by Tom Ardies
“Them,” Buchanan said. “Members of the robber gang. There was a falling-out among them—a bitter quarrel over division of the loot—and they were left behind by their compatriots.”
“You don’t say …”
“Yes, and fortunate for you, verdad? Trussed and ready prisoners?”
Ramirez nodded happily despite his sore head. The story made complete and good sense now. His first day on the job and already he had captured two robbers. He took out a pocketknife and hurriedly set about freeing Buchanan.
“Y blv tht crp?” Adele demanded, aghast. “Y dmb fckng Mxcn.”
“Indeed, you are fortunate,” Buchanan told Ramirez. “You hear that? She wants to make a statement.” He slipped from the last of his bonds and flexed his hands to get the circulation going. “Probably a full confession.”
Ramirez seized on the word. Confession? Forgetting Marina, he started for Adele, intent on removing her gag, but he only got two steps. Buchanan grabbed up a lamp and clobbered him with it. He was out cold again before he hit the floor.
While Marina watched with growing apprehension—surely she would not be abandoned?—Buchanan concentrated on what he considered priority matters. The first, of course, was to get Mendoza tied and gagged, because he might come to at any moment. The next was to immobilize Ramirez in similar fashion. The next was to get dressed.
“Y wdnt dr,” Marina kept muttering through her gag. “Y wdnt dr.”
“Oh, wouldn’t I?” Buchanan asked her, shooting his french cuffs. He lifted the tape on the manila envelope and examined the contents. There was a fat bundle of money along with Marina’s precious travel documents. Enough to buy him a world cruise.
Marina stared at him. How she hated the dirty bastard. How she really and truly hated him.
Buchanan stuffed the envelope back in his jacket. He crossed to the bed and stood over her for a long moment. Then, carefully, tenderly, he removed the gag. “Say it.”
“Please,” Marina said.
Buchanan smiled. Tamed at last. Miracles could and did happen. He could bed her now—were Adele and Herbert not an audience—and wait until she heard the other good news.
As it happened, Harry, being wheeled down a corridor at the Nuevo Mundo Sanitarium, was just finding it out himself.
“You will put me in my old room, won’t you?” Harry pleaded. “The one I share with Contreras?”
Igor looked at Mungo. Contreras?
Mungo shrugged. The name was familiar. Wasn’t it Contreras they had carried kicking and screaming from the interrogation room at police headquarters?
“Hold on,” Harry said uncomfortably. “You, uh, do have a Contreras here, don’t you?”
Mungo shook his head. Yes, they were going to commit that maniac, but then their master had explained it was only a ruse, a way to save face with the police, and so, much against their better judgment, he was let go.
“I’m afraid there’s been a terrible mistake here,” Harry said, starting to get up.
“No mistake,” Igor said, pushing him back down. He jangled his keys happily. Fairies were the most fun.
Though no one saw cause to question the discrepancy, it also happened that the Secreto Policía found only four plotters, not the promised six, when they burst into Marina’s suite at the María Isabel.
Conscious at last, and having managed to chew through his gag, a trick learned as a mistreated child, Mendoza tried to tell them that Buchanan and Marina had fled scant seconds before.
“I’m a police officer,” he began, but it was no use.
“Sí, and a traitor,” Vencedor shouted, hitting him with a sap, the second time for good measure. “You’d better talk and fast. We know all about you and your dirty plot. Where are the stink bombs?”
“Here,” an overly eager subordinate announced, pulling them out of his pocket, the sales slip still attached.
“See?” Vencedor said. “Take the turncoat away. Pay no attention to his lies.” Ramirez being still out, he turned, fairly drooling, to the foreign scum. How they cringed at the prospect of torture and rape. “You know who we are?”
Adele and Herbert nodded numbly. The dread secret police. It said so on their shoulder patches.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Marina and Buchanan checked into the Geneve as man and wife. Marina registered for them, her kinky wig, huge sunglasses and fluffy scarf being disguise enough to avoid detection. Buchanan, better known, had to play the cripple, an old man in a wheelchair, wrapped in a heavy muffler and oversized trench coat, a snap-brimmed fedora pulled low over his face.
“If it’s the best you’ve got, the Royal Suite will have to do, I suppose,” Marina said, suggesting that Buchanan was an oil-rich potentate, she his umpteenth bride. “Our luggage will be along later. There’s a delay at Customs—they’re calling in extra staff to check it.”
The night clerk blinked. How fortunate she had let that slip. He had been planning to ask for an advance on rent. “You’ll want a boy to push the chair?”
“No, gracias,” Marina said, shaking her head firmly. “Though very ill, my husband, willful child, insists on wheeling himself.” Here she permitted herself to blush modestly. “He says it helps to retain his vigor.”
“But you will want an escort?”
“No. Only privacy, por favor.”
The night clerk smiled his understanding as he passed the key. There truly was no time to waste in these Junio-Enero romances. The old goat might expire before he was carried to bed. Tonight, probably, he died, but what a way to go.
Marina snatched up the key without further comment. She could read the thoughts in that pimpled head. Filthy men and their filthy minds.
Yet there was no other way to get her hands on the salve. She had to do as Buchanan insisted.
As she left, a plainclothes detective, one of Mendoza’s men, sauntered over to the desk and asked to see the name of the registration card. Notsniw Nanahcub? How far off could one get? He was looking for a Winston Buchanan. Exactly the opposite.
Defeated, he returned to his post, tired of the unrewarding surveillance. A man of his intelligence shouldn’t be sitting around in a hotel lobby.
Upstairs, safely behind a locked door, Buchanan bounded out of the wheelchair and into bed, not even pausing to remove his shoes. “Shall we do it now?” he proposed.
Marina shook her head. “No. Later. It will look suspicious if we do it now.”
Buchanan was not to be put off. “Why should it? Did you not tell the clerk that I was ill?”
“Ill, yes, but not impetuous. Can’t you wait a few minutes at least?”
“No. Already my heart pounds.”
“Oh, very well,” Marina sighed, too tired to argue. She picked up the telephone and dialed the desk. “Hello? Your house doctor, to the Royal Suite, immediately, por favor. Señor Nanahcub is suffering a heart attack.”
“Arrrgh,” Buchanan screamed, lending realism.
Marina quickly hung up—there was no sense overdoing it—and began pacing the floor. This wild scheme had better work. “You’re sure Contreras is here?”
Buchanan nodded his reassurance. Noli had been a witness to the doctor’s release at the rear of police headquarters. The chinless psychiatrist and his hulking aides had regretfully dumped him before speeding off.
Contreras, a live-in, was somewhere in the hotel, making his incessant rounds, and this was the fastest and safest way of reaching him. Done right—and why not?—they would have the salve back without his even knowing it.
Marina, unaware that the fates had intervened, kept pacing the floor nervously, fearing that the awful fairy would fly in any moment, piqued at his wild-goose chase. There was also Mendoza to worry about, and Adele and Herbert, too. They wouldn’t stay tied up forever. “What if he doesn’t come in time?”
Buchanan shrugged bravely. It was the chance they had to take. But the fact that this was the Royal Suite, supposedly occupied by a cripple of vast riches, the mystery-shrouded Señor Nanahcub, ough
t to bring quick results.
“We could be risking our lives for nothing, you know,” Marina said, still doubtful. “The damn salve could turn out to be useless. The whole thing a hoax. That happens.”
“Yes,” Buchanan admitted, “but if the claims are true, what then? A wonder drug in the wrong hands?” He paused for the briefest moment. “No. We can’t afford to take that chance. Remember our solemn duty to mankind.”
Marina regarded him suspiciously. What was this unseemly attack of morality? After all, it was she, not he, who labored for WHO. “Our duty … ?”
“Yes,” Buchanan told her. “Yours and mine. Together.”
Marina wondered. Had she misjudged even now? Perhaps a pure heart did beat beneath those black vulture feathers. They were together, weren’t they, and if Buchanan wasn’t doing this out of duty, what was his motive in that bed? She could barely bring herself to think the word. Love?
A loud knock on the door stopped her from rushing foolishly to his side. “It is I, the house doctor, here to make you well, rich persons,” Contreras called.
Marina quickly composed herself and ushered him in, while Buchanan sank deeper on his pillow, the sheet pulled up under his nose, a wet washcloth on his brow.
“I came as fast as I could,” Contreras said, plainly exhausted. He had been paged while giving mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to elderly Siamese twins. “Is this the patient?”
“Arrrgh,” Buchanan moaned, sinking deeper still.
“Bear bravely, señor,” Contreras advised. He moved to the side of the bed, opening his black bag, removing a stethoscope. “First, I must get some details. When did this happen?”
“Shortly after six,” Marina said.
“After sex?” Conteras repeated, failing to conceal his surprise. “The antsy old goat. Who with?”
“With herrr,” Buchanan said, now adept at rolling the r.
“That’s not true, liar,” Marina complained. “Don’t believe a word, Doctor.”
Buchanan’s purpose was accomplished. A brief moment when neither was watching him. His hand was in and out of the bag like a flash. He opened a red jar and sniffed at it, catching a bit on his nose, which he smartly snuffed out of sight. Bueno. Correcto.
Marina was searching for some straw to save her honor. “Actually, he meant a maid.”
Contreras smiled knowingly. That was closer the truth. He adjusted his hearing aid and turned back to Buchanan. “So you met a maid?”
“Made a maid,” Buchanan corrected, wondering what was wrong with him. “Now you know both when and why. A fast fade with a laid maid, ha, ha.”
Contreras made a show of sympathy for Marina. “What a big tease you have, señora.”
“All the better to eat me with,” Buchanan cried, unable to resist.
Contreras leaned closer. That crazed laugh was oddly familiar. Could this be the lunatic from 6B? “Have I not seen you before?”
“No, but perhaps my behind.” Buchanan snickered, letting himself go. There was no use fighting the giggles.
Marina glanced heavenward. Contreras wouldn’t suffer much more indignity. It was now or never. Deftly, she reached into the open bag, snatching out the precious blue jar, dropping it down the front of her dress.
Room 6B, Contreras decided. It had to be 6B. Leaning forward, he grabbed hold of the bedclothes, ripping them off altogether. “So …”
“Sí,” Buchanan said, wondering why his discovery was so hilarious. “The cat’s out of the bag. Or rather the jar is.”
The comment was totally lost on Contreras. To think that he left twins for this singular idiot. He returned his stethoscope to his bag and angrily snapped it shut.
“But what about my heart attack?” Buchanan asked, still laughing wildly.
“I have good news.”
“There was no attack?”
“That is the bad news,” Contreras replied with dignity. “The good news, it is for you, señora. Your marriage may be annulled on the grounds of insanity.”
Buchanan waited until he had slammed out and then fell back on the bed, reduced to helpless laughter, the tears rolling down his face.
“You really are a fool,” Marina complained, shaking her head. “You could have ruined it all. It’s a good thing I’m deft.” “Then get a hearing aid,” Buchanan chortled, pounding the pillow.
“Will you stop it, please?” Marina demanded, her own eyes filling with tears. “Can’t you ever be serious?”
Buchanan finally managed to get himself under control. “What’s wrong? Aren’t you happy?”
The answer was a wail. “No!”
“You ought to be happy,” Buchanan said, going to her. “You’ve got your salve. You’re safe for the night. Tomorrow you’re on your way …” He dried her tears and paused to examine her. “What more could you want?”
Marina turned away from his bold scrutiny. “I don’t know.” Oh? Buchanan threw aside all caution and kissed her softly on the nape of the neck.
“Don’t.”
“Why?”
“Because …”
Buchanan felt his loins shiver. It was like having a schoolgirl. Boldly, he brought a hand up, cupping it around a breast, but then quickly withdrew.
“Too hard and bony for you?” Marina whispered.
Buchanan was at a loss. “Well …”
“It’s the jar, fool.” Marina laughed, removing it, and then returned his hand. “There. Is that better?”
Buchanan sighed. It was enough. Who could ask for more?
He snatched her up and carried her to the bed and there they thrashed about for much of the night in wild and passionate lovemaking.
It was, however, a fragile paradise, not meant to last. When Buchanan woke the next morning, the blond head was missing from the pillow next to him, a farewell note in its place.
My darling [the note said]. By the time you read this, I will be winging my way home, out of your life forever. You are a proud animal, free and happy, joyous, Señor Slick. You would wither and die in the chains of one woman’s love. My choice is to stay and watch that happen. Or cherish always the magic between us this wondrous night. Though my heart is breaking, good-by. Marina
So, Buchanan mused, an ache in his own heart. He had known she would be gone—had he not prepared for the eventuality?—but it still didn’t make the fact any easier to accept. Justice would be served only if the blue jar by chance contained a hemorrhoid preparation.
He put the note aside and counted the money that had been left beneath it. Exactly one thousand pesos. Not even a tip.
Yes, and he had expected that also, he thought, eyes smarting. Hadn’t she always been a cheapskate?
For a long while, he remained in bed, trying to console himself with the argument, however specious, that she had left mainly out of fear. Could she be blamed for not wanting to be falsely implicated in the death of Doña Otelia?
Yet even as he sought refuge in this flimsy pretext the public airways were calling him a liar. The maid’s transistor—blaring in the hall—reported the murder solved.
Cavazos, the police commandant at Taxco, and his sergeant, Morel, were the culprits. In a fit of remorse, they had arrested themselves, the first crime they had solved, apparently. It was causing quite a stir, the announcer announced.
No doubt, Buchanan thought, turning his face into the pillow. Left to his own devices, he would have stayed that way, perhaps drowned in a sea of tears, but a knock at the door saved him. Two soft, one loud, repeated three times.
“Noli?” Buchanan called cautiously.
“Sí,” his bartender friend replied.
Buchanan got up and tiptoed to the door. “How did you know I was here?”
“Everybody knows. Do you think that stupid disguise fools anyone?”
“What do you want?”
“I traced your man.”
“Who?”
“Orozco.”
Orozco? Oh, yes, Buchanan remembered, drying his eyes. Orozco had signe
d the dedication in Gonzales’ abandoned textbook. He made himself presentable and opened the door.
“It has to be him,” Noli said proudly, handing over a stack of press clippings snitched from the Benjamin Franklin Library.
“How can you be so certain?”
“Read for yourself.”
Buchanan put on his glasses doubtfully. There must be hundreds of Orozcos in Mexico. Perhaps thousands. So how … ?
“Well?”
“Shush,” Buchanan said, suddenly interested. It seemed that this particular Orozco was a renowned doctor. He read the first clipping through and started eagerly on the next.
Noli smiled and invited himself in and locked the door.
“Aha,” Buchanan kept muttering, ticking off the pertinent facts as he continued reading. Research chemist … famous for drug discoveries … penchant for privacy, for himself, for his work … deep-seated distrust of drug cartels …
There really wasn’t that much—“no comentario,” was the most-quoted statement—but it was enough when combined with what he already knew. His wit and resourcefulness had cracked the secret of Santa Luisa!
The miraculous ungüento wasn’t Doña Otelia’s invention. No, no, no. Any fool could see that Orozco had developed the salve and that Gonzales had secretly substituted it for the curadora’s useless medication.
Why? For testing, of course. Orozco wanted his clinical trials kept secret to protect the formula. What better place than a remote village with simple peasants and a co-operative Presidente? Where Gonzales, posing as the new village doctor, supposedly sent by the government, could monitor the results?
Buchanan put the clippings aside. It was time for action. “Is there any way we can get this Orozco’s telephone number?”
“It’s unlisted,” Noli said, passing him a slip of paper with the number. “But I know someone in the telephone company. A cousin.”
Buchanan accepted it without comment and placed the call. Six rings and an old man’s feeble voice answered. “Hola?”
“Buenos días,” Buchanan said. “Is this Dr. Orozco? Dr. Jorge Orozco?”
“Sí.”
“The famous research chemist who refused the Nobel Prize?”
