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“If Hildabeth knew about this she’d just about bust. It would be kind of a sin to keep it from her. I mean, begging your pardon, it seems right laughable to me, and she’s got a lot more sense of humor than I have. I can’t promise not to tell her, but you know, she can’t keep a thing to herself, so I’ll promise I won’t tell her until this thing is over and we’re in the car going home. I’ll tell her on the trip. But I better not tell her while she’s driving. That’s a promise, Agnes.”

“It’s kind of you.”

“Am I hurting you at all?”

“It’s just sort of a tingle.”

Dotsy hummed to herself as she worked. When she was about half through she said, “You know, I’m not one to go back on a promise, Agnes. I like to keep my word.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve been carrying on about Mr. Torrigan. I’d say you’ve been real nasty about him, showing around that report. I’m not one to defend sinners, but everybody has to live their own life and go to the reward they’ve asked for. Mr. Torrigan certainly does a lot of drinking and a lot of talking. I don’t know what
to say about his pictures. I just don’t understand them. But maybe that’s my fault.”

“There’s nothing in them to …”

“Now you just lay quiet and don’t raise your voice, Agnes. The way I look at it there’s room in the world for almost anything a body can think of. If an Aye-rab feels he’s got to have nine wives, that’s his way of doing, and if I don’t think much of it, that doesn’t mean I have to try to make him give them up. A long time ago I stopped giving money for the missions. They were after me when I stopped, and I said that instead of spreading the word of Christ in those foreign places, they should start spreading it a little more heavy around home. Right there in Elmira, Ohio, we’ve got some terrible things going on.

“The way I see it, it’s like this fuss you’re making about Mr. Torrigan. I do think that he’s a kindly man in spite of his habits. I don’t think he’s mean. So if you think you’ve got the best way of doing a picture, you should keep on trying to do your pictures better and better, and teach people how to do them your way instead of going around plotting and scheming, trying to do some kind of hurt to Mr. Torrigan just because his ideas are different.”

“But he …”

“I know just how you feel about him. Land, you’ve said it often enough. But I just wanted to tell you that I like to keep a promise. And I can keep promises pretty good, except when I get a little mad and then I forget myself. I’m afraid if you don’t hide that report away someplace and stop fussing at him, I might get upset and tell how you got a little tiddly and fell onto a cactus.”

Long seconds passed before Agnes said, “All right, Dotsy.”

“I want to tell you I do admire what you’re doing for Hildabeth. I’ve known her all my life, and when she goes into something, she goes all the way. The way you’ve got her painting, I can tell you she’s going to have a painting on every wall in Elmira before she’s through. And she’s enjoying every minute of it. It’s more practical for her than knowing how to hula.”

“I wish you’d attend more classes, Dotsy.”

“Oh, I just haven’t got the knack. I’d rather see that everybody eats good.”

It was long after dark before the task was finished. Dotsy
finished off by painting the entire area with iodine after a final inspection. Agnes stood up and belted her robe. And then, as Dotsy watched anxiously, Agnes lowered herself to the bed. She winced slightly as she sat down, and then winced a little more as she rocked from side to side.

“There’s a few left, here and there,” she said. “But nothing I can’t stand.”

“There was some drove in too deep, I guess. You’ve had a real bad evening, Agnes. I’ll just go get you some nice hot tea and toast and you go right to bed.”

“What are we going to do about that horrible child?”

“Oh, I just guess he was in here stealing. Must have a key, like you said. Don’t expect it will do much good to get him fired. Next one might steal more. I just guess I’ll hint around and take up a little collection, and next time I go to the market, I’ll pick up some good hasps and padlocks.”

“That child should be beaten!”

“Agnes, you got a streak of mean in you, and if I were you I’d pray for the strength to control it. It looked to me like you were giving him all the beating he needed. That last belt across the side of the head crossed his eyes for him, and when he went down the hall he was yelping and running crookedy.”

Shortly after Agnes had left the dining room, the character of the party had begun to change. As the first few began to lose their taste for dancing, there began a slow and inevitable disintegration of the group, caused by the alcoholic effects on the individuals.

Park and Bitsy Barnum left after dark, trying to sneak away in the Mercedes, but, once detected by Torrigan, submitted protestingly to the shower of rice, and went off with the cans tethered to the back bumper clanging and bouncing. Shane was roundly denounced by everyone for using cooked rice from the tepid and glutinous pot he had found in the kitchen. They explained that it was contrary to custom. Gloria Garvey was particularly indignant. Shane had thrown with great power and poor aim. The Barnums had escaped unscathed. But Gloria, standing off to the right and waving goodbye, had been struck squarely on the chest just above the yoke of her rather ratty peasant blouse by one compacted wad which, after landing with a stinging splat that drove her back a half step, clung clammily and then slid down inside the front of the blouse. Shane, confronted with such a concert of disapproval, became filled with black remorse. He went about apologizing to everyone, telling them that he had never been any damn good anyway,
how, after he got out of the Navy he had fallen in with evil companions and now owned two vending-machine companies in California and small pieces of three joints in Las Vegas. He took out a platinum bill clip stuffed fat with coarse money and showed it to everybody and explained that it was dirty money, that he had always been a bum and always would be a bum, and shouldn’t be permitted to associate with such wonderful people.

The look of the money made a faint stirring of greed in the hearts of several, but it electrified Felipe. Shane’s next drink, lovingly constructed by Felipe, was a tall tumbler containing a curious concoction, half Scotch and half tequila, with a little ice and a dash of lime juice. Felipe watched Shane narrowly as he took his first large swallow of it. Shane shuddered slightly, but made no protest.

Felipe quickly improvised a plan of action. He found an opportunity to tell Margarita to be more than pleasant to Shane. Margarita, who had been hovering close to Klauss, to his evident displeasure and nervousness, made a face and told Felipe that Shane obviously belonged in a tree, nibbling fruit and scratching his hairy ribs. She would have nothing to do with him. Felipe informed her that unless she responded to this simple request he would be pleased to turn her into an object so distasteful that strong men would faint at the sight of her and small children would lose their minds.

Margarita focused on Shane. She danced with him. She stood with him. And, wearing a wide frozen grin, she listened as he spoke endlessly to her in a heavy and dolorous voice. In the meantime Felipe had enlisted the aid of Fidelio after discovering that Alberto had rendered himself unavailable. When the time was ripe, Felipe motioned Margarita to come over to him. He told her to disappear, to leave the party and not come back. Immediately. When she was gone he took a fresh drink to Shane, and said confidentially, “The girl in the red dress likes you, señor. She has not much English. She ask me to say she waits out back for you, señor. In the building in back of hotel.”

“Huh?” Shane said, and Felipe took a clinical satisfaction in the glazed look in the stocky man’s eyes. He repeated what he had said. “Oh, sure,” Shane said thickly. “Cute kid.”

Felipe absented himself from his bartending. He went with Fidelio, whose greed was only slightly greater than his trepidation,
and they stationed themselves just inside the open doorway to the small room assigned to Alberto.

“I will strike,” Felipe said, holding the short piece of pipe he had wrapped in a rag. “You have not done this sort of thing. Out of fear, you may strike too hard. You will catch him as he falls. Then we will carry him around through the shadows and put him into the vehicle of the Señora Garvey. It will be thought that he wandered out very drunk and went to sleep in the vehicle.”

Felipe looked toward the hotel. Soon Shane came around the corner of the hotel, walking unsteadily in the light from the kitchen windows, peering toward the servants’ quarters.

When he was close enough, Felipe went, “Pssst!”

Shane altered course and came to the open doorway. “Hey, cutie!” he said, and came through the doorway.

Felipe struck with force and precision. The padded pipe made a dull sound against Shane’s skull. Shane wavered and said, “Hey!”

Felipe gritted his teeth and struck much harder than before. Shane turned toward him and said, “Cut it out!”

As Felipe raised the pipe high in superstitious panic, a great force smashed against the side of his face, and he danced sidelong and fell into a corner. He shook the spinning lights out of his head and was aware of a curious and busy sound just inside the door. There was a shuffling sound, a rhythmic snorting, a heavy and somewhat moist thudding, and a muffled squealing that went eerily up and down the scale. The squealing stopped and there was the sound of a fall and then a silence. Felipe had gotten his feet under him. He tried to plunge out through the door. A blow drove him back. And he was blocked back into a corner. He flapped helplessly against a hard shoulder and a bullet head that kept him wedged in place while slow bombs went off in his stomach, destroying him, and the animal thing snorted and grunted as it carefully ruined him. And then lightning blazed through his skull from side to side, and he tumbled backward off the black edge of the world.

Shane stood in the middle of the little dark room, breathing hard. He worked his hands to check for broken bones. He fingered the top of his skull. It was tender. From long habit he checked to see that he retained wrist watch, money clip and wallet. He took out his lighter and held it high. Just the two of them. No gal. Messy little room. He squatted by each of
them in turn and stuck blunt fingers against their throats to find the pulse. When he was certain they were both alive, he took what they had. The older one had a small tight roll of American money tied with a string, and big wad of pesos. The young one had a small wad of pesos.

Shane went back to the hotel. He made himself a drink. The party was thinning out. He found Gloria arguing with the little guy who ran the school and he beckoned to her and she came over to him, and looked down at him.

“Bend your knees or something,” he said. “How can I talk to you, you hanging over me like a house?”

“Get up on a chair.”

“Look, the party is dying. Let’s roll.”

“A splendid suggestion, sport.”

“Where’s Margot?”

“She disappeared a while back. I think she went off with the pretty man, the creep with the curly hair. Want to try to find her?”

“Hell with her. Le’s go.”

As they drove through the main gate, Shane said, “Where are we going, big doll?”

“I know where there’s a big party that ought to be jumping by now.”

“Okay. Good deal. Jeez, I don’t know what the hell is wrong with me tonight. I got this headache. I never have headaches.”

“Something you ate, no doubt.”

“No. Maybe it’s getting hit. But I never got a headache from being hit before. You see, two of those servants there, that bartender and a pal, they suckered me out back and got cute. They busted me on the head a couple times and they made me mad. So I knocked them around.”

Gloria was laughing. And she was on the long hill down into town, picking up speed. And suddenly Shane moved closer to her and she gave a yell of pain as he reached over with his foot and stomped hard on the brake. The car slewed and she brought it back under control and, under the pressure of his foot, came to a stop.

“What the hell!” she exclaimed.

“I don’t like the way you drive, big doll. I didn’t like it on the way up here and I don’t like it any better now. I didn’t come down here on vacation to get spread all over the road by some crazy dame.”

“So get out!”

“The hell I will. You drive and you drive nice or I’ll stop it again, and the next time I stop it, big doll, I’m going to yank you out and rough you up. I won’t mark you none, because I think it’s a pretty low type guy marks up a pretty woman. But when we get through going around and around, you’re going to be hurting here and there.”

“You’re a filthy little animal, and you wouldn’t dare lay a hand on me.”

“You mean like chivalry, doll? Or because you’re important? You don’t get the message. I’m Shane. I’m on vacation. I was with that Limey dish since Vera Cruz, and she’s Lady something or other, and she’s got that house here and one in the south end of France, she says, and dough up to here. Am I impressed? Every time she acted like a pig, we went around and around. So now I’m not with Margot any more, big doll. I’m with you. Or say it the other way and it’s better. You’re with Shane. I want careful driving, understand. Slow and nice. We’ll go to the party and then we’ll go to the hotel and pick up my stuff because I’m moving into your place.”

“That’s … absurd! I won’t permit it!”

“You don’t seem to get the message. I can’t seem to clue you nice. I’m trying to be a nice guy. I don’t want to bust you around unless you can’t get the message some other way. So get out of the car, big doll. Go on, get out. It’ll be over quick and then I’ll drive because you won’t feel like it for a while.”

She stared at the blunt hard face. He hadn’t spoken in anger. More in weary resignation, facing an unpleasant task that had to be done.

“Why, you really would!”

“That’s what I keep telling you. Get out.”

“I could go to the police.”

“That’s what Margot did. She caught on slow too. So I gave them my doll-beating permit. It’s got that picture of General Grant on it. Those Vera Cruz cops catch on fast. So why don’t you relax? I’m a nice enough guy. I got money to spend. Hell, I’ll get you some clothes. I like big dolls, but not dressed so sloppy. And you can get something done to that hair. You’d look a hell of a lot better if you’d take care of yourself. You’re not built bad.”