Dress Her in Indigo (14 page)

"You might be able to help us with one little problem. We're looking for three people Bix Bowie traveled with. There were five altogether, but the Sessions boy died. We'd like to find Minda McLeen and Walter Rockland, known as Rocko, and Jerry Nesta."

"Those last two, Rocko and Jerry, if anybody wants to kill those two, I'll help. They are rotten human beings, especially Rocko. Look I'm not going into any details about it. A bunch of us went back to that camper with those two, for like a fun party for one evening. So that Rocko gave me something that ran me up the walls. It ended up a girlfriend of mine named Gillian and me, we were there for I think it was three days. It taught me why the blonde and the little dark one split and lived in that crummy hotel room. Mostly that lousy Rocko had me. He is strong as a bull. I mean I knew that if I went there I might end up getting balled, and that it would be taking that risk right? Look, there are things you say you won't do. You know. Stopping points.

But when people keep hurting you and hurting you, then it's easier to do any sick thing than keep getting hurt. It was all rotten. The kids who should have gotten us away from those two didn't do a damn thing. They just left us there. Jerry wasn't so bad. Gillian had the idea he'd be all right if he'd get away from Rocko. Jerry has this fantastic black beard. It's the biggest, blackest beard I ever saw. All that shows are his eyes and a little bit of cheekbone and the end of his nose. I saw her in the market two or three days ago and she said they'd been out to Mitla and she saw Jerry walking along with a kind of ugly little Mexican woman walking behind him, so she made Ricky stop the car and she went back, but he was very strange. He didn't want to talk to her at all. He's living out there someplace, but he wouldn't say where. I haven't any idea where Rocko went, and
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I couldn't care less. I heard that the dark one, Minda? Yes, Minda. She's supposed to be up in Mexico City and her father is here waiting for her to come back. So that's all I know."

She got up and smiled good-by and said she couldn't say thank you or she'd start crying again.

But she bent over and kissed Meyer in a very quick, shy, small-girl way. And fled.

"How did you know she'd grab at it?"

He shrugged. "I didn't. But sometimes you can smell despair. Besides, all generosity is selfish. It made me feel good all over."

Quickly I told him about Bruce Bundy's quest. It was logical, Meyer agreed, that Bundy would have a good contact among the waiter staff, because it would be useful to know what was going on at all times.

"But," asked Meyer, "what is he so damned jumpy about?"

"That is what we now go to find out."

He looked doleful. "A minute ago I felt good all over."

Nine

So I left the car at the end of the block and once again, this time by night, we walked along Calle las Artes, to the narrow front of number eighty-one.

Hundreds of years of dedicated and diligent theft have made Mexican homes very hard to crack.

They grill everything you can reach. They put that busted glass into the tops of their patio walls.

And they listen for thieves all the time without knowing they are listening. Thievery is a recognized, though not highly respected, profession. Artists use a limber length of bamboo with a hook at the end to snag the tourist trousers and pull them through the bars of the bedroom window.

There was a light upstairs, and the patio area, seen through the entrance corridor, was lighted.

We stood in the shadowed darkness across the narrow street, and I said in a low tone, "I do not think we can talk our way through the gate. He won't buy a drunk act. He won't be bluffed, and he won't be hustled. And it would take a trampoline or a Tarzan act to pop in there uninvited."

"I'm still afraid you'll think of something, Travis." I was afraid I wouldn't. And then luck took a hand. If you sit still, you don't give that lady much of a chance to operate-for or against you. But if you moved around, she can get into the act oftener. She sent the tired old clattering cab down the street to pull up in front of Bruce's house. When the back door opened the dome light went on. Bruce got out. David Saunders was in the back seat. Bruce went a few steps and looked back and then came back to the cab. He leaned in. The rough idle of the motor made it impossible to hear what he was saying. But his expression, seen through smeared glass, was animated, amused, coaxing. He made little shrugs and hand gestures. And at last David hitched himself along the seat. Bruce reached in and lifted a large suitcase out, put it down, paid the driver. The cab drove away. They moved toward the gate, Bruce carrying the suitcase. They talked outside the gate in low tones. Bruce unlocked the gate and swung it open. He began to lead David through the gate, with a quieting, comforting arm across David's back in such a way that it reminded me of that classic, The Specialty of the House, when the plump customer is being taken into the restaurant
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kitchens.

So I was on my toes with good knee action, angling across, hoping Meyer was reasonably close behind me. When Bundy spun, hearing the sudden unexpected sound, I was coming through the gate full out, shoulder already dipped, and a tenth of a second from impact.

Karate, judo, boxing, jiujitsu, wrestling-not one of the formal schools of unarmed combat prepares a man for the special problem of suddenly catching a sack of bricks that has fallen out of a third story window. It was a driving, rolling block coming in from the blind side, and the impact was impressive. It took us both ten yards down that tiled corridor, right to the end of it where it opened up onto the patio. We picked up a small table en route, along with some decorative crockery that had been on it. I rolled up onto my feet, my back toward him, and spun and was bemused and disconcerted to see him bounce up in a springy way and land in the dangerous balance of the expert, hands low and slightly forward. I did not want him to start that business of Hah! and Huh! The table was on the corridor floor between us, the three remaining legs aimed toward me. So I punted it at him, getting a lot of leg into it, and getting a nice lift on it. He got his hands up in time, and as the table fell away, I was right there to pop him with a short overhand right, slightly off target, and correct the error when he came back off the wall.

He had been obliging enough to wear a leather thong as a belt for his vermilion stretch slacks, and I yanked it loose, rolled him onto his face and took two fast turns around the wrists and two fast hitches that would hold long enough for me to solve Meyer's problem, even if Bruce woke up right now, which didn't seem plausible.

I came upon the Mexican woman standing crouched in terror, wringing her hands. I smiled broadly and told her that it was a game Americans play. Don't worry, senora. We are all very happy.

Meyer was between the gate and the entrance to the central corridor. He was clumping around in a small circle, taking quick steps to the side now and again to catch his balance. He was shaking his big head and muttering to himself. David Saunders sat spraddled like a chunky little kid. He was swaying from side to side, cradling something against the lower part of his big chest and making a small thin keening sound. He looked like he was rocking a little dolly, and he couldn't carry a tune in a basket.

I got the gate shut and latched. I caught Meyer as he came around his circle. He stopped and shook his head violently and knuckled his eyes.

"Violence is vulgar," he said. "It offends me."

"You won, didn't you?"

"By giving him a frightful blow on the fist with my forehead. The expression is, 'I ducked into it.'"

I helped Saunders up and walked him past Bundy into the bright area of the walled court and eased him into a white iron armchair. I pulled the hand away from his chest. It was beginning to puff. Broken hands are unpredictable. There are ten thousand nerve bundles, and if the break doesn't involve them, you don't feel a thing until later on. But if the broken bone or bones grind into the right nerves, it is an agony that prevents you from thinking about anything else in the world, and keeps you right on the twilight edge of a faint.

I plucked Brucey off the floor and put him on a purple chaise, rolled him onto his side and neatened the thong. The maid stood staring at us. I smiled at her. Meyer smiled at her. After a few moments she smiled back and scuttled away.

Bruce lifted his head, coming awake all at once. He swung his feet to the floor and sat up. He worked his jaw from side to side and licked his lips and looked at me and said in a totally masculine manner, "You are pretty goddam impressive, McGee. Men your size are supposed to be slower." He looked at David and frowned. "What's the matter with him?"

"He broke his hand hitting me on the head," Meyer said. "Terribly sorry about that."

"But he's in agony!" Bruce said. "He's terribly hurt. He needs medical attention immediately.

Look at his poor hand!"

"He'll get it, after we have a little chat."

"What in the world do we have in common worth talking about, McGee?"

"The subject of discussion is what makes you so nervous about my asking questions about Walter Rockland and the Bowie girl."

"Am I nervous?"

"Nervous enough to talk to that redhead earlier tonight and tell her I was trying to make something out of nothing."

"Aren't you?"

I kicked a chair closer and sat facing him, about four feet away. "Brucey, the trouble with playing games is that you never know how much the other party knows. Rocko moved in here with you at your invitation, and put the camper in the shed out in back, and tried to hit you for a large loan, and then he tried to make off with a lot of valuable little goodies, but you'd read him right and disabled the truck. Took the rotor, probably. He jumped you and you black-belted him pretty good."

He tossed his head to throw the bangs back. He turned pale under his golden tan, and the odd brown eyes turned to dingy little slits. At that moment he looked his age.

"I shall never, never, never forgive that treacherous, rotten British bitch." He continued at some length. He had a truly poisonous mouth.

"All through? So why are you so edgy about it?"

"I can't afford to get involved in anything."

"What is there to get involved in, Bruce?"

He hesitated. "What if I happened to know that someone saw Walter Rockland and the Bowie girl together just a week ago? Ah... at the airport, getting on a flight to Acapulco."

Misdirection. Nice footwork. Toss in a thought that warps the mind. Maybe it was true. So how
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to test it?

It took me quite a segment of silence to come up with the leverage. "You are a clever man, Bruce. Look at it this way. Nobody knows where Rocko is. It wouldn't be hard to prove he lived here with you. You are very nervous about the whole thing. I can get the information to Sergeant Martinez that you fought with Rockland. I can tell him that he can find traces of human blood on the stone floor of the shed out behind this place. I can tell him your story about Rockland going to Acapulco, and I guess they could check that out and see if he did. Then I would suggest that they take this place apart looking for a body and take you apart to see what you know about it."

"You are such a cruel son of a bitch."

"So?"

"All right! All right! All right! I nearly moved away from here after the first four months. I had a stupid mishap with the car I had then. A drunken old fool on a bicycle ran right into the side of the car. And so I... enjoyed the hospitality of the local prison. My dear friend Freddy, now deceased, tried frantically to get me out, but they managed to hold me there five days. Police the world over seem to have this compulsion to mistreat men of my particular sexual pattern. They treated me with contempt. I did not mind that. I considered the source. The brutality from the jailors could be endured. But each night I was locked into a very large cell with the very dregs of Mexico, who had been informed, of course, of what I was. And so I was used and abused. They degraded me. It put me into a depression that lasted for months. Freddy talked me out of leaving Mexico. He said it would be the same anywhere in the world. That is a valid observation.

We have no recourse in the law, really. And Walter Rockland knew that when he tried to make off with some very valuable things. He knew that I would not report the theft, that I would not dare report it for fear they'd think of some pretext for locking me up again. I don't think I could endure that a second time. If you understand that, Mr. McGee, and understand my absolute terror, then I can tell you what happened."

He told us that Walter, as he called him, had stayed in bed all day Friday, and had said on Saturday morning that he still felt unwell, but begged to be allowed to leave. Bruce told him to rest. At noon on Saturday while Bruce was in the kitchen fixing something for a light lunch, he had been struck from behind and knocked unconscious. When he regained consciousness, Walter was gone. So were his car keys, a couple of hundred pesos from his wallet, and his yellow English Ford. At first he had been afraid Walter had broken in and taken the valuables which he had locked up after the first atiempt, but they were still there. He had no intention of reporting it as a theft. He still had the truck and camper, and they were worth more than the car Walter had taken.

On Monday, in the middle of the morning, the police had come to see him. They had asked him about his car, asked him where it was. He had thought they had picked Walter up, and he remembered Walter's hints about needing the money for some illegal act. He could not be tied in with any illegality, so he had invented the fictitious young American named George, and had described him in a way that would fit half the young Americans in Mexico on summer vacation.

Only after they had made him go over the story several times did they tell him that an unidentified girl had gone off the mountain road, that his car was a total loss and the girl was dead.

Later that day, before learning that Eva Vitrier had identified the body, Bruce had gone to Becky and told her the whole story and had asked her what she thought he should do. He was
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