The Squares of the City

XV

There was a saturnine policeman waiting for me when I returned to the hotel — a man called Carlos Guzman, who spoke good but heavily accented English and presented himself as a sergeant of detectives.

“It is about a threat that was made to you,” he said, and left his words hanging.

I said, “Go on.”

“Allegedly, by a certain Jose Dalban,” he said. And waited again.

I took a deep breath. “Look,” I said. “Why not say what you have to say and get it over with?”

He glanced around; we were in the lounge of the hotel. Not many people were present, and none of them were in earshot of a low-toned voice. He sighed. “Very well, señor. I would have thought you might prefer to discuss it in more private conditions — but as you wish. We are unable to make proceedings on your unsupported word.”

“Well, that’s no more than I expected,” I snapped.

He looked unhappy. “It is not that we doubt you, señor. But you must realize that Señor Dalban is respected and well-known—”

I decided to take a long shot on the strength of a hint Angers had dropped to me. “Especially respected by the police, hey? Respected so much that you turn a blind eye on his affairs.”

Guzman colored a little. He said stiffly, “Your honor is unjustified in his remarks. Señor Dalban conducts a business of import-export, and—”

“And traffics on the side in unofficial goods, I’m told.” I more than half-suspected Dalban’s main business might turn out to be in marijuana or something like that; Guzman’s reply shook me rigid.

“Señor,” he said with a reproachful shake of his head, “is your honor a Catholic?”

Startled, I indicated no. Guzman sighed. “I am, strictly. And yet I would not condemn Señor Dalban for what he does — I come of a large family, and we were very hungry when I was a little boy.”

I began to see that I’d jumped to a stupid conclusion somewhere. “What exactly is this shady business of Dalban’s?” I said slowly.

Guzman glanced around. “Señor, in a Catholic country it is not a respectable matter. But—”

I began to laugh. Suddenly, for all my recollection of his bulk and manner, Dalban seemed far less menacirig. When I had mastered my amusement, I choked out, “Just — contraceptives? Nothing more illegal than contraceptives?”

Guzman waited woodenly till my face was straight again. Then he said, “Even they are not illegal, señor. They are — let us say unpopular in influential quarters. Yet we think, some of us, that he performs a good service for our people.”

“All right,” I said. “Granted. He still came to me and told me that if I didn’t get out of my own accord, he’d seeto it that I was got out forcibly.”

Guzman looked unhappy. “Señor, we are prepared to offer you a bodyguard if you wish — a man who would remain with you day and night. We have good men, well trained. You need only say the word and they are at your command.”

I hesitated. Before learning of Dalban’s real claim to notoriety, I would probably have accepted; now, thinking the question over, I was suddenly reminded of what I had seen on my first day in Ciudad de Vados — the policeman stealing my money from a beggar-boy’s pot.

“No,” I said. “No, I don’t want a bodyguard from your police. And I’ll tell you why.”

He heard me out with his face immobile. When I had finished he gave a nearly imperceptible nod.

“That is known, señor. That young man was dismissed the following day. He has gone back to Puerto Joaquín to work in the docks. He is the only support of his family, and his father was killed in Puerto Joaquín in the great fire. Perhaps the beggar from whom he stole was also the only support of his family.”

He rose to his feet. “I will inform el Jefe of what you have said. Good evening, Señor Hakluyt.”

I didn’t reply. I had a curious sensation, as though I had stepped on what seemed to be firm ground, and instead found myself floundering up to my neck in a river. A river that threatened at every moment to sweep me off my feet.

The Sigueiras case made practically no progress the following day. With incredible persistence Brown hammered at Dr. Ruiz; with corresponding doggedness Ruiz stuck to his guns. Brown got more and more bad-tempered, though the directness and subtlety of his questioning endured; Ruiz got more and more vehement, and it was a considerable relief when the judge adjourned the case until Monday.

Most of all, it was a relief to me. During the course of the week, the city had quieted down. I felt things were near enough back to normal for me to go out and assemble the supplementary data I needed to clarify my tentative conclusions. For one thing, Lucas was deputy chairman of the Citizens’ Party, and seeing how busy he was, I hoped the political front might remain quiet for a while — at least until this Sigueiras case was over.

Accordingly, I went down on Saturday to the market area. The first time I passed the little wall shrine where I had seen the candle burning in memory of Guerrero, I looked for it, but it had gone, and there was no sign of the notice attached to it. I felt a curious sense of relief — as though somehow the influence of symbol-Guerrero was to be measured by that candle.

The relief didn’t last. Sunday morning saw the whole thing flare up again.

The immediate excuse for the disturbance was an article in the Sunday edition of Tiempo regarding the Sigueiras case. It said a number of pointed things about Ruiz, about his close association with the president, and about how this association dated back to the death of the first Señora Vados.

I couldn’t judge how the article would strike someone who had no additional information. To me, though, in view of what Mendoza had said about Ruiz, the implications were unmistakable. I could only assume that Cristoforo Mendoza was hoping to provoke a suit for libel and bring the whole thing into the open — against the advice, presumably, of Maria Posador.

Suppose the evidence existed to show Ruiz a murderer; the consequences would be appalling. If the case was ever allowed to come to trial, the attack on Ruiz would become an attack on Vados himself, for sheltering a murderer and conniving at his crime; Vados would probably liquidate his accusers, the opponents of his regime would rise in arms — and, as predicted by Maria Posador, civil war would tear Aguazul apart.

Or maybe it wouldn’t even be such a roundabout route as that which led to civil war. Someone at least must have understood the message the article contained, or the message had been following it on the grapevine, for Sunday afternoon was the first time for many days I saw National Party supporters standing up boldly to followers of the Citizens of Vados. I saw, in fact, a knife fight developing — I didn’t stay to see the finish — between a tall young man with a huge sombrero who had openly declared his belief that Ruiz was a murderer, and a couple of well-dressed teen-age youths who were slumming in the market quarter.

The fight began in a bar where I’d gone to quench a thirst founded mainly on boredom. The job was now at the stage where it threatened to become pure routine — indeed, I could have earned myself a free weekend by detailing a couple of Angers’ staff to get me my information. But then again, I’d have lost the immediacy of the data. It wasn’t only a question of how many vehicles of what types where and when; it was also knowing from experience what their drivers were — telling from the way a driver approached a stoplight whether he was a resident, a regular visitor, or a complete stranger in Vados; whether he was in a hurry or at leisure; whether he knew where he was going or was stuck in the wrong lane.

But I had to break for a drink and a rest occasionally. I could do it with a good conscience; the standard of driving in Vados was extremely high, bearing out a cherished theory of mine — that bad roads make bad drivers. In Vados, with its elaborately planned street system, one seldom grew impatient, rarely had to sit fuming in a traffic jam, wasted little time hunting elusive parking spaces, never had to pick one’s way gingerly between twin rows of stationary cars in a narrow street. Consequently people didn’t try to hurry so much, didn’t try to cut corners and take risks to make up lost time, didn’t lose their tempers and try to teach other drivers a lesson.

I only wished everything in Vados went as smoothly as its traffic.

It was getting late when I stopped off in another bar, hoping I wouldn’t find a knife fight in this one also. Television was on, but the screen was turned away from half the room, and the sound was directionalized. I had just placed my order at the bar when a voice bellowed behind me.

“It’s Hakluyt, goddam it! The li’l Boydie himself!”

I glanced in the mirror before turning around. It was Fats Brown, sitting at one of the tables between a long-faced Indian and a woman with a tired, middle-aged face who was just looking at him, infinite sadness in her eyes. There was a nearly empty bottle of rum on the table. He had spilled quite a lot from his glass. His was the only glass.

“C’mon and join us!” he invited, raising his arms. He had lost his jacket somewhere, and he had sweated his shirt into crumpled limpness. “C’mon here, Boydie, an’ have a cigar!” He moved his hands as if feeling for the breast pocket of his jacket and naturally didn’t find it.

I could hardly refuse; besides, he’d probably have changed his tune and insulted me if I had. I went reluctantly over to the table.

“Can’t stay long,” I warned him, praying he was sober enough to register the words. “I’m on the job.”

“Job, hell!” he said. “Can’t be working on Sunday night! Nobody oughta be working — oughta be celebrating with me.” He burped.

I looked at his companions; the woman caught my gaze and gave a sad slow shake of her head. Brown went on loudly.

“Meet my wife — won’erful woman! Doesn’t speak English. Ol’ fiddle-face is my bro’er-in-law. He doesn’t speak English. Mis’able bastard, isn’ he? Won’ celebrate! Won’ help me celebrate!”

A bitter, writhing grievance underlay his words. I said, “What are you celebrating, Fats?”

He looked at me owlishly, clasping his hands around the glass and leaning forward on the table. “Confidentially,” he said in a thicker, lower tone, “I’m gonna be a father. Whatya think of that — huh?”

I didn’t connect, and he read my reaction in my face. He grimaced. “Yeah, so she tells me. Well, she says I’m gonna be a father. An’ I never met her before in my goddam’ life. Ain’ that hell? Gettin’ to be a father an’ not gettin’ any nookie outa it? Whadda you think, Boydie — ain’ it hell?” I said, “Who’s this ‘she’?”

“A li’l bitch called Estrelita. Estrelita Jaliscos.” He closed his eyes. “A tart, pal, if ever I saw one. Painted, dressed like crazy — might be pretty, I guess, ’f you could see her through the crap smeared on her face. Comes to me today an’ says, ‘I’m gonna have a baby.’ Tells me if I don’ give her ten thousand dolaros, she’s gonna tell Ruiz it’s my kid. Hell, with ten thousand dolaros she could pay Ruiz his fee — ’s a kinda job he does pretty well, I hear. Should be — he’s had plenny practice.” He opened his eyes again, reached unsteadily for the bottle, and slopped some more into his glass. He offered me a shot; I shook my head.

“Pal,” he said pleadingly when he had gulped a mouthful, “I’m a happy married man, know that? Tha’s my wife there — not much to look at, but the goddam’, finest woman I ever met!” He almost shouted the last phrase. “What would I wanna lay a teen-age tart for, hey? I’m too old, so help me — y’know I’m nearly sixty? Know that? I got a boy practicin’ law in Milwaukee an’ a daughter married in New York. I’m a grandfather, pal! An’ this stinkin’ Estrelita bitch says — ah, hell, I tol’ you a’ready.”

He interrupted himself long enough to take another drink.

“Maybe it’s her own idea,” he resumed. “Maybe not. She don’t have enough brains to figure out a son’vabitch idea like this. Maybe somebody put her up to it. Coulda been Angers, ’cept he’s so righteous an’ limey an’ King’s English he prob’ly never heard of havin’ babies. I figure — know what I figure?”

I shook my head.

“I figure it’s Lucas, rot his soul! Mister, what’s this gonna do to me? It’s gonna finish me, know that? Have people laugh at me in the streets, know that?”

He jabbed a stubby finger at me. “Y’ don’ believe it, hey? Y’ don’ think one little thing like this could wreck me for good! Well, I’m tellin’ you. I’m on the wrong side! Me, I oughta be distinguished an’ respectable an’ expensive, like Lucas an’ his gang. I’m a foreign-born citizen; they think I oughta be like Angers, rot his tin-plated hide. They think I’m a disgrace ’cause I spend my time an’ effort tryin’a give these poor bastards who own the country a decent lawyer’s arguments. With me? Get me? ’Cause I don’ worry myself sick ’bout whether or not I collect the whole of a fee; ’cause I know law and say when it’s on the other side, they’d love — just love, pal! — one teeny hook to drag me down. An’ then they’d stamp on me.”

He put his head in his hands and fell silent. I felt embarrassed, watching the compassionate gaze his wife bestowed on him, and tried to avoid looking at her. But the only other place I found where my eyes would stay still was on her brother’s long lined fiddle face. There was no other description.

“Señora Brown,” I said at length, and she raised her eyes to mine. “Tengo un automovil — desean Vds. ir a casa.”

“Muchas gracias, señor,” she answered. “Pero no se si mi esposo desea irse.”

“Fats,” I said. I shook his shoulder gently. “Like a ride home?”

He lifted his head. “You got a car, pal? Me, I never had a car since I came here. Ten thousand she wants, the li’l bitch. Me, I don’ earn ten thousand in two years!”

“Like a ride home?” I insisted. He nodded, unseeing, and got awkwardly to his feet, like a hippopotamus coming from a wallow.

“I’d like to smack her behind for her — dammit, she’s a kid, pal, just a kid. It’s not even as if I liked ’em young an’ skinny. Ask m’ wife! Ah, maybe not. Useta run aroun’ a bit, true enough, but hell, that was twen’y years ago!”

We got him to my car. His wife gave me the address and sat in the back seat comforting him, while the brother-in-law sat beside me. I glanced at Fats in the mirror occasionally; he quieted down when we were on the move, and sat gazing into space. There was something almost pathetic about his attitude. He was holding his wife’s hand and stroking it like a shy teenager at a movie.

It was not a long trip. The Browns lived in a block of medium-priced apartments a mile or so away; I dropped them off there and made sure that between them his wife and brother-in-law could get him indoors. Señora Brown dropped me a sort of curtsy as I turned to go, and her half-whispered, “Muchas gracias, señor!” stayed in my ears all the way back to my beat.

About a quarter of an hour after I returned to the main traffic nexus, the bored-looking policeman in the booth overlooking it showed the first sign of activity I had noticed in all the time I had spent here. A little light began to shine in intermittent flashes beside his telephone handset. Hastily he snatched the microphone and punched buttons. Red lights shone from lamp posts; his voice boomed from the loudspeakers. The traffic came to a halt.

There was a wail of sirens, and two motorcycle cops and a squad car raced into sight, shot past, disappeared again. A few moments later there was an ambulance. The policeman in the booth, his job done, hung up the microphone and took his thumb off the button. The traffic moved on.

It was not until the papers came out the following morning that I learned the errand of these policemen and the ambulance. Apparently a girl called Estrelita Jaliscos had fallen to her death from a window in the apartment block where I had dropped the Browns last night, and Fats himself was nowhere to be found.