The Poisoners

XIII

Mexico boasts some very picturesque cities and towns, but Ensenada isn't one of them. Although it's within easy driving distance of the border, it lacks much of the stimulating, honky-tonk atmosphere of the true border towns. On the other hand, unlike some spectacular examples farther south and east, Ensenada displays nothing very interesting in the way of history or architecture. At least, if there were any ancient ruins or towering cathedrals around, they were well hidden from the main thoroughfare I used.

The impression I got was of a crowded, bright, busy, dusty community, peopled by dark-faced citizens who had their own affairs to think about and, for the most part, weren't tremendously interested in visitors from the north. Even the setting wasn't remarkable, since here the coastal hills had drawn back a bit from the sea, leaving the town sitting on a fairly flat piece of shore facing a large bay – the bahia for which, presumably, my hotel was named. I had no trouble finding it. As Charlie Devlin had indicated, it was right on the main drag. When I pulled up in front, a boy came out to help with the luggage, but he didn't seem very disturbed to find I didn't have any. Apparently the situation had arisen before, and he was used to mad Americanos who'd suddenly decided to dash down to Ensenada for a day or two with nothing but what was in their pockets.

At the desk, a pretty, blackhaired seсorita whose English was intelligible but far from perfect assigned me to a room and passed the key to the boy. He pointed out the bar and restaurant, and then led me down a long corridor and exhibited my quarters with a thoroughness, and a proprietary air of pride, that earned him a buck although he'd had nothing to carry. A reputation for generosity isn't a bad thing to establish in a strange foreign town; and actually it was a pretty good room, and everything worked.

Having made sure of this-Mexican plumbing tends to be temperamental-I went back out to the car and drove it around to the parking area behind the building. Before locking up, I carefully turned down both sun visors for Charlie Devlin's benefit: our prearranged let's-make-contact signal. In my room once more, I pulled off my shoes and lay down on the bed to wait.

It had not been my intention to do any heavy thinking. There seemed to be no constructive cerebration left to be done. To all appearances my job was finished. I should have been happy. All that remained was to buy my idealistic colleague a drink when she arrived, thank her for her help, wish her luck with her job, and wrap up the whole assignment with a report to Washington, where they'd complete the dossier on Nicholas and consign it to the permanently inactive file.

The trouble was, for one thing, I don't really like to see people die, and there aren't so many pretty, spunky little girls around that we can afford to lose one, no matter what her politics. Of course, personal likes and dislikes don't figure largely in this business, or shouldn't. More to the point was the fact that it had been too easy.

A good many years of experience have taught me to view with suspicion difficult cases that conveniently and unexpectedly solve themselves, and villains-or villainesses-who are obliging enough to kill themselves after kindly confessing their guilt. Anyway, the cerebral machinery kept spinning busily, reviewing the events of the past few days.

Lying there, I had to relive the whole affair, including the final ghoulish details involved in putting back into the sea, dead, the small female body I had so recently fished out of it alive. I hadn't enjoyed the task, but it had seemed like the logical solution. Mac had wanted it done inconspicuously, and with a little luck, this should be inconspicuous enough for anybody.

The authorities would find the wrecked car. Nearby, they'd probably find, washed up on the rocks, some scraps at least of the artistically tattered costume Beverly had thrown into the sea. They would assume that the dazed-perhaps hysterical-owner of the smashed automobile, stumbling about on the low cliffs in the early morning darkness, had managed to fall over the edge, and had then shed her hampering garments in her futile efforts to swim to safety.

A little farther down the coast, depending on the currents-I'd brought her back as near to the scene as I'd dared-they might or might not find the body. If they did, there would be no obvious signs of poison, I was fairly sure. She'd been a pro working for pros. What she'd used had been fast, effective, and undoubtedly reasonably undetectable.

A county coroner, or whoever performed the duties of that office here in Mexico, would be unlikely to spot it. I didn't think anybody would even notice that there was less water in the lungs than usual in cases of drowning. If they did, well, she'd been through a serious crash before she hit the water; she could have died as a belated result of internal injuries. Scratch one turista, possibly drunk, who'd failed to negotiate a curve in her expensive Yankee convertible.

A knock on the door made me sit up and swing my stockinged feet to the floor. "Just a minute," I called. "I'll be right there, Miss Devlin."

Of course, it didn't have to be Charlie Devlin, although it was time she arrived. It could be the Mexican police, perhaps having obtained my description and license number from the pickup-truck-load of native citizens who'd seen Beverly and me by the roadside near the wreck.

I didn't really think those citizens would volunteer information to the cops even if they heard it was wanted. Mexicans, as far as I know, have no more love for getting involved than anyone else. Nevertheless, I had to keep in mind the possibility that the local law was smarter and more suspicious than I'd hoped, and had traced me here somehow-in which case I could only act as much as possible as if the last thing in the world I was expecting to see, when I opened the door, was a policeman. The knock came again, more impatiently, as I finished tying my shoestrings.

"Okay, okay, I'm coming, Charlie!" I shouted. "Let a man put his shoes on, will…!"

Speaking, I crossed the room and yanked open the door, and stopped without completing the sentence. It wasn't Charlie Devlin, standing there in the hall. It wasn't the Mexican constabulary, either. It was the willowy blonde, the elongated acrobatic dancer, Frank Warfel's current playmate. Her presence didn't make a hell of a lot of sense to me, although she was certainly preferable to a policeman. We faced each other in silence for a moment.

Then she asked, "Who's Charlie?"

"Just a girl I know," I said.

"Lucky you," she said brightly, "to know a girl named Charlie."

"I also know a girl named Bobbie," I said, since it seemed to be that kind of a conversation. "What can I do for you, Bobbie? Excuse me. I mean, of course, Miss Prince."

She gave me her wide, delicious, sexy, meaningless Hollywood smile. "Probably you can do lots of things for me, darling. We'll have to talk about it some time. But right now, The Man wants to see you."

I studied her for a moment, dubiously. She wasn't really a bad-looking girl, and I don't want to give the impression that I like them fat, or even pleasantly plump. I just felt she was overdoing the hipless, bustless bit. Actually, she looked better in street clothes than in the sexy satin lounging pajamas in which I'd last seen her, which had emphasized her narrowness.

Now she had on a checked black-and-white pantsuit that would have made any other woman look broad as a barge; it only made her transverse dimensions seem practically normal. There were wide, floppy trousers and a long jacket thing without sleeves-maybe it qualified as an overgrown vest-and a soft white silk blouse. Her shoes were the square-toed, square-heeled jobs dictated by current fashion; apparently Frank Warfel only demanded spike heels at home. Her face was made up so dramatically that, with the striking blonde hair-now worn seductively loose down her shoulders-you just knew she had to be a big movie star. The game was to determine which one she was being this week.

"Frankie wants to see me?" I said. "What about?"

She gave me the wide, wet, irresistible movie smile once more. "Who reads minds?" she asked. "He takes me into his bed, not into his confidence, darling. I don't know what the hell he wants to see you about. Why don't you ask him?"

"Where?"

"In my room. Right down the hail, darling."

It wasn't right. I mean, her eyes weren't right and her casual manner wasn't right, and she was hitting me over the head with too many darlings. It was a set-up, a deadfall, a trap. I'd been around long enough to smell them, and this one had the characteristic sour stink of betrayal. Anyway, if Frank Warfel had wanted me for casual conversation, he wouldn't have used his special, acrobatic blonde as a messenger. He'd have sent one of his ordinary errand boys as he had before. The presence of the girl meant that, for some reason, he felt that a little sex appeal was advisable this time to render me unsuspicious and vulnerable. On the other hand, I reflected, with all of desolate Baja California outside to choose from, it seemed unlikely that he'd pick a public hostelry to murder me in.

Anyway, as I've said, I wasn't happy with the case, even though my part of it should have been at an end. If Frank Warfel was setting traps for agents of the U.S. government, it might be interesting to know why. Idle curiosity isn't encouraged in the profession, but this seemed like a justifiable bit of research.

"Lead the way," I told the girl cheerfully.

She didn't move at once. She hesitated, studying my face. I had a hunch she was toying with the idea of issuing a warning. Then she moved her narrow shoulders in the minutest of shrugs, turned, and walked ahead of me down the hall. She stopped in front of a door, knocked, and turned to give me her photogenic smile once more. Still smiling, with no change of expression whatever, she kicked me hard on the shin.

The toe of her fashionable shoe must have been reinforced for just that purpose. As I bent over with the sudden pain, the door opened, and a big man reached out to chop with his hand at the back of my neck. He caught me as I fell and dragged me inside.