Wrath of God

‘That’s a great deal of money for running a few supplies up-country,’ I said carefully.

So he decided to be honest with me, the great shining face creasing into a jovial man-to-man smile. ‘I will be frank with you, Mr Keogh. The crates in my truck contain good Scotch whisky. A commodity in short supply in Mexico, God alone knows, but over the border they have what is known as Prohibition. There it will be worth considerably more.’

‘Including a five-year prison sentence if you’re caught running the stuff,’ I pointed out.

‘A risk someone else assumes,’ he said. ‘The man who takes over the consignment in Huila. You, my friend, will be breaking no law known to me. Not while you are in Mexico. To trade in alcohol here is perfectly legitimate.’

Which was true enough and the prospect was tempting for even if I forfeited that boat ticket I’d still be considerably better off.

He thought he had me and gave it another push. ‘I’ll tell you what I’ll do, Mr Keogh. Five hundred and another boat ticket. Now can I say fairer, sir? Answer me that.’

He was being jovial again which didn’t become him, but his eyes, those sad, grey Hungarian eyes were still and watchful and I think it was that which really decided me, combined with the fact that I wasn’t at all sure that I liked him.

‘No thanks,’ I said. ‘The price is too high.’

The smile was wiped clean, the eyes became totally blank. ‘I don’t understand you. I know your financial situation. What you say doesn’t make sense.’

‘It wouldn’t,’ I said. ‘I wasn’t talking about money, Mr Janos. I was talking about Mexico. I’ve had all I can take. Six months of heat, flies and squalor. And I haven’t known a day when they haven’t been shooting somebody. You’ll have to find someone else.’

‘I don’t think you understand,’ he said carefully. ‘There is no one else.’

‘Which is your problem, not mine.’

The palm fan had stopped moving and he sat there staring at me and yet not at me, sweat pouring down his face, those grey eyes fixed on a point somewhere beyond me. The fan started to move again, rapidly, and he wiped the sweat away with his enormous silk handkerchief.

And suddenly that jovial smile was back in place. ‘Why then I can only wish you luck, sir, and shake you by the hand.’

He held it out and I took it for it would have seemed churlish not to, but it was the wrong kind of grip for a fat man who did nothing but sit and sweat. Firm and strong – very strong, which made me feel distinctly uneasy as I walked away for he had given in too easily.

Before the Revolution the Hotel Blanco must have been rather spectacular, but now there were cracks on the marble stairs, great slabs of plaster flaking away from the walls. It was as if the place were disintegrating slowly. There was no lock on my door which always stood open a little and inside the room was like an oven for the electric fan in the ceiling hadn’t turned for five years which was when they’d dynamited the power plant.

I managed to get the shutters open, breaking a couple of slats in the process and let in a little warm air. I was soaked in sweat and the revolver in the leather shoulder holster under my right arm had rubbed painfully. I took off my jacket, unstrapped the holster, with some relief, and put it down on the bed.

Once this room had been something quite special for it still had its own bathroom through the far door, but now it had that derelict air common to cheap rooms the world over. It was as if no one had ever really lived here. For no accountable reason I ached for some soft Kerry rain on my face again. Wanted to stand with my eyes turned up to it, to let it run into my mouth, but that was not to be. That was foolishness of the worst kind.

The bathroom had the same air of tarnished magnificence as the rest of the hotel. The floor and the walls were covered with imported Italian tiles, all sporting little naked cherubs offering bunches of grapes to each other. The bath itself was cracked in a hundred places, but big enough to swim in and although most of the brass fittings had been stolen at one time or another, tepid brown water still gushed from a gilded lion’s mouth when you turned the handle.

I returned to the bedroom, took off the rest of my clothes and pulled on my old robe. Then I went back into the bathroom, taking the shoulder holster with me for old habits die hard.

The water was by now so brown that I was unable to see the bottom of the bath, but I lowered myself in without a qualm and lay back and stared at the cracked ceiling.

How easily things become what we want them to. The cracks on that ceiling became a map, line by line flowering into shape before me. The railway snaking down through Monterey to Tampico. Then the route across the Gulf north of the Yucatan Peninsula to Cuba and Havana town.

And what would I do there? I had an address, no more than that. A man who might be able to give me work or might not. And afterwards? But there was no answer to that one and each day would have to bring what it chose.

There was a sudden muffled crash from the bedroom that had me out of the bath and reaching for my revolver all in the same movement. I flattened myself against the wall beside the door, out of line of fire if anyone intended to shoot their way in.

I got my robe on one-handed and not without difficulty and listened. There was no sound, so I did what seemed the obvious thing, flung open the door and dropped to one knee.

The man who stood by the bed searching my jacket was straight out of the market-place, a mestizo in ragged trousers and shirt and palm-leaf sombrero. He had just taken the wallet from the inner pocket. Everything I had in the world.

‘Not today, compadre,’ I said. ‘Put it on the bed and quickly.’

At first it looked as if he was going to do as he was told. His shoulders sagged. He said brokenly, ‘Señor, my wife, my children. For pity’s sake.’

Which didn’t particularly impress me for any painter specializing in theological subjects would have found him a fair likeness for Judas Iscariot. It worked to a certain degree for when he turned to fling the jacket in my face and ran, he definitely caught me off balance.

When I reached the door, he was almost at the head of the stairs which didn’t give me a great deal of choice as he was still clutching my wallet in his right hand, so I brought him down with a snap shot in the right leg.

He went over the edge of the stairs without a cry and I heard him crash against the ironwork banisters twice. When I reached the head of the stairs he was lying face-down on the next landing. He glanced back over his shoulder, his face twisted with rage and to my complete astonishment, started to slither down the rest of the broad marble stairs leaving a snail’s trail of blood behind him.

Several things happened at about the same time then. Janos came stumping out of the shadows leaning on his black ivory walking stick, a couple of retainers from the kitchen at his back. ‘By God, sir, what’s going on here?’

‘My wallet,’ I said. ‘He stole my wallet.’

The thief slid the rest of the way down to the hall and collapsed at the fat man’s feet. Janos leaned over him and poked around in the shadows. When he straightened his face was grave and baleful.

‘Wallet, sir? I see no wallet here.’

Which was when my heart really started to sink as it suddenly occurred to me that there was just a faint possibility that there was more to this than met the eye.

The police arrived on the run, armed to the teeth as usual, ready to spray everything in sight as they came through the door, although the sergeant in charge was exquisitely polite and listened to my story with the utmost patience.

The wretch on the floor, whom no one seemed to be particularly concerned about, clutched his leg, blood oozing between his fingers and cursed all gringos and their seed to the tenth generation. He was wholly innocent and employed by Señor Janos as a general porter. The sergeant booted him casually in the ribs, left his men to search for the wallet and took me up to my room to get dressed.

‘Do not worry, señor,’ he comforted me. ‘The man is a known thief. Señor Janos gave him honest work out of the largeness of his heart and this is how he serves him. We will find this wallet. Fear not, your name will be cleared.’

But when we returned to the foot of the stairs, and he discovered his men’s lack of success, a fact to which I had already become resigned, his face assumed a more melancholy expression.

‘This is a grave matter, señor, you realize my position? To shoot this man for stealing your wallet is one thing …’

‘But to shoot him, full stop, is quite another.’

‘Exactly, señor, I am afraid you must accompany me to headquarters. The jefe will wish to question you.’

His hand on my arm was no longer gentle and as we moved forward, Janos said passionately, his jowls shaking, ‘By God, sir, I’ll stand by you. Trust in me, Mr Keogh.’

Hardly the most comforting of thoughts on which to be led away.

Above the town the Sierras floated in a blue haze, marching north towards the border. It was all I could see when I hauled myself up by the iron bars on the narrow window and peered out.

I was in what was known as the general reception cell, a room about forty feet square with rough stone walls that looked as if they might very well pre-date Cortez. There were about thirty of us in there which meant it was pretty crowded and the smell seemed compounded of urine, excrement and human sweat in equal proportions.

An hour of this was an hour too much. An indio got up and relieved himself into an over-flowing bucket and I moved out of the way hurriedly, took a packet of Artistas out of my pocket and lit one.

Most of the others were indios with flat, impassive brown faces, simple men from the back country who’d come to town looking for work and now found themselves in prison and probably for no good reason known to man.

They watched me out of interest and curiosity because I was the only European there which was a very strange thing. One of them stood up from the bench on which he sat, removing his straw sombrero and offered me his seat with a grave peasant courtesy that meant I couldn’t possibly refuse.