The Damsel

One

Acapulco. Friday morning, seven forty-five.

Governor Luke Harrison stepped from his cottage into the sunlight, gazed for a moment out at the blue blue sea, then strolled over and sat down at the table prepared for him beside his swimming pool. The water in the pool was also blue, but tinged with green. Two stewards began to serve breakfast.

The Governor was a tall man, heavyset, who through exercise and determination had kept himself in good physical condition through the years. He was the delight of his tailor, who did not for this one client have to strain his ingenuity to produce clothing that told white lies. His face was dominated by a strong, square jawline and by pale blue eyes of the utmost candor. His nose was perhaps a trifle too blunt, his mouth too thin-lipped, but all in all he successfully looked like what he was: a politician tending toward statesman, a former Governor, still an influential man in the upper circles of his party.

Influential, but not indispensable, not anymore.

Eating his breakfast, watching the sea, the Governor carefully kept his mind clear of all that, the past disappointments, the present dangers, the future uncertainties. Worry on first arising, worry during meals, worry at times of helplessness, all were bad for both the physical and mental well-being.

This place, the Hotel San Marcos, was an excellent distraction, lush and lovely to the eye, as breakfast was lush and lovely to the taste. It called itself a hotel, but was something other than a hotel, something more. The main building, downslope, was two stories high, a rambling affair containing dining rooms, game rooms, offices, and so on. All the guests were in the smaller buildings scattered up the face of the steep hill behind that main structure, connected by gaily colored slate paths. There were square, two-story affairs containing four apartments, long, low bungalows of two apartments, and these single-occupancy cottages like the one where the Governor was staying and the one next door where Doctor Fitzgerald was still asleep.

All of these buildings had been carefully suited to the natural contours of the rocky hill, and built of stucco and painted pink. In front of each there was a small, pink-tiled swimming pool.

Down beside the main building were converted jeeps called sand buggies, with pink bodies and pink-and-blue striped tops. Each guest at the Hotel San Marcos had the free use of one of these sand buggies, which were seen bucketing around Acapulco all the time.

The town of Acapulco itself was built on a flat, curving stretch of beach in a fold of mountains. Mountains ringed it on three sides, a dramatic backdrop of dark green, with the pale blue tropical sky above and the darker blue of the Pacific stretching away flat to infinity on the remaining side, the south. This hill, at the eastern edge of town, afforded one of the best views to be had, and the Governor, as he ate, gazed out to sea with perfect pleasure.

The two stewards, one a Mexican born in Chilpancingo and the other an expatriate Guerreran who eight years ago had escaped from General Pozos’ secret police, served the meal in deft silence. The Governor was unaware of their presence.

With the coffee and the cigar — the first of the day — that capped breakfast, he allowed the crowding worries to begin to attract his attention. There was Edgar, for one thing, and Edgar’s idiot daughter, for another, and Juan, for a third, and young Bob, for a fourth, and his own plans for the future, for a fifth. Everything was so uncertain, so tentative, so complicated, so needlessly messy and sloppy.

Why didn’t the old bastard just die, of his own accord, and be done with it? That would be simplest, taking everybody off the hook. No more worries about keeping Edgar keyed up to fighting pitch, no more fears that Ellen Marie would destroy everything, no more likelihood that Juan would turn his back on the Governor nor that Bob would — being so close, so close — guess the truth.

But it wasn’t going to be simple and easy, because nothing in life ever is. Chomping on his cigar, glowering at the sea but no longer really seeing it, he mulled that thought, that nothing in life is easy and simple, no action is clearly and obviously good in all its ramifications nor bad in all its ramifications, that...

It was the girl, that was the main thing. Find her, hold her, contain her until this thing was done and over and forgotten, and all the other worries would fade into the background, would deflate to their proper size and importance. But the girl had to be found.

He’d been awakened at five this morning by a frantic phone call from Honner. The girl and that roustabout she’d picked up somewhere had broken through at Iguala, were on their way south now by road. It was two hundred and fifty miles, but all of it curving, twisting, narrow road through some of the wildest mountain country in the world; it was doubtful that they’d be able to make it in under seven hours, which would get them here no earlier than ten o’clock.

Not that they were likely to get this far. The Governor had told Honner to do what he should have done in the first place, call his other men here in Acapulco, have them start north as soon as it was light enough to travel. With Honner coming south, the others going north, they’d catch the girl in the middle, probably have her within an hour. They might even have her already, and not be near enough to a phone to report.

The thought pleased him. He was smiling as he looked to his right and saw Edgar Fitzgerald walking over from his cottage next door. The doctor looked haggard this morning, his suit rumpled on his big frame, his gray hair poorly brushed, but he said as he sat down in the other chair, “You don’t have to study me that way, Luke. I’m all right today.”

“Good. I never believed you wouldn’t be. You want some coffee?”

“No. Any news?”

“Not a word. She probably isn’t even in the country, Edgar. New York City is more likely, up there pouting and keeping to herself. She’ll show up after this is all over.”

The doctor shook his head. “She’ll never forgive me, Luke, I know that. I’ve accustomed myself to the thought. She’ll never understand, and she’ll never forgive me.” His brief smile was sour. “You give me bitter alternatives, Luke,” he said. His eyes were red, as though he’d had too little sleep.

“We do what we have to do,” the Governor told him. It was a sentence in an old argument, one he’d used half a dozen times in the course of persuading Edgar and keeping him persuaded. The sentence, by itself, now stood adequately in both their minds for the full argument.

The doctor nodded. “I know that. But it’s hard, it’s god-awful hard. I’ll be glad when it’s done, gladder than you’ll ever know.”

They were both widowers, the Governor for seven years and the doctor for three, and they had attained that shorthand of intimacy together that sometimes exists between widowers who have been friends for a long while. So the Governor did know what was going on in the doctor’s mind, and he felt deep sorrow and honest remorse for being the cause of his friend’s suffering. But he would do nothing to change it, nothing; he was stronger than his weaknesses.

He said, “When we’re both at work, when this is in the past and we’re doing, all these wounds will heal.”

The doctor said nothing. He was gazing out to sea. When at last he did speak, what he said was, “Here they come.”

The Governor looked, and here came General Pozos’ yacht, all white and gleaming, turning slowly in at the harbor, beautiful and opulent and clean. A hard ball of undigested breakfast formed in the Governor’s stomach. He heard a strange, strangled sound, and turned his head, and in the chair beside him Doctor Fitzgerald quite abruptly was crying.

Two

General Luis Pozos lay asprawl in his bed between two women, with both of whom he was bored. In addition, he knew himself to be impotent this morning, which enraged him because it always frightened him when he was impotent, and this fear turned to rage was further turned to disgust, which he believed to be caused by the sleeping, round, warm, soft, musky bodies of the two women. They disgusted him, and he lay between them, on his back, their bodies pressing against him on both sides, and he worked his mouth beneath the thick black moustache, and raised his head, and spit in the face of the one on the right.

But it didn’t wake her. The white ribbon drooled down across her cheek, down the line of her nose, down the faintly fuzzy flesh between nose and upper lip, and dripped at last, slowly, lazily, onto the gray and rumpled sheet.

He lowered his head again, weary now. Weary, and bored, and disgusted, and impatient. The room was too hot, the bodies pressed against him were too hot. He had a headache, and a stomachache. His left eye hurt. He was impotent. He had not slept enjoyably.

He raised his arms, brought his elbows together above his chest until they were nearly touching, then slashed sideways with the two elbows, each elbow striking a heavy breast, each elbow waking one of the disgusting women.

They awoke, and sat up in some confusion, the one on the left speaking rapid Spanish, the one on the right speaking staccato Dutch. Suddenly feeling more impatience and disgust and fury and boredom than he could stand, General Pozos began to flail about the bed with fists and knees and feet and elbows, kicking and punching and ramming until he’d knocked both of them out of bed and onto the floor.

Which struck him funny. All at once he flopped back down on the pillows, opened his mouth, and began to laugh. He had an odd, nasal, disquieting laugh, a kind of loud, hoarse coughing sound as though a buzzard were laughing. He lay on his back, holding his belly and laughing, while the two women got up from the floor and stood confused and chagrined, rubbing themselves where he had pummeled them. They looked at one another and at him and at the floor. They both felt humiliated and wanted to dress, but neither dared until the General let them know he had no more current use for them.

When his laughing fit was done, he found unexpectedly that he was in a pleasant mood. He scratched himself all over, with lazy hedonism, and asked the women to bring him his dressing gown. The Dutchwoman brought it over and gave it to him, and he heaved himself out of bed.

He was a short man, but big-boned, and would have been barrel-shaped no matter how he lived. His life being given over to relaxation and enjoyment and the sensual pleasures, this short, round frame had over the years been covered by layer after layer of heavy flesh, so that recently he had been described by an enemy — he had thousands — as “that beach ball with hair.” His face showed the petulance of his nature, and he had softer, plumper hands than anyone else he had ever met, man or woman.

Once he was out of bed and into his dressing gown, it was proper for the two women to begin searching around the room for their own clothing. As they dressed, General Pozos spoke to them fondly, gently, telling them that today they were landing at Acapulco, a city in Mexico, a beautiful city of rich and happy people, a city in which he would be parting company with them. Yes, it was sad but true; their services were no longer required. Someone on the staff would see that they were taken care of, with money and documents of some sort, and that same someone would be delighted to answer whatever questions they might have on this or that topic. As for the General himself, he was saddened to be saying farewell to two such lovely and enchanting young ladies, but that of course is fate. Therefore — farewell.

Now, that is.

Both of them had been with the General long enough to know that he did all the talking, and that when he indicated a conversation was finished, it was advisable to quit his presence at once. They made the most perfunctory and brief of goodbyes, and left the room. They were both, in fact, relieved to be at the end of their relationship with General Pozos, both having heard the rumor — based on reality, as it happened — that the General one time, in a transitory rage of revulsion, had thrown one of his women off the yacht into the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Rescue operations had been instigated at once, naturally, but the unfortunate young woman had never been found. As she hadn’t officially been aboard anyway, and as she’d additionally been traveling under an assumed name, there was never any trouble about the incident, nor any publicity, but rumors grow in the best-tended of gardens, the General’s not excepted.

With the women gone, the General now rang for his dressers, two thin, silent, terrified young enlisted men in the Guerreran Army, whose salaries and training and maintenance were guaranteed by military aid from the United States. They dressed their General quickly but with great caution, and silently withdrew. The General was now in his uniform for the day, which he would wear until dinnertime, when he always changed into formal civilian clothes. Today’s uniform was dark blue trimmed with gold. Fringed epaulets, a golden Sam Browne belt, an ornamental sword in a golden scabbard; he surveyed himself in a full-length mirror with great satisfaction. It gave him a pleasant feeling to wear a really good-looking uniform, and so he had over fifty of them, no two exactly alike. This dark blue was one of his particular favorites.

Wearing the uniform, buoyed up by his examination of it in the mirror, he left his stateroom at last and traversed the inner corridor to the dining room. Although he loved the sea, particularly from shipboard, he couldn’t stand to look upon it before breakfast.

The dining room was empty except for young Harrison, sitting with a cup of coffee at one of the tables, reading a book. Quite a reader, this young man. Quite a studier, quite a silent type. It had occurred to General Pozos more than once to wonder what this young man from Pennsylvania actually thought of him, down inside; nothing ever showed on the surface, and that was unusual. With nearly everyone, the General could read their disposition toward him instantly in their faces, in their eyes — fear, or contempt, or envy, these were the most prevalent — but in the face, in the eyes of young Harrison, there was a bland nothing and less than nothing.

The General now came ponderously across the room, his scabbard ringing against a metal chair back, and sat down at the young man’s table. “Good morning, Bob,” he said, using the heavy, blunt English he took such pride in. “A lovely day,” he added, because sunlight was pouring in the windows to his left.

Harrison looked up from his book, smiled promptly in that amiable, noncommittal way of his, and politely shut the book, not even marking his place. “Good morning, General,” he said. “Yes, it is, one of the finest we’ve had this trip.” He spoke fluent Spanish, but he knew the General preferred to speak English with him and so he obliged.

In nearly everything, in fact, Harrison was obliging and more than obliging. Only in one instance that the General could remember had Harrison refused to oblige, and then he had done so quietly, passionlessly, but permanently. That was the matter of the uniform. General Pozos preferred all members of his staff to be in uniform, though of course the uniforms must be plainer than his own, and this preference had gone unquestioned — as did his preferences generally — until he’d taken on young Harrison seven years ago. Harrison hadn’t actually refused to be fitted for a uniform, but on the other hand, the fitting never took place. Whenever the General brought the subject up, Harrison broke immediately into an unending series of calm and sensible reasons why he should always be dressed in a business suit. He was more than willing to discuss the subject, would discuss it in his quiet and reaonable manner until the General couldn’t stand the topic anymore, and would drop it as soon as the General made it clear he wanted to start talking about something else. These discussions were so tedious, so frustrating, and so unconquerable that the topic of Harrison’s uniform gradually arose with less and less frequency and ultimately stopped arising altogether. Harrison never did get, or wear, a uniform, which was, so far as the General himself could remember, the only time in his career that his will had been successfully opposed.

Harrison now was wearing a gray linen suit in the narrow style, a dacron white shirt, and a pale gray tie. He was a well setup young man, slightly over six feet tall, with a square, open, amiable, honest, typically American face, the sort of face ultimately typified by Colonel John Glenn. He wore his light brown hair in a casual crew cut, he occasionally donned horn-rim glasses when reading or working, and his fingernails were at all times scrupulously clean.

Observing him, reflecting on the fact that after seven years of close association he knew Harrison no better than when they’d first met, reflecting further on the undeniable truth that he trusted and relied on Harrison more than any other member of his staff — anyone else, yes, in the entire world — the General found himself sliding perilously close to uncomfortable thoughts and dangerous propositions. He cleared his throat noisily, clearing his mind at the same time, and said, “Well, you’ll be pleased to see your father, I expect.”

Harrison smiled. “Very much so, sir.”

There was no way to tell if that were truth or politeness; everything Harrison did was so bland, so polite, so cooperative, so emotionless. What does he think of me? the General demanded in his head, and turned aside as the first steward approached with the grapefruit half that was his invariable first course at breakfast.

Conversation between them while the General ate was perfunctory and static; comments on the trip so far, on the coming meeting with Harrison’s father, on the addition of Doctor Edgar Fitzgerald to the General’s permanent staff. Harrison had more coffee, possibly because he wanted more coffee and possibly out of an accommodating desire to sit with the General while he ate.

The General’s breakfast ended with coffee, hot and strong and black. The steward who served it was new, young, terrified, the ship rolled slightly, there was a second of imbalance, and the full cup of coffee was dumped in the General’s lap.

The General acted without premeditation. Leaping away from the table in shock and pain, his right hand was already reaching out, closing around a fork, jabbing out, plunging the fork into the stomach of the petrified steward, who merely stood there ashen-faced and gaped. The fork tines were too short and too blunt to do any real damage, though they did break the skin. The fork fell to the floor, the steward staggered back a pace, and on his uniform there appeared four spreading dots of red.

What does he think of me? the General looked quickly at Harrison, to catch him unawares, while still startled by the accident and outburst.

Harrison was on his feet, bland, polite concern on his face as he extended his own napkin for the General’s use.

Three

Juan Pozos sat with Time magazine unread in his lap and looked out the window at the dark green of the mountains far below. Dawn glinted on the highest treetops down there, but the valleys were still deep in night.

The passenger sleeping in the seat beside him mumbled something in no language, shifted uncomfortably, and settled down again. Juan smiled ruefully at him, envying his unconscious state. The ability to sleep on airplanes he considered a mark of maturity, one of the many he had not as yet attained. He’d been airborne through the night this time, from Newark to New Orleans to Mexico City, and finally to Acapulco, and by now his eyes were burning from lack of sleep, but still they didn’t want to close.

Not that there was any point in it now; they’d be landing in less than an hour. And wouldn’t everyone be surprised to see him! Juan smiled in anticipation, seeing in his mind’s eye the expression that would soon be on the face of Uncle Luke. Amazement, and delight. “How did you manage this, you young scamp?” “Got permission to skip my Friday classes.” “Didn’t miss anything important, I hope.” (This said with an attempt at sternness that wouldn’t fool a blind man.) “Oh, just a few tests,” Juan would say, laughing, and Uncle Luke would laugh with him, put his arm around his shoulders, say, “Well, as long as you’re here.”

Juan smiled in anticipation. “Oh, just a few tests,” he said in his mind. “Oh, just a few tests.” The scene was as real as the mountains down there, as real as the thin black ribbon of road he could just glimpse here and there. Dawn sunlight semaphored from an automobile window.

The only problem was the General. If the General was drunk, or involved with women, or playing celebrity at some Hilton hotel, everything would be all right, the weekend could be very pleasant. But every once in a while the General decided to be a father, which meant he took a turn for the maudlin, slobbering on Juan’s cheek, punching his whores in the face to demonstrate his moral reformation, and deciding Juan must come away from the USA, come back to Guerrero, come home and be a real son. “I’ll buy you horses!” that was invariably the General’s cry at such times. As though the addition of polo ponies would magically turn Guerrero into home.

Juan knew where home was. He’d just left it. That was why he was coming down now to talk with Uncle Luke.

So far as he was concerned, he would be physically present in Guerrero only once more in his life, and that would be on the occasion of the General’s funeral. He didn’t wish the General ill — was indifferent to his father’s fate — but he knew that in the normal course of events the father precedes the son to the grave. His presence would be required for the funeral, and afterward he would probably have to go through some sort of formality in refusing to inherit his father’s position. It might be best to have Uncle Luke along — assuming he was still alive at the time — to help Juan choose which man to support for the Guerreran presidency. It would be up to him to make that one contribution in directing his unhappy native land toward decent government, and then he could return to his own life, forgetting Guerrero forever.

That would please Uncle Luke, too. Juan knew that Uncle Luke wasn’t happy about his impending graduation from college, and he knew it was because Uncle Luke was assuming he intended to go back to Guerrero once he had his hands on that BA. That was what Juan was coming to see Uncle Luke about now. Not only did he want to stay, but he wanted to go on with college.

It was all very clear in his head. He would borrow money from Uncle Luke — he’d already acknowledged the probability that the General would refuse to pay for any more schooling past the BA — and he would insist on its being a real loan, not an outright gift. He was twenty-one now, and eager to begin taking on the responsibility of himself.

He’d thought it out with extreme care. For months he’d questioned himself about his plans for the future; did he really want to be an attorney, or was he choosing that career merely because he knew it would please Uncle Luke if Juan followed in his footsteps? But he was sure; the law was what he wanted, what he truly wanted.

United States law. Pennsylvania law.

It was unlikely, of course, that a Governor of Pennsylvania would ever be named anything like Juan Pozos, but it was not entirely beyond the realm of possibility. He had briefly considered changing his name to something more normal in his adopted country — perhaps even taking the last name of Harrison, or the first name of Luke, though not both — but he was too obviously Latin, with his olive complexion, glossy hair, smooth good looks. And it would be ignoble in any case to turn his back on his true origins. He considered himself an expatriate and an émigré, but not an escapee.

He was so completely the émigré, in fact, that Spanish now seemed to him a foreign tongue. He was, for this last leg of the trip from Mexico City to Acapulco, aboard an Aeronaves de Mexico plane, and when the stewardess had spoken to him in Spanish, he had at first failed to understand her, and then had blurted his answer in English. Then, when she responded in English, he made a belated switch to his rusty Spanish, creating the sort of awkward situation a twenty-one-year-old is seldom equipped to handle.

Incidents like that made him keenly aware of the anomaly of his position. He had lived most of his life in the States, but he was still a citizen of Guerrero. He thought of himself as an American and spoke most naturally in English, but his name and appearance were both clearly and permanently Latin. Uncle Luke, no blood relation to him at all, was by far the most important individual in his life, while his “real” father, whom he had been taught from childhood to call “General,” was of importance only in a financial way, and even that would soon be coming to an end.

It seemed to him from time to time that a more delicate person might decide to be heavily neurotic and introspective and erratic in such a situation. As for himself, he had too much enjoyment of life to worry about abstract problems of identity. He enjoyed the University of Pennsylvania, he was delighted to have been taken under the wing of Uncle Luke, and he saw nothing in the foreseeable future to make him frown or worry or feel apprehension.

And there, out the window, under the wing, lay the royal blue of the sea. He had remembered to pack his bathing suit — the white one — and looking at the water far down there, he began uncontrollably to smile again.

The stewardess came around, waking the man beside Juan and telling him in Spanish that they were approaching Acapulco and he must put his seat belt on now. She looked at Juan, hesitated just an instant, and then told him the same thing in English. But she smiled, letting him know that she didn’t think him merely a poseur, a fake gringo.

Juan clicked on his seat belt. “Oh, just a few tests,” ran the joke line in his head, the scene clear and well rehearsed.

The plane circled interminably, giving him an endless series of views of the beauty of Acapulco; green mountains, blue sea, paler blue sky, white crescent of the town.

“Oh, just a few tests.”

Four

Governor Harrison loved to drive the beach buggy, the converted jeep with its striped tin top. It was such a feckless, childish, irresponsible vehicle in appearance, and yet so rugged and reliable in performance. The perfect way to relax, to forget your troubles, to feel the weight of worry slip away and recapture the lost ebullience of youth.

After he’d calmed Edgar yet again, that grinding, painful, slow, unending task, the Governor had felt the need for therapy, for mindless relaxation, and so he’d come down the hill from his cottage, gotten into his candy-stripe buggy, and off he’d gone roaring into forgetfulness. Up over the mountain east of town and down the other side to El Marqués, in its own way a more exclusive and expensive resort than Acapulco next door. El Marques, with its peculiar long beach of gray sand the color of coal ash, and the long, lazy breakers beating slowly upon it, with its few secluded old-style hotels and its occasional fenced-in private estates, was more than Acapulco the sort of place visited by politicians and heads of state. Dwight Eisenhower, in fact, had stayed at El Marqués one time while President of the United States. It was a mark of General Pozos’ style and temperament that he should invariably choose the more public and obvious Acapulco.

Driving the beach buggy was fun, but there was no point arriving anywhere. This time Governor Harrison didn’t even bother to drive as far as the beach, but turned around at the traffic circle by the naval base and drove back over the mountain again, passing the Hotel San Marcos and driving on into the town of Acapulco itself, past Hornos, the afternoon beach, all the way around to Caleta, the morning beach and dead end.

He got out of the buggy there a while and took off his shoes and socks and walked in the sand, leaving shoes and socks on the floor of the buggy. He walked this way and that, amid the bathers and the sunbathers. Boys tried to sell him straw hats and straw mats, serapes and wooden dolls, sandals and iced soda. If you were thirsty for alcohol you could have gin in a hollowed-out cocoanut with a straw. He wanted nothing.

From the beach he could see General Pozos’ yacht, anchored out away from shore but within the harbor area. The launch had not yet left the yacht, and probably wouldn’t much before noon.

Governor Harrison was surprised at how violently he didn’t want to see General Pozos again. He felt contempt for the man, impatience, deep dislike, the same as ever, but these emotions no longer rode freely in his brain. The decision having been made, the plan now in operation, it seemed as though he were no longer free even to think poorly of General Pozos, as though the General were already dead and it would be bad form to harbor unkind thoughts about the dead.

Of course, there was Bob, too. How long had it been since he’d seen Bob? Seven, eight months, something like that. A man and his son drift apart when the son reaches his majority. Thinking about Bob, actually thinking about the boy for the first time in years, the Governor was surprised at the sudden realization that he no longer knew who Bob was. When had that happened, when had he lost contact with the boy?

God, years ago. When the son had been in his teens, the father was at his most active politically. And after that Bob had gone away to college, and now for the last seven years he’d been working for Pozos.

While Juan Pozos took his place.

Standing on the warm sand, feeling the sand between his toes and on the bottom of his bare feet, gazing out toward the yacht in the harbor all gleaming and white, Governor Harrison smiled crookedly and thought:

We’ve exchanged sons. While somehow he has become my enemy, and fate has decreed that I shall cause his death, he and I have exchanged sons. Why should General Luis Pozos be the man with whom my life is so entwined? Are we the two sides of the same coin, the two extreme examples of forms of government? Does God have a symbolic purpose in my causing the death of the dictator?

He was surprised to discover that he didn’t want to see his son. In a way, he was afraid to see him.

That damn girl, he thought, why don’t they catch her?

He turned away from the sea, walked heavily back through the sand to the beach buggy, and discovered that someone had stolen his shoes and socks. He looked around, glaring, and it seemed as though all the Mexicans nearby were looking at him sidelong and smirking. He had no doubt that every one of them had seen the robber, had seen the shoes and socks taken, and had done and would do nothing about it. The guilty one was probably still in plain view, sitting on the sand all smiling and innocent. With a sudden release for his foul mood, he swore angrily and climbed into the buggy and drove it violently back through town, cutting off other drivers and running a traffic light.

Back at the hotel, he stopped in at the main building to ask if there had been any phone calls, but there had not. Still barefoot, giving his anger free rein for the total relief of it, he strode up the path to his cottage to find Edgar still sitting there where the Governor had left him, smoking his pipe and gazing moodily out to sea.

The doctor saw him, and took the pipe from his mouth, saying, “Luke—”

“I don’t have the patience for you now, Edgar. If it’s more nonsense, I don’t want to hear it.”

The doctor said, in a tone of surprise, “What’s happened to your shoes?”

The Governor opened his mouth to say something hasty and biting, but the sudden sound of the phone ringing in his cottage stopped him. “Later,” he said, and hurried inside.

Five

Doctor Fitzgerald sat staring at the sea and pondered thoughts of death. Willful death. Murder, murder most foul.

No. Not murder most foul. In the case of General Pozos, it could well be murder least foul, the closest thing to truly justified homicide. But murder just the same.

Sitting in the sunlight while Luke was gone to answer the phone, Doctor Fitzgerald thought about what he was here to do, and wondered how he had come to such an intention. The stages of his conversion had been gradual and soft; he could be sure only that Luke Harrison, out of total conviction, had ultimately convinced him as well, and now the two of them were here to turn that conviction into action.

Of course, it was up to him actually to do the deed, but he neither blamed Luke for this nor considered it unjust. By his training and background, he was the only man for the job, it was as simple as that.

His one fear was that he wouldn’t be able to last the ordeal. There would be no one there to talk to, no one to help him argue away his doubts. Luke daren’t be anywhere near, and Luke’s son was no part of the conspiracy. There were only the two of them in it; himself and Luke.

Well, no. Three now, including Ellen Marie. He had been foolish to talk to her, he realized that now, but he had desperately needed to talk to someone, and since Myra’s death he had come to depend more and more on Ellen Marie for comradeship and understanding.

But this time she had understood nothing. He had tried to explain, but in his mouth Luke’s arguments had sounded stiff and unnatural, and her first instinctive revulsion to the plan — hadn’t that been his first reaction, too, long ago? — had never been overcome. And when at last they both had come to realize that neither could possibly alter the feelings of the other, she had made her wild threat to warn the General of what was to come.

Warn that tyrant, warn him! To do so would be to commit treason against the entire human race. Luke Harrison had said so and he himself had agreed. Could anyone possibly hold any sort of brief for General Pozos?

But nothing would change her mind, and so he had attempted to confine her, for her own good, until it all should be over, when he could attempt — with the deed finished and in the past — to reconstruct their shattered relationship. But she had gotten away, and where was she now? It was impossible even to guess. Luke had hired private detectives to try and find her, but so far they hadn’t had any success at all. Apparently, if the private detectives were as good as Luke claimed they were, she hadn’t come into Mexico at all, but was probably still somewhere in the States. Very possibly in New York or somewhere like that, sulking, as Luke maintained.

Of course, just in case she was in Mexico and still intended to try to talk with General Pozos, some of the private detectives were going to be here throughout the General’s stay — only today and tonight, thank goodness — to keep her safely away, out of the General’s sight and hearing.

The General. Doctor Fitzgerald thought of him again, and the plan again, and closed his eyes in torment. His pipe, long since out, hung slack from his mouth. He visualized the next days, weeks, months, as he would whittle away at the General’s life.

Not that long, no, not that long. They had thought to make it last three months, an illness of three months’ duration, but now that the time to begin was so close, the doctor realized he could never never never survive an ordeal like that for three long months.

Three weeks would be more like it, much more like it.

As he understood it, the current ocean voyage was scheduled to last another three weeks. That much he could probably survive, arranging it so that the General would sicken rapidly on the final stage of the trip, perhaps even to the point where it would have to be cut short. Yes, and have the General totally bedridden by the time they arrived finally at the palace in Santo Stefano. Then, in three or four more days, it could be finished.

He had just come to this decision, and was mulling it over, when Luke returned from his phone call.

Doctor Fitzgerald said, “Was that about Ellen Marie? Have they found her?”

“No, they haven’t,” said the Governor harshly. “I wish to Christ they would.”

Doctor Fitzgerald turned his head, and here, coming up the tile path, suitcase in hand and broad smile on face, was the General’s son, young Juan. In astonishment, forgetting everything else for the instant, the doctor exclaimed, “Well, look who’s here!”

The Governor turned his head. Coming along past the swimming pool, beaming in obvious delight, Juan said, “Hi, Uncle Luke. How’s everything?”

In the harshest voice the doctor had ever heard him use, the Governor snapped, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

The doctor saw the smile collapse on Juan’s face, saw the boy’s expression become puzzled and hurt, and all at once he thought: It’s his father we’re going to kill. And he saw why he had been foolish to tell Ellen Marie, to expect her to make the kind of dispassionate moral judgment necessary to understand what it was he had to do.

Juan, stumbling, bewildered, embarrassed, was saying, “I just, I just flew down to see you.”

“Well, you can turn right around,” the Governor said, in the same cold, harsh voice, “and just fly right back again.” Spinning on his heel, the Governor stalked into his cottage and slammed the door behind him.

Juan had dropped his suitcase, and now he turned to the doctor, spreading his hands in a helpless gesture, saying, “I was only, only...”

“I know,” the doctor said gently, understanding and sympathizing. “Luke’s upset right now, that’s all. He had a phone call, I think it was bad news about something. Sit here with me, he’ll be out in a little while, his old self, I’m sure of it. It’s just the phone call.”

Six

The call had been from Honner, telling the Governor that Ellen Marie Fitzgerald and the man with her were dead.

Life had been hectic for Honner since three o’clock this morning, when all at once the Pontiac had blown up and the Mercedes had turned out to have four slashed tires. The girl and the son of a bitch with her had gone tearing on by, in the clear, and that was that.

Honner was the first of the survivors to get over his excitement and panic. The others wanted either to start running down the highway after the Datsun’s taillights or throwing dirt on the burning Pontiac. Neither move made any sense, since you couldn’t catch a Datsun on foot and there was no percentage in trying to put the fire out. The two guys in the Pontiac were dead already, so let them cook.

Honner got the rest organized again. That’s what he was for, that’s what his reputation was all about. He got the other three rounded up, and they all packed themselves into the Mercedes and drove into Iguala on the rims.

Iguala was asleep, so asleep it was nearly dead. Honner finally found a telephone and called another of the Governor’s men in Mexico City. The Mercedes was still the best car for the job down here, better than anything else they might come up with at this time of night, so Honner told the man in Mexico City to get hold of four new tires and send them down with somebody to put them on the car. Honner considered calling Governor Harrison then, too, but it was a hell of an hour at night and there wasn’t anything to report by way of success, so he decided to wait till later.

At five o’clock, even though the new tires hadn’t arrived and he couldn’t yet start out on the trail again, Honner felt he could no longer delay giving the Governor the news. So he called, and told the Governor what had happened, and the Governor told him to call Borden, one of his men in Acapulco, and tell him to start north, watching for the girl. They’d catch her in a pincers.

Fine. That sounded good, and it sounded sure, and that made Honner a lot happier. And when the new tires came, shortly after five-thirty, already on rims and set to be slapped on the car, Honner was happier yet. He picked one man, Kolb, to go with him, told the others to follow along in the Chevrolet that had brought the tires down, and headed south at top speed.

He left the Chevrolet out of sight behind him before he reached the really bad road. For most of its southern half, the Mexico City — Acapulco highway is a road far more scenic than navigable. It travels through green mountains, twisting and turning, climbing and descending through some of the wildest, emptiest, most beautiful and terrifying scenery in the world. Hairpin curves are constant as the road pokes its way up and down the cliff faces. On every side are the dark green mountains, slashed here and there with raw rock where the road has been blasted through, so that when climbing toward a high pass it is possible to look out over a cliff drop of hundreds of feet, to look down through clouds drifting past the slopes below you, and see there a bit of road you traversed ten minutes ago and over there another section you won’t be reaching for ten minutes more.

To make any speed at all on a road like this was impossible, so here the great advantages of the Mercedes over the Datsun were minimized, though the Mercedes could still handle the curves at somewhat better speeds. Honner drove hard, and well, and averaged nearly forty miles an hour.,

Until, at ten minutes past nine, rounding a particularly sharp curve high in the mountains some ninety miles north of Acapulco, Honner very nearly crashed into a white Ford coming the other way. Both drivers slammed on the brakes and the cars shivered to a stop next to one another, where the drivers stared at one another blank-faced.

The other driver was Borden, the Governor’s man from Acapulco.

Honner and Borden got out of their cars and faced one another in the middle of the road. Honner said, “You let them through, you moron, they’re in a white Datsun.”

“They didn’t pass me, brother, I’ll swear to it,” said Borden. “I saw two vehicles the whole time since I left the city, one of them a blue Karmann Ghia with two bearded guys in it and no room for anybody else, and the other an oil truck with a guy alone in the cab, which I know for sure because I stopped him and asked directions.”

Honner frowned and looked off the other way. One car had passed him since Iguala, headed north, and that had been an old Citroen with a family aboard, the back seat full of kids. Besides, there was no point in the girl turning around and going north again.

Honner said, “Then they got off the road somewhere and let you go by, and took off again behind you.”

“No, sir. I thought they might try something like that, and I was ready for it. They hid no place, I’ll say that for a fact. You know yourself what this road is like. Most places there’s barely enough space for two cars on the road, much less off it.”

“Still and all,” said Honner, “that’s got to be what happened. Turn around, we’ll check it out.”

“And you’ll see I’m right.”

They both headed south then, watching both sides of the road, and it was true there were no turnoffs, no lanes, no places to move a car into and hide it from anyone on the road.

Abruptly Honner pulled to a stop, at a place where the road came to a peak, angled sharply to the left, and dropped downhill again. Here was one of the few places where a gravel widening had been constructed beside the road where people could stop to rest and look at the view. A single-rail, rustic log fence ran along the edge of the cliff here, and one of the log rails was missing.

Honner walked over to look, and to his unpracticed eye it seemed as though faint tire tracks led out to the edge and over. Kolb and Borden and the two men with Borden all squinted at the ground, too, and agreed with him it did look that way. Tire tracks, and scrape marks at the edge.

Honner disliked heights. He lay down on his stomach and inched toward the edge until his head was peeking over. He held his breath, worried about vomiting, and looked down.

It was nearly a straight drop, and it looked like forever. There were trees in clusters down the cliff face, and a sea of dark green trees at the bottom. Looking, staring, squinting, Honner finally made out the path of something, saw where tree branches had been sheared away here and there, saw the faint evidences of a straight line leading down, and down, and down... to a trace of whitish color at the very bottom. Yes, there it was, so small and so far away he’d very nearly missed it. But it was there, it was definitely there.

Honner crawled away from the edge. He felt relief at not looking over there anymore, but nothing in particular about either the girl nor the man with her. He didn’t harbor grudges nor think of vengeances.

He got to his feet and said, “Let’s get to a phone.”

Seven

The Governor wanted to make it up to the boy. No, he didn’t truly want to, but he had to. With everything else crowding in on him, he had to stop everything and nursemaid the stricken Juan.

He could feel the falseness of his smile stretching his cheeks as he came out by the pool, flopped with an attempt at casualness onto a chaise near the boy, and said, “Well, that’s better! Good to see you, boy!”

Juan’s own smile was uncertain as he said, “It was supposed to be a surprise.”

“It was that, all right! Eh, Edgar?”

The doctor smiled nervously. “Yes, indeed.”

Juan said, “I’m sorry if I did anything—”

“No no no! I’m always glad to see you, Juan, you know that. If you managed to wangle a day or two away from the grind, more power to you, say I! Just ignore the way I acted, you know how I am in the morning sometimes.”

“Uncle Edgar said you’d gotten a phone call that upset you.”

“He did?” The Governor, startled, looked past Juan at the doctor. The man couldn’t possibly know about Ellen Marie’s death, there was no way for him to know it. And he wouldn’t just sit there, weak and nervous, his usual pallid self.

The doctor said, “I told Juan that was probably why you snapped at him. I hope it wasn’t anything serious.”

“Oh, no,” said the Governor, understanding now but too harried to be grateful for Edgar’s quick thinking. “Nothing serious, just a mix-up about the dinner party. Yes, and we’ll have to find a place for you, too,” he told the boy. “Near your father, if we can manage it.”

“Don’t go to any special trouble for me,” Juan said.

“Nonsense, boy.”

The doctor said, “I suppose you’re looking forward to seeing your father again, eh?”

“I suppose so,” said Juan, unconvincingly.

The Governor said, “After graduation, he’ll see him all the time. Isn’t that right, Juan?”

“No, sir,” said Juan.

They both looked at the boy in surprise, the Governor feeling a sudden tightening in his stomach. Something else? Would nothing hold still for a man? He said, unable to keep the ragged edge out of his voice, “No? What do you mean, no? You’ll be going home.”

“Uncle Luke, I—” The boy hesitated, glanced at Edgar, and started again, “Home is Pennsylvania,” he said. “The United States. I don’t know Guerrero, I don’t have any feelings about it, on the plane when the stewardess — Uncle Luke I–I want to stay with you.”

It was the doctor who said it: “But, your father.”

The boy turned, and it was obviously much easier for him to speak through the doctor rather than directly. “He isn’t really my father,” he said. “We don’t even know each other, we don’t really want to know each other. Uncle Luke is the one I know, the one I’m... I feel like a member of his family, not some, some banana-republic General I don’t even know.” He turned back to the Governor, straining with the urgency to be understood. “I’m an American, Uncle Luke,” he said. “Not a Guerreran. I haven’t been that since I was a little kid. I want to stay. I want to study law.”

Through his growing frustration, the Governor was still conscious of the honor Juan was doing him, but he pushed the awareness away; it led to layers of moral complexity, of conflicting loyalties and a confusing welter of choices, none entirely good. Spreading his hands, he said, “I don’t know what to say.”

The doctor said, “Juan, there are people, I mean people in your own country, in Guerrero, they’re depending on you.”

“No one even knows me there.”

“Oh, no, that’s where you’re wrong. Your father — I don’t know if you knew this, but he isn’t at all well. He could go any time, and there are people, people down there in Guerrero, they’re depending on you to take over, to uh, to lead your people, to, well—”

“To be a puppet on strings,” Juan said fiercely. “I know all about that, what they want. The same crowd running things, with me standing on a balcony two or three times a year. But that isn’t what I want, that hasn’t anything to do with me, who I am.” Turning back to the Governor, he said, “You understand, Uncle Luke, don’t you? I’ve got to be where I feel I belong.”

This was dangerous, and entirely unexpected. The Governor wet his lips. “‘Well, it depends,” he said carefully, “on what you want, of course, on the life you want for yourself. But there are other things, too, things to be taken into account. You can’t just thrust power away, you know, not if it’s in your hands. Power brings responsibility, Juan.”

“Oh, I’d try to turn the government over to the best people I could find,” the boy said. “But that’s in the future, that isn’t the point. The point is I want to go on with my schooling, I want to become an American citizen. All this other stuff... When the General dies, we can talk about it then. You could even help me, go down there with me, help me pick the best men to take over.”

“I suppose I could,” said the Governor thoughtfully, seeing where it all might yet work out. Maybe even better, without Juan. Choose the people who would fit in best with his own plans, have Juan give them his support, then ship Juan back to the States. Have the government “run” by men with straightforward political debts to himself, that would be much simpler in the long run than having to clear everything through a naive and inexperienced boy. “You might be right,” the Governor said. “And frankly, I hadn’t been looking forward to losing you after graduation.”

“You won’t lose me, Uncle Luke,” Juan said. “You couldn’t possibly lose me.”

Looking past the boy’s shining face, the Governor saw Edgar gazing at the boy with an expression of such wistfulness that he could only be thinking of his daughter, wondering where she was, how to end the rift between them.

For the first time, the Governor saw how close he was to losing everybody, absolutely everybody. This plan was bringing him to the brink, everything was riding on it. And the balance was so delicate, so delicate; one injudicious push in any direction could throw the whole thing off, lead to exposure, ruin, failure.

Edgar must not know about Ellen Marie’s death, not until afterward. It had been an accident, but even so. At this juncture, it would be fatal for Edgar to learn what had happened.

There were too many things to think about, too many things to guard against. All he could do now was push forward, forward. Try to keep all the strings in his hands. Try to keep on top of the situation.

Smiling with forced briskness, he said, “Enough of this now. Is this a vacation or what is it? Juan, let’s us go for a swim.”

Eight

There was a time when Richio had been considered handsome, but that was in the days before his stay at the Malenesta Prison, in the days before he lost his left eye and collected the raised road map of scars crisscrossing his body from forehead to knee. No one considered Richio handsome these days; no one considered him anything but terrifying.

Lerin was frankly afraid of Richio, though he himself had been confined briefly at the same prison and knew firsthand something of the life Richio had lived. But few men had gone through as much as Richio and survived at all; it was too much to hope that a man would go through all that and survive sweet-tempered. A murderous rage lived inside Richio, just beneath the skin; it never slept, and almost anything could call it forth.

On the other hand, Lerin had no desire to lose his job, and if he delayed much longer, he would be late returning to the hotel. The Hotel San Marcos did not tolerate laxness or tardiness in its staff. Lerin had come up the hill to the poor section of Acapulco, the native, non-tourist section, and just outside Richio’s room he’d been told by Maria that Richio was still asleep, Richio had drunk far too much last night, Richio was snorting with rage in his sleep and would surely awake as surly as a donkey, as vicious as a snake.

Richio’s room was directly off the dirt street, through a slanting wooden door in the long white wall and into a dark, dirt-floored, evil-smelling room seven feet square. In here Richio slept away his hangovers, his bad dreams, his evil frustrations, coming out usually only after sundown to cadge and steal his way through the evening, drink his way through the night. Sometimes he lived alone, sometimes he shared his life with a woman; currently, with Maria, a squat whore from one of the border cities, brought here by a Texan in an air-conditioned Pontiac, left behind like a toothbrush. No one knew what Maria thought of Richio; no one cared.

Lerin had paced back and forth in the dusty street for a quarter of an hour now, watched by the phlegmatic Maria as she squatted in the thin shade of the building. From time to time he heard the snorting and thrashing of Richio in there, and once Richio called out, hoarsely, perhaps calling for help, perhaps only calling down curses on the phantoms that oppressed him.

Lerin stopped his pacing. “He must be waked,” he said. “There is no help for it.”

Maria shrugged.

“If I wake him, he will be angry,” Lerin said, talking more to himself than the girl. “If I don’t tell him now, and the boy goes away again this afternoon, he will be more angry.”

Maria shrugged.

“So I wake him,” said Lerin, trying to convince himself of his decisiveness. Taking a deep breath, he moved forward, pushed ajar the door, and stepped into Richio’s room.

The room smelled like the breath from Richio’s open mouth; gaseous, rotting, humid. There was a bed along the rear wall, made of wood, covered with faded blankets that had once been bright-colored. A chair on the left was the only other furniture.

Richio was sprawled naked across the bed on his stomach, an arm and a leg hanging over the side. His face was turned toward Lerin, his mouth was hanging open to show his few teeth. His good right eye was out of sight against the blanket, leaving only the shriveled socket of the left showing, like an inverted red prune. He was fearfully ugly, and vicious, and violent, and Lerin approached him with dry mouth and nervous hands.

“Richio,” he said softly, almost whispering, and the man on the bed snarled in his sleep, moved his arms vaguely, settled down again. “Richio. Richio.”

Nothing more. Lerin moved reluctantly closer, reached out, touched Richio on the shoulder.

Richio came roaring off the bed, hands like claws. Jumping back, Lerin stumbled over his own feet, fell heavily to the dirt floor. Richio was on him like a cat, straddling him, closing his hands around Lerin’s throat. Richio’s face blazed with madness.

“Richio! Richio! Richio!” Lerin screamed the name over and over, trying to bring Richio to his senses before the hands cut off his wind, and all at once the struggle stopped, Richio’s hands dropped away, Richio sat on Lerin’s stomach and said, “What the hell you doing?”

“I had to talk to you.”

Richio casually smacked him openhanded across the face, partly in friendly humor and partly in continuing irritation. “You want to talk to me. What would a moron like you have to say to a moron like me?”

“His son is here. In Acapulco.”

Richio leaned forward, his heavy face directly above Lerin’s. “The son? You’ve seen him?”

“He just came to the hotel.”

“And Pozos? Not with him?”

“No, he’s with two gringos. Older men. They speak English and he calls them ‘uncle.’”

Richio got to his feet, rubbing his hand against his face. “To meet his father? Why come here? You meet your old man at home, not someplace else.”

“The other men didn’t expect him. I heard them talk a little, and he came as a surprise.”

“Surprise.” Richio nodded. “We’ll give him a surprise.” He went to the doorway, said to Maria, “Get me some water,” Standing there, he urinated in the street.

Lerin said, “I have to get back soon.”

“They watch Pozos,” Richio said. “A man can’t get near the bastard. But not the son, eh? How would he like that, the bastard? Cut down his only son, eh? Would he feel that, the bastard?”

“I have to get back, I don’t want to lose my job.”

“That will do just as well,” Richio said. “Let Pozos live. Let him live without a son.”

Lerin said, “One thing, please. Don’t do it when I’m around.”

Richio looked at him in heavy surprise. “I’ll do it when the chance is good,” he said. “You just be sure you aren’t there.”

Now that he’d told, Lerin was beginning to regret it. But the other way would have been just as bad; if he hadn’t told Richio, and afterward Richio found out the son had been at the hotel, Richio would kill him as a handy substitute.

Maria brought in a metal pail half full of water. Taking it from her, Richio raised it to his lips, filled his mouth, gargled, spat on the floor. Then he drank, for a long while, and finally poured the remainder of the water over his head, wetting his body and more of the floor.

“I have to get back,” Lerin said.

Richio took a blanket from the bed, began to use it to rub himself dry. “I’ll see you later,” he said.

Nine

There were times when Juan took a somewhat guilty pleasure in the fact of his own beauty. He was beautiful, in an entirely masculine way, straight and lean of body, clear of eye, with unlined brow and gleaming smile, but most of the time he remained unself-conscious about himself, not thinking about his appearance at all beyond the simple level of striving for neatness and cleanliness. But there were moments when the fact of his beauty was so forcefully present that he himself became aware of it, and at such moments he was delighted by himself, all the while feeling it was somehow wrong to take such pleasure — almost girlish pleasure — in the accident of one’s looks.

Now, dressed in his white bathing trunks, poised at the edge of the small swimming pool, was one of those moments. He knew the contrast of white trunks and olive skin was pleasing to the eye, knew his physique was good, his face handsome, his movements virile and graceful. He could see it reflected in the eyes of Uncle Luke, already treading water in the pool, and Uncle Edgar, sitting in a lounge chair on the other side of the pool.

When he found himself delaying his dive into the water, posing at the brink like some movie queen, his self-consciousness turned into embarrassment and he dove awkwardly into the water, coming up sputtering to hear Uncle Luke’s hearty laughter.

“Was that a belly-whopper! How’d you get to be so graceful?”

“Practice,” Juan said, the embarrassment gone as quickly as it had come. He floated on his back, closing his eyes against the high late-morning sun. For a while he just floated and relaxed and lazily thought his thoughts behind closed eyes.

Mostly that nothing ever works the way you think it will, not exactly. Like the scene he’d planned for meeting Uncle Luke, blown up by the coincidence of Uncle Luke’s being mad about a phone call just at the wrong time. And his plan to talk to Uncle Luke calmly, quietly, perhaps over dinner, instead of which he’d blurted it out right away, with no preparation, nothing organized in his head.

That was mostly because of the awkwardness of the meeting. He had strongly felt that Uncle Luke needed something to cheer him up, something to take his mind off his irritation and the strained atmosphere between them. It was as though he had wanted to present Uncle Luke with some sort of gift, and the only gift he had was himself, his continuing to live in the United States, his total conversion to his adopted country.

And then even that had gone unexpectedly, with Uncle Luke at first seeming to disapprove. Uncle Edgar, too, even more so. But Juan thought he understood that now, at least Uncle Luke’s objection. He’d been bending over backward to be fair, that’s all, serving as a kind of devil’s advocate for himself, wanting to be sure Juan wasn’t making a spur-of-the-moment decision he’d regret later on.

But everything was all right now. They hadn’t discussed the finances yet, but there was no hurry about that. Juan already knew how it would go; at first Uncle Luke would insist on paying for everything himself, making a gift of it, but as Juan would persist, Uncle Luke would finally accept the fact that it was a loan.

There was no hurry, though. That conversation could wait a week or a month or even more. He would give it better timing than the first half. Patience, like sleeping in airplanes, was a mark of maturity, and it was about time he started developing some of those marks.

“Juan!”

He opened his eyes, rolled lazily in the water. Uncle Luke was standing up by the side of the pool, grinning down at him. Juan called, “What’s up?”

“Going to give you a diving lesson,” Uncle Luke said. “Watch carefully, now. See how it’s done.”

Juan, treading water, watched Uncle Luke with fond pleasure. If he could look half that good at Uncle Luke’s age he’d be well pleased. There was a man who kept himself in top condition both physically and mentally, and Juan, looking up at him, realized just how lucky he was to have been brought up by such a man. “Okay, Tarzan,” he called. “Show me.”

Uncle Luke sliced into the water with hardly a ripple, curved to the bottom and up like a long, sleek tan fish, broke the surface with a shout of pleasure and turned to call, “That’s how it’s done!”

“Oh, you go in on your stomach. I didn’t know that.”

Uncle Luke snorted. “Stomach my foot!”

Juan, laughing, recited, “You are old, Father William—”

“Be off,” shouted Uncle Luke, “or I’ll throw you downstairs!”

“I’ll show you a dive,” Juan promised, and glided to the edge of the pool. He lifted himself up out of the water, stood on the pink cement, and shook water out of his ears.

“This way to the Olympics!” called Uncle Luke.

Juan stood at stiff attention by the edge, hands at his sides. “Ze vay ve dife in Chermany,” he said, “is shtraight up und den shtraight down.”

“Like a stone,” commented Uncle Luke, and across the pool Uncle Edgar was smiling at them both.

Juan changed his stance, making his body loose and sinuous. “In India,” he said, “we dive like a sssssnake, rrrrrippling srough se water.”

“In Mexico,” Uncle Luke called, “we mostly stand beside the pool and talk big.”

“There are times—”

Uncle Edgar shouted, “Look out!”

Juan saw Uncle Edgar half out of his chair, staring at something behind Juan, his face distorted by shock. Juan turned to see what it was, and couldn’t believe his eyes.

Running toward him was a half-naked man dressed only in dirty khaki pants. He was the ugliest man Juan had ever seen, his body ridged and corroded by scars. He was running downhill over the boulders, far from any of the slate paths, and held rigid in his right hand was a gleaming knife.

Ten

Doctor Fitzgerald couldn’t move.

He was half-in, half-out of his chair, most of his weight supported by his arms, his hands clutching the chair arms. Suspended that way, as though time had frozen with him in the process of getting to his feet, he watched the drama on the other side of the swimming pool.

The man with the knife had apparently circled most of the hotel buildings in order to come down from above, and had managed to come very close without being observed, actually running across the open only in the last ten yards or so. He seemed unaware of the existence of anyone but Juan, rushing straight at him, ignoring the doctor’s shouts or the shouts of Luke Harrison, still down there in the pool.

Luke, too, was frozen, standing chest-deep in the water near the shallow end, one arm raised up out of the water in a half-completed gesture, as though he’d been about to ask the others to give him their attention. Like Edgar, he watched, without moving, the contest between Juan and the man with the knife.

The contest. Juan had had just enough warning to evade that first headlong rush, jumping to one side, leaping over a lounge chair and then kicking the chair into the other man’s path.

The whole thing had almost turned farcical at that point, when for just an instant the assailant teetered off balance and it seemed as though his only choice lay between falling over the lounge chair or tumbling into the pool. His arms flailed, the knife glinted in helpless malevolence in the sunlight, and then the instant was gone, he had his balance again, and he was turning to find Juan once more and finish the job he’d started.

Juan had backed away, but for some reason he didn’t turn and run. Instead he stood there, perhaps ten feet from the other man, watching and waiting, poised like a cat. Doctor Fitzgerald heard him say, “What’s the matter? I don’t know you.”

The other man moved forward, half-crouching, the knife held out to one side. He weaved back and forth as he came on, almost as though trying to hypnotize Juan, and Juan watched him as closely as a child watching a magician, trying to see by what trickery the rabbit is being made to come out of the hat.

The distance between them narrowed, to eight feet, six feet, and again the other man leaped forward. Again Juan jumped backward, this time almost falling over a lounge chair himself, but getting his balance back, grabbing a white towel off the seat of the chair, dancing away out of range of the knife.

Juan spoke again, this time in Spanish. The other one, standing by the chair that Juan hadn’t quite tripped over, rested his free hand on the chair back, as though this were a brief time-out they were taking, and answered in harsh, guttural Spanish, spitting the words out. Juan’s face twisted, in pity or disgust, and the timeout was over.

The man went to his left around the chair, and Juan went the other way, circling the chair. The man, with an angry shout, kicked the chair out of the way. Juan ran nimbly past him, and now they were moving in the opposite direction, back toward where they had started.

There was a terrible fascination in watching the two of them, so violently contrasted, the boy so fresh, smooth, handsome, the other so twisted and scarred. Both moved with fine grace, the boy light as a deer, the man with the heavy grace of a panther.

Whatever the man had said, Juan seemed slowed now, just slightly unsure of himself. As though in some strange way he found merit in the other’s case, a justification for murder that he could not himself entirely rebut. He seemed not to be looking for a way to escape, nor for a way to beat the other, but for an answer, as though somewhere in his head he had to find words to use against the knife.

Why doesn’t he run? the doctor asked himself. Why doesn’t Luke do something, say something? It didn’t occur to him to wonder at his own silence; he knew he could neither move nor speak, and he accepted the knowledge without question.

Over on the other side of the pool, it was like a dance, like modern ballet. Juan moved only when the other man did, and only enough to keep clear of the knife. As for the other one, his movements had grown smaller, more controlled, as though he was afraid of lunging too carelessly, losing his advantage. Or perhaps he was simply like the cat with the mouse, prolonging the chase for his own pleasure, though his expression seemed too grim and humorless and intent for that.

“Juan!”

It was Luke, finally coming out of it, calling from the water. Juan half-turned his head when his name was called, the man with the knife darted forward, Juan jumped back. He flicked the towel at the man’s face, but missed.

Luke shouted, “Get away from him, Juan! Run down the hill! Run down the hill!”

The man seemed to think Juan would do as Luke wanted; in any case, he all at once rushed forward, flailing with the knife. Juan, running backward, flicked the towel again, this time at the knife, once, twice — and the knife went flashing through the air, spun away by the towel. It fell clear of the tile, landed point down in the earth, the handle quivering there.

The man stood flatfooted an instant in astonishment, gaping at his empty hand. Then, with a roar of humiliation and rage, he rushed Juan bare-handed, his fingers reaching out for Juan’s throat.

Juan caught him by the wrists, and they staggered back and forth, clamped together, hands to wrists, the muscles straining in their arms and across their shoulders. Even their bellies were tight and rippled with the strain, and on Juan’s bare legs the thigh muscles were bunched and knotted. They bent this way, that way, both showing their teeth in wide grimaces, their eyes unblinking as they stared at one another.

Until with a sudden movement the other man twisted free, stumbled back, and rushed forward again. This time Juan side-stepped him, grabbing him by the upper arm, using his own movement against him, pushing him around in a floundering half-circle. Juan’s foot came out, the other tripped, hit the tile hard on his left shoulder, and rolled despairingly over the edge into the pool.

Luke was on him like a bull, holding him down, pressing him, mashing him down into the water.

Doctor Fitzgerald, released from tension, sank back into the chair. He inhaled, a long, shuddering, painful breath that seared the inside of his chest, making him wonder how long it had been since he’d breathed. “Thank God!” he whispered. Shooting pains were running up and down his arms; he let them dangle over the sides of the chair, and gave himself over to catching his breath.

Across the way, Juan had fallen to the tile, was sitting there spraddle-legged like a rag doll, like a puppet whose strings have been cut. And in the pool Luke was hulked in chest-deep water, grim and intent, holding, holding. Beneath him the water thrashed in violence.

Slowly Juan seemed to come aware of the world again, and then of Luke and of what was happening. His face twisted with pain, Juan leaned toward the pool, calling, “Uncle Luke, don’t!”

But Luke paid no attention to the boy, and beneath him the agitation in the water was lessening.

Juan slid forward to hands and knees, crawled to the edge of the pool, cried, “Uncle Luke! Stop it!”

Doctor Fitzgerald, watching and listening, finally roused himself, sat up, and called, “Let him go, boy. He knows what he’s doing, let him go.” And then realized, in some astonishment, that he’d only whispered, that no one could have heard him, and that he hadn’t really expected to be heard.

Juan, his exhaustion showing in every movement, lumbered clumsily into the pool, falling more than diving, and struggled over to Luke. Then a strange silent struggle went on, the two fighting like tired sharks for the thing in the water. Luke muttered something that Doctor Fitzgerald couldn’t hear, and to which the boy made no answer, then all at once turned his back, leaving it all to Juan. Luke came slowly over to this side of the pool, arms held up out of the water, and stopped with his forearms resting on the tile. He looked up at the doctor with expressionless eyes and said, “Call the police, Edgar.” His voice was quiet, calm.

Across the way, Juan was dragging the man — unconscious, or dead — out of the water. The doctor said, “Of course,” and got to his feet. His entire body was stiff, the nerves jumping, as though he’d been beaten all over with blackjacks. Shaking, his body unaware that it was all over, he hobbled toward the cottage to make the call.

Eleven

Governor Harrison sat panting in a deck chair and watched Juan, across the pool, giving the son of a bitch artificial respiration. He wanted to tell the boy to quit it, let the son of a bitch die, but he didn’t have the strength to raise his voice, and when all was said and done, it really didn’t matter.

Juan was still alive.

While it was going on, the Governor had been too frozen with horror to do anything but watch that goddamn moron try to stick a knife into everything he’d been working for. Now that it was over, his anger at the failed assassin was mostly reflexive; he was feeling too much relief at Juan’s being alive to have much emotion to spare for imbeciles.

And what could the man be but an imbecile? In broad daylight, he comes running out of nowhere, barefoot, naked to the waist, ugly as sin, brandishing a knife, trying to murder a perfect stranger right in front of two witnesses.

An escapee from an insane asylum, more than likely. A candidate for an asylum, at any rate.

Across the way, Juan was straddling the lunatic, pumping away at his back, just as though it were important that maniacs go on breathing. But if it made the boy feel any better, let him go to it.

Edgar came back out of the cottage, walking like a man with broken kneecaps. His face was as white as wax. He said, “They’re sending for the police. And two men will come up to hold him till the police get here.”

“Good.”

From across the pool, Juan called, “Uncle Edgar! Will you take a look?”

“Oh,” said Edgar, like a sleepwalker. “Of course.”

The Governor watched him walk around the pool, legs as shaky as a foal’s, and he found it impossible to believe that such a man would be able to accomplish what must be done. How to put steel in that back?

If only Pozos were responsible for Ellen Marie’s death. Of course, in a way he was; if it hadn’t been for the existence of Pozos, Ellen Marie would still be alive, but that was reasoning of too subtle a sort to try on a man just bereft of a daughter.

Was there any way? Somehow make Pozos to blame, that would do the trick. Edgar would perform like a machine, absolutely without emotion, given such an emotional reason.

Juan was coming around the pool now, leaving Edgar on his knees beside the lunatic. Juan smiled shakily and dropped into the chaise beside the Governor, saying, “Uncle Edgar says he’s all right.”

“Tomorrow I’ll be glad,” the Governor said. “Right now I’m sorry I didn’t do the whole job.”

Juan reached out and pressed his hand on the Governor’s knee. “I appreciate that, Uncle Luke,” he said, “I appreciate what it means you feel about me, but you don’t understand about that man.”

“Understand what? He’s a lunatic, that’s all.”

“He was in one of my father’s prisons. That’s where he got all those scars.”

The Governor glanced across the pool, then back at Juan. “Is that what he told you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Why try to kill you? Why not go after your father?” And save me, the Governor thought, all this trouble.

Juan shrugged. “I don’t know. I suppose my father’s too well guarded. And I guess he thought this would be a good revenge, kill the General’s only son.” Juan laughed without humor, “If he only knew.”

“Knew what?”

“I’m hardly General Pozos’ son,” Juan said. “You know that. He doesn’t care about me and I can’t bring myself to care about him.”

Two men came up then, employees of the hotel. The Governor gestured across the pool, saying, “Over there, that’s him.”

The assassin — attempted assassin, thank God — was sitting up now, groggily. Edgar had been speaking to him, softly, but now he straightened and backed away as the two hotel employees came over. They stood uneasily on either side of the sitting man, looking at him or at the pool or at each other, obviously not entirely sure what was called for from them in such a situation.

Edgar came around the pool and sat down in the chaise on the Governor’s other side. “He’ll be all right,” he said. “He swallowed some water, but Juan got most of it up.”

“I almost want to let him go,” said Juan. When Edgar looked at him in surprise, the boy explained again what the assault had been all about.

The Governor was thinking again, and it seemed to him there might be a way to turn this assault to advantage after all. First, to begin convincing Juan of the necessity of his taking over the responsibility of Guerrero on his father’s death. And second, to put that needed steel in Edgar’s spine. So he said, “When the day comes, Juan, that you take over your country, the conditions that create men like that one there can come to an end.”

Juan, frowning, looked over at the man sitting hopelessly on the tile, and the Governor could see the comprehension of responsibility growing in the boy’s mind. Juan was learning to accept that responsibility; reluctantly but surely.

Juan said, dully, “I don’t suppose anyone could say anything to my father.”

“To make him change his ways? Hardly.”

“Hardly,” Juan echoed, and closed his eyes.

The Governor turned to Edgar, saying, “When that day comes, there’ll be no more assassins. No more need of assassins.”

Edgar understood. He nodded and said, “Amen.”

Opening his eyes again, looking across at the failed assassin, Juan said, “We won’t tell my father what happened. Or the police. He’s just a burglar, that’s all.”

The Governor frowned. “Why?”

Juan turned and met the Governor’s eyes. “I don’t want him to go back into my father’s prison. Let him go to a Mexican prison.”

The Governor smiled, suddenly feeling very good. Everything would work out, and by God the boy had the stuff to be a fine leader, a fine leader. The Governor said, “That’s all right. Just so he doesn’t start making any speeches.”

“I’ll talk to him,” Juan said, and got to his feet.

When the brown-uniformed policemen came trudging up the slope a few minutes later, Juan was hunkered down in front of the prisoner, talking to him in Spanish. He straightened, and came back over by the Governor, and answered the policemen’s questions in English.

Twelve

General Pozos moved slowly down the swaying stairway to the launch, where two sailors took his arms and helped him aboard. This was the only thing he disliked about traveling by yacht, the boarding and the leaving.

Bob Harrison came down after him, and then some other staff members. They all sat, Harrison beside the General, and the launch moved away from the yacht and turned itself toward shore.

Harrison had a pad in his lap. It was noon, and the sun was almost directly overhead, casting virtually no shadow. It was becoming hot, a little too much so, but Harrison in his gray linen suit and pale gray tie seemed cool and calm. “You will begin,” he said, reading from his pad, “with a greeting from the Mayor of the city, at the dock.”

“I know him,” grunted the General. “He’s a pig.” The General was in a bad mood, not only because of the swaying stairway he had had to descend, but also because the other dark blue uniform he had changed to was far too hot for this sunny day. Within it, and all around it, the General was sweating. He was sweating rivers, sweating lakes. Everything was sticking to him.

Harrison, unruffled by the General’s comment, continued to read from the pad: “The Mayor will escort you to a luncheon in your honor. The guests will be—”

General Pozos glowered silently through the reading of the list, until the name of a particular movie actress was mentioned, when he said, “Is that the blonde one?”

“No, sir. Redhead.”

“Perhaps I want her.”

“I believe she has just recently remarried, General, and her husband’s name is on the guest list here.”

“Por nada,” the General said, and waved a hand in a dismissing gesture. He always saved face in Spanish; he couldn’t trust English to convey quite the right careless tone with which he wanted to announce that he cared nothing for the redheaded movie actress, that she was forgotten, that she did not exist. The proper nuances required his native tongue.

Harrison meanwhile carried on undisturbed, as he always did. “After lunch,” he said, “which will be at the Hilton, there will be a brief news conference, and then you—”

“Reporters?” The General didn’t like reporters, with good cause.

“We have guarantees of cooperation. All but two are Mexican, anyway.”

“The other two?”

“One American, one British.”

“I don’t know which is worse.” The statement wasn’t irony, of which the General was incapable; it was the literal truth, announced deadpan.

“They’ll cooperate, General, it’s all been arranged.”

“Good.”

“After the news conference, you go to a suite reserved for you at the Hilton, and there you interview prospective new additions to your personal staff.”

The General smiled. That meant women, and the General loved women when they were brand-new.

“From four to seven,” Harrison went on, “there will be a cocktail party in your honor, given by an American author.” He mentioned the name, a man whose doctor novels always made the best-seller list.

The General had never heard of him. He grunted, not caring.

“Dinner at eight,” Harrison said. “The Brazilian Ambassador is the host, he has an estate outside the city.”

The General didn’t like Brazil, because it was so big. He pursed his lips, but kept quiet.

“You will return to your suite by eleven,” Harrison finished, “and be free the rest of the evening. We leave at nine in the morning.”

The General nodded. “Good,” he said.

The launch, having slowed to a crawl, was reluctantly approaching the dock now, bobbing heavily in the water. Lines were thrown and fastened, the launch bumped finally against the dock, and strong hands helped the General up and onto the solid planks, where a crowd of smiling faces and poised hands waited, all in formal attire.

For the next five minutes, the General was involved in the protocol of official greetings. There was a line of faces to smile at, hands to shake, all in particular order. The General loved such fuss and ceremony just as he loved his uniforms; they made him feel good, tall, central, important.

Most of the welcoming party were politicians, of course, mayors and governors and ambassadors and so on. There was also Luke Harrison, Bob’s father, and there was Doctor Edgar Fitzgerald, both men fairly far down the line. General Pozos was pleased to see them, particularly the doctor, who would be joining him here and staying with him indefinitely. He took the doctor’s hand in both his own, smiling broadly. The physical troubles that had been assailing the General these past few years, particularly the increasingly frequent problem of impotence, were both infuriating and frightening. To have the care and concern of such a man as Doctor Edgar Fitzgerald was a great relief, a great relief.

The General expressed his feelings as he shook the doctor’s hand, saying, “Most happy, my Doctor. Most happy. You will love your rooms on the ship, you will love them.”

The doctor seemed somewhat haggard, possibly from the change of climate or diet, but he managed an answering smile and said, “I’m looking forward to seeing them, General. And to beginning — beginning our association.”

“Most happy. Most happy.”

The General released his hand at last, and moved on. Now he allowed himself to be distracted while he watched young Harrison meeting his father. Would there be a clue now, a hint, the opening of a door into Harrison’s interior, as he shook hands with the father he hadn’t seen for nearly a year?

But it was a disappointment. The two men, father and son, shook hands and smiled at one another and murmured a few words, but so far as the General could see, it was all done with that same bland, polite good fellowship that Harrison always showed.

Yes, but this time there were two of them. The father acted the same way, precisely the same way, as he greeted his son. There were no broad smiles of pleasure, no bright eyes, no arms thrown around one another, no expression or gesture of blood relationship at all. But on the other hand, there was none of the stiff formality seen between relatives who have had a falling-out, either. There was nothing, nothing at all.

Was that where Harrison had learned it, from his father?

The General moved on to the next blankly smiling face, automatically outstretched hand. This a young man, Latin, slightly familiar, but with something vaguely like insolence in the eyes. The General shook his son’s hand without recognition, failed to see the bitter humor that came into the boy’s eyes, and moved on.

As he continued along the line, smiling, bowing his head, murmuring his words in either Spanish or English, shaking hands, he saw from the corner of his eye that the senior Harrison had stepped back from the line, was moving away from the rest. The young man with the vaguely insolent eyes moved off with him.

A minute later the younger Harrison reached the General’s side and murmured, “Dad couldn’t stay. He wanted to be here long enough to greet you, but now he has to hurry away. He asked me to express his apologies, and tell you he hopes to see you in Santo Stefano next month.”

The General nodded. He failed to understand, but he nodded. And moved along the line, bowing and shaking hands.

Finally the initial meeting was done, this first ceremony over, and the entire party moved toward the row of limousines waiting at the other end of the dock. The General was now flanked by Bob Harrison on one side and on the other by the Mayor of the city, who was his official host for the day. After a few paces, Harrison dropped back to make room for the Brazilian Ambassador.

They had just reached the limousines when the General’s attention was caught by a disturbance far down the street. He looked in that direction, and was amazed to see two people thundering this way on horseback, rushing along as though at the steeplechase. And there were the sound of shots, and people chasing people, and great confusion, all hurtling this way.

A voice said, very loudly, “Oh, my God!” and the General was amazed to realize it was young Harrison, thrust at last out of his pale cocoon. He turned his head to see the expression on Harrison’s face when all at once a fist struck him very hard on the chest, and the sun went out.