Part 16 (1/2)
At least I had not lost her yet. ”I want to remind you that it is a matter of record in Oaxaca that Miss McLeen and Miss Bowie were staying with you. It is a matter of record that you identified the body. It is a matter of record that Miss Bowie was under suspicion of complicity in an attempt to smuggle narcotics into the United States.”
”This has nothing to do with me. Nothing. I should not have... done the kindness of helping them find out who that poor child was, and giving them her possessions to send home to her family. I do not become involved in such matters.”
”But the point is you did become involved. I agree with you, Mrs. Vitrier. Things should always be handled privately and with discretion. I find myself in an awkward position. I must return to Florida and report to the Bowie girl's father. He wanted to know the circ.u.mstances of her death. If I go back to him with a lot of unanswered questions, he has the resources to pursue this matter through diplomatic channels. I have talked to your attorney in Oaxaca, Alfredo Gaona. He refused to give me any help in getting in touch with you. But from talking to him, I think I know how much you value your privacy.”
”Do you now have a desire to threaten me in some way, Mister McGee?”
”No. But should Mr. Harlan Bowie pursue this further because I could not give him any answers, I would think that the Mexican government would make a complete and official investigation, as a matter of diplomatic courtesy. And I do not think that you could... stay behind your walls under such circ.u.mstances.”
There was such a long pause I began to be afraid she had hung up very quietly. Then she said, ”I have always enjoyed this country. But you see, it is not entirely necessary to me, is it? There is nothing to prevent my leaving tomorrow and never coming back here. What I have would be sold without difficulty.”
”I think that would be a very odd thing for you to do.”
”I cannot be impressed with what you might think of what I do or do not do.”
”I merely meant that it seems like such an extreme reaction to a very simple thing. I just want to fill in the blanks. It would not take much of your time. And then I would leave you alone, and I could make my report to Mr. Bowie. It's that simple.”
”I think... you are a clever person, Mr. McGee.”
”Not particularly.”
”To learn the name I use here was a clever thing. Poor Alfredo was dreadfully upset to learn there had been no call from me. So it is to understand you found where I am by tricking that old man. But certainly he did not tell you this name I invented.”
”Sometimes there is luck.”
”Luck is something one makes for oneself, I think. Mr. McGee, I think I will give you that little time to ask your questions. You will present yourself at this suite at seven promptly?”
”Thank you very much.”
”This is done only because I must believe you are a person of some discretion and privacy.”
”I will be there at seven.”
The wing of the hotel that was given over to the suites had wider and more luxurious corridors, was more deeply carpeted, more boldly decorated. The Fiesta Suites were on the fourth floor. I had gone in and talked to the reservation people about accommodations and had learned that suites were available from forty dollars a day to three hundred dollars a day. The wing was five stories high, and the several Fiesta Suites were duplex, with the living areas on the fourth floor, opening out onto s.p.a.cious, walled roof gardens, and with two bedrooms and two baths on the fifth floor, and an internal staircase. The reservation girl was friendly, not busy, willing to chat.
She said that the largest suite, the presidential suite, had four bedrooms, a servant's room, a baronial dining room, and, on its larger roof garden, quite large shade trees and a large heated swimming pool. She said that several of the suites were permanently rented, some by businesses, some by individuals who had taken them when the hotel had opened and either lived there most of the year, or used them whenever they visited the city.
I pressed the bronze b.u.t.ton by the door. I noticed one of those little peepholes set into the door, a wide angle lens, and I repressed my usual impulse to put my thumb over it.
The door opened six inches, as far as the heavy bra.s.s safety chain would let it. Eva Vitrier looked out through the gap at me. Enelio's description had been apt. Her face had all the striking thrusts and angles and slightly vulpine harshness of Nefert.i.ti.
Black hair piled high. A long muscular throat, graceful but not delicate. It was as broad as the slender face. The mouth was small and plump and fleshy. Her eyes were set oddly, one more sharply tilted than the other. She was wearing some sort of hostess gown, deep aqua, floor-length, with a wide scooped neck, a metallic golden rope belting it at the natural waistline. She had a look of extraordinary sensuous vitality kept under such exacting control, such practiced control, that she was an immediate challenge.
I could see beyond her into a hushed and handsome room, with a high ceiling and gla.s.s doors beyond, through which I could see a patio garden so verdant and substantial it was difficult to adjust to being on the fourth floor. Sizable trees, and muscular flagstones winding through heavy plantings.
”You are Mr. McGee? I do not care to ask you in, or feel the need to apologize. I am quite alone here. There is no reason why I should even give you this much time. But I was curious to... put a face and body with your voice, perhaps.”
”I'm what you imagined?”
”Does it matter? I thought you would be a large man, but with more of the American look of softness and baldness and the quick clever eyes behind gla.s.ses, the look of the ones who find their way to the money so easily I would rather you looked like that, because as you look now you disconcert me. To be so muscular and fit and brown, and to have about you a look of laughing at me somewhere inside you, and to look so... indolent-perhaps it is a part of cleverness to create an illusion of being a faithful dog one can scratch behind the ears, and send bounding off to fetch some object or to kill some animal. Now if you will tell me the blanks I will give you the little words to fill them, and everything will be tidy and proper for your report.”
So the day was fading quickly, the room darkening behind her, and I was sorry I could not be rea.s.suringly balding and soft with little shrewd economic eyes so she would be rea.s.sured.
”Okay. What day did Minda McLeen leave and go to Mexico City?”
”The twenty-eighth day of July. A Monday.”
”What did they quarrel about?”
”I have no idea. She was a tiresome girl, nervous and restless and irritable. She asked me to lend her money so she could leave. I was glad to.”
”How much?”
”I do not know exactly. Perhaps two thousand pesos.”
”How did she travel?”
”I have no idea. Something was said about someone driving to Mexico City. I did not listen. I was not interested. I do not know if she even came here, nor do I care.”
”Why did you invite them to stay with you, when it must have been obvious to you that Miss Bowie was on drugs?”
”I felt sorry for them. One makes certain impulsive gestures from time to time, and usually regrets them. I had room for them, or for a dozen of them, at my Oaxaca home. And servants and money. It was a human impulse. I thought I might help them.”
”Did you try to do anything about the Bowie girl's addiction?”
”Of course! I had a discreet doctor fly in and give her a complete physical examination. She was in very bad shape from the addiction, malnutrition, intestinal parasites, several small chronic infections. The McLeen girl needed medical attention too, but mostly rest and nouris.h.i.+ng food. Soon she was able to help with the Bowie girl. I gave her much personal care. I have had some practical experience. My first husband was seriously ill for a year and a half before he died, and he would not permit anyone else to care for him. I gave her the prescribed injections to quell the withdrawal symptoms of heroin addiction.”
”And you knew what you were taking on?”
”One becomes bored and feels a bit... unnecessary from time to time. Then it is an affirmative act to make oneself needed. I would not have gone on and on with it, certainly. I had planned to have someone take her back to Florida to her home when she was well enough.”
”When did Miss Bowie leave your home?”
”She was becoming more alert and responsive. On Sat.u.r.day in the early afternoon, a young man came asking to see her. I told my gate man that he could see Bix. Then Bix came to me and asked me if she could go for a ride with the young man. She said he was a friend. I thought it would be constructive to give her a test of her will and her desire to be cured. So she left with him. When she did not return Sat.u.r.day night I was annoyed and disappointed, and quite alarmed. She had become a likable personality. But I had no reason to report it. One cannot keep a houseguest locked up. Then she did not return Sunday night either. My cook went to market Monday morning and came back and told, me of an unidentified girl killed on the mountain road. I had her identification and her belongings at the house. I do not care to be involved in such things. I summoned my attorney, Alfredo Gaona, and explained the situation, and sent him to make arrangements with the police so that it could be done as quickly and quietly as possible. The body was sickeningly damaged, of course, but I knew at once from the chain she wore on her ankle and the red shoe that it was Beatrice Bowie. The police came to my home and claimed her belongings. And I did not care to stay there in the house longer. It was very depressing. So I came here the same evening. I have maintained this suite since the hotel opened.”
”She was over her addiction?”
”She had been addicted intentionally to several compounds, each less powerful. It is a common method of treatment. Perhaps she could have been cured entirely. I do not know. There seemed to be in her a great need to escape herself, to blot out her known world.”
Neat blanks, neatly filled.
”What day did Mr. McLeen come to you, asking about his daughter?”
”Let me think. Was Bix there? No, because he wished to question her about where Minda might have gone. I believe that it was quite late on Sat.u.r.day afternoon.”
”Then you must have told him to come back, because at that time you thought Bix would be back from her ride.”
”Then I am mistaken, and it was late on Sunday afternoon, because I did not ask him to come back. He is a very tiresome and talkative man.”