?”
“That isn’t Martin. Not to kill people.”
“What is Martin?”
She looked down at her hands. “I don’t know. But not that.”
The anger went. The weariness came back, bleak, with promise of nothing. I saw now what my decision might do to me. Out in the impersonal streets, it had just seemed a way to get rid of Martin. It was different here. The spell was still on Iris. When I told her that Martin had to go, perhaps she would go too. Perhaps I would lose her forever. The enforced intimacy which danger had brought had made me forget that already I had faced the prospect of living without her and somehow mastered it. For the last weeks, grim as they had been, at least Iris had been physically there. Slowly, without my realizing it, the need for her had come back.
But the end of my tether was too near. I didn’t have the strength to be weak now, to let Martin stay for the useless comfort of having Iris near me.
I said, “I’m going to Martin now. I’m going to tell him he has to leave Mexico.”
She glanced up quickly. “Leave Mexico?”
“You can’t count on things. Anything might break. It’s far too dangerous. He has money, a passport. I’m going to make him take that boat to Buenos Aires tonight.”
She didn’t say anything.
Dragging the words out, I said, “Will you go with him?”
Her eyes met mine. Her face was stricken.
“Will you go with him, Iris?”
“No,” she said.
My hands were on my knees. My knees were trembling. Exhaustion. “Because you’re through with him?”
She laughed. “Through with him?”
“Then why?”
“Because I can’t.” She got up and moved away from me to the window, looking out at the uneventful view of roofs and tree tops. “Because I’m not that much of a fool.”
“Once you start making a fool of yourself, it’s easy to go on.”
“No. No, Peter. There comes a time.” She turned to me. I saw her silhouetted against the colorless early-morning light.
“I’ve become such a bitch. I’ve trampled on everything, my pride, you—everything. I’ve been worse than Sally, grabbing for him. And I never even got him. It didn’t begin like that. It began with me thinking I was sorry for him, thinking I was the strong one. The wise and beautiful Iris Duluth saving the genius from the monster.” She paused and added softly, “Who’s the monster now?”
She came back to the bed and sat down. She seemed to have brought some of the chilliness of the morning air with her.
“I can’t take any more. I lost everything, I know. But I’d rather be like this—with nothing—than have it that way with Martin, going on, on, on. I realized that tonight. I’ve drunk my fill of Haven.”
“It’s a bitter brew.”
She laughed. “He should start a school. The Haven School for Impairing Your Character and Losing Your Looks in Six Difficult Lessons. With a photograph of me in the prospectus. Iris Duluth Before. Iris Duluth After. Peter, look at me.”
“I’m looking,” I said. “You’re very beautiful.”
She shook her head. “No. I’m not beautiful. I’m not anything.”
I wanted to take her hand. I wanted everything to be simple again. It couldn’t be, of course.
I said, “I’m not much myself.”
“You.” She was angry. “You’ve done everything. You took care of that awful thing with Jake. You saved Martin. You saved us all.”
“Any guy could have done that.”
“No.”
“Yes.” I said, “What’ll you do after Martin’s gone?”
“Stay here perhaps. Go back to the States.”
“Alone?”
“Who else is there for me to be with?”
I wanted absurdly to say “There’s me.” But I couldn’t. I had other commitments now, commitments which should have made me happy as a carnival reveler because they were going to give me what I had always wanted. I had to tell Iris sooner or later. This was a rough moment to break the news, but we had got far beyond the stage of sparing each other.
I said, “Marietta wants me to marry her.”
As I said it, I saw the irony of it. This had begun with Iris leaving me for one Haven. It was ending with my leaving her for another Haven.
I think she was too much out of love with herself to feel the shock. She sat very quietly. “And you said you would? Marry her?”
“Yes.”
“When Martin’s gone, she’ll be rid of him.”
“Yes.”
She turned to me. “Go to Martin now. Get it over with. Get it done.”
Twenty-six
I tapped on Martin’s door. It was open. I went in. He was in bed again in the white pajamas. He was asleep, one arm curled boyishly under his head. The yellow hair gleamed in the strengthening light which was almost sunlight now. I wasn’t surprised that he was asleep. I was too used to him. I had been saving his skin. Iris had been agonizing. Martin had been asleep.
I took the arm that circled his face and shook it. He stirred, rolled over, and opened the gentle blue eyes.
“Hello, Peter.” He smiled. “Everything work out?”
He spoke as if he had sent me on some frivolous mission. To change a pair of pants, maybe, that had been a size too large for him around the waist.
I said, “The doctor signed the death certific
ate. He thought it was a heart attack.”
He yawned, scratched through his hair with his hand and sat up. “So you were wrong about the poison. I always thought you must be.”
“No,” I said, “I wasn’t wrong.”
His eyes clouded. “Then…?”
“There’s nothing to worry about. I think we’ll get away with it. But we mightn’t. Something might happen. It’s best for you to leave.”
“Leave?”
“Leave Mexico. Right away. There’s that Argentine boat. You’ll be able to get the money at the bank today. You’ll be safer in Argentina for a while.”
I thought he was going to argue with me, but there was always a point beyond which he was smart enough to abandon his naiveté.
“You really think I should?”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t kill Jake. I didn’t kill Sally. You know that.”
“We won’t argue about it.”
“But I didn’t.”
“Whether you did or not, the police are going to think so if anything breaks. You don’t want to go to jail, do you?”
“Of course not. Besides, I’ve got the book to finish.”
“Yes. Got a passport?”
“Yes.”
“Then…?”
“All right, Peter. I’ll go.” He grinned his quick, friendly grin. “I’ve always wanted to see Argentina anyway.”
“Interesting country, they say. Colorful.” This was the moment. I looked at him steadily. “Iris isn’t going with you.”
I had given up trying to anticipate Martin’s reactions. I had no idea what he would say. His face was solemn. The English prefect confronted with a problem that could affect the good name of the school.
“No,” he said. “I don’t think she should. It wouldn’t be good for her. Traveling with a man she’s not married to.”
“She won’t join you later either, Martin. She’s had enough.”
The blue eyes seemed faintly surprised. Certainly there was no stronger emotion. He said, “She’s going back to you?”
“No.”
He looked past me toward the sun-splashed window. “I suppose I’m a difficult man for a woman to be around. A writer, you know.”
Puzzle for Pilgrims Page 19
