A Game of Authors (3 page)

“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 knees 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.”

Garson studied Medina’s pockmarked face, wondered:
Could he have had anything to do with this?
He looked at Villazana.

“The patron saint of this hotel, she was with you tonight,
Señor
,” said Villazana. “Ahhh, those bad fellows! I will punish them tomorrow!”

And could he have had anything to do with it?
wondered Garson. Villazana did not appear particularly disturbed by the incident.

Garson turned back to Medina, the feeling of wrongness strong in him. “Do you have any idea who could have done this?”

Medina shrugged. “It has a certain familiar pattern, but
quién sabe
?”

“Who?”

Medina shook his head. “I dunno.” He glanced up at the skylight, and Garson noted that his hand was close to the revolver in his belt holster.

“Someone like your
Yegua
?” asked Garson. “Someone who shoots from hiding?”

Medina’s attention snapped back to Garson. He stared into Garson’s eyes with a curious intentness.

“That’s a connection I’d never made before,” said Medina. “But now that you mention it . . .” He reached out, snapped off the light.

Villazana gabbled something in Spanish.

“
Callaté!
” rumbled Medina.

Shut up!

“What’s wrong?” asked Garson.

“Our friend may still be on the roof,” said Medina.

Garson shivered. “Shouldn’t we call the police?”

“Don’t be a dope,” said Medina. His voice sounded like a rolling of gravel in the dark. “Cops can be bought cheap down here. They carry guns that can go off by accident while you are standing unfortunately in the way!”

A feeling of desperate anger swelled in Garson. “Do you have a spare gun, Choco?”

Medina remained silent a moment, then Garson heard him move, saw the faint ghostly shadow of him approaching. Something cold and smooth was pushed into Garson’s hand: a revolver.

“It’s a thirty-eight special,” said Medina. “Do you know how to use it?”

Garson oriented the gun in his hand. “Yes.”

“I think you’d better come home with me tonight,” said Medina.

The anger became a feeling of stubborn determination in Garson, reinforced by the feeling of the revolver in his hand. “No!”

“This could have been an accident,” said Medina. “But I . . .”

“
Sí!
An accident!” babbled Villazana. “The workmen! They . . .”

“
Callaté!
” said Medina.

Villazana fell into abrupt silence.

“We’ll move the bed out from under the skylight and get Villazana here to put a piece of canvas over the hole,” said Garson.

“A piece of canvas won’t stop a killer,” said Medina.

“I don’t think they’ll try again tonight.”

“What if they don’t think the same way?”

“What can they do if I’m not under the . . .”

“‘What can they do?’ he says.” Medina put a hand on Garson’s arm. “They can poke a gun through that hole up there and put a nice new bullet in you.”

“I don’t think so,” said Garson. “That wouldn’t look like an accident.”

“But you would be just as dead!”

“I’m an American citizen!” barked Garson. “They can’t go around popping off an American citizen without a big stink!”

“You know, Mr. Garson, I’ve run into this strange attitude before. It gets hundreds of American citizens killed every year.”

“Besides, I’ve got a gun now,” muttered Garson.

“American citizen with a gun,” said Medina. “The world’s most dangerous game!”

Garson fought down laughter that he knew would have sounded almost hysterical. “They wouldn’t have rigged an accident if they just wanted me dead.”

“You can’t be sure,” said Medina.

“This Antone Luac wants his privacy pretty badly,” said Garson. “I wonder why.”

“Wouldn’t it be a good idea for you just to forget all about this and go home?” asked Medina. “After all, if . . .”

“What do you mean?”

“Well . . . one story can’t be worth all of . . .”

“The hell it isn’t!”

Garson thought about dropping the story, about leaving this threatening atmosphere of mystery. Nothing had ever sounded so appealing to him. But the anger pulsed in the back of his mind. He felt the weight of the pistol in hand. And something more: the thing he called “story fever.” It filled him with an absolute hunger to unravel this mystery.

“Hell no, I’m not going home!” he said.

“It’s your funeral,” said Medina.

There was a tone like regret in Medina’s voice. It sent a shudder of fear through Garson, but he suppressed the feeling.

I’m staying
, he thought.

After Medina and Villazana had gone, Garson waited in darkness while someone climbed to the roof, nailed canvas across the shattered skylight. Then he moved his own bed to a corner across the room.

Now that he was alone, questions came crowding into Garson’s mind.

What was Medina doing around here so late at night? He was too available. And why did my comment about the killer of his brother surprise him?

And Garson remembered Eduardo Gomez.

Good God! Gomez was coming back tonight! What if he saw all the commotion and got frightened off?

And another, more chilling thought:
What if the people who dropped the concrete saw Gomez visit me today? If they’d try to kill me, would they hesitate over killing a Mexican?

Again Garson experienced a sense of tragic premonition about Gomez. And he recalled the line from Gomez’s letter:

“He kill mi.”

Why would Luac kill to maintain his privacy?
Garson asked himself.
Why?

Garson had the sensation that his tight little Stanley-and-Livingstone-plus-female story was getting away from him.

Before the sleep of exhaustion overcame Garson that night, he recalled Villazana’s statement about the trucks that visited the Hacienda Cual.
What’s in those trucks?

He slipped into a dream of an endless line of trucks driven by repetitive Choco Medinas. And as each truck passed, the dream Medina looked at Garson with a feeling of deep regret—and shot at him with the big revolver.
 

***

Chapter 3

Choco Medina awakened Garson at seven the next morning, rapping lightly on the door. “You in there?”

Garson came instantly awake, his first feeling one of surprise that he had actually slept. He could feel the hard lump of the revolver under his pillow. It brought back the full memory of the previous night.

Could it really have been an accident?
he wondered.

Again the rapping sounded on his door.

“Hssst! Are you all right?”

Garson recognized Medina’s gravelly voice, said, “Yes. I’m just getting up.”

“They start serving breakfast out here in fifteen minutes.”

“Be right with you.”

Garson went first to the hotel desk where an older, white-haired man with a face like wrinkled leather and eyes of veiled caution stood in Villazana’s place.

The old man informed Garson that no one had called for him during the night.

Medina, a thoughtful expression on his ugly face, sat at a table near the arcade, his back to the wall. Garson joined him.

“Choco, how do I get out to the Hacienda Cual?”

Medina put a finger to his long mustache, said, “Are you aching to get draped over a fence in a dead condition?”

“Nuts! I’ve a story to do. The best way is to go right in the front door.”

“And out the . . .”

A hotel maid bent over the table, interrupting Medina. “
Dispense, Choco
,” she said. “
El llave?
”

Garson recognized the word for “key,” saw a key pass from Medina to the maid. She crossed the lobby, opened a padlocked door with the key, exposed steps leading upward.

Medina said, “I don’t like any part of . . .”

“Just a minute, Choco!” Garson studied him a moment, looked in the door the maid had opened. She reappeared with a light pallet and a roll of blankets.

“I thought so,” said Garson. “You stayed on the roof last night, Choco.”

Medina shrugged. “So I made love to the maid.”

“Hah!”

“Maybe I was protecting some poor Mexican from an American citizen with a gun. How do you know?”

“I appreciate it all the same,” said Garson.

Medina coughed, cleared his throat.

Garson felt deeply moved, a sense of warmth and kinship with this evil-visaged Mexican. He said, “Maybe I’ll get a chance to . . .”

A horn blared in the street.

Both men turned.

The long black limousine of the railroad station stood in the street, the same queenly beauty in the rear seat. A string of pack burros loaded with sacked charcoal blocked the street.

Again the horn blared. Garson’s attention went to the driver, noted that it was not Eduardo Gomez but the man who’d sat beside Gomez holding a rifle.

Medina said, “Do you know who that is?”

“Luac’s daughter. What’s her name, Choco?”

“Anita Carmen Maria.”

“How do you know her full name?”

“It’s on her baptismal record.”

And Garson thought:
Anita Luac—Anita Peabody. Another link in the chain.
He filed Medina’s familiarity with the woman’s name for future investigation, pushed himself away from the table.

“Where’re you going?”

“Out to meet the . . .”

The limousine found an opening beside the burros, sped off down the avenue.

“It would be safer to go out and tangle with the fence riders at the hacienda,” said Medina. “That was José Gomez driving. He’s known as El Grillo: the cricket. That’s because he can shoot crickets on the wing with his rifle.”

“Gomez,” said Garson. “Is he related to a man named Eduardo Gomez?”

“Eduardo is his nephew. Why?”

“I’d like to find Eduardo Gomez and talk to him. Do you have any idea where the car may be going?”

“
Quién sabe?
Sometimes they go to the doctor, sometimes to a store, sometimes to the market.”

“Choco, see if you can find out where they’re going now.”

“Look, why don’t you stop asking for a casket! This is . . .”

“Stop this
menacing Mexico
routine for five minutes,” said Garson. “This is a straightaway love story—romantic runaways, all the trimmings. That exquisite creature in the car is the love child to top it off!”

Medina shook his head. “You may not respect your skin, but I have the greatest re . . .”

“Then I’ll go find them myself!”

“No!” Medina jerked to his feet. “If it must be, it must be! But you’re asking for big trouble!”

“This is just a simple little story of . . .”

“Nothing is really simple,” said Medina. “Wait here for me. I’ll do what I can.” He went out into the arcade, strode around the corner to the right.

Garson ordered breakfast, ate in a mood of deep thoughtfulness.

Something about Medina doesn’t fit
, he thought.
Is someone paying him to sidetrack me and frighten me off? And if so—why?

A familiar horn sounded from the other side of the garden plaza. The limousine came around the corner, stopped diagonally across from Garson beneath a sign that identified the telegraph office. The woman got out, entered the office.

Garson saw no sign of Medina.

He stood up, went to the corner, crossed in front of the limousine. The driver, a dried-up gnome of a man with a pinched face of undersized features, studied Garson with pale eyes that seemed to measure everything they saw.

Anita Luac was inside the office, bent over a counter, writing on a telegraph blank.

Garson slipped in the open door, glanced over the woman’s shoulder at what she was writing, caught his breath. Her left hand covered the name of the person to whom she was addressing the telegram, but the words beneath were in a neat block printing, easy to read:

“H. Garson here. One attempt made and failed. Please advise where . . .”

She sensed his presence, turned, folding back the telegraph blank to conceal it.

Garson stared down into a face so beautiful that sight of it momentarily drove all other thoughts from his mind. Her wide brown eyes were like those of a trapped fawn, full of the awareness that he had seen the telegram. A soft flush stole across the pale cream skin. Her full red lips were slightly parted. A sharply indrawn breath pressed her breasts against her dark blouse.

“You saw!” she said.

Garson felt that her statement was the most terrible accusation. He said, “I, uh . . .” Then he recalled the words he’d read on her telegram, and a bitter anger filled him.

One attempt made and failed!

“I’m Hal Garson, Miss Luac. Would you like to make another attempt now?”

“This is hardly the . . .” She broke off, stared at him. “What do you mean?”

“Your assassins missed with that chunk of concrete the other night.” He looked up to the cracked plaster of the telegraph office ceiling. “Maybe there’s something around here you could have dropped on me.”

She glanced at the telegram in her hand, back to Garson. “Oh, but . . .” She shook her head. “You don’t understand. This isn’t . . .” Again she blushed.

“Maybe you’d better explain then,” said Garson.

Her lips thinned. “I don’t have to explain anything, Mr. Garson!” She crumpled the telegram, turned to leave.

“Miss Luac!” said Garson.

She stopped, spoke without turning. “The name is Cual.”

“I have a piece of manuscript that I believe was written recently by a man named Antone Luac,” said Garson. “Have you ever heard of him?”

She kept her face averted, stared out at the street. Garson saw the gnome-like driver looking in at her, a question in his eyes. She shook her head at him, and he turned away.

“Have you ever heard of him?” repeated Garson.

“That was a mistake, Mr. Garson,” she said.

“I think your father is Antone Luac,” said Garson. “I’d like to go out and talk to him.”

“My father is old and tired, and desires nothing but peace,” she said. “He is not receiving visitors.”

“Is your father Antone Luac?”

“I must be going, Mr. Garson.”

“But you haven’t sent your telegram.”

“That, too, was a mistake.”

“Tell your father that I’ll be out to see him this afternoon.”

Her body shook with suppressed emotion. She turned, and her voice came out soft and pleading. “Please, Mr. Garson. This has all been a terrible mistake. Please go away and forget you ever heard of us or of that piece of manuscript.”

Garson stared down at her, realizing that she was the most desirable woman he had ever seen.

She held out her right hand. “Please give me that piece of manuscript.”

With an odd twisting emotion, Garson knew that he would have been compelled to give her the piece of manuscript if he’d had it with him. He shook his head. “I’m sorry, Miss Luac.”

Her face contorted as though she were about to cry, and her voice came out little more than a sob. “Oh, please go away!”

Garson fought to regain his self-control. “Miss Luac, famous people don’t have the right to privacy.”

She stamped her foot. “That’s stupid!”

“I’m truly sorry, but that’s the way it is.”

She took a deep quavering breath, spoke slowly. “You will not be permitted to see my father. For your own sake as well as ours, please do not try.”

Abruptly, she turned away, slipped out to the limousine.

As quickly as she moved, the gnome-like driver was quicker. He was out of the car and the rear door open before she reached the car.

By the time Garson had recovered his senses, the limousine was pulling away. He stood in the doorway, stared after the retreating car.

A deep voice intruded from his left. “Well, now you’ve met the
Señorita
.”

Garson whirled.

Choco Medina leaned against the wall beside the door. A cigarette dangled from his lips, its coal dangerously near his drooping mustache. A black sedan was pointed into the curb in front of him. Medina pushed himself away from the wall, nodded toward the car. “Shall we go for a ride?”

“Where?”

Medina shrugged.

“How about taking me out to the Hacienda Cual?”

Medina’s lids dropped. He spat out the cigarette, stepped on it. “Do you have an invitation?”

“All the invitation I need.”

“I will give you odds against it.”

“Do you take me, or do I hire a cab?”

“You’ve already hired me, Mr. Garson. Remember?”

Garson nodded, wondering at Medina’s withdrawn attitude. He said, “Did you get a chance to talk to this
El Grillo
?”

“Yes.”

“Where’s his nephew, Eduardo Gomez?”

“What nephew? He has no nephew by that name.”

“But you said . . .”

“I am quoting him, Mr. Garson.”

“What?”

“He suddenly doesn’t know anything about a nephew named Eduardo Gomez.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Let’s go ask him.”

They got into the car.

Garson said, “Stop at the hotel a minute.”

“Why?”

“Just stop at the hotel.”

“You’re the boss.”

Gabriél Villazana was on duty behind the desk. Garson pressed a twenty peso note into his hand, “Gabriél, I am going out to the Hacienda Cual with Choco Medina. If I’m not back by eight o’clock tomorrow morning, please notify the American Consulate in Mexico City.”

Villazana took the money, his hand shaking.

“Will you do it?” asked Garson.

“
Sí, Señor.
But please do not do this. That Choco is a bad man! He will . . .”

“Just do as I ask.”

Garson turned away from him, went to his room. His bed had been made, the room swept. He reached under his pillow and found the gun neatly centered there. A smile touched his lips as he wondered how common a thing it was for the maid to replace a man’s revolver when she made the bed. He slipped the gun into his belt, returned to the car and Choco Medina.

“Let’s go.”

The cobbled street ended at the edge of town, became a dusty, rutted track bounded by rickety fences of twisted limbs. The road wound through fields of sugar cane and corn. Dust thrown up by the limousine ahead of them hung over the ruts.

As the sun climbed, Garson began to feel the heat of the day.

The road angled upward, turning and twisting, bounded now by cacti overgrown with bougainvillea, tall grey-barked trees with shiny green leaves.

Still there was no sign of the limousine except the settling carpet of dust on the road. They came to a fork. The dust trail went left.

“They are going to the upper gate,” said Medina. “I don’t like that.”

“Why?”

He steered the car into the left fork, said, “It is more secluded there.”

The turns became tighter, steeper. They rounded a hairpin corner. Medina turned off the road between two stone pillars, braked to a jolting stop as the pinch-faced driver of the limousine stepped into their path, pointed a rifle at them.

The limousine stood parked about one hundred yards ahead beneath one of the grey barked trees.

“Some invitation!” muttered Medina.

“That’s El Grillo, isn’t it?” asked Garson.

“Yes.”

“Maybe I can talk to him.” Garson moved to open his door.

Medina gripped his arm. “Stay where you are!”

El Grillo took his left hand from the rifle stock, pointed back toward the city.

“Don’t get out of the car for any reason,” said Medina. “Just wait right here.” He opened his door, got out, walked up to El Grillo.

The rifle remained pointed at the car.

Medina murmured something to El Grillo. The little rifleman glanced back at the limousine, returned his attention to Garson, shook his head.

Again Medina spoke.

El Grillo grinned, looked up for the first time at Medina, shrugged. The rifleman wet his lips with his tongue, said, “Raul?” as though it were a question.

Medina said something too low for Garson to hear.

El Grillo nodded.

Medina returned to the car, slid behind the wheel.

“What the hell was all that?” demanded Garson.

Medina ignored the question, backed the car through the gate, headed toward the city. They rounded the hairpin curve. Medina braked to a stop.

Garson became conscious of the crickets rasping in the dry grass beside the road. They reminded him that the rifleman at the gate was known as “The Cricket.” He said, “Okay, Choco. What gives?”