In a Lady’s Service

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In a Lady’s Service Page 8

by Tom Ardies


  Sr. Buchanan,

  I beg you to accept this warning from someone who knows whereof they speak.

  Abandon your intention to visit Doña Otelia. To persist could prove dangerous and even fatal for you and your friends.

  The curadora is a mere witch doctor peddling simple folk remedies. She has nothing to interest or offer you.

  Leave her be—and have the wisdom to leave yourself.

  A friend

  Buchanan had to read it twice before he could accept that the words existed and then the clammy fingers of fear grabbed at his spine. This wasn’t the kind of mash note he was used to receiving. Why, oh why, had he ever left the sanctuary of the dear old Geneve?

  He stood for a moment undecided. Should he wait for Marina? Or should he take this thing to her now? Now, he told himself. There wasn’t a moment to lose. Not with some crazed killer writing threatening letters. He tossed aside the towel and pulled on pants and shirt and went rushing out of his room.

  By the time he got to Marina’s door, he had managed, by dint of supreme effort, to control his agitation. It wouldn’t help matters if he let his own fear show. A brave front was absolutely necessary. Otherwise the poor child might panic.

  He stuffed in his shirttail and raised his hand to knock and then held at the faint sound of voices. Two voices, and one was male, wasn’t it? He put his ear to the door and got his confirmation. There was no mistaking that self-assured rumble of Dr. Zip Gonzales. Nor Marina’s soft answer.

  Buchanan stood back dumbfounded. What foul chicanery was afoot tonight? Marina was all but pledged to entertain him in his room—and yet she lingered with another in her own.

  Mad questions pounded at him. Had her performance after dinner been an act? Was he being set up as a fool? What else could explain this tête-à-tête with a man who had demolished her less than an hour ago?

  Marina’s words came back to taunt him. “I do need you. Very, very much … Your room.”

  He looked again at the supposedly threatening letter. That small, very precise, very ornate penmanship. The work of a woman’s hand, was it not? He raised the notepaper and sniffed reluctantly. The odor was barely detectable but nevertheless there. Perfume.

  Oh, the bitch, Buchanan thought, cursing softly. He went back to his room and dressed fully and properly. She’d not have the pleasure of seeing him scurry to the rescue in a half-naked panic. He would appear leisurely and with dignity when he told her where to put her note.

  The return trip down the hall required another effort of will but at last he was composed enough to rap sharply at her door. He waited, the note hot in his hand, his denunciation burning on his lips, but no one came to answer. He knocked again, much harder this time, and pressed his ear to the door, straining to hear. Still there was nothing. Not a sound.

  “I know you are in there,” Buchanan said loudly, hammering as hard as he could. He listened again and again there was nothing. Red-faced, he backed off, imagining them huddled on the bed, hands clasped over their mouths, barely able to restrain their laughter.

  “You are not amusing,” Buchanan shouted, and he stomped back to his room, the anger seething inside him.

  Gonzales, by this time, was back at his makeshift medical office, working feverishly. He had all the drawers pulled from his filing cabinet and was transferring their contents to two stout wooden boxes.

  The Presidente stood by, breathing heavily, sweating. “There’s no doubt in your mind … ?”

  Gonzales shook his head. “No. You saw how she pressed me? You could practically smell the greed.”

  The Presidente couldn’t say the word. He could only think it. Professionals.

  “You want further proof?” Gonzales asked. He reached into a pocket and removed the clipping from The Good Earth’s Good News. “Why would she lie about not having this?”

  The Presidente’s hands were trembling by the time he finished reading it. Buchanan claimed there had been a mere mention of Doña Otelia in a small journal. Marina’s only reference had been to remarkable healing powers. But Holy Mother of God. This revealed everything.

  “She had it on her person?”

  “In her purse,” Gonzales said, pausing in his work to smile wryly. “You’re not forgetting how I financed medical school?”

  The Presidente turned the clipping over. “There’s no date. When do you think it was published?”

  Gonzales shrugged. “Recently. Otherwise we’d be overwhelmed by now. This is only the first wave.”

  The Presidente’s hands were still trembling as he returned it. “How could so much be known? Who could have told?”

  “No one person,” Gonzales said, certain of that. “There were probably many. Each with a small contribution. The weed sprouts from a small seed and many rains water it.” He was interrupted by a knock on the door, two short raps, a wait, and then a third. “That’s Merci.”

  The Presidente peered out the window to confirm it and then unlocked the door for an aging woman in a threadbare shawl. He motioned her inside wordlessly and then quickly bolted the door again.

  “You got them?” Gonzales asked.

  For answer, Merci lifted the end of her shawl, revealing half a dozen small ointment jars cupped in her arm.

  “That’s all of them?”

  “Sí.”

  “You’re absolutely sure?”

  “Sí.”

  Gonzales took possession of the jars, locked them in a steel case, and packed it at the bottom of one of the boxes. “You followed my instructions?”

  “Sí. I waited until she was asleep. There’s no way she can know of the substitution.”

  Gonzales took out his wallet and removed five one-hundred-peso bills. He passed them to Merci. “This is for your work tonight.”

  Merci’s eyes widened at the size of the payment. Never in her life had she held so much money at one time.

  “It also buys your silence,” Gonzales added solemnly. “If you speak of this—the devil will take your tongue.”

  “You have my oath,” Merci promised. The Presidente unlocked the door for her and she fled into the night.

  Gonzales felt the relief spread through him. The delaying tactics at the dinner had paid off. It didn’t matter if even now Marina and her gang were headed for Doña Otelia’s. The silly goose had tarried—and now it was too late.

  “You leave tomorrow?” the Presidente asked.

  “Tonight,” Gonzales said, returning to his files. “The sooner I’m gone the safer these will be. There’ll be no sleep for me until I’ve handed them over to Orozco.”

  The Presidente looked doubtful. “The road is very dangerous at night.”

  “Sí,” Gonzales agreed. “Only a fool would travel it. That’s why I’m going now—to avoid the threat of ambush.”

  “You think they’d resort to that?” the Presidente asked, still doubtful.

  “Sí,” Gonzales repeated.

  The Presidente slid into a chair and watched the papers fly. It was all over—the vital tests concluded prematurely—and Orozco would be terribly angry. In the whole world, he had but one rich cousin, and now he had offended him. How could this be happening?

  In her hotel room, Marina was in bed, her eyes wet, staring at the ceiling. Through the thin wall came the thrashing sounds of Adele and Herbert.

  Marina turned her face into her pillow. Where was Buchanan?

  She had spoken the truth in expressing her need for him. She wanted him—desperately.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The choice was limited in a small village such as Santa Luisa. If someone wanted to get drunk in other than a ditch he went to the cantina, El Cubo de Sangre, which translates as The Bucket of Blood, and which was located directly across the square from the Burócrata. Buchanan went there. Out of pure instinct. Unerringly.

  Several hours later, his goal achieved and surpassed, he stood unsurely at the end of the bar, watching a race between two jumping beans. Marina’s duplicity was little more than a
vague blur at the back of his mind. Who gave a fat fart for her, or for the Zona Rosa, or even for the Geneve, for that matter? Within these simple adobe walls was the real Mexico.

  There was only tequila and rum, and only the cheaper brands, stacked in front of the cracked mirror behind the bar, a baroque masterpiece tastefully decorated with bright paper cutouts and the mashed corpses of several million flies. No woman, only the male of the species, was permitted in this paradise, and you could bet your life they were real men. Tough hombres. Muy machismo.

  No one had checked his weapon at the door despite what the bullet-riddled sign demanded. Huge pistols bulged on the thighs of most of El Cubo de Sangre’s patrons, others had automatics tucked in their belts, and it was a poor peon indeed who didn’t sport at least a machete to cut your belly open.

  Ah, yes. This was the real Mexico and those were real mariachis serenading him. Their uniforms might be patched and mismatched, their instruments might be battered and out of tune, but they sang for the true love of singing, not for the pesos thrown their way. He had proof of that, hadn’t he? Twice he had requested “Sí Estas Dormida”—and twice they had responded with “The Suicide of Julian Ramfrez.”

  Normally, of course, he might make an issue of the matter, but one dispute with the mariachis was enough. Or was it two? Buchanan shrugged away the question—what did it matter in this convivial atmosphere?—and concentrated on the jumping beans. This would be a good time to lay a side bet. One of the beans had almost made its way out of the rough circle chalked on the bar. The other hadn’t so much as budged.

  Buchanan extracted a five-peso bill from the crumpled mess in his pocket and then changed his mind. The player who owned the immobile bean was that blank-faced Tarascan Indian with absolutely no sense of humor whatsoever. He hadn’t even cracked a smile at “You Tarascan, me Jane.” It wouldn’t do to provoke him. Besides, the race was over, wasn’t it? There went the winner. Flip, flop, out of the circle.

  The Tarascan’s opponent snatched up his winnings, mumbled something about a sick child at home, and quickly shouldered his way out the door. The Tarascan stood staring at his paralyzed entry. No emotion showed on his face.

  “It is a has-bean,” Buchanan declared gravely.

  The Tarascan didn’t bother to look up. The small brown wedge sitting forlornly in the middle of the chalked circle had his sole and undivided attention.

  “Get it?” Buchanan asked, appealing to the bartender. “This bean has lost its jump. Therefore it is a has-bean.”

  The bartender shook his head and moved away.

  “It’s what we call a play on words,” Buchanan explained to the vaquero next to him. “It happens many times in English. Two words are pronounced the same but they are spelled differently and have totally different meanings. Tic and tick are good examples, so are tock and talk, and so, of course, are bean and been. Comprende?”

  “No hablo inglés,” the vaquero said. He slipped off his stool and retired to the other end of the bar.

  “It is really quite simple,” Buchanan complained. He reached into the chalked circle and took possession of the Tarascan’s property. He twirled it in his fingers and sent it spinning across the cantina. “The bean was no good. It had lost its jump. A has-bean. Comprende?”

  The question resounded like a shout. The mariachis had stopped playing. The babble of conversation had ceased.

  Buchanan set his drink aside. He could feel the tension building. Every eye seemed to be upon him. Watching. Waiting.

  “Señor?” someone finally called.

  Buchanan looked uneasily to the dark shadows from where the voice had emerged.

  “Would you mind very much if I told you something?”

  “Not at all,” Buchanan said, relieved. He recognized the voice as that of the old fox on the Burócrata’s portal. This was Pablo. A good sort. A worthy man. But a lousy joke teller.

  “Bueno,” Pablo said. He materialized from the shadows and crossed to the bar with the slow dignity that only age can bring. “What I have to tell you is very, very important, señor. If you don’t forget this bean business, what these men are going to do is, they are going to kill you.”

  “That’s hardly necessary,” Buchanan protested. “The only problem we have here is a language barrier. They’ll all understand once …”

  “The only problem, señor,” Pablo advised, cutting him off, “is that you are very, very drunk. Stinking drunk. Muy borracho.”

  “I am?”

  “Sí, es verdad. It is true.”

  Buchanan considered a moment and then shrugged and retrieved his drink. The truth, after all, was the truth, and who could argue with it?

  “To the truth,” Buchanan said, draining his glass.

  “I would like to drink to that,” Pablo said, “but my glass, it is back at my table.” He gestured toward the dark corner and its promise of refuge. “Perhaps you would like to join me there?”

  Buchanan made a quick survey of the cantina. The Tarascan was looking at him the way he had looked at his treacherous bean. Everyone else was staring with an odd anticipation. It was doubtful he would receive a better invitation. “Why not?”

  “You honor me, señor,” Pablo said, “but before we go, I’m sure you would like to make a gift of your jumping bean to this fine gentleman here. Since you have lost his, an unfortunate error for which you apologize, it is only fair that you replace it with one of your own, sí?”

  “Mine?”

  “Your favorite,” Pablo said. “El Campeón. The one you keep hidden here.” A deft brown hand moved in and out of Buchanan’s coat pocket. “You will of course wish to make the presentation yourself.”

  Buchanan took the bean and carefully placed it in the middle of the chalked circle on the bar. It sat there a moment, as immobile as its predecessor, and then, miraculously, it made the biggest jump of the evening.

  Buchanan felt himself start to breathe again. “Es suyo,” he told the Tarascan. “It is yours.”

  The Tarascan’s black eyes never moved from the bean. He watched it jump, another huge leap, and then another, also of true champion caliber. “Hokay,” he said.

  Pablo took Buchanan’s arm and led the way back to a small booth in the corner. The mariachis started playing again, a lovesick youth resumed his song, the threads of talk were picked up. The unpleasantness was over and all was as it had been before.

  “I think you saved me a spot of trouble back there,” Buchanan saw fit to mention.

  “To the truth,” Pablo agreed, tossing back his tequila.

  “Gracias.”

  “De nada.”

  Buchanan sighed heavily and slumped down in his seat and listened despondently to the happy bedlam which seemed so foreign to him now. The music and singing competing with a dozen conversations. The rough jokes and the coarse laughter. The arguments suddenly flaring.

  How could he have been so wrong? He thought he had been a vital part of it—accepted, welcome, among friends—and yet obviously he had been an intruder.

  “It is not your fault,” Pablo told him, reading his thoughts. “You have simply strayed too far from the city. These men here, they are isolated, insular. They have not learned to accept …”

  “… the drunken gringo?” Buchanan offered, finishing it for him.

  “Let us simply say that exceptions are still not permitted here,” Pablo replied, smiling faintly. “The same rules apply to all who enter El Cubo de Sangre. You flout them at your peril.”

  Buchanan nodded solemnly. It was indeed lucky the fox had interceded on his behalf. Otherwise he might be nursing a broken head. “When did you first notice I was drunk?”

  “A difficult question,” Pablo said. “I think, perhaps, it was when you insisted on playing the Wurlitzer Stereo, despite the mariachis kindly asking that you desist. Or perhaps it was when you told the bartender to eat his nose. Then again …”

  Buchanan raised a restraining hand. “Por favor. Enough.”

 
“If a man has good reason, there is no shame in getting drunk,” Pablo counseled. “Surely that is why the maguey cactus exists? Why else would it have been placed on this bountiful earth?” He stuck his tongue in his empty shot glass and twirled it slowly. “You may tell me the reason if you wish. I am an old man of much experience and wisdom. Sometimes I can be of help.”

  Buchanan pushed back into the farthest recesses of the booth. “Gracias. But I am truly beyond assistance.”

  “Most often, it is an affair of the heart,” Pablo said, a toss of his head indicating the love-sick crooner. “That young rooster is typical. The cure for what ails him is around the corner. Half the price and one tenth of the noise.” He took a last lick of his glass and returned it to the table. “Perhaps you yourself have need of a woman?”

  Buchanan shook his head. “No.”

  “Too bad,” Pablo said. “I know where there are many good women. Some of them are very young. A few are almost virgins.”

  “No.”

  “Well,” Pablo said sadly. “If you will not tell me your reason …” He shrugged helplessly. “How can I be of help if you do not confide in me?”

  Buchanan pressed back farther into his corner. “There is nothing to confide.”

  “You mean you have no reason to drink?”

  “I mean nothing of the sort.”

  “Then what do you mean?”

  “Nothing.”

  “So be it,” Pablo said, without rancor. “Let us not pursue the matter. We have a saying here in Santa Luisa, if a person cannot communicate, the least he can do is shut up. It is a very wise saying.”

  “No doubt,” Buchanan replied angrily. “You know everything and I know nothing. That is why I am a world-renowned author and you are a nag.”

  Pablo looked at him with renewed interest. “You are a writer?”

  “I used to be,” Buchanan said. “One of the best. Highly acclaimed. Fawned over. Feted …” Tears came unbidden to his eyes. “Then it happened.”

  “What?”

  “Hollywood.”

  Pablo nodded in sympathy. “I have heard of this Hollywood.”

 

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