Quest for Alexis (9 page)

When I came outside again I found that darkness
had fallen swiftly. The air was cooler now, and I was
glad I had brought my coat. I strolled down by the
harbor. Lights from all around the bay sent shimmer
ing bars of gold across the water.

I became aware that I was being followed, which
wasn’t really surprising. I decided I had better not stay
on the streets. Flamenco music poured from a cafe a few yards along, so I went inside and ordered a glass
of sherry.

Here, too, I was looked at or over. Two or three
times a man passed by my table and tried to pick me
up. Politeness failing, I found a hard frozen stare was
the answer.

My glass was nearly empty, but I didn’t want anoth
er drink. So I sat for long minutes with the dregs of my
sherry until at last I judged that the time had come to move on to the restaurant.

It turned out to be quite close, but the moment I
stepped inside I realized I was still much too early. The
place was almost empty. I chose a table in an alcove
from which I could see the entrance and resigned my
self to a long wait.

The Velasquez restaurant gave an impression of
slightly faded magnificence—tall fluted columns and
elegant potted palms, red velvet drapes and a carpet of
royal blue and gold. The food was superb—if only I
had been in a mood to enjoy it. I accepted the waiter’s inevitable recommendation of a paella and ate it with
out interest, watching the door with every forkful.

I lingered over dessert, a rich chocolate gateau,
and took almost an hour over coffee. In the end I had
to admit defeat. There had been no guarantee that
Alexis and Belle would come here, but even so I was
left with a cold feeling of desolation.

Wearily, I signaled the waiter and asked for my bill.
The amount of it shook me. If this was anything to go
by, how much was staying at the hotel going to cost? I couldn’t stay there at this rate for long.

With economy in mind, I asked the doorman if I could catch a bus back to my hotel, which was in the
Torreno quarter. He looked down his nose at me— customers of the Velasquez weren’t expected to travel
by bus! But he gave me directions, speaking English
with such a thick, lisping accent that I found it difficult
to follow.

I started walking, my steps heavy with disappoint
ment. I wondered what I was going to say to Brett. He
would be furious with me for running out on him. I
had counted on finding Alexis. I had not allowed for
failure.

The street I had turned into on my way to the bus
was a narrow one, cobbled, with tall shuttered build
ings on either side. Though I could see bright lights and
traffic passing right at the far end, the street itself was dark and utterly deserted. I couldn’t help a tremor of
unease.

As I stood hesitating on the narrow pavement, de
bating whether this could really be the right way, a
car swung slowly around the corner from behind me. I
turned. Its headlights, full on, were so bright that I
was blinded. I stepped back instinctively, closer to the
wall.

The car came on, accelerating hard. It seemed to be heading straight for me, even though I must have been
clearly visible. It had actually mounted the pavement
and still was coming on. Oh, God, it couldn’t possibly
stop in time. Panic-stricken, I screamed and pressed
myself back against a door in the wall. But nothing
could save me now.

Then, in that final, ultimate split second, the door
behind me sprung open, and I fell sprawling backward.

The car went by with a roar, almost scraping the
bricks of the wall, and suddenly it was darkness again.
Pitch black. I lay where I had fallen, shaking uncon
trollably. For the moment I was too terrified to think of anything beyond the one stark fact that I had es
caped certain death only by a hairsbreadth.

Somewhere close at hand behind me I heard another
door opening, and light streamed out. A startled voice gasped something I didn’t understand. Lifting my head,
I saw a stout woman dressed all in black. She stared down at me with wide, astonished eyes, then came
forward and helped me to my feet, talking rapidly and
incomprehensibly.

“English
...”
I mumbled apologetically.
“Inglesa.”
Then I tried French.
“Je suis Anglaise.”

She seemed to understand and nodded and smiled
reassuringly, while still pouring a flood of words mean
ingless to me. Gripping my arm, she urged me toward
the lighted doorway. Only now did I begin to take in
any details. I was in a narrow dark alleyway with rough stone walls, and I realized that it must be an outside
passageway between two buildings.

As we went inside, the smell of garlic was almost
overpowering. It seemed to saturate the air so that I
felt sickened, and I was reluctant to penetrate any fur
ther. But my legs were so weak that I needed to sit
down, and I could hardly do that in the street. Besides,
I was scared to leave this refuge. Though I felt a little
lightheaded from shock, I knew with chilling clarity
that the car had been driven at me deliberately. The
driver, whoever he was, had intended to kill me. But
why?

The single light in the room came from a central unshaded bulb and showed me this was a poor home. The furniture was worn, the walls were a grimy beige color.
There was an old man who sat in a wooden armchair
drawn up to the table. He seemed to be affected by
some sort of nervous ague, for his thin blue-veined
hands trembled. Beside him stood a small girl with
long pigtails and a black-haired, dark-skinned boy of
fifteen or sixteen. Their eyes were all turned upon me,
staring.

The woman pushed me down onto the shabby sofa
and immediately went to a corner cupboard and
fetched a bottle and glass. Gratefully, I gulped down
the amber liquid and found it raw and strong, stinging
my throat. But it seemed to revive me.

The youth stepped forward, speaking diffidently.
“You are English,
senora?”

“Yes, yes, that’s right.” I felt so relieved that some
one could understand me that I babbled on. “There
was a car
...
it drove straight at me. If your street door
hadn’t been unlatched, I would certainly have been
killed.”

He was gazing at me blankly, and I realized I had
gone too fast for him to follow me. I began again.

“A motorcar, you understand? An automobile.”

He nodded, his thin strong-boned face lighting up
eagerly. “
Si,
si
... an
automovil.”

“The driver ... he tried to knock me down ... tried
to kill me.”

He looked bewildered and said something to his
mother. She answered in another torrent of words.
Then the old man, who was presumably the grand
father, joined in, and the little girl spoke in a high
piping voice. They were all staring at me, almost as if
I was some creature from another planet. At length
the boy began fumbling for more English words.

“Steal... ? He take money?”

“No, not steal.” I held up my handbag, which I had
been clutching all this time without knowing it. “He
didn’t stop. He just tried to run me down. Kill me.”

Their scared, uncomprehending eyes looked back at
me. What was the use? The alcohol was already having
an effect, and I could feel the shivering of my limbs
growing less. I sought about in my mind for some
thing they would understand, some explanation that
would satisfy them.

“Accident,” I said.
“Comprende?
Accident.”

They all repeated the word solemnly, even the little
girl, though whether it meant anything to them I
couldn’t be sure. I reached forward to put the glass on
the table  then, experimentally, I tried to stand up. My
legs still felt weak, but I decided I would just about
be able to manage. I nodded to each one of them in
turn—the old man, the boy, the little girl, and lastly
to the woman.

“Gracias,”
I said, moving toward the door.
“Mucho
gracias.”

“You go now?” asked the boy.

“Yes,” I said.
“Si
si...
I
must go.”

“You walk?” he said.
“La senora ... sola.
It is
dark”

“I was going to get a bus,” I told him. But that
meant nothing to him. I tried again. “Taxi.”

“Ah,
taxi.”

There was another family discussion, concluding in
nods all around. Then the boy announced, with a sort
of gallant pride, “I, Pedro, will come with you.”

I smiled my gratitude. The thought of emerging into the dark streets again terrified me. Maybe the unknown
driver who wanted me dead was still lurking there,
waiting for a second chance to run me down. I knew
that it would take all my courage to leave the safety of
this room, even with the friendly boy escorting me.

Outside, I wondered why I had ever been so fool
hardy as to take this turning at all. Although linking two busy traffic routes, the narrow street was in al
most total darkness, shadowed by the tall, high-walled
buildings. As I walked beside Pedro to the farther end,
I was shaking with nerves. My eyes kept searching for
doorways where we might take shelter if the car should
return. But mercifully, the street remained empty.

We reached the corner at last and were among oth
er people again. At once I felt safer and let out my
breath in a long sigh of relief.

Pedro did not slacken his pace, and I presumed he
knew where he could find me a taxi. All I wanted now was to sink back in a soft-padded seat and be whisked
straight to the hotel. Encountering Brett no longer
seemed a problem. His face would look comfortingly
friendly, even though he might be in a bad mood be
cause I’d walked out on him.

“Gail. Gail.”

I heard my name shouted from across the street,
above the din of the traffic. In bewilderment, I stopped and gazed around, wondering if I had only imagined
Brett’s voice because he’d been in my mind. Then I
saw him on the pavement opposite, waving at me
frantically. He started to cross, dodging nimbly be
tween the fast-moving cars.

“Where the hell have you been?” he asked in a
belligerent tone as he reached me. “And who’s this?”

Pedro looked startled, and to reassure him I said
quickly, “It’s all right. Friend ...
amigo.”

Brett said impatiently, “Will you please explain
what’s going on, Gail? I’ve been searching for you all
over the place, and then I find you calmly wandering
the streets with a local youth.”

He was angry, all right. But he was still Brett. I
would be safe now as long as I stayed with him. In my pent-up state I clutched his arm.

“Somebody tried to kill me, Brett! Quite deliberate
ly. A car just tried to run me down.”

He looked at me with cool incredulity. “Gail, you’re
imagining things. The way some of them drive here is
pretty irresponsible, I agree, but whoever would deliberately want to run you down?”

“I don’t know who it was,” I shouted. “But I was walking through a narrow street back there
...
on my
way to catch a bus, when a car came along from be
hind. Suddenly it accelerated and drove straight at me.
If I hadn’t fallen backward into a doorway, I’d have
been
killed.”

My voice had risen to the edge of hysteria. Brett
held me against him and patted me soothingly, as if I
was a child to be comforted.

“It’s all right, love—it’s all right. I’ll get you back to the hotel. But you still haven’t told me who this young
chap is.”

It was difficult to explain it all, confronted by Brett’s
evident disbelief. Pedro stood looking on, nodding his
head vigorously, though he couldn’t have made much
sense of my incoherent story.