Voyage into Violence (19 page)

Pam went quickly through the little street, and felt, now, that people were watching her—that North Americans, dressed for touring, wearing clicking heels, were aliens and intruders, and might, as such, be resented. But there was no sign of resentment in the faces or manners of the few Havanese she saw. They looked at her curiously, but without enmity.

Once she had turned the corner of the street, she could see some distance ahead—and could not see Hilda Macklin. The street ended in a building—with colonnades, with ironwork—and had the appearance of a cul-de-sac. Small, somehow secret, shops opened off it—into any of which Hilda might have gone. Pam stopped, to listen, and did not hear Hilda's footsteps, but nevertheless went on, since she had no notion how to go back. She reached the end of the street, and there was a passage through the building. She could not see the end of the passage, but she could not see where else Hilda could easily have gone—unless into one of the shops. Pam went into it. It would, surely, come out somewhere.

She was in it, and found there was a jog in it, and went around the jog. It was not really dark in the passageway—if one looked up, there was the sky; the very blue sky. But it felt dark and now, listening, Pam felt, more than before, and uneasily, that there was the sound of steps behind her. The echo again, she thought, and stopped. And the sound of footsteps behind her did not stop with hers—not for more than a second. Then the sound stopped.

It was a heavier sound—not the sound of a woman's clicking leather heels. It was that before it stopped—before someone waited behind her, for her to go on.

She went on. She went on very fast, and found herself breathing rapidly, nervously. Anything could happen in this dark passageway—anything that was not good. She found that she was almost running. She—

There was an archway on her right and Pam—pursued, now, not pursuer—turned into it. There was a door, and she pushed at the door, and it opened into a large room. In the middle of the room there was an alligator hanging by its tail.

10

The National Police of Cuba proved as anxious to cooperate as, by telephone, they had promised to be. They were also efficient. Half an hour after the police car—which moved even more rapidly than the Havana taxicabs—had deposited Captain William Weigand at the massive, ancient and ornate building which is police headquarters, electronics as well as policemen were at his call. A signature sped through nothingness toward Worcester and New York; pictures leaped across oceans and radio messages went along, explaining what was wanted. And Bill Weigand, at a desk supplied, read a message from Sergeant Stein—a message which reiterated and amplified. “Confirming our telephone conversations,” Stein might have prefaced, but did not. The police of Los Angeles, as requested, had been asked to trace a Mrs. Winifred Ferris, if possible. Bill doubted it would be. The president of the Worcester Box Company, of which J. R. Folsom was treasurer, was one Abner Baldwin, who had not yet proved available.

The waiting game again, as it was so often, Bill decided, and drummed on the borrowed desk with his finger tips. His opposite number sat at a larger desk.

“It does not go well?” he enquired. Bill said that it did not go particularly well. A telephone rang; there was a conversation in Spanish.

“Miss Macklin,” the opposite number said, “has not yet visited Carrillo et Cie.”

Where else might she go? The sub-inspector of the Cuban National Police considered. He shrugged. There were many places, if she knew of them. Some as reputable as Carrillo et Cie. Some—again he shrugged. It was improbable that a young North American woman would know of those, unless—There was another shrug. In all large cities, as the captain knew, there were these others. In New York, undoubtedly. Places where one might sell precious stones without too much enquiry—without any enquiry—as to the source from which they came. But, as he understood it, Miss Hilda Macklin would neither know of such dealers, nor have reason to learn of them. The jewels she might wish to sell were her mother's, were they not?

“Presumably,” Bill said. “None of it is too clear, inspector.”

“A block on a certain street,” the sub-inspector said, and named the street. “There we keep a watch but—” He shrugged again. If Captain Weigand wished, men could be sent, with photographs—with this so admirable drawing of Miss Macklin—to the more likely places? In the usual course, such a procedure might come to nothing. But, with murder involved—and to be mentioned? Few like even a remote association with murder.

It would, Bill thought, be worth trying. They waited. Photographs, electronics through with them, came back to the office. They were sent away again, this time to be rephotographed. They waited and while they waited drank coffee, which was black and bitter, and delicious. In his, the sub-inspector used much sugar. The copied sketch, the copied photographs, came back. Bill put them in an envelope. He put Stein's message in an envelope.

He might, Bill said, as well see Havana, since he was in it—since seeing Havana had, when all this was only to be a pleasure cruise, been one of the main points. It would be a privilege to assist Captain Weigand to see their beautiful city; they had special tourist policemen whose English was excellent, whose knowledge of the city complete. It—

Bill was appreciative, realized there would be no other way one half so good. But, he was with a party, including in it, his wife. “The artist,” the sub-inspector said, with appreciation. No doubt, the American Express tours had an established itinerary? If Bill could be guided to some likely point where—

He stopped, since a uniformed policeman came in, with urgency in his manner. He spoke, in Spanish and—it appeared—in surprise, to the sub-inspector, who then spoke to Bill Weigand, in English, but also in some surprise. There was a man who wished to see the captain—wished, it appeared, somewhat urgently to see the captain. A Mr. Folsom?

Bill shared the surprise. While they waited for Mr. Folsom, the sub-inspector lifted his dark eyebrows. Bill Weigand shrugged his shoulders.

Respected Captain J. R. Folsom came in, wearing an orange shirt, and looking very hot.

Pamela North, confronted by a dangling alligator, said, “
eeHH!
” on a rising note, and stopped, braced backward. The alligator revolved slowly, as if to regard her—as if in annoyance at this interruption of solitude. It was, however, only the skin of an alligator. “Huh,” Pam said, on a declining note. “Pretending to be—”

But then she heard, or thought she heard, the door through which she had come, and had closed behind her, opening again. Pam North went around the alligator, brushing counters on which other alligators, or large sections thereof, were piled, and toward a door beyond. She went through the door briskly, and half a dozen men and women, sitting at tables, looked at her with dark eyes and with astonishment. The four women, and two men, were cutting up alligators.

“Señora,” one of the men said, “you come by the back door? It is preferred to come by the front door. Sí?”

“Sí,” Pam said. “Sí indeed. Oh—alligator
bags!
”

“Sí,” the man said. “The best alligator bags. For almost nothing, señora. But—in front, sí?”

He pointed. Pam North went between tables. She came into a larger room, opening on a street—a room festooned with alligator bags of many sizes, many shapes; of alligator bags suspended, lying on showcases, glassed within showcases. A middle-aged woman, who had been looking through the door into a deserted square, turned abruptly. Large dark eyes grew perceptibly larger.

“Señora?” she said, as if doubting it. “But you came by the back door.”

“I know,” Pam said. “It—well, I just came to it. That is, it was there.”

The woman regarded Pamela North. As others had done before her, she shook her head, as if the movement were reflexive. Then she looked at the door through which Pam had come.

“The others?” she said. “They also—”

“Others,” Pam said. “Are there—?”

“American Express,” the woman said.

“Oh,” Pam said, “Looking at the cathedral.”

The woman among the alligator bags continued to regard the door Pam had come through. She looked at it with an expression which mingled expectation and alarm. “It is not like the American Express,” she said. “Always they come by the front door. Sí?” She turned back to Pam. “However,” she said, “you wish a bag?” She held one up. But Pam did not look at it.

She looked through the open door, into the square. Mr. Jules Barron was coming into the square from a passageway. He was looking around the square.

“I,” said Pamela North, “do very much want a bag. Please.”

There had never been so many alligator bags. One after another, as the large woman brought them forth, pointed them out, Pam looked at alligator bags. And, between one bag and the next, she looked through the door into the square, where it was clear that Mr. Jules Barron waited for someone. He appeared to wait patiently.

“This one is beautiful, sí?” the large woman said, and produced another. “But perhaps the señora would prefer—”

The trouble was that Pam North does not really much like alligator bags, regarding them as knobby and, in addition, requiring alligator shoes, which she likes even less. “Beautiful,” Pam North agreed. “But what I more had in mind was—”

It could not be said that the middle-aged woman grew impatient. But she did, as minutes passed, appreciably warm to her task. This señora who came through back doors, who looked and looked but without real attention—this señora would leave with an alligator bag, or the reason why would be known. “Nowhere, señora,” the woman said, resolutely, “nowhere in Habana will the señora find such a collection as we have here.”

Pam did not doubt it. She said she did not doubt it. She looked out the door where Jules Barron, a man with all the time in the world in his unhurried hands, leaned slightly against a column in the shade, and looked as if he belonged there—looked rather, indeed, as if he had grown there.

“It is so hard to decide,” Pam said. “They are all so beautiful. This one, now. Or—perhaps this one. Although this one is so—”

She stopped, and stopped pretending not to look through the door into the square. Because, from between two massive buildings, Hilda Macklin came briskly, her black bag—not alligator—clutched under her right arm. She walked across the square, which was cobbled, to Barron and, as she walked, Pam thought Hilda shook her head. Barron moved a few steps to join her, they talked for an instant; side by side, still talking, they walked through a colonnade and disappeared.

“So that's it,” Pam said. “Not me at all.”

“Señora?” the large woman said. “Which one not you?”

“Oh,” Pam said, and slightly shook the alligator she held. “This one, I think. I mean, this one
is
me.”

It was not really very cheap. And Pam was sure, or almost sure, she could learn to like it. Or, it would make a nice present for—She could not think of anyone for whom it would make an especially nice present. Pam signed a traveler's check.

And, as she signed it, the square filled with taxicabs, as if they had fallen from the sky. The American Express had come charging to the rescue. The American Express was a little late. Pam looked reproachfully at the too-expensive, knobby bag.

“So,” the large woman said, “by the
front
door, as I told the señora.”

Respected Captain J. R. Folsom, looking very hot indeed—although it was comparatively cool in the office, behind massive walls—said that anybody could make a mistake. Bill Weigand did not challenge this statement of the obvious. He was asked to look at it Folsom's way and said, “Right, Mr. Folsom. You recognized the signature. You said you didn't.”

“Look at it my way,” Folsom said, again. “I was rattled. I said I made a mistake.”

“You realized,” Bill Weigand said, “that once I got ashore, I'd radio the signature to Worcester. That a hundred people there would recognize it. That, once it was identified as Baldwin's, I'd know you'd been lying.”

He was told he made it sound bad. Suppose Folsom had got to thinking it over afterward, realized he had made a mistake?

“Like I say,” Folsom said, “anybody can. I thought maybe I could keep out of it. Until I thought it over.”

“The signature,” Bill said, “is Abner Baldwin's. He's president of your company. He'd hired Marsh to—to do what, Mr. Folsom? You may as well—not make another mistake.”

“Lil Abner,” Folsom said, “is a prize s.o.b. Ask anybody in Worcester.”

“Suppose,” Bill said, “you just tell me what it's about. Right?”

It took Folsom time, and many suggestions that Weigand look at it his way. It took a history, not too brief, of the Worcester Paper Box Company, which had been the Folsom Paper Box Company—into which Abner Baldwin had “moved,” during the depression, after Folsom's father, and the company's founder, had “passed away.”

“You have to get the background,” Folsom said, and Bill Weigand was patient.

Yet it was not too clear, even when lengthily explained. Baldwin was trying to squeeze; that was what it came to. Trying to get Folsom out, and take over completely. “So, he rigged this thing up. Figures he's got me by the short hair, when all the time he knows it's a phony.” In short—but it was not in short—Baldwin had accused Folsom of embezzlement (“which is a g.d. lie and he knows it”) and was willing to let it slide if Folsom had consented to be squeezed out. “I told him to go take one,” Folsom said. “At you know who.”

Bill knew who.

“Put up or shut up,” Folsom said, amplifying. “See what I mean?”

Bill saw what he meant.

“He didn't have anything to go on,” Folsom said, and Bill Weigand said, “Anything?”