Message From Malaga (12 page)

“Not long.”

“Who is he?”

Jaime shook his head.

At least, thought Ferrier, no more pretence about my cousin Pépé’s manager. “Where did he come from?”

“From El Fenicio.”

“And before that?”

Again Jaime shook his head. “I wasn’t told,” he said.

“His name? Come on, Jaime. You must call him something.”

“We know him as Tomás.”

“That is pretty indefinite.”

Jaime nodded his agreement.

“When did he arrive at El Fenicio?”

“I only saw him last night.”

“Last night seems to have been a strange one for all of us,” Ferrier said. His voice had lost its sharpness. The boy was telling the truth as far as he knew it. Which was, Ferrier reflected, just about the most that could be said for any of us.

Jaime sensed the change and welcomed it. He liked to talk and he wanted to talk, as long as the man in the attic was left out of it. He said eagerly, “It was strange from the beginning. From the minute the four Americans sat down at that table in the back corner of the courtyard, it was very strange. The bearded one pointed out Señor Reid. And then the others—”

“Hold it, hold it!” Jaime’s rush of words had brought a change in accent, and Ferrier wondered if he had misheard. “He pointed out Señor Reid? Are you sure?”

“It was Señor Reid, not you.”

Ferrier stared.

“They were talking about your table. The black man asked. ‘Which? The one in the yellow jacket?’ The long-haired man added some words to describe you. I didn’t understand them all—sometimes English is difficult to follow. The black and the long-hair laughed. But they stopped when the beard said, ‘No. The other one.’ And then, at that moment Señor Reid turned around to signal to me. They were all silent. The man with the beard looked away. The long-hair said, ‘So that’s the big see eye eh man!’ And the man with the beard was angry. Truly angry. I came forward to serve you, so I did not hear the words he said. The others were laughing at him. And so—he left.”

“What did the man with the long hair call Señor Reid?” Ferrier asked slowly.

“A man who sees with his eyes.”

“No, tell me—just as you heard it. Stop thinking of the meaning.” Ferrier rose, found his pen and address book. He tore out a page. “Write the words here.”

“But I don’t write English. I don’t read it. I learn it by ear.”

“Then use Spanish words that have the same sounds that you heard.”

“It is difficult. Spanish sounds are different.”

“I know.”

Jaime took the pen and wrote
Si.
He paused to admire it. “Yes, that is almost the same sound.” Then he wrote, after some thought,
Ay.
“That is not the same, but it is close.” He finished with
E.

“It’s close,” Ferrier said softly. So that’s the big CIA man... “What did Esteban or Magdalena think about this? Or Concepción?”

“But I told no one. Only you.” Jaime broke into Spanish. “I thought you could help me understand that
see eye
phrase. It was new to me. How could Esteban or the others help me? Besides, Esteban gets angry if I listen to the foreigners talking. But how else can I learn English?” He put down the pen carefully. “I do not think Señor Reid was seeing so well with his eyes when he fell down the stairs.”

Ferrier laughed in spite of himself.

“Everyone is talking about that,” Jaime went on, encouraged. “Captain Rodriguez is asking questions about the American with long hair. He thinks he was carrying drugs, trying to hide them in the storeroom for someone else to pick up. Perhaps Señor Reid saw him, tried to get downstairs too quickly, and slipped and—”

“Captain Rodriguez told you all that?” Ferrier asked in surprise. If so, their captain was the most communicative policeman he had ever heard of.

“No, no. But it is easy to know what a man thinks by the questions he asks,” Jaime explained kindly. “He asked questions about the long-haired one. He asked about the storeroom and who had entered it. And he notified the narcotics police, because they came to search all through its barrels and crates. They even went upstairs. That was after the dancing ended, so the performance was not disturbed. But the police were everywhere. That’s why we—” He broke off abruptly, his excitement ebbing just as quickly. He wondered nervously if
el norteamericano
had guessed what he had almost blurted out. “Why do you look so serious, señor? The police found nothing. No drugs. Everything is well. No trouble for anyone. Except for the American with long hair. He will be in trouble when
they catch him, unless he can give a good reason why he stayed so long in the storeroom. It is a private place. Señor, please do not look so serious.”

“But drugs are a serious matter, Jaime.” So the police raid was the reason that Tomás was brought here last night; that’s why he was smuggled out of El Fenicio in such a hurry. “Is Tomás a man who deals in narcotics?” Jaime looked at him wide-eyed. “If he is, I don’t give a good goddam whether he is Esteban’s cousin or the brother of Tavita’s aunt. Out he goes! You should never have brought him here. Get him out.”

“But he has nothing to do with drugs. Nothing. Believe me, señor, Esteban would not allow that. He would not help such a man.” Jaime’s voice was stilted. His eyes now looked reprovingly at Ferrier. He moved across the room to the opened windows, closed the shutters. “Soon the sun will be too warm, and this room—”

“I know about that. What I don’t know is about Tomás. What does he deal in? If not drugs, what?” Ferrier heard a car driving carefully toward the house. He moved quickly over to one of the windows, adjusted the louvres so that he could see out clearly, looked down at a dark-blue Mercedes now drawing up near the path to the front door. Jaime really had a pair of exceedingly sharp ears, he was thinking; the boy had heard that car several seconds before he himself became aware of it. Or had Jaime been listening for it?

“He is only a man who needed a place to sleep,” Jaime said. “Nothing to do with drugs. Nothing like that.”

“But why all the secrecy?”

“It is a matter of honour.” Jaime’s flat statement was final. His hurt pride struggled with a new anxiety, and lost. “Señor
Ferrier, you have not finished your breakfast. This cake is—”

“I’ve had enough,” Ferrier said abruptly. Anything, anything to get me away from this window. What am I not supposed to see? Why should these people think Americans don’t have a pride of their own? Why the hell have I to pretend I’m stupid, easily manoeuvred, pushed around like a pawn on a chessboard? He stayed at the window. A man in grey uniform had hurried around from the driver’s seat to open the car’s rear door and let a woman step out. She was slender, smartly dressed in white, with high-heeled black sandals glistening on her small feet. No hat on her smooth dark head, but short white gloves on her hands holding a patent-leather satchel. “Tavita,” Ferrier said in amazement. “Isn’t this rather early for her?” It was barely half past ten by his watch. She was walking toward the house now. The chauffeur closed the car door behind her, spoke to someone still sitting inside, picked up a small case from the front seat, and left in the direction of the kitchen entrance. Extremely quiet out there, Ferrier suddenly noted. All the small sounds he had heard earlier—the hosing of the garden, women’s voices, a snatch of song—had floated away during his talk with Jaime, and he hadn’t been aware of it. “Where’s everyone?” He turned, saw the door close silently behind Jaime.

* * *

Tavita was standing in the middle of the big room, her arms folded, her head bent, as she listened to Concepción’s complaints. “I know, I know,” she said sympathetically. “But what else could we do? Señor Reid will not object. He has met Tomás.”

“But Tomás did not want to come here. He was angry, last night, when he learned where he had been brought.”

“Where else could we take him at that hour?”

“And this morning when I fetched him something to eat and told him about Señor Reid’s accident, he cursed us all. He called us fools and idiots.”

“How very grateful of him,” Tavita said softly, but her eyes hardened. “And did he say why we were fools and idiots?”

“He said that if Señor Reid was attacked—”

“Attacked?”

“—then someone knows who Señor Reid is. And that, he said, means danger. This house may be watched.”

“But why?” Tavita shrugged off her own questions. “We have other things to worry about.” Attacked...this house may be watched...Tomás had too many fears and suspicions. No one could connect Jeff with Tomás. No one. “Tell him we are waiting,” she said shortly.

“And now he’s going to grumble about us being an hour early.”

“What else could we do?” Tavita asked again. She seemed so sure of herself, so completely in control, that Concepción made no further objections. If she only knew how I felt, Tavita thought, she’d throw her apron over her face and start wailing. Why did this happen to me, to any of us? Tomás walked in from the street, and from the moment that Esteban gave him shelter in good faith, Tomás put his claws deep into all of us. Esteban, this morning, a saddened and wiser man, had made a bitter suggestion: hand him over to Captain Rodriguez; let him take his own chances. But Esteban did not have a brother who once had worked with Tomás.

“If only Señor Reid were here,” Concepción said.

“Now, now,” Tavita told her briskly, covering her own worries, “we’ll manage without him. We’ll manage very well.”
But she gave a start, almost as violent as Concepción’s, when Jaime appeared unexpectedly at the head of the staircase and ran down toward them.

“He won’t stay in his room,” Jaime told them as he reached the bottom tread. “He says he has had enough.” And so have I, Jaime’s voice told them. “He asks questions, and I have no more answers.”

“Why?” Tavita asked sharply.

Jaime had a special mixture of awe and admiration for Tavita. As he looked at her now, and saw her fear, his own sense of failure deepened. He kept silent.

“At least you should have stayed in the corridor upstairs,” Concepción scolded. “Get back up there. We don’t want him opening doors—”

“He is not that kind of a man,” Jaime said angrily.

“You said he asks questions.”

“Because he is not a fool, either.”

“Jaime,” Tavita said, “how much did you tell him?”

He hesitated, evaded his aunt’s eyes. Somehow there was no evasion possible with Tavita. “I did not have to tell him much. He knows.”

“He knows about Tomás?”

“He saw him. Last night. On the staircase.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Concepción, and covered her mouth with her hands.

Tavita hushed her quickly. She said with a smile, “Well, then—he saw Pépé’s manager. Or did you forget to tell him that?”

Jaime shook his head. He said with some reproach “The señorita knows that I would not—”

“I know,” Tavita said gently. “But he didn’t believe you.”

“Last night, I thought he did. This morning, I knew he did not.”

Tavita raised one band, stopped a threatened outburst from Concepción. “No harm done. We just alter our plans a little. I suppose Señor Ferrier heard my car arrive?”

Jaime nodded. “And he saw you. He wondered why you had risen so early.”

“And what did you say to that?”

“I left.”

Tavita laughed in spite of herself. “No wonder you ran out of answers.”

Jaime’s wounded pride stopped smarting. He hadn’t failed, really; it had just been impossible to succeed. “He is a difficult man to deceive,” he warned her, his voice dropping to a whisper.

“Especially when you didn’t want to deceive him, in the first place,” Tavita reminded him, her voice now as sharp as her perception. All wrong, she told herself angrily, I planned this all wrong. I should have taken Ian Ferrier into my confidence, treated him as I would have treated Jeff. Deception was stupid. And what is stupid is wrong.

“Why isn’t he down here by this time?” Concepción wanted to know.

“Go upstairs, collect his tray, and find out.”

“Me? After he saw me on that staircase last night? After I pretended—” She didn’t finish, but shook her head vigorously. “I’ll never be able to face him again.”

“Stop the dramatics. We are wasting valuable minutes. I must leave in half an hour.” Tavita looked at the miniature diamond watch on her wrist. She could never see its figures clearly, but she wouldn’t admit that. She made a practised guess. “In
twenty minutes, at the most.” What a hideous journey it would be. And again she thought, why did this happen to me? To me? “All right. If neither of you will do it, I’ll find out.” She moved toward the staircase.

“But you can’t! It wouldn’t be correct!” Concepción protested.

“Correct?” Tavita stormed, her dark eyes flashing, her head tilted back.

Temper, temper, thought Ferrier as he stopped at the head of the staircase and wondered if he should descend, after all, into this little maelstrom. Three faces stared up at him. “Is it safe to come down?” he asked lightly.

Tavita recovered first. She said, “Oh, it was just a small argument. Now settled.” To Concepción, she spoke softly, quickly, so that even Jaime could only half hear her. “I leave in twenty minutes. Don’t fail me. Say nothing, nothing, nothing to Tomás. About last night or the staircase. Nothing. It will only make his anger worse. Keep him calm. Calm.” Concepción nodded, retreated against the wall to let Señor Ferrier pass. He wasn’t paying much attention to either her or Jaime. He had eyes only for Tavita. And she was, Jaime agreed, looking superbly beautiful this morning even if she had scarcely had four hours of sleep. He noted that Señor Ferrier had changed into a clean shirt, knotted a silk scarf into its open neck, put on a green linen jacket. Too bad that Señor Ferrier was going to be disappointed, he thought regretfully as he watched them meet, the fair-haired man and the dark-haired woman, and then start talking as they walked toward Señor Reid’s study. Yes, it was a pity the way this Saturday morning was being ruined for everyone.

Concepción tugged at Jaime’s sleeve, reminded him to fetch
the clothes that the chauffeur had brought. He turned obediently toward the kitchen corridor, but paused to register a whispered protest. “I hate this man Tomás,” he said vehemently. His aunt looked at him. “Because he hates all of us. Why should we—”