I got the screen open as far as the door, and knew I would need a few more inches before I could go through it sideways. Had just put my palm against the edge of the door and the screen when I heard breathing. Not the deep breathing of sleep. This was more like the long distance runner. Bellows, getting deeper and faster, a huffing and a panting, then a cough and then the unmistakable, wide-open-throated, strained, soft, have-mercy cawing of woman in climax. It ended. There were some whisperous murmurings, too faint to catch. Then silence. A new set of rules had just been posted.

The bed creaked and suddenly a pale shape moved past the corner of the bed and stopped in the light, facing the balcony. I had pulled back quickly, but one instant had stamped it into memory for as long as memory would last. Naked, skin so white it seemed to blaze in the downthrust of the ceiling spot. An incomparable figure, simultaneously rich and delicate, without blemish. Nipples of that rare youthful pink, soft pubic bush, a color paler than old pennies. And it did what the picture could not do. It brought her into the focus of memory, of almost a year ago, when Meyer took the wheel and I went forward to bend a line on the new anchor. She was the one who stood at the bow in white shorts and a red top, and had looked out across Lake Worth with almost the same soft, brooding, dreamy, inward expression. The wind had tangled her hair that day as much as bed had tangled it a year later. Welcome back from your damp Florida grave, Miss Bix.

The throaty, French-lady voice from the bed corner said, "Darling? You"re too sweaty to stand in that cold night air. You"ll get chilled."

"Can we go out on the balcony and look at the stars, Eva?"

It was a little-girl voice, humble and obedient. "Of course, darling child. But we"ll have to put something on."

I wondered if there was a gap at the other end of the draperies, where I could look in through the gla.s.s, from a darker area. I moved over and stood up and found a slit just wide enough. I saw Eva come to the edge of the light and hang some kind of floor-length cape or cloak over the girl"s shoulders. It was a dark, rich blue, a violet-blue. She kept her hands on the girl"s shoulders and I could hear her distinctly as she said, "Did I make you happy?"

The taller, younger girl turned quickly into Eva"s arms, eagerly, gladly. Murmurous love-words. A soft, triumphant little laugh. Long kisses. And then Bix went off into shadows while Eva stood in the edge of the light, half-smiling. Hers was a slightly more spare and forthright body, as feminine, but with more of a look of function, so that naked she seemed more naked. Swarthy skin tones, sharp b.r.e.a.s.t.s with broad umber-dark nipple areas, long downsweep of muscular belly to the wide, vital spread of curly blackness, a look of compacted sinew along the tops of the thighs.

Bix brought a tailored gray robe and held it for Eva to slip on. My mind had been caroming around amid probables and improbables, bouncing off obstacles, like the shiny ball finding its way down the pinball machine, looking for the b.u.mper that would ring the bells, flash the lights, award me some free games.

As Eva Vitrier looked down to fasten the belt of the robe, taking her first step toward the balcony, I pulled the doors wider and stepped into the room. "Hate to bust in like this," I said.

Bix Bowie moved back into the shadows and stood staring at me without expression, yet with a kind of market-dog wariness which says that to find out if stones will be thrown, or food, one must wait, ready to run and ready to eat.

Eva Vitrier leaned forward in fishwife fury, backs of her hands against her waist, elbows c.o.c.ked forward. I think that had I been able to understand French, the words would have chopped out little chunks of my flesh and left smoking craters. As I waited for her to run down, she whirled and dived to grab the nightstand phone. I clapped the cradle back down an instant after she lifted it. She hit me in the middle of the forehead with the earpiece. I clopped her on the side of the head with a cupped palm. It knocked her onto her hands and knees. She rose slowly, touching her hair, and said, "Bixie sweetie, go into the bathroom and close the door."

"I want to watch, Eva."

"Mind me! Or there"ll be no surprise tomorrow, and no candy."

The girl turned and went into the bathroom and closed the door. And Eva came after my eyes with ten long nails. A wiry, furious, unrestrained woman can be dangerous to all men who, out of some notion of chivalry, try to quell her furies, hold her wrists and avoid her kicks and bites until she gives up.

Chivalry is pretty flexible. And sometimes it is dead.

So I hooked her a pretty good one in the stomach as she was coming in, and it was on a slightly upward angle, so her heels lifted off the floor, her legs swung up, and the first thing that hit the floor was that rear end which Enelio had found so delectable long ago. Momentum rolled her over onto her back, and her legs went up and over and she ended on her knees, the gray robe forward, and all entangled about her head and arms, which were resting on the floor. Enelio might find that angle even more entrancing. She rolled onto her side, sat up, smoothed the robe down. She reached and caught a chair and pulled herself up and sat on it, making inhalation groans to try to suck enough air back into herself. Hit a woman, would you, McGee? I surely would, now and then.

All the spark and snap was gone. I saw switches by the door and went over and turned on the rest of the room lights. I closed the gla.s.s doors and pulled the lined draperies shut. I sat on the foot of the tousled bed.

She straightened herself. "You know, I could have you killed for that."

"If you know where to go and how much to offer."

"I can find out."

"And I can walk you into the bathroom there and try to teach you to breathe underwater, and I might have to do just that if I don"t like the answers."

"There won"t be any answers."

"Suit yourself, French lady."

"What are you looking for?"

"Something to knot you up with. Nylons are great. Stronger than steel. Then we"ll see how much of this Kleenex we can cram into your mouth, and I"ll tie that in place, roll you under the bed there, get Miss Bowie into some clothes and take her to the Emba.s.sy and phone her father from there. So forget the answers. I don"t need them."

"Wait a minute. Sit down. Stop opening drawers, please. Listen to me a minute. I brought her back from living death, Mr. McGee. You don"t know what she was like. Even I didn"t know how lovely she would look."

"What is she blasting lately? She"s way off center right now."

"She can"t get along at all without something. I don"t think she ever will. She"s on charas. An agent brings it in for me from Calcutta. It"s like marijuana, but very, very powerful. They use just the resins. I let her smoke three tiny little cigars of it a day. We make a ceremony out of it. Don"t you understand? She"s been too badly damaged. She can"t exist in the real world."

"But your world is just dandy. Best thing for her."

"She gets love and protection, and I keep her in good health. We have silly little games we play. I make her keep herself clean and pick up her clothes."

"And you get her her distemper shots and keep her coat glossy, and some day you can bury her in the foot of the garden and put a mossy little headstone up. Bix. Beloved pet. But that would be a little sentimental, huh?"

"You are certainly a cruel b.a.s.t.a.r.d. All right! So maybe I don"t want any more challenging human relationships."

"After four old husbands?"

"You meet the simple young ones who can introduce you to the important young ones who can introduce you to the important and rich old ones. And you work at it, you know. You give fair value. All of them use you like a waste bin, a conveniently shaped receptacle, just as males used Bixie. But there is tennis and sailing and all the vigorous games in bed, and the old ones do not last long. The money was earned. The privacy was earned. The freedom was earned."

"I might pop you another one, just for luck."

"I don"t think it would astonish me, actually."

"So she gets love. From you."

"I saw her and Minda in the zocalo. I followed them. They had to keep stopping at benches so Bix could rest. There was something about her. I had to know her. They needed help. The word probably doesn"t mean anything to you, but do you know that she had never been s.e.xually awakened? Can you imagine how much restraint and patience it took? But now she is more easily stimulated each day. She"s very sensual. But she lives on Lesbos forever, because it is the only island she has ever known."

"That"s pretty poetic there, French lady. What are you getting at? You want to keep her around the house?"

"She can never endure any contact with any part of her old life without reverting. I arranged to have her tourist permit renewed, in Minda McLeen"s name. It was expensive. I am taking her... to another country where ident.i.ties can be purchased. I intend to see that if anything should happen to me, she shan"t want for anything."

"So Minda went off the hill in the yellow car. That"s why she doesn"t need her own papers. And Bix"s papers went to Florida with the body and the personal effects. Was it expensive getting Minda b.u.mped off the road, French lady?"

"It wasn"t that way."

"What way was it?"

"Minda began to get suspicious after Bixie began to improve. And she began spying on me, and finally caught me... caressing Bixie in a way that couldn"t possibly have been anything except what it was. She made a very ugly scene, and said some very ugly things. She said she would not permit it. Permit it! Can you imagine the impertinence? She tried to stay with Bix every moment, day and night. I asked Minda to my room to discuss the problem. I tried to seduce her, because I knew that would shut her mouth, but she acted as if I were some sort of sickening animal. She said she was going to get in touch with Bix"s father. So as I was afraid I might lose Bix, the next time Minda left the house, I had a trusted friend of mine come at once in her car and pick up Bix and bring her up here to the city; I asked her to stay here in the suite with Bix until I could arrive. I informed the hotel they would be using the suite. I knew I could trust my friend to be careful and discreet, but I knew she would never be able to keep from making love to such a lovely child. But I had to accept that, even though it made me feel wretched. So when Minda came back I asked her if she had seen Bix. I pointed out that all her things were still in her room. I said she had wandered out and that I was worried. Minda knew it was a trick of some kind. She said she would stay with me and I would lead her to wherever Bix was."

The bathroom door opened and Bix came wandering out. "I"m tired of staying in there, Eva."

"Just a little bit longer, dear. Please."

"Well... all right." She went back in.

"On Sat.u.r.day, in the early afternoon, that Rockland person came to my home demanding to see Minda. She did not know of it. She was in her room. I had Rockland brought to me, at the garden house beyond the pool, and I had Ram6n and his nephew stay close by I told you before, it was easy to see he was a low type, crafty and arrogant. One must exploit their greed to find out what plan they have. He was so obviously relieved to find no one else had been there before him, asking about her. It took a little time and a few simple threats, but I found out that Minda"s father was in Oaxaca and had looked for Rockland and found him. Rockland had made an arrangement to deliver the girl to her father for money. He thought he could get ten thousand American dollars if he managed the affair skillfully. Nothing could have been more obvious to me than that if he did manage it, Minda would seek aid from her father in taking Bix away from me. One cannot tell how much resource an American businessman has in such matters. It would be obvious that at the very least he would feel an obligation to acquaint the other father with the state of affairs. I would want neither the notoriety nor the legal problems, nor want to take, the chance of losing the girl. So I offered him twice what he expected from Mr. McLeen, if he would take Minda away with him on some pretext and leave her far enough away so that by the time she made her way back I could be gone and there would be no way to reach or find me. Then, if he chose, he might be able to continue his arrangement with her father.

"We set the schedule. I gave him five thousand dollars and suggested he take her to Coatzacoalcos on the Gulf of Campeche, on the pretext of taking her to where Bix was. Transportation is awkward from there to Oaxaca. He had a car. He could drive far into the night. It is something over three hundred miles from Oaxaca. He was to abandon her there, without funds, and return quickly. I would wait until a nine o"clock flight out of Oaxaca Monday evening. I would give him the rest of the money then, and he would, if ever questioned, swear he had loaned Bix money to fly back to the States."

But, she related, she had been awakened at midnight on Sunday night to be told that the young American was back, that he was on foot, that he was at the gate demanding to be let in. She dressed and went down to the gate and they talked in the courtyard. He said he had been too tired to drive so far. He thought it would be just as good to take her up into the mountains. She had gone willingly when he said that Bix needed her and he was taking her to where Bix was. But she became suspicious. He had found a place to pull off the road when night fell. He had kept her there with him. He had wanted to wait long enough so that she, Mrs. Vitrier, would think he had taken Minda a long way away. He had not wanted to lose track of her because of her resale value. It was his plan to tie her to a tree or something, out of sight of the highway on Monday, and go down and get the money and come back, and pick her up again and make his deal with Wally.

Late Sunday afternoon while she was napping in the back seat of the little car, he had fallen asleep in the front seat. He had slept so heavily that apparently she had been able to work the car keys out of his pocket, put the key into the ignition, silently open a front door, brace her back against the other door, put her feet against him and suddenly shove him out onto the ground, yank the door shut and lock it. As he tried to break in, she got it started and pulled out and headed down the mountain, accelerating. He had picked a spot, after a long walk, where trucks would have to shift way down to negotiate a steep uphill curve. He had to wait hours before one came along with a tailgate he could climb onto. He had dropped off in the city and made his way to Eva"s house. When he found that Minda had never arrived, he was certain she had gone off the mountain. And if she had, she was dead.

"I took him to the sitting room which adjoins my bedroom. We discussed the possible repercussions of this event. It had been a car he had taken without permission, but he was quite certain the owner would give very little if any information to the police, and he explained why. By then, you see, I knew that a car had gone off the mountain, and they would look for it by daylight. It sickened me to think of it. She was being very difficult, but I had not wished that for her. But it had happened. And in many ways it simplified things. One must be mature and accept facts, yes? So he said he must have the rest of the money because it had been promised. He was looking at me strangely I thought. He said that in addition, I would give him the ten thousand he would have gotten from the father. I told him that was not my affair. He said it had become my affair. I had given him money to get rid of the girl and he had gotten rid of her. He said it would all be difficult to explain.

"By then I began to see that he could be of some danger to me. He was greedy and crafty and brutal, but not intelligent. It had been a mistake to make an arrangement with him. I knew that to disarm him I had to appear to be... manageable. I said I did not have so much in American dollars in the house, but I could make up the difference in Swiss francs. I got it all for him and explained the rate of exchange. I even told him the name I use in this hotel. He counted the money too many times and, also, too many times he told me that it was the last time I would have to give him money. It meant that he was thinking that he would ask again.

"He began looking at me in another strange way and said that we were now a.s.sociated in this affair. He said he knew from Minda what I was, but that it would please him to come into my bed and use me as a woman, just to verify our trust and friendship. I told him there would be no pleasure in it for me, and he said that it did not particularly matter whether there was or not. At such times one must be very careful. And so I pretended fear and begged him not to, then seemed to accept the inevitable, and asked him if he minded if I had some brandy before all this would take place. He said, as I expected, that he would enjoy some also, and that we could drink a toast and seal the bargain. I got a special bottle kept in a special place, and silver gla.s.ses so that he could not tell that I would let it run out of my mouth back into the gla.s.s. In a little while he smiled foolishly and his words blurred and soon his head toppled forward and he began to snore. I took the money from him and replaced it in the wall safe in the back of my bedroom closet. I felt as if I were moving through a dream. I had quite a lot of the meperedine left, which we had sometimes given Bix when she became unmanageable. Ten little ampules. I had been taught how to administer hypodermics when my first husband was dying, and of course I had given Bix injections. I prepared him properly, with an alcohol swab, and knelt by his chair. But I could not. One wonders if it is possible to kill a human being. I had a dozen reasons to do this thing. But I could not. I could touch the point to the vein on the inside of his arm, but I could not shove it through the skin, no matter what I told myself."

So in the end she had tied him securely, binding his wrists and ankles to the heavy chair. She had paced the floor until dawn, wondering what to do. When he began stirring, she had sedated him heavily. On Monday morning, early, Wally McLeen had arrived, having at last tracked his missing daughter to her house. She had taken him to the garden house and had given him some of the vivid highlights of Minda"s Mexican vacation, throwing in incidents that had happened to Bix as though they had happened to Minda, including how Rockland had taken her into the cornfield to service the men who had showed up out of the night at the campsite. From his reactions she was afraid he was having a ma.s.sive coronary. When he was at last more normal, she had said that it was possible that Minda was dead and that Rockland was responsible. She did not say more than that. She said that if he would get hold of some vehicle and if he would come to the vehicle gate at ten that night, there was a possibility she might be able to deliver Rockland over to him, so that he could take Rockland to the police. She showed him where the vehicle gate was. She would not answer his questions.

She had then decided, later on in the day, hearing that the body could not be identified, that if she made an appearance and made the identification and then said that the last she had seen of the girl was when she had driven off with Rockland on Sat.u.r.day, it would help insulate her against any further accusation.

"But when I saw how... the terrible condition of the body, I knew that one could identify it as almost anyone. There was the chain, of course, that Minda wore about her ankle. But who could say that Bix did not wear one and it was not that one? Or could say those were not Bix"s red shoes? I had the personal papers and personal things of both of them. My mind raced. I stood holding the perfumed handkerchief against my nose. I saw how it could be. If it was Bix who died, she would be mine without question. So I identified her and the police came to my house and I gave them Bix"s things. I brought Minda"s papers here, and I arranged to have the permit renewed under Minda"s name without Bix having to appear. I sent all the servants out that night. I opened the gate for Mr. McLeen. I helped him get Rockland down and into the trunk of an American sedan Mr. McLeen had rented. Mr. McLeen was very strange. He whistled and he walked on his toes, and he said that everything was splendid, that Minda was going to come back to Oaxaca and he would wait around for her until she returned. Rockland was very groggy. When he was curled up in the trunk compartment on his side, Mr. McLeen gave him little pats on the back and called him son and said everything would be arranged properly. I thought I was all right. I thought I was not feeling much of anything. But when I had shut the gate again, all of a sudden without warning, I vomited. Afterward, I felt so faint it took me a long time to finish packing the last few things. I flew from Oaxaca Tuesday on the early schedule. Bix was happy to see me, happy as a Christmas child."

She was watching my face carefully.

Bix came out of the bathroom again. "Please?"

"All right, dear girl. Sit over there on the couch and be quiet. Mr. McGee, does she look abused? Surely you must have the right to make choices in your work. I am fond of her. I cherish her. I will take her to lovely secluded places. Look how splendid that color is for her. It makes those deep blue eyes look almost deep violet. I will dress her in indigo, and in the good blues and greens and grays. Cool tones suit her kind of beauty. I can control her... need for escape into drugs. She will not be sick, or lonely, or inst.i.tutionalized. Can anyone else in the world promise that? Can her own people promise that? What do you return to them if you do your nasty little job, Mr. McGee? A young girl with a drug r.e.t.a.r.ded mind. A committed and incurable addictive personality. A committed and incurable lesbian. A person the police of your country will be watching closely, as they promised. You will be taking back heartbreak. Isn"t it kinder, by far, to let her stay dead?"

"Dead?" asked Bix.

"The kid asks a good question, French lady. So do you."

"Think about it carefully, please."

So I sat and thought about it. It was nice and easy, her way. Let the dead stay dead. Tell a happy story to good old Harlan Bowie. Feed Meyer the story Eva had fed me through the chained door. Go back and romp away the final few days of Elena"s vacation. Mission accomplished. But should the father have the chance to undo the damage that he had started and others had finished? He had a lot of money, enough to buy penance, good clinics, sleep therapy.

"I have a wall safe here," she said. "In that closet. I think there is the equivalent of about forty thousand American dollars. I can give you that now, and I can have an additional hundred and sixty thousand here by the day after tomorrow."

"You buy the girl for two hundred thou?"

"That is a clumsy way to put it. I buy her happiness, and mine. I can afford it."

"I know. You earned it. The hard way."

I walked over toward her. She stood up and looked up at me, and I saw the hard mocking confidence in the back of her eyes. She was wearing the small smile of the winner. So I smiled too, and I sighed, and I wondered if it was getting to be too attractive a habit as I steadied her with one hand, chopped the side of that long muscular throat with the other, caught her as she dropped, and slung her onto the bed.

Bix had stood up. "Now what are you doing?"

"I am going to take you for a nice little ride in a nice murderous taxi, sweetie."

"To the movies?"

"Maybe. Why don"t you go put some clothes on? Where are they?"

"In there. In that other room in the closet and all over."

"Go get dressed."

"Sure."

She went into the next room. I wanted to fix French lady so she would stay put for a nice long time, but not too long, in case n.o.body dared unlock the suite unless asked. I yanked the sheets out from under her and took them in and dropped them in the tub and got them sopping wet. I took them out and spread them out on the rug, took her out of her gray robe, put her down at one end of the soaked sheets, and rolled her up in them like a window shade. I put her back on the bed with the last wet end tucked neatly under her. As long as they stayed wet, she stayed still. When they dried out, she would wiggle loose.

I pried her jaw down and found that in spite of the plump little meaty mouth, there was room in there for a h.e.l.l of a lot of Kleenex, if you packed it carefully. I knotted a nylon stocking in place, webbing it between her teeth and against the Kleenex so she couldn"t tongue it out of the way and start yelling.

Then I went in to see how Bixie was progressing. She had lost ground, because she had shed the robe and added one lacy pale-green bra. So I told her I expected her to shape up better than that, which at the moment was the wrong expression, and I started digging around trying to find what you put on a naked young girl to take her to the Emba.s.sy in the middle of the night.

I heard some kind of disturbance, but by then I had found where the skirts and blouses and sweaters were. So I took time to match them up reasonably well. Bix had gone back into the first bedroom. I heard a lovely gasping delighted giggling, and I heard some kind of m.u.f.fled grunting and thrashing.

When I hurried in I saw that Bix was bending over the bed, and she had grasped Eva Vitrier firmly with thumb and first two fingers, right by the Neferati nose, thus cutting off all air except what the woman might try to suck through all that Kleenex. French lady"s face had turned very, very dark. Her eyes were bulging and blind, and she was spasming and grunting and flapping, looking very much like an oversized, dying whitefish in the bottom of a skiff. And, believe me, she did not have very far to go. Like twenty seconds more, possibly. I s.n.a.t.c.hed Bix"s playful fingers off lovergirl"s nose, and Eva subsided, breath whistling as she hyperventilated through that n.o.ble beak. She opened her eyes and looked up at me, in combination loathing and appeal. Her effort had burst a blood vessel in one eye, and half the white had turned bright crimson.

I tucked her wet sheet firmly under her, patted her on the cheek, took Bixie in, and crowded her into her clothes. She pa.s.sed inspection. In the elevator on the way down she said, "Wasn"t Eva funny? Wasn"t she funny, though?"

"She was a scream, kid."

"I wish you hadn"t made me stop."

"So do I, sort of."

So we taxied to the Emba.s.sy, not far down Reforma, and stood on the wide sidewalk as the cab went away. She yawned.

"Is this the movies?"

"Bixie baby, things can get very, very, very rough for you. I don"t even know if you can understand how rough they have been, or will get. I would feel a lot better if I thought maybe you could cut it."

"Oh h.e.l.l yes," she said.

"Let"s go in."

Nineteen.

MEYER WAS at the Oaxaca airport to meet me when I came back from Florida via Mexico City five days later.

He looked fit and smug and amused, and he wore a straw hat from the market and a blue shirt covered with zippers with metal rings in them.

I peeled out of the inbound line and said, "Relapse? What the h.e.l.l kind of a relapse are you having?"

"It"s no worse than a bad cold."

"Then you could have all by yourself gotten on a plane and all by yourself flown home, right?"

"But I don"t like to travel alone. Anyway, are you paying for the extra trip?"