The Listening Walls (3 page)

“I can take it or leave it,” O'Donnell said lightly.

“Sure you want to know.”

“You're drunk.”

“A little. A very very very little. Make up your mind. Do you want me to tell you what she's mad about?”

“All right, spill it and get it over with.”

“She thinks—Amy is always thinking, it's a very bad habit—she thinks I have designs on her husband because I bought him a silver box.”

O'Donnell grinned. “And have you?”

“Of course not,” Wilma said vigorously. “Rupert's like a brother to me. Besides, I
like
to buy things for people. Sometimes, when I'm feeling good, that is. Other times I get depressed and stingy and I wouldn't give the time of day to a blind man.”

“Right now you're feeling good, eh?”

“Very good. Let me buy you a drink. Or perhaps you'd like a silver box?”

“We could start with the drink.”

“O.K. Waiter! Waiter! Three
tequilas with lime.”

“Wilma,” Amy said. “Listen. Why don't we go and have dinner?”

“Later, later. I'm not hungry right now.”

“I am.”

“You
go and have dinner, then.”

“No. I'll wait for you.”

“All right, wait. Just don't sit there looking mad. Try to be cheerful.”

“I'm trying,” Amy said grimly, “harder than you think.”

O'Donnell's smile was becoming a little strained. The evening wasn't turning out as he'd planned—a few free drinks, some talk, perhaps a small loan. One woman he could usually handle nicely. Two women, especially two women who didn't like each other, might become a burden. He wished there were some quick, quiet way of ditching them both without any hurt feelings. Hurt feelings could result in complaints to the man­ager, and he didn't want the welcome mat pulled out from under him. The bar was his headquarters. He never got into any trouble. The Americans who came in were always glad to set up drinks for a fellow Friscan or New Yorker or Chicagoan or Angeleno or Milwaukeean or Denverite. Some of the cities he claimed as home he had visited. The others he'd read about or heard about. He'd never been to San Francisco but he'd seen many pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge, Fisherman's Wharf and the cable cars. That was enough real information. The rest he could fake, including an address if he was asked for one. He always used the same address, Garden Street, because every city had a Garden Street.

“Eleven-twenty-five Garden Street,” he told Amy. “You probably never heard of it. It's over on the east side of town. Or it was. They may have torn the whole district down by now and put up hotels or department stores. Are the cable cars still running?”

“Some of them,” Amy said.

“It makes me homesick just thinking about them.”

“Does it?” She wondered what place he was really homesick for; a farm in Minnesota, perhaps, or a little desert town in Arizona. She knew she would never find out. She couldn't ask and he wouldn't tell. “Is there any­thing to stop you from going home, Mr. O'Donnell?”

“Just a small matter of money. I've had some bad luck at the track.”

“Oh.”

His smile widened until it seemed almost genuine. “Yes. I'm a naughty boy, Mrs. Kellogg. I gamble. I have to.”

“Oh?”

“There's no other way of making money. I can't apply for any job without working papers and so far I haven't been able to get any working papers. Say, this is begin­ning to sound like Be-Sorry-For-Joe O'Donnell night. Let's can it. Let's talk about you. What have you two ladies been doing for amusement in Mexico City?”

“Amusement?” Wilma lifted her brows. “I hardly know the meaning of the word anymore.”

“We'll have to change that. How long will you be here?”

“We leave tomorrow,” Amy said. “For Cuernavaca.”

“That's too bad. I was hoping to show you. . .”

“Cuerna—who?” Wilma said loudly to Amy.

“Cuernavaca.”

“And we leave tomorrow?”

“Yes.”

“Are you out of your mind? We just got here. Why in God's name should we take off for a place I never even heard of, Cuern—whatever it is?”

“Cuernavaca,” said Amy patiently.

“Stop repeating it. It sounds like a disease of the spine.”

“It's supposed to be very beautiful and. . .”

“I don't care if it's the original Garden of Eden,” Wilma said. “I'm not going. What put such a crazy idea in your head anyway?”

“The doctor suggested it, for the sake of your health.”

“My health is fine, thank you. You look after your own.”

The drinks came and O'Donnell sat without embar­rassment while Wilma paid for them. A year ago, or two years, he might have been a little embarrassed. Now he was merely tired. The two ladies were, as he'd feared, becoming a burden. He wished they would go to Cuerna­vaca right away, tonight.

He said firmly, “No visitor to Mexico should miss Cuernavaca. Cortés' palace is there, and the cathedral, just about the oldest cathedral in the republic. And birds, thousands of singing birds. If you like birds.”

“I hate birds,” Wilma said.

He went on to describe the climate, the tropical foli­age, the beautiful plazas, until he realized that neither of the two women was paying the slightest attention to him. They had begun to argue again, about a man called Gill, and what Gill would think if he walked in right now, or if he ever found out.

O'Donnell got up and left.

Consuela quit work at eight o'clock and went down to the service entrance where her boyfriend was supposed to meet her. He wasn't there, and one of the kitchen help told her he'd gone to the jai alai games.

Consuela cursed his pig eyes and his black heart and returned to her broom closet, determined on revenge. It wasn't much of a revenge but it was all she could think of, to stay in the closet all night and let him worry about her and wonder why she didn't come home and where she was.

She made herself as comfortable as possible on a bed of towels. There was no ventilation in the closet but Con­suela didn't mind this. The night air was bad anyway. It caused consumption, and if you had consumption you couldn't get into the United States. The immigration authorities wouldn't give you any papers.

She dozed off and dreamed that she was on a bus going to Hollywood. Suddenly the bus stopped and a bearded man who looked a little like Jesus opened the door and said, “Consuela Juanita Magdalena Dolores Gonzales, you have consumption. You must get off the bus immedi­ately.” Consuela flung herself at his feet, weeping and pleading. He turned away from her sternly, and she began to scream.

When she first woke up she could hear herself scream­ing, but a moment later, sitting up, fully awake now, she realized it was not herself she'd heard screaming. It was one of the ladies in 404.

In spite of the lateness of the hour there were a dozen eyewitnesses who'd been passing on the
avenida
below the balcony of 404, each of them eager to give his version of what had happened.

The American lady paused at the railing and looked down before she jumped.

She did not look down. She knelt and prayed.

She didn't hesitate a moment, just ran across the bal­cony and dived over.

She screamed as she fell.

She didn't make a sound.

She carried in her arms a silver box.

Her arms were empty, flung wide to the heavens in supplication.

She turned over and over in the air.

She fell straight down and head first, like an arrow.

The eyewitnesses all agreed on one point: when she struck the pavement she died instantly.

In the hotel manager's office Dr. Lopez gave a brief statement to the police. “I treated Mrs. Wyatt last night for a case of
turista.
An unhappy woman. Very nervous, very high-strung.”

“Very drunk,” said the bartender.

“Very rich,” Consuela said with a nervous giggle. “What a pity to die when one is rich.”

The doctor held up his hand for silence. “Kindly allow me to finish. My rounds begin in less than five hours and even a doctor requires some sleep. As I said before, you'll get the complete story from Mrs. Kellogg when she re­covers. How soon that will be depends on the hospital authorities. She's suffered a bad shock. Moreover, when she fainted she struck her head on the bedpost, so she may have some degree of concussion as well. That's all I can tell you.”

“I, too, am very nervous and high-strung,” said Mercado, the older of the two policemen. “Still, I do not leap off balconies.”

Dr. Lopez smiled without amusement. “You might one day, one balcony. Good morning, gentlemen.”

“Good morning, Doctor. Now you, Consuela Gonzales. You claim you were in the broom closet and heard a woman screaming. Which woman?”

“The small, brown-haired one.”

“Señora Kellogg?”

“Yes.”

“Was she just making a noise or was she screaming words?”

“Words. Like ‘stop' and ‘help.' Maybe others.”

“Just as a matter of curiosity, what were you doing in the broom closet at that hour?”

“Sleeping. I was very tired after work. I work hard, very very hard.” She threw a glance at Escamillo, the manager of the hotel. “Señor Escamillo doesn't realize how hard I work.”

“That I don't,” Escamillo said with a snort.

“No matter, no matter, no matter,” Mercado said. “Go on, señorita. You woke up and heard screaming. You rushed into 404. And?”

“The small one, Señora Kellogg, was lying on the car­pet beside the bed. Her head was bleeding and she was unconscious. I couldn't see the other one anywhere. I never thought to look over the balcony. How could I think of such a thing? To take one's own life, it is a mortal sin.” Consuela crossed herself, fearfully. “The room smelled of drinking and there was half a bottle of whiskey on the bureau. I tried to give the señora some to wake her up but it just spilled all over.”

“So you drank the rest yourself,” said Escamillo, the manager.

“The merest drop. To keep my strength up.”

“Drop. Ha! You reek of it,” said Señor Escamillo.

“I will not be insulted by any pig of a man!”

“So you dare to call me a pig of a man, you
ladronzuela!”

“Prove it. Prove I am a
ladronzuela!”

Mercado yawned and reminded them that it was late; that he and his colleague, Santana, were very tired; that he, Mercado, had a wife and eight children and many troubles; and would everybody, please, be friendly and cooperative? “Now, Señorita Gonzales, when you failed to rouse the señora, what did you do?”

“I telephoned down to the room clerk and he sent for the doctor. Dr. Lopez. He has an agreement with the hotel.”

“He has a contract,” Escamillo said. “Signed.”

Consuela shrugged. “Does it matter what you call it? When a doctor is necessary, it is always Dr. Lopez they send for. So he came. Immediately. Or very soon anyway. That is all I know.”

“You stayed with the señora until the doctor arrived?”

“Yes. She did not wake up.”

“Now, señorita, what do you know of a silver box?”

Consuela looked blank. “Silver box?”

“This one. See, it has blood on it and is badly dented where it struck the pavement. Have you ever seen this box before?”

“Never. I know nothing about it.”

“Very well. Thank you, señorita.”

Consuela rose gracefully and crossed the room, pausing for a moment in front of Escamillo's desk. “I do not take insults. I quit.”

“You don't quit. You're fired.”

“I quit before I was fired. So ha!”

“I shall count every single towel,” Escamillo said. “Per­sonally.”

“Cochino.”

Consuela snapped her fingers and went out, slamming the door firmly and finally behind her.

“You see?” Escamillo cried, beating the air with his fists. “How can I run a hotel with help like that? They are all the same. And now this terrible scandal. I am ruined, ruined, ruined. Policemen in my office! Reporters in my lobby! And the Embassy—Mother of Jesus, must the Embassy be brought into this, too?”

“We must, of course, inform the Embassy in such cases,” Mercado said.

“These crazy Americans, if they want to jump do they not have places to jump in their own country? Why must they come here and ruin an innocent man!”

Everyone agreed that it was most unfair, most sad, but God's will, after all. No one could argue with God's will, which was responsible for national and domestic disasters like earthquakes, unseasonable rains, temperamental plumbing, difficulties with the telephone exchang
e, as well as cases of sudden death.