Seven Lies South

9

At nine-thirty Monday morning Beecher phoned Don Willie and told him he would be ready to leave for Rabat that night.

“Good! Good!” Don Willie’s voice was a vigorous bray in Beecher’s ears. “You need work, Mike. Like the whole world needs it. The plane leaves at eleven-thirty. But we meet at my villa at eleven. I have arranged all things for tickets.”

“Eleven o’clock. I’ll be there.”

“I am going to hunt the fishes now,” Don Willie said, and laughed hugely. “Deep in the water with my spear guns. I must go now, please.”

Beecher hung up smiling. The conversation had meant little more to him than an exchange of noises; he was still caught up in the enchantment of the night. He had taken Laura to the Espada at seven o’clock and had arranged to meet her for cocktails late in the afternoon. She planned to spend the day in Málaga shopping.

Beecher used the morning to make arrangements for his trip. He called the agent who had rented him the villa and told him he would be giving it up. The simplicity and finality of the decision stimulated him; by that one act he had cut his ties to Spain. Now he was on the wing.

Adela and Encarna had reacted solemnly to the news. And now, as they flew about getting his clothes ready, their lamenting eyes and hushed voices seemed more appropriate to a wake than to a holiday. But this was their normal response, Beecher had learned, to any change in what they apparently thought of as the divinely arranged order of their lives.

At three-thirty in the afternoon he heard a motorcycle coming up the hill to his villa, its motor popping defiantly through the heat and silence of the siesta hour. Adela answered the door. In a moment she appeared on the terrace, where Beecher was relaxing with a cup of tea, and announced Don Julio Cansana, the police constable of Mirimar.

Beecher smiled as Don Julio came briskly through the living-room doors onto the terrace. They shook hands and gripped one another’s shoulder in the Spanish manner.

“This is a pleasant surprise,” Beecher said.

“Thank you, Mike. I hope I’m not disturbing you. But why aren’t you resting? You Americans will never learn to take the siesta, I’m afraid.”

“Don’t worry, I’m sold on it. But I had some work to do. Sit here in the shade. What would you like to drink?”

“A sherry, I think, if you please.”

“I’ll join you.” Beecher called Adela and asked her to bring a bottle of Gonzalez-Byass, a siphon of soda, and a bowl of ice. He made the drinks in tall glasses, using two jiggers of the pale dry sherry, lots of ice, and generous splashes of soda. Beecher gave Don Julio a glass and placed the tray of bottles and ice on a table within reach of his chair.

“Is it too hot for opera?” he asked.

“Never,” Don Julio said smiling.

Beecher went into the living room and put the album of Don Giovanni on the record player. This had been the original bond between himself and the policeman, an affection for Mozart, and a few of the Italians. The music was pouring out into the hot still air by the time he returned to his chair and picked up his drink.

“To good health!” he said.

“Thank you.” Don Julio took a worn leather cigar case from his pocket and extended it to Beecher. “Please?”

“Thank you.” The cigars were slim and firmly rolled, with streaks of green appearing in the delicate brown leaf. Don Julio had them sent over regularly from Gibraltar; they were a connoisseur’s pleasure, Havanas which smoked cool and dry and strong, and grew an ash as firm as the cigars themselves.

Beecher’s was soon drawing well, and the cold astringent taste of the sherry and soda was a perfect antidote to the sullen heat. He and Don Julio had made a ritual of such moments, with cigars, chilled drinks, and rambling, discursive conversation which could be checked in deference to the strains of a favorite passage, and then resumed with no sense of irrelevance or interruption.

Now the garden glittered with unnatural brilliance in the dancing hot air, and beyond the mirrored surface of the swimming pool there was nothing but the spreading silver expanse of the sea. Salvator Baccalone was singing the role of Leporello, Don Giovanni’s valet, and his rich round voice rolled merrily through the doorways and windows of the living room. Beecher was pleased to have a last pleasant moment with his old friend.

Don Julio was short and muscular, in his early or middle sixties, with a strongly seamed brown face, white hair and mustaches, and brilliantly clear blue eyes. He wore a gray-green uniform, with red epaulets at the shoulders, and shining brass buttons on the front of his trim tunic. It was generally held that he was too subtle and intelligent a man to be running the affairs of a small fishing village, and the inevitable inference was that he must have got into trouble with the present regime at one time or another in his career. But it was difficult to conclude anything definite about his politics or personal philosophy; he delighted in paradox and oblique approaches, and Beecher, for one, was seldom sure which end of a proposition Don Julio might be offering as true or reasonable.

“Now here is something quite interesting,” Don Julio said, nodding in the direction of the music. The brisk do-me-sol-do’s of the catalogue aria were sounding.

“Leporello’s a liar,” Beecher said.

“No, a braggart. There’s a difference, surely. And I enjoy his account of Don Giovanni’s conquests. Particularly those in Spain.” He smiled and rolled his cigar in appreciative fingers. “It’s a reverse kind of chauvinism, I imagine. A thousand and three of our fairest ladies fell to him, if you believe the song. But to whom is that a tribute? To the great Don? Perhaps. But I give our women credit for knowing a thing when it came along.”

“Well, do you think there’s a national behavior pattern in such matters?”

Don Julio smiled and shook his head. “As a policeman, I know better. It’s an important part of my work, to judge what lies behind these masks of nationality. For example. You observe a well-groomed man with a monocle and you are in danger of seeing only a British gentleman. But a horseman in a pink coat is not always a fox-hunter, nor is a beard and a beret and a palette inevitably a French painter. It’s a common error to accept appearance for reality, as you know.” He held his glass to the sun and studied the sparkle of light in the pale green liquid. “For another example, if I wished to be a criminal, as most of us do of course, I would go to France, or Italy, or Great Britain. There, my uniform and boots, my bulging document case, and a certain inquisitiveness of manner would stamp me as a Spanish policeman. People might infer a number of things from my appearance, none of which need necessarily be accurate. Do you follow me?”

“Glimmeringly,” Beecher said.

“Once having established this national camouflage, I could scheme like a Borgian poisoner, prowl the dark alleys of Paris like an apache, or sell bogus paintings like a titled Englishman.” Smiling, he pointed his cigar at Beecher. “And it would be very difficult for anyone to catch me. Because they wouldn’t be expecting a Spanish policeman to do such things. But please keep this in confidence. My superiors wouldn’t appreciate these fantasies.” Still smiling, he leaned forward and said: “Do you know an Englishman in our village named Lynch?”

Beecher was caught off-balance, but he wasn’t surprised by that; a sudden and frequent loss of equilibrium was the price he customarily paid in these conversations. “Sure, I know him,” he said. “Why?”

“A case in point, nothing more. He might make an excellent pickpocket, don’t you think? Who would suspect him?”

“Well, I see what you mean,” Beecher said.

“Or let us take our illustrious citizen from the Third Reich.”

“Don Willie?”

“I believe some give him the title,” Don Julio said dryly. “He, in turn, might make a fortune as a horoscope reader. And do you know a rather unpleasant Frenchman named Maurice? What areas of larceny he might explore, as long as he avoided the currents of la vie française. Doping thoroughbred horses! Fixing, in your country, the games of baseball or football! Using dynamite to stun fish illegally.” Don Julio laughed at Beecher’s expression. “You see! How implausible and bizarre it sounds! And why? Because you are thinking of a drunken Frenchman who lives off women or men by catering to their depravities. So long as he keeps that mask firmly before your eyes he can do very much as he pleases.”

“What are you getting at?” Beecher said. He was beginning to realize that the policeman’s visit was not a casual one.

“These men I’ve chosen as examples, are so protected by their national masks, or characteristics, if you prefer, that it’s extremely difficult to know very much about them. It is my conviction that maturity begins with betrayal,” he said, smiling at the irrelevance of his comment. “The Americans I’ve been privileged to know are not mature. The elements of their characters haven’t been fused in the catalyst of betrayal. I see this in their faces, I think. There is an innocence and happiness there, an unreasoned expectation that things will turn out all right. You have not been betrayed in war, as has happened in my country. You have not been betrayed in your ideology, and that has happened here and in France and in Italy and in Germany.” He sighed. “And most certainly in Russia. But all of this has given you a sunniness of temperament which is quite attractive though ill-suited to survival in a real world.”

“Well, do you equate reality with betrayal then?” Beecher asked him.

“I fear that I do,” Don Julio said quietly.

“What did you come here to tell me?”

“This, Mike.” Don Julio put aside his drink and studied the long fine ash on his cigar. “You know the young lady who lives with Don Willie? Ilse Sherman is her name. She is a friend of yours?”

“A casual friend.”

“This morning your casual friend came to my office and denounced you as a dealer in contraband.”

“What!” Beecher stood up so abruptly that half his drink spilled onto the floor. “Are you serious?”

“Now Mike! Do you imagine I came here to make jokes?”

“Well, was she serious?”

“Quite serious. Whether she believed her own story or not, I can’t say. Whether she was lying or not, I can’t say. But she was quite serious.”

“You know it’s not true, don’t you? What do you mean, you’re not sure she’s lying? Of course she’s lying.” Beecher sat down slowly. “It’s so ridiculous it’s funny.”

“Well, perhaps we shall all have a good laugh about it in time,” Don Julio said with a sigh. “But at the moment I must look into her charge. You were speaking of national masks, you recall? Very well. You are my American friend, who savors a good cigar, a dry sherry, and the merits of inconclusive speculation.”

“Don’t forget the opera,” Beecher said with some bitterness.

“Of course. There is also the opera. This is what I see, the image of Mike Beecher. But as a policeman I must test the validity of that image, you understand.”

“All right,” Beecher let out his breath slowly. “What’s her story?”

“She came here last night. Is that correct?”

“Yes. She wanted to borrow some cigarettes.”

“Very well. You gave them to her?”

“Check. Two packs of Bisontes.”

Don Julio made a face. “I don’t see how anyone smokes them. But nevertheless. Go on.”

“There’s nowhere to go. I gave her the cigarettes, period. She thanked me and left, period.”

“There was no other conversation?”

“Damn it, she was in and out inside of a minute or so.” But Beecher remembered Laura then, and her coldness to Ilse, and he also remembered Ilse’s curious references to Don Willie’s finances. “Well, we chatted while I was getting her the cigarettes,” he said. “There was another girl here, an American named Laura Meadows. Believe me, it was as casual as a couple of fishermen discussing the weather.”

“But weather isn’t a casual matter with fishermen,” Don Julio said smiling. “I know, I know,” he said, holding up both hands. “It was a figure of speech, nothing more. But our choice of such figures isn’t always conscious. You see I’m up to my old bad habit of playing with words.”

It wasn’t a bad habit for a policeman, Beecher thought; it was a damned good one. But the tensions Don Julio scented had nothing to do with Ilse’s absurd charges against him. So he had nothing to worry about. “All right, you’ve got my story,” he said. “What’s hers?”

“Simply this. She came here to borrow cigarettes. You were obliging. But you told her that you had contacts in Tangier and Gibraltar who sold you case lots of whisky and boxed cartons of cigarettes. You told her you had been involved in this business for two years and could supply her or Don Willie or any of her friends with these articles of contraband at a substantial saving.” Don Julio crossed his booted ankles and picked up his drink. “She has signed her name to these charges, Mike.”

“Well, she’s a liar. And where do we go from here? Is the burden of proof on me?”

“No, of course not. But I must look into the matter.”

“Then let’s not waste time. Search the house if you want to. Talk to the maids.” Beecher picked up a pack of Bisontes from the table. “Look at those!” he said indignantly. “Spanish cigarettes, Exhibit A for the defense. And how about this?” he said, holding up the bottle of sherry. “Spanish aperitif, Exhibit B. I haven’t had a bottle of Scotch in the house in six months. Ask my friends. I drink Fundador. If I had all these mysterious contacts don’t you think there’d be some evidence around here somewhere? What the hell is wrong with that girl?”

Don Julio was grinning at his performance. “You convince me, my friend. I must confess I didn’t believe her story for a moment. Even a policeman has his blind loyalties. But why did she lie to me? This I find disturbing.”

“What are you going to do about it?”

“You were casual friends, nothing more?”

“Nothing more!” Beecher shook his head. “I admit it looks like I got her pregnant and tossed her out into the snow, but that’s not the way it reads.”

“I will have a talk with her,” Don Julio said.

“And that’s all?”

Don Julio smiled. “I can be quite stern at times.”

“Let me talk to her first,” Beecher said.

“Why?”

“I’ll be damned if I know,” Beecher said; he was honestly puzzled by his suggestion. “Maybe she does have some gripe against me. Some need to pay me off.”

“Well, there are ways and ways of doing such things. Some are quite legal, others aren’t. It is my responsibility to impress the distinction upon her.”

“As a favor, Don Julio. Let me see her first.”

“What do you hope to accomplish?”

“I think she’ll be in your office within an hour to sign a retraction. Wouldn’t that serve your purpose?”

Don Julio shrugged. “Perhaps. But my office isn’t something to be used for the solution of personal problems. It is an official bureau, without a heart or a soul or a sense of humor.”

“I’m asking you, not your office.”

“You will be satisfied with a retraction? You won’t carry it further?”

“If she’s an hysteric or a neurotic, why push her over the edge? I’ll be satisfied if she withdraws the charge.”

“Very well. I’ll give you a chance. But if I do not hear from her within the hour, I will present myself at her villa.”

“My guess is, she’s crazy as a loon.”

Don Julio smiled and patted Beecher’s shoulder. “Let me tell you something, Mike. I once played chess with a brilliant woman. She beat me consistently, until one evening I had a flash of inspiration. I had been speculating about her motives, you see, guessing at her intentions. Well, I put an end to my fruitless guessing. And I never lost to her again.” He grinned and cocked his white head toward the music. “Don Juan would understand. A thousand and three in Spain alone. Results like these are not obtained by guesswork.”

Don Julio stood then, neat and grave and correct, and his official personality gathered itself about him like the folds of an austere cloak. “Thank you, Mike,” he said with a formal smile. “I’ll expect a call within the hour.”