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  For a moment, he had no idea where he was. Then he remembered: Ciudad Brockman—El Palacio Hotel. He recalled taking a shower in the afternoon heat, deciding to nap before going out to dinner. At the thought of food, his stomach pained him like a child yowling for its supper. He lifted his wristwatch from the bedstand, found that he had been sleeping more than two hours.

  What awakened me? Hunger?

  Again his stomach constricted.

  He could hear a low-voiced conversation in Spanish outside his door. Then “Hsssst! Señor Garson!” The voice was high pitched with an air of nervousness.

  “Who is it?”

  “It is Eduardo Gomez Refugio, Señor.”

  Garson said, “Un momento.” And he thought: For crying in the dark! He did show today!

  He got up, slipped on a pair of trousers, ran a hand through his hair as he opened the door.

  A thin, dark-haired man in a poorly cut navy blue copy of an American business suit stood at the door. The man had eyes like varnished grapes, fearful and subservient. His manner suggested an inner war between servility and self-assertion. He spoke with a grave, comic dignity, a faint bowing of the head.

  “Señor Garson, I have the honor to be Eduardo Gomez Refugio at your service.”

  Garson saw Gabriél Villazana, the clerk, behind his caller. The clerk nodded, returned to the front of the hotel. Garson stepped aside.

  “Come in. I was just taking a nap.”

  Eduardo Gomez glanced behind him, entered the room. “Sí. Sí. Con mucho gusto.”

  Garson closed the door, turned to Gomez. “You speak English, I see.”

  Gomez stared at him. Then: “Eenglays? Sí, Señor. I espeak.”

  “Well . . . uh . . . glad to meet you.” Garson held out his hand.

  Gomez shook hands with a single, chopping motion. His palm felt hard and calloused. “I esmae, Señor.”

  Silence settled between them.

  Garson felt uncomfortable under the steady examination of the other’s eyes.

  “I got your letter, Mr. Gomez. And I . . .”

  “Sí, Señor. The letter.”

  Garson had the distinct feeling that Gomez now regretted the letter. There was an air of tragedy about Gomez, a sense of inevitable pathos.

  “I’d like to meet this Señor Cual,” said Garson.

  Gomez glanced at his wristwatch. It seemed a motion designed to point out that he owned a watch rather than an actual interest in the time. He returned his attention to Garson.

  “You esend me to Uneeted Estados, Señor?”

  “That’s part of the bargain.”

  The varnished grape eyes looked to the door, back to Garson. “Please not use name of gahngster. Very danger. Many spies. Ciudad Brockman bien full of spies.”

  “Okay. But can I see this man?”

  “I drive automovile of her señorita today, Señor. Tonight, I come. We espeak.”

  Garson started to reply, but his memory nudged him to an abrupt silence. He realized that he had seen Eduardo Gomez before, that this thin little man had been sitting behind the wheel of a limousine at the railroad station.

  “The señorita,” said Garson.

  “La hija, Señor.”

  The daughter! Luac and Anita Peabody have a daughter!

  The realization that the daughter was the queenly beauty of the limousine did nothing to reduce Garson’s excitement.

  “What time will you come?”

  Gomez stared at him without comprehension.

  He speaks English like I speak Spanish!

  Garson gestured to his own wristwatch. “La hora?”

  Gomez nodded. “Sí, Señor. Está la hora. Tonight I come. You get all history.”

  “Yes, but . . .”

  “No talk to any mens, Señor.” Gomez went to the door, peered out, turned back to Garson. “Very danger.”

  It dawned on Garson that Gomez was about to leave. The Mexican confirmed this by saying “Adiós, Señor. I go with God.”

  Garson held out a hand. “Wait!”

  “Sí, Señor. You wait.”

  With that he was gone, the door closed quickly and softly behind him.

  Garson crossed to the door in two steps, opened it, looked out. Most of the lobby tables were occupied. He caught one glimpse of Gomez as the man stepped into the arcade.

  I go with God. Such a curious air of tragedy about the statement. Garson experienced a creeping sense of menace, of premonition. He felt that the little man’s words might haunt him.

  He closed the door, finished dressing.

  A warm darkness filled the street outside the arcade when Garson emerged. He stepped from the lobby into a flow of people. There was a new spirit about everyone. Children ran up and down the arcade, whirled around the posts that fronted on the street. Voices were lighter, swifter, as though relieved of some pressure known only to the day.

  Ciudad Brockman’s mood of sad brooding had disappeared with the coming of night.

  “You’re the newcomer.” It was a deep voice speaking at Garson’s shoulder.

  He turned, confronted a tall, heavy man with the most ferocious face he had ever seen. The skin was pockmarked, knife-scarred, burnt almost black by the sun. His eyes were like two hunting animals lurking in slitted caves. A wide straw sombrero shaded his face from the arcade’s yellow lights, creating an effect of concealment. The man’s mouth was a thin slit beneath a handlebar mustache, his chin blunt and square. The nose had been broken and mashed.

  “I admit I’m not pretty,” said the man, “but it’s not polite to stare.”

  Garson felt his face grow hot. “I’m sorry,” he stammered.

  “Don’t be.” The man held out a blunt hand. “I’m Carlos Medina. Call me Choco.”

  Garson shook hands, felt a casual, almost brutal strength in the other’s grip. “I’m Hal Garson.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Garson.” The English was spoken with easy confidence, totally without a Spanish accent. “What brings you to Ciudad Brockman?”

  Garson parried the question. “You sound like someone from the chamber of commerce.”

  Choco Medina smiled, revealing even, gleaming white teeth. “That’s true in a way. I’m an interpreter, and I have a car for hire. I make my living from visitors.”

  “Not many gringos come here, do they?” asked Garson.

  “No, not many.”

  “You speak excellent English,” said Garson.

  Medina shrugged. “I was born in El Paso, grew up there and in Juarez.”

  “Oh.” Garson studied the battered face, wondered at the instinctive liking he felt for this man with the evil features. “It just might be that I could use a car and interpreter. What’s the rate?”

  “Five pesos an hour, twenty-five pesos a day.” Again he smiled. “That’s for interpreting. The car is one peso a kilometer.”

  Garson converted twenty-five pesos to dollars at the current exchange: two dollars.

  “That’s pretty cheap, Mr. Medina.”

  “In dollars, maybe. But it’s the local rate.”

  “Okay. You’re hired.”

  “When do I start?”

  “How about right now?”

  “Fine. What are we doing?”

  Garson sensed that there was more than casual interest in the question, said, “I’m a writer. I’m here to research the material for a magazine article.”

  Medina nodded. “Good.” He gestured toward the hotel. “Let’s get a beer in the lobby here, and you can tell me about it.”

  Gabriél Villazana served them at one of the marble-topped tables, appeared to focus with an abrupt recognition on Garson’s companion.

  “Buenas tardes, Gabriél,” said Medina.

  Villazana’s head bobbed like a puppet’s. “Buenas tardes, Choco.” He backed away, turned, almost ran to his counter.

  Medina raised his bottle to Garson. “Salud.”

  “Salud.”

  The beer tasted cool and tangy. Garson drained
half the bottle, put it down, said, “I see you know the clerk.”

  “We’re acquainted.”

  “He seemed a little afraid of you.”

  “Maybe I was too rough on him when I asked about my brother.” Medina stared at Garson as though expecting a response.

  “Am I supposed to say something?” asked Garson. “What about your brother?” He put the beer bottle to his mouth.

  “Someone murdered him.”

  Garson choked on a swallow of beer, coughed. “Sorry.” He stared at Medina. “Did Villazana have something to do with it?”

  “I don’t think so. But he was in Torleon when it happened.”

  “Torleon?”

  “The little town about ten kilometers south of here. It has a good bullring. My brother was murdered on a Sunday—in the crowd coming out of the plaza after the bullfights.”

  “Who did it?”

  Medina leaned back in his chair, shook his head. “I don’t know. I wasn’t there. I have only one clue—from the daughter of an old man who was hit by a car and killed on the day after my brother was murdered.”

  Garson wondered why he was being told these things, said, “What’s the clue?”

  “The nickname of the triggerman. The old man evidently saw only the back of his head, but he heard him called ‘La Yegua.’ That’s a common nickname for bad-tempered people. It means ‘The Mare.’”

  “Was the old man killed to shut him up?”

  “That’s my guess.”

  “This is very interesting,” said Garson. “I’m sorry, of course, to hear about the tragedy in your family.”

  “Perhaps you can use it in your story, Mr. Garson.”

  “I doubt it.”

  “What are you going to write about?”

  Again Garson sensed that something important hung on his answer. He decided to try for maximum effect. “I’m going to write about Antone Cual. That’s not really his name, though. It’s Antone Luac, the famous writer who disappeared in Mexico in 1932 with another man’s wife.”

  Medina remained impassively calm. “That’s a dangerous assignment,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “The hacienda is well guarded.”

  “Why?”

  “Perhaps to keep out such as yourself.”

  Garson smiled. “He’s never been up against me before.”

  “Do you carry a gun?” asked Medina.

  “I won’t need a gun.” And he thought: I’ve never met that question before in my life but here—twice in one day!

  Medina pulled back a flap of his jacket, revealed a heavy revolver in a belt holster. “I carry this for La Yegua.” He closed his jacket, leaned forward. “Allow me to explain some of our quaint customs. Here in the back country, two out of three people carry a revolver. They are either like me: gunning for someone; or they are afraid someone is gunning for them.”

  “So?”

  “So bodies are occasionally found, Mr. Garson. It is not a rarity. In fact, it is sufficiently common that the police are not too zealous in finding out who pulled the trigger.”

  “Do the police know you’re carrying a gun?”

  “Undoubtedly, but they try not to know it officially. No cop wants to buy in on somebody else’s feud. This is asking for trouble.”

  Garson realized abruptly that this was part of the atmosphere that had produced the air of musical comedy melodrama in Eduardo Gomez’s letter. He said, “Are you trying to warn me off?”

  Medina shrugged. “I merely point out one of the obvious difficulties in your path.”

  “Thanks. I think I’ll go ahead anyway. The American Consulate knows I’m here. Maybe the police would be more zealous in my case.”

  “We can hope there will be no case, Mr. Garson.”

  A chill passed over Garson. He reacted with a nervous laugh, said, “I’m just a writer. People don’t go around killing writers—poof!—just like that!”

  “The story going the rounds is that you’re a secret agent.”

  Garson stared at him, shocked. “That’s crazy!”

  Medina smiled. “Mexicans try to make a mystery out of everything. If there’s no mystery, they manufacture one. Sometimes, the mysteries they manufacture are better than real ones.”

  “But why are they interested in me?”

  “Because you’ve been asking around about the Hacienda Cual—and that’s already a favorite mystery here.”

  “So you already knew why I was here?”

  “I’ve learned not to trust Mexican rumors.”

  “What are the rumors about the Hacienda Cual?”

  “There are so many I wouldn’t know where to start.”

  “Well, it’s no mystery, Mr. Medina. It’s . . .”

  “Please call me Choco.”

  “Okay, Choco. The Hacienda Cual is really a very simple matter. It started with a love story—a man and a woman.”

  Medina raised his eyebrows. “Hell! Everything starts that way!”

  Garson laughed, glanced at his wristwatch, was surprised to find it almost seven o’clock.

  “Are you expecting someone?” asked Medina.

  “No. I’m going to eat dinner and knock off for the night. I can’t seem to get enough sleep.”

  “It’s the altitude. You’ll get used to it.”

  “Unless I’m forced to get used to a much higher altitude first.”

  This seemed to strike Medina as funnier than Garson had expected. The Mexican guffawed, attracting the attention of people at surrounding tables.

  “Maybe you don’t think writers should go to heaven,” said Garson.

  Medina wiped a tear from his right eye. “You should write humor, Mr. Garson.”

  “Perhaps I should.”

  The Mexican sobered, leaned far back in his chair. “What time will you want me in the morning?”

  “Will eight o’clock be all right?”

  “Good enough.” Medina pushed away from the table, got to his feet. “Then, if you won’t be needing me anymore tonight . . .”

  “See you in the morning,” said Garson.

  Gabriél Villazana came to Garson’s table as soon as Choco Medina was gone. “That is a very bad man,” said Villazana.

  “I suppose so,” said Garson. “But I kind of like him.”

  Villazana’s shrug seemed to say that he had done what he could, that all gringos were crazy anyway, that after all only a confirmed idiot stands in the path of fate.

  ***

  Chapter 2

  The sound of someone scrambling on the roof above his hotel room awakened Garson from a light sleep. He opened his eyes, stared into darkness. He could see a faint moonglow through the skylight. Something like the shadow of a man passed across the skylight. Again, he heard the scrambling sound. A heavy sense of menace filled Garson. He closed his eyes, tried to fight it off, blaming the highly spiced foods of his dinner.

  A bright light flicked across his face, visible through his eyelids. The sense of menace was an imminent thing. Garson rolled off the bed.

  Something crashed through the skylight, thumped onto the bed. The springs creaked and groaned. Pieces of glass fell all around Garson.

  He lay quietly on the floor in the dark, his heart thumping.

  Good God! What was that?

  He put out a hand, felt on the bed. His fingers encountered a rough, cold surface like rock or concrete.

  Footsteps pounded on the tiles outside his door. Someone knocked. Gabriél Villazana’s voice came through the panels: “Señor Garson? Está bien, Señor?”

  Garson remained mute, his throat dry.

  An excited conversation in Spanish went on outside his door.

  Why don’t I say something? Garson asked himself. And part of his mind said: Because that was no accident! Right now it’s safer to play dead.

  Garson got to his feet, took his watch from the bed stand—eleven-thirty.

  Then: Somebody tried to kill me!

  Reaction set in, and Garson’s kn
ees began to tremble.

  Again, running footsteps sounded on the tiles outside, heavier footsteps. A fist pounded the door.

  “Hey in there! Are you all right?”

  Garson recognized Choco Medina’s rumbling voice.

  “Yes. I’m all right,” Garson said. He swallowed to ease the dryness of his throat, made his way around the bed, opened the door.

  A ring of faces filled the hallway. Garson recognized Medina and Villazana.

  A sense of defenseless loneliness filled Garson.

  Medina’s evil features relaxed into a grin. “You gave us a scare,” he said. “What was all that commotion?”

  Garson found the light switch on the wall beside the door, stood aside. He didn’t trust his voice.

  Medina entered. Villazana followed, closed the door behind him.

  “Whew-eeee!” said Medina.

  “Madre de Dios!” said Villazana.

  A large, jagged chunk of concrete lay across his pillow, shards of glass all around it. The concrete was easily as long as the pillow, half as wide.

  He looked up at the skylight perhaps twenty feet above the bed. An irregular hole reached across the glass. Pieces of the frame hung down, swaying lightly.

  “That thing would’ve crushed your skull like an eggshell if you’d been in bed,” said Medina. “Where were you when it fell?”

  “Somebody awakened me by making noise on the roof,” said Garson. “Then they flashed a light onto my face. I rolled off the bed just before that thing fell.”

  Again he looked at the chunk of concrete, shuddered.

  Medina turned to Villazana, spoke in a burst of Spanish too rapid for Garson to follow. Garson caught the word for workers in Villazana’s reply.

  “He says there were workmen up on the roof today repairing the wall between this building and the next one,” said Medina. “He thinks they must have left that piece of concrete balanced on the scaffolding.”

  “Then who flashed that light on my face?” asked Garson.

  Medina looked at Garson. “Do you think this was not an accident?”

  “No.”

  “Neither do I,” said Medina. “But it would’ve looked like an accident. There’d have been no inconvenient investigation.”

  “Who’d want to do such a thing?” asked Garson.

  “Someone who doesn’t like people asking questions about the Hacienda Cual.”