‘You wait, Mr Liddon. Wait in the bookstore doorway where you were waiting before.’
She slipped in through the employees’ entrance. Mark crossed the street to the bookstore and stood in the snow looking at the neat tower of books, festooned with their paper decorations. The girl was back in less than five minutes.
Her voice behind him made him turn. ‘Here, Mr Liddon.’ She handed him a piece of paper. ‘I copied it out from the shipping department.’
Written on the paper in a round, sprawling hand were the words:
Mrs Mark Liddon,
Hotel Granada,
Madero,
Mexico, D. F., Mexico.
He put the piece of paper in his pocket. ‘Thanks,’ he said. He took out his wallet, removing two fifty-dollar bills, and handed them to her.
She said, ‘I can take the afternoon off and I’ve got a room with a kitchenette. We can pick up some junk on the corner and I’ll fix lunch.’
Mark grinned at her. ‘Thanks. But some other time.’ He patted her shoulder. ‘Merry Christmas, baby.’ He turned towards Fifth Avenue, leaving her alone on the sidewalk.
He passed the Salvation Army girls again, secure in their homely godliness, clanging their bells and chanting: ‘Give for Christmas.’ Exhilaration surged up in him. It was coming out right after all. Ellie was safe in Mexico and he would be able to reach her long before Victor or his minions could do her any harm. He would call her, tell her not to worry, that he was coming, that he would fix everything. Then he would take the first plane.
He got a tourist card at the Mexican Tourist Bureau and went to an airline office. The first plane to Mexico City left at six that evening.
Back home, he put in a person-to-person call to Ellie. The lines to Mexico were jammed with Christmas business and he was told there would be a long delay. He ate something in the kitchen and packed a suitcase. Then he mixed himself a drink and paced up and down the living-room, waiting.
Now that he could feel reasonably sure Ellie was safe he could plot the future with slide-rule precision. He would bring Ellie back. Together they would go to the police and make a full confession. There would be a scandal, of course. Ellie was too well-known to avoid that. And he would certainly get into trouble for his hiding of the body. The outlook was not rosy. But it was far less disastrous than it had seemed a few hours before. Mark was shrewd enough to realize that if he should be arrested and brought to trial for obstructing justice there would be a very good emotional defense — a husband’s natural determination to protect his wife.
Yes, once he had reached Ellie, the situation would be in hand.
Almost two hours later the call came through. He jumped to answer the phone.
The operator’s voice said: ‘Ready with your call to Mexico City.’ There was a pause. Then a man’s voice said:
‘Bueno Bueno.’ The operator asked: ‘Is that the Hotel Granada ? ‘
‘Yes. This is the Hotel Granada.’
‘Mrs Mark Liddon, please. New York is calling.’
There was another pause. Excitement lit Mark. Then the distant man’s voice in Mexico said:
‘I am sorry, but Mrs Liddon is not here.’
‘When are you expecting her back?’
‘I do not know. She left no message.’
Mark said: ‘Operator, let me talk to him. Switch this to a regular call.’
‘All right, sir. Go ahead, sir.’
Mark said: ‘Hello. Mrs Liddon :s there at the Hotel Granada? She is staying there?’
‘Oh yes, sir,’ said the man’s voice. She is here, but she is not in. She is out.’
‘Will you take a message?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Tell her her husband’s coming. Tell her he’s taking the six o’clock plane from New York.’
‘Very well, sir.’
‘And tell her — tell her not to worry about anything.’
‘Not to worry about anything, yes, sir. Anything else, sir?’
‘No. That’s all.’
Mark put down the receiver. He ran into the hall, put on his topcoat and picked up his suitcase.
It had stopped snowing, but in the dusk Park Avenue was white and fluffy as a lamb. Pedestrians hurried by carrying gaily wrapped packages. Holy Night, Silent Night trailed from the radio of a passing taxi.
Suddenly the lights on the Christmas trees came to life, and for miles, it seemed, the Manhattan twilight was spangled with little twinkling globes …
IT was one-thirty in the afternoon when Mark drove from the Mexico City airport. Bad weather had made the plane several hours late and the delay had frayed his nerves dangerously.
The taxi took him down a broad new boulevard, landscaped with young trees which would look impressive in several years. Most of the buildings to his left and right were in construction. The mountain sunlight was bright and crisp; it heightened the effect of rawness, of a city growing too fast. Soon the traffic thickened. The air was loud with the irresponsible honking of horns. The taxi plunged into narrow, excitable streets, competing recklessly with other cars. A huge cathedral loomed and was left behind. Elegant shops crowded on either side. The taxi swerved to a stop in front of a canopied doorway.
Mark had changed money at the airport. He paid the driver in pesos, pulled out his suitcase and stood looking at the doorway. Hotel Granada was written across the canopy above him. A corridor led past a tobacco stall and a long rack displaying American magazines to a lobby inside. A barefoot Indian padded by with a pile of Christmas trees roped to his back.
Mark walked into the lobby. The enormous ordeal was over. In a moment he would be with her.
After the brilliance of the sunshine it was almost dark inside the lobby. A few people, mostly American, sat around in heavy old-fashioned chairs. They looked harassed, as if worn out by a morning’s sight-seeing. There was a solid family atmosphere. It wasn’t Ellie’s sort of place. He wondered why she had picked it.
He saw the desk in a far corner. A clerk stood before the high pigeon-holes for keys and mail. A bellhop, very small and dark, hurried for Mark’s bag. He nodded him away and carried the suitcase to the desk.
The front of the desk had a glass top and served as a showcase for tourist trinkets, silver ornaments, combs, leather belts, little pottery figures. As Mark reached it, the clerk moved along the desk and stopped in front of him.
‘Yes, sir?’ he inquired in English. ‘You wish a room?’ He was young, about twenty, scrupulously tidy with dandified black hair and brown eyes framed by thick black lashes. Mark said: ‘What is Mrs Liddon’s number?’
‘Mrs Liddon?’ The boy watched him thoughtfully. ‘Mrs Mark Liddon?’
‘That’s right.’
‘You are, perhaps, her husband? The gentleman who telephoned yesterday from New York?’
‘I am.’
The boy smiled dazzlingly. ‘I am so sorry. Yesterday when you call I make an error. I think Mrs Liddon has just made a walk, but no — ‘He shook his head and ran a delicate brown finger over the side wing of his hair. ‘She has gone. She has already checked out.’
He felt as if iced water had been dashed in his face. Was it always going to be this way? Was the pattern going to repeat itself endlessly?
‘She didn’t get my message?’
‘Oh no, sir. I am sorry, sir. It was an error.’
A plump middle-aged American woman, covered in Taxco silver with a spray of bougainvillea in her hair, flounced to the desk and asked querulously:
‘Hey, Oscar, any mail for me?’
‘I am sorry, madam.’ The clerk turned on her a white, infinitely friendly smile. ‘Is Christmas time. The letters come late.’
The woman pouted and stomped away.
Mark said: ‘But she was here? Mrs Liddon was at this hotel?’
‘Oh yes, sir.’
‘Where did she go?’
Oscar looked blank. ‘Who knows, sir?’ He began to study the manicured nails of his right hand. ‘Yesterday morning about twelve a gentleman comes to see her. They go out together to take the lunch perhaps.’
Mark’s hand suddenly tightened into a fist. ‘What sort of gentleman?’
Oscar pondered this problem solemnly. ‘He was from the States like you, sir, and blond-haired like you. But more small, less beautiful.’
‘What happened then?’
‘I have the afternoons free and return for the evening. Soon after they leave, I leave too and the other boy is on duty. But Mrs Liddon returns with the gentleman. They pay the bill and they take her bags away. This I do not see myself.’ He looked proud. ‘But after you telephone I make inquiries and find this out from the other boy.’
‘Where is the other boy now?’
Oscar’s dark eyes became almost dreamy. ‘His mother is sick. This morning he goes to his mother. Where does she live?’ He gesticulated. ‘Guadalajara? Oaxaca? Vera Cruz? Who knows?’
This may or may not have been the Mexican temperament at work, but, whatever it was, it was immensely irritating. ‘She didn’t leave a forwarding address?’
Oscar did not answer. He had lowered his gaze and was studying the trinkets on sale beneath the glass top of the counter. Without looking, up he announced:
‘We have here many pretty things. Mementoes; souvenirs of your stay in Mexico. Perhaps you wish to buy a watch bangle?’
‘No.’
Oscar looked up mournfully. ‘No, sir?’ His gaze had settled now on the grey cashmere sweater which showed under Mark’s jacket. ‘Is a fine sweater you have. Such a sweater here in Mexico costs very high. Eighty pesos perhaps you pay for such a fine sweater.’ One of his small hands reached out and, very daintily, took a pinch of sweater between finger and thumb. Yes, very fine. Most elegant.’
His hand went back to the counter. His eyes, almost coaxing, met Mark’s. It was the crudest overture to a shakedown that Mark had ever experienced. Its very crudity made it rather disarming. He took out his wallet.
‘Guess you could buy a sweater for fifty pesos?’
Oscar’s smile was blinding. ‘Sixty pesos.’
Mark pulled out a fifty-peso and a ten-peso bill. Oscar took them from his hand as delicately as a cat taking a chicken scrap. ‘The other boy, he brings Mrs Liddon’s bags to the taxi. He thinks he hears her say the Hotel Reforma.’
‘Is that near here?’
Oscar waved. ‘Just down the Avenida; and then down the Paseo. Some few blocks, sir.’
‘Okay, thanks.’
Oscar darted the bills into his pocket and ducked down behind the counter. He came up carrying a small pottery ashtray designed in the shape of a Mexican sombrero. There was a little pottery band ending in tassels twisted around the crown. One of the tassels was broken. Oscar pressed it into Mark’s hand.
‘Is a souvenir, sir. Is free. Is your present from me.’ ‘Thanks, Oscar.’
‘Oh, no trouble. Thank you very much, sit. Happy Christmas, sir.’
Mark walked out of the Hotel Granada into the sunlight again. It was probably all right. Why should the blond young man have anything to do with Victor? Ellie was an inveterate acquaintance-gatherer. She had probably picked up some American boy to take care of the chore of changing hotels. Carrying his topcoat and suitcase, he started past a broad, tropical park and reached a vast boulevard. After a few minutes he saw the Hotel Reforma, climaxing a row of large modernistic apartment and office buildings. He crossed the wild traffic and climbed the steep steps into the hotel lobby. A Christmas tree, ornamented with shining balls and silver streamers, stood in its center. There were American tourists here too, but they put on more of a show. They looked like money, and the place looked as if it knew how to take money away from them. This was a more appropriate hangout for Ellie.
He went to the desk, this time carefully bridling his hope. One of the clerks moved to wait on him.
Mark said: ‘Is Mrs Liddon — Mrs Mark Liddon — staying here?’
‘Yes, sir. Mrs Liddon is in Suite 332.’
At last the moment had come.
‘I’m her husband.’ Mark took the tourist card out of his pocket and put it down on the desk. Okay if I go right up?’
The clerk examined the card. ‘Is Mrs Liddon expecting you?’
‘Yes,’ he prevaricated.
The clerk looked at the card again and handed it back. ‘Very well, sir, if you wish. You will kindly register?’
A bellhop ran over and took Mark’s suitcase. Mark registered and turned from the desk. Behind him, the clerk’s voice sounded:
‘I’m afraid Mrs Liddon isn’t in just now, sir.’
Mark swung round. ‘Where is she?’
‘I don’t know, sir. I happened to notice her leaving about half an hour ago.’
The bellhop at his side blurted: ‘Mrs Liddon has gone to the bulls.’
‘The bulls?’
‘The bullfight. A gentleman came for her. They went to buy tickets over there where they sell themselves.’ He pointed to a desk at the other side of the lobby. ‘I hear them, sir. They buy tickets.’
‘When do the fights start?’
‘At four o’clock, sir.’
Mark looked at his watch. It was three fifteen. ‘Can I buy a ticket over there?’
‘Of course, sir. Sure, sir.’
Mark crossed to the desk where the bullfight tickets were sold. A Mexican girl with hair piled on top of her head smiled at him.
He said: ‘Do you know Mrs Liddon?’
‘Yes, sir. She was just here with a gentleman. He buys two tickets in the Sombrao.’
‘I’m her husband. Can you get me a seat near them?’
The girl glanced at a book in front of her. ‘I think I can.’ She ran a painted fingernail through a box of tickets. ‘Here. I have AL45 8. Is right next to them, I think.’
Thanks.’
Mark bought the ticket. The bellhop hovered. Mark gave him his suitcase and topcoat and told him to take them up to Ellie’s suite. Downstairs he found an American soda fountain. He had a hamburger and a milk shake and then told one of the taxi-drivers waiting outside the hotel to take him to the bullring.
He relaxed against the torn upholstery. He could afford to let himself be happy. The man with Ellie couldn’t have anything to do with Victor. No henchman of Victor’s would be taking Ellie to the bullfight. She was being just an ordinary tourist. Probably by now she’d completely forgotten Victor and her gambling debt. She was quite capable of that sort of convenient amnesia.
Smiling, he started to hum the Toreador’s Song from
Carmen.