The Follower (18 page)

Mark gave him the dollars. Oscar surveyed the bills with awed reverence and, bringing out his plump wallet, added them to his hoard.

‘We’ll take a taxi together to the Reforma,’ Mark said. ‘I’ll wait for you there.’

Mark’s suitcase was still at the Hotel Reforma. He would need a change of clothes.

When they reached the Reforma, Oscar hurried off down the Paseo. Mark was given the key to Frankie’s suite without question. His suitcase still stood in the hall and Ellie’s clothes still hung in the closet. He shaved in the bathroom and changed his clothes. Having repacked his bag, he carried it downstairs and ate something in the American snack-bar which was just about to close.

It was just two-thirty when Oscar returned. Mark followed him out into the street. A new green Buick convertible was parked at the curb. Oscar caressed a fender lovingly.

‘Is beautiful, no? My friend is American. Many of my friends are Americans.’

He ushered Mark into the car and put his suitcase in the back seat. As he climbed in himself, he gave a polite cough.

‘Is one thing, Mr Liddon. My fee as chauffeur. You feel perhaps that one dollar for each hour is excessive?’

‘That’s okay.’

‘One dollar for each hour! Oh, boy!’

As Oscar started the car, he turned on Mark a look of swooning adoration. ‘Of all my friends, Mr Liddon, you are the one who pleases me most. From now on I leave them all, all for you.’

AT
last there was no immediate need to fight against the exhaustion that was besieging him. Almost at once Mark dropped into a heavy sleep and when he awoke it was morning. The car was speeding recklessly through a landscape of brown mountains and dusty canyons. Oscar, at the wheel, looked fresh as a child just after its morning scrub. He smiled at Mark cheerfully.

‘You wish some breakfast, Mr Liddon?’ He reached down on the seat at his side and shyly offered two dilapidated packages. ‘In Mexico I buy things for eating. One is of oranges. The other of sandwiches of ham. Take them. Are free. Are my present to you.’

As Oscar chattered on about his unswerving loyalty to his new friend, Mark ate an orange and a ham sandwich. Sleep and the crisp mountain air had restored him. This morning the situation seemed less hopeless than it had the night before.

He had no gun. That was unfortunate. But he had certain advantages. Frankie and George couldn’t know that Oscar had double-crossed them and released him from the apartment on Bolivar. They wouldn’t be expecting him to follow them. He had the element of surprise on his side — and he had Oscar as an ally too.

He glanced at the boy, who, as he spun the car around a hair-raising curve, flashed back to him a smile of blind adoration. Mark had no illusions about Oscar. He had switched sides only because the pickings were better with Mark. Once they reached Acapulco, his great love would vanish the moment Frankie or George held a larger fistful of pesos in front of his pretty nose. But even a shaky ally was better than none.

The car toppled down into a valley and then roared crazily up a mountain peak. Mark considered a plan of campaign. Frankie, for some reason, had a rendezvous, posing as Mrs Mark Liddon, at the Casa Miranda Hotel. Since they couldn’t possibly take Ellie as a prisoner to a respectable hotel sponsored by Thomas Cook and Sons, George would presumably drive Ellie to some prearranged hideout, and Frankie, her business completed, would almost certainly rejoin them. One way to find Ellie would be to follow Frankie in Oscar’s car. In any case, he would have to go to the Casa Miranda and pick up the thread from there.

The prospect of another clash with Frankie was oddly exciting. How he handled her would depend on the circumstances of the moment, but at least he would have one more chance to redeem the fiasco of the day before.

Soon they were driving into the outskirts of the town. High above them on the peaks of the hills, luxury hotels reared like sultans’ palaces, but down here the atmosphere was one of squalor and improvisation. Ramshackle dwellings with roofs of dried palm leaf stood in dusty yards. Naked children, molting turkeys, and the inevitable pigs tumbled over each other and scattered across the streets.

They reached a crowded central square. It was cluttered, like the squares in Mexico, with sleazy stalls and rocking to the din of rival jukeboxes from sidewalk cafes. Oscar swung the car up a steep hill and almost immediately they had climbed into a world of wealth and landscape gardening. Within a few minutes the Casa Miranda came haughtily into view on the crest of the mountain. Oscar drove through tropical gardens and stopped the car in a broad gravel area before the hotel’s imposing facade.

He turned, beaming, to Mark. ‘I drive well, no? Fast, fast. Nine hours.’

‘That’s fine, Oscar.’

‘And now — what do you wish me to do? You know that 1 do anything for you, Mr Liddon. Anything.’

‘Wait here for me. If, by any chance, I come out with Frankie, follow us in the car. But don’t let her see you.’

Oscar nodded, but added anxiously; ‘Perhaps there will be danger for you, Mr Liddon?’

‘Perhaps.’

‘Then ‘— the boy looked demure — ‘perhaps is best to make our financial settlements now. Nine dollars. One dollar for each hour. Is nine dollars.’

Mark reached into his breast pocket for his wallet. As he did so, Oscar produced his own expectantly. A sudden idea came to Mark. He leaned forward and, tugging the boy’s wallet out of his small brown hand, transferred it to his own pocket.

Oscar’s mouth dropped open in horror. He made a lightning grab towards Mark’s pocket. Mark caught his wrist.

‘Don’t worry, Oscar. You’ll get it back.’ He grinned at the boy. ‘It’s just a hostage. I want to be sure you won’t develop another best friend while I’m away.’

Oscar’s eyes were round with outraged sensibility. ‘Mr Liddon, how can you be so cynic?’

Mark patted his hand and got out of the car. ‘Just do what I say and you’ll get it back — plus your nine dollars plus another ten-dollar bonus.’

It was extremely hot. He took off his topcoat and hat, threw them in the back seat and hurried across the parking area into the hotel lobby. The Casa Miranda was obviously one of those ‘spend-the-honeymoon-you-will-never-forget’ establishments. It reeked of glamour. The lobby stretched back to a vast plate-glass window which exhibited a view of flamboyant gardens. Bellhops in plum-colored uniforms flocked around Mark. He pushed through them towards the desk. A girl with heavy lashes moved to wait on him. Her air of tired elegance reminded him of Derain’s.

He said: ‘Is Mrs Mark Liddon here?’

The girl studied him listlessly. ‘Are you the gentleman she’s expecting?’

This was too good to be true. ‘Yes,’ he lied.

‘She’s waiting for you at the Belvedere.’

‘Where is it?’

The girl gestured to the right. ‘Through the gardens, past the swimming pool and straight on.’

Mark started through the lobby. For once his timing had been perfect. He was coming in just at the very moment of the rendezvous. With any luck, this break might lead him not only to Ellie but to the solution of the whole crazy mystery.

A corridor led him into a spacious lounge. At one side stretched a long counter which sold Mexican curios and American magazines. As he passed it, his eye fell on a pile of
Harper’ s Bazaars.
He was almost certain that it was the same issue as the one he had seen at Maurice’s. He leafed through a copy and came upon the photograph of Ellie — the former and celebrated Miss Eleanor Ross.

Excitement pricking him, he bought it and tucked it under his arm. Frankie had Ellie’s tourist card; she had her nerve and her brilliance at deception. Probably at this moment, she was as sure of her ability to carry off the impersonation as she had ever been sure of anything.

She was due for a nasty shock. This magazine was a far more lethal weapon against her than any revolver.

French windows opened on to the gardens. Mark followed a winding path through blazing pink, yellow and scarlet hibiscus and emerged on to a sunny red-tiled terrace, where chairs and tables under gay beach umbrellas stood around a swimming pool. Another path led deeper into the gardens. He took it. After twenty yards or so he reached a smaller circular terrace jutting over the cliff’s edge, where white-painted iron chairs faced a sensational vista of the Pacific.

Frankie was standing there alone by the brick balustrade. Her back was to him. She was wearing a simple white frock with a broad scarlet belt. The scarlet leather handbag was looped over her shoulder. In the dazzling sunlight her dyed blonde hair gleamed almost silver. A large portable radio, bound in pigskin, lay on the balustrade at her side.

For a moment Mark waited at the entrance to the Belvedere, looking at her. Then, very quietly, he said:

‘Good morning, Mrs Liddon.’

At the sound of his voice she spun around. Her eyes, fixed on his face, were completely off their guard.

‘You!’ she breathed.

‘Yes, me.’

‘But how …?’

‘I’m Superman. I broke my bonds and flapped down here in my old grey cloak.’

She was really frightened. He could tell that. Fear made her look very young, rather awkward, and terribly innocent. No one, seeing her then, could have told that she was as dangerous as a boxful of vipers.

He wasn’t going to make it any easier for her by leading the conversation. He just stood there, grinning at her. In a strange, impersonal way he was fascinated to know how she was going to try to wriggle out of this predicament. Any minute now the ‘gentleman’ she was expecting would show up and the rendezvous, whatever it was, would take place. She couldn’t tell how much, if anything, Mark knew, but she must realize that, unless she managed to get rid of him quickly, she would be ruined. To her he must be like a time bomb, standing there, ticking, ticking, warning of an explosion that might come any second.

She had her face under control now. There was no longer any sign of fear. She was gauging the situation, deciding what her next characterization should be — threatening, propitiatory, or seductive. He was getting to know her almost as well as if he were married to her.

Finally, in a small, husky voice, she said: ‘Mr Liddon, I want you to listen to me. Please, this is most important.’

She was being sincere. That was the personality she had picked.

‘Okay,’ he said. I’m listening.’

‘You’ve never trusted me, and I don’t blame you. But now you’ve got to believe me. You’ve made a mistake in coming here.’

‘I have?’

‘You love your wife. You’re trying to find her. That’s all you care about, isn’t it?’

‘That — and other things.’

She put her hand on his arm. He noticed that she had repaired the chipped lacquer of her fingernail. ‘She isn’t here. You understood what George said in Czech yesterday. You thought we were bringing her here with us. We didn’t. We changed our plans.’ She was gazing at him earnestly — much too earnestly. ‘I’ll make a deal with you. If you go away from here right now and promise to stop following George and me I’ll tell you where she is.’

If this were a genuine deal, if there had been the slightest chance of her telling the truth, he would have had to accept her terms. To find Ellie was still the most important, the only really important thing. But he could see through her as clearly as through the plate-glass windows of the Casa Miranda Hotel. This was just another of her dodges — a makeshift scheme for getting him out of the way before the rendezvous.

He stood, looking at her and saying nothing. He knew that delay was his deadliest weapon.

She waited until she could bear it no longer. Then she asked: ‘Well, Mr Liddon?’

‘Okay. Tell me where my wife is.’

‘And you’ll promise to go away?’

‘Maybe.’

‘What sort of bargain is that?’

‘It’s my type of bargain with your type of person. Tell me where you claim my wife is. If I believe you — maybe I’ll do what you say.’

She stamped her foot. It was an absurdly conventional gesture of frustration. ‘Very well, Mr Liddon. If you want it like that. Your wife’s in Mexico City.’

‘She is?’

‘At Oscar’s house.’

‘And how does she happen to be back there?’

Frankie glanced swiftly towards the path which led from the hotel. It was a glance of desperate anxiety. ‘Oscar took her back. He followed when you took her to the Hotel Mirador. After you’d left he went up to the room and got her.’

Of all the lies she had ever told him, this was the most preposterous. He longed to tell her that Oscar, when he was supposedly rekidnapping Ellie, had been at the Hotel Granada giving him George’s address; that it was Oscar who had released him from the apartment in Bolivar; Oscar who had driven him down here; Oscar who was waiting outside the hotel right now. But he couldn’t play a trump card just for the malicious pleasure of seeing her crumple.

‘So my wife’s in Mexico City.’

‘Yes, yes.’

‘Interesting,’ he said. ‘Very interesting. Even so, I think I’ll stick around here for a while.’

She took a step backward. It was almost as if he had hit her. He gave it to her then straight between the eyes. ‘I’m interested in meeting your friend. After all, any friend of my wife’s is a friend of mine.’

‘What friend?’ She tried to look bewildered. It was a pitiful failure. ‘What friend are you talking about?’

‘The gentleman quote you’re expecting unquote. The man for whom you’re pretending to be Mrs Mark Liddon.’ He took the
Harper’s Bazaar
from under his arm. Deliberately he flipped over the pages until he came to the photograph of Ellie. He held it out towards her. ‘I thought he might like to see a picture of the real Mrs Liddon.’

She was completely defeated then. As she gazed at the picture, her shoulders hunched. She looked smaller, thinner.

‘No,’ she whispered. ‘Oh no, you wouldn’t do that.’

There were hibiscus bushes all around the Belvedere. A humming-bird with a bright orange breast whirred past her face and darted into the mouth of a huge scarlet blossom. Suddenly, without the slightest warning, she threw herself into his arms. Her fingers clutched his lapel. Her cheek was pressed against his chest.