Chapter 5
This is my father’s study,” said Anita Luac. She opened a door off the hallway, preceded Garson into the room.
The noon sun beat down on the terrace beyond the room’s front windows, reflected with a rippling glare off the white-washed ceiling.
Anita Luac crossed to the front windows, dropped bamboo screens across them, masking the view of the lake and sun scorched hills.
There was a hot mugginess in the room that Garson noted immediately as he entered. He wondered how Luac could work in that heat.
“Father uses this room at night,” she said, as though answering his unspoken question. “He prefers the summer house in the garden during the day.”
Garson nodded, looked around him. An intricate bird pattern in green had been worked into the golden tiles of the floor. A long trestle table stood parallel to the windows, its top littered with papers. A heavy rattan chair with a green velvet cushion had been pushed back from the table. The back wall of the room was entirely window-pane mirrors that reflected the masked view of lake and hills. Book cases floor to ceiling filled the side walls.
The green notebooks, thought Garson. He saw them on the right.
Medina followed them into the room, leaned against the doorway.
Garson moved idly across to the book case, studied the green-backed ones. He saw the marked one immediately, pulled it out.
“Your father suggested that I might like to read some of his work.”
He flipped the notebook open to the title page: “The Duke of Pork.” Garson frowned, thought, I’ve seen that somewhere. Below the title was written: “By George Merrill.”
A pseudonym?
Then he recalled both author and title—published within the current year in… He could not remember the specific magazine.
Garson turned to Anita Luac. “Has all of this stuff been published?”
“Some of it. Many have never been submitted.”
“Oh? Why does he write them?”
She shrugged. “He’s a writer.”
“Of course, but…”
“He calls the unpublished ones my insurance policy. If I ever need money—after he’s gone…” Again she shrugged.
“You have only to submit this work by the famous Antone Luac.” Garson nodded. “How does he submit the things he writes under a pseudonym? I mean: How does he conceal his identity? Does he have a friend working for him in the States?”
“Perhaps you should ask my father.”
“I shall.” He tucked the notebook under his arm.
She moved toward the door. “Shall we look at the rest of the house now?”
“Lead on.”
They ended the tour at the dock that jutted into the lake beyond the front terrace. Garson stared thoughtfully across the water, noted from this new vantage point a large brick building down the lake to his left. Every door in the house had been opened for his inspection—almost as though he were buying property.
Just what am I supposed to buy here? he wondered.
Medina squatted by the lakeshore, rolled a cigarette, tipped his head back to protect his mustache as he touched match to tobacco.
Garson thought back to the room that had been pointed out as Raul Separdo’s. There had been a desk without paper, a single chair, a bed made without a wrinkle. The room had felt unoccupied, as though Separdo had carefully kept every imprint of himself from showing there. Garson had the feeling that even Separdo’s fingerprints were removed from that room daily. The effect was one of rigid concealment.
Concealment of what?
He focused on the building down the lake from them, pointed at it. “What’s that building there—the one in the trees?”
Anita Luac moved up beside Garson, threw a pebble into the water. “That is another thing you must ask my father.”
“Is that where they take the trucks?”
She stared at him silently.
Garson noted a total cessation of movement from Medina.
The tableau was broken by a call from behind them: “Nita!”
They turned. Raul Separdo walked toward them across the terrace, a cardboard box under one arm. His face appeared flushed, eyes glittering with an intentness that made Garson uncomfortable.
Separdo stopped in front of them, spoke to Anita Luac while keeping his attention on Garson: “Nita, your father wishes to see you.”
“Right now?”
“Immediately.”
She nodded to Garson. “If you’ll excuse me?”
“Of course.”
She crossed the terrace to the hacienda, went inside.
Separdo glanced down at Medina, who had not moved from his position beside the lake. “Why do you wait here, Choco?”
Medina flipped his cigarette butt into the lake, got to his feet, turned. “Because the Patron said to guard his guest.”
“You may go with Nita.”
“I’ll wait. She doesn’t need protection from her father.”
Separdo’s face darkened. The muscles at the corners of his mouth twitched. He turned to Garson. “Would you care to walk out to the end of the dock with me?”
Garson abruptly sensed menace like a thick fog in the air. He nodded toward the box under Separdo’s arm. “What do you have there?”
“A surprise.” The box emitted a scratching, bustling noise. “Come.” Separdo took Garson’s arm.
They walked to the end of the dock. The feeling of menace grew stronger with every step. Garson heard Medina’s footsteps behind him. They stopped at the end of the dock. Garson glanced down at the rowboat there, noted that the chain was secured by a large padlock.
Separdo placed the cardboard box on the dock, slipped a hand under the lid and withdrew a young rooster. The bird squawked once. Separdo dangled it from one hand, appeared to notice Luac’s green notebook under Garson’s arm for the first time.
“What do you have there?”
“This?” Garson touched the notebook with his right hand. “Mr. Luac suggested that I might find some of his work useful to pass the time.”
“Such time as there is,” said Separdo. “Observe.” He turned, flipped the rooster out into the lake.
It landed about ten feet from them in a splashing of wings, floated awkwardly for a moment. Abruptly, the bird was propelled half out of the water. Its wings beat frantically. It squawked twice: a quavering, agonizing sound. Then it went under. The water around it began to boil with hundreds of flashing forms. A slow red stain spread through the area.
“Caribe,” murmured Separdo. He stared at the water with an intentness that frightened Garson, turned and looked directly into Garson’s eyes. “They are called also piranha.”
Garson swallowed in a dry throat, recalled his spill into the lake the night of his arrival. “I thought piranha were native to South America.”
“These were stocked here especially to take care of meddlers,” said Separdo. He stared at Garson with a gleeful intentness.
Medina stepped closer.
Garson felt the wild pulsing of his heart, the trembling of fear in his arms. Is Separdo going to push me into the lake?
“We will go back now,” said Medina.
Separdo whirled on him. “Stay out of…”
“You’ve had your fun,” said Medina.
“One day you will go too far, Choco!”
Medina’s hand hovered above his gun butt. “One day the Patron will say to me, ‘Choco, we have decided—Olaf and I—that Raul is no longer needed.’ I will not play with you on that day, Raul. It will be quick!” He hooked his left thumb toward the shore. “Now, we go.”
A violent shivering passed over Separdo. His lips twitched. The light in his eyes was like flame.
“See if you can beat me,” murmured Medina.
Garson realized with a kind of awed remoteness that he was witnessing a scene that might have occurred fifty years before in the Old West: a trial of nerves. And he realized also that the evil-faced Choco Medina must be the only force on the hacienda keeping Separdo in check… with the exception of the mysterious Olaf. Who is this Olaf? he wondered. What role does he play in all of this?
Separdo’s trembling subsided. He turned to Garson with a look of thinly suppressed violence. “I will go after I have said what I came to say: Mr. Garson, do not get any ideas about Nita Luac! She’s not for you!” He turned, brushed past Medina, strode off the dock, crossed the terrace, entered the house.
“I thought I was going to have to take him that time,” said Medina. He sighed. “I will be glad when we’re off of this powder keg.”
“What hold does Separdo have on Luac?” asked Garson.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Garson. It’s not my place to give information.”
“Thanks, anyway.’
“My pleasure.”
“So Anita Luac is not for me.”
“Nor is she for him,” said Medina. “Shall we go?”
They moved toward the shore.
Anita Luac emerged from the house, joined them at the edge of the lake.
“Your father didn’t want to see you at all,” said Garson.
She glanced at him, frowned, looked at Medina. “Choco, what happened out there?”
Medina shrugged. “Raul fed the fish with a live chicken.”
She shuddered. “That terrible man!”
Garson could feel a measure of calmness returning after his near panic. He said, “It was supposed to be an object lesson for me. Maybe I should be thankful. I didn’t realize what caribe meant. I might have tried to escape by swimming the lake.”
She took a deep breath. He could see her assume the mask of poise. “Do you dislike our company so much, Mr. Garson?”
“Call me Hal.”
“When you’ve answered my question.”
“Some of my companions are utterly charming,” he said. “Others remind me that Spanish is a language with a special verb meaning ‘to kill slowly.’”
“Spanish has many interesting verbs—Hal,” she said.
Garson found that the nearness of danger gave him a new insight. There had seemed to be an invitation in her reply, but he recognized the effort that went into her pretense—and he still saw the light of mockery in her dark eyes.
“We must explore the Spanish verb forms some time,” he said.
And he found himself regretting the pretense.
But a part of his mind was occupied with questions about the green notebook he carried under his arm.
What did Luac conceal here for me?
Garson excused himself to freshen up for lunch, went to his room.
The regular pages of the notebook were numbered. He found the inserted pages by riffling through the numbered corners until he came to three pages without numbers.
The first page was a family record for Anita Luac.
Her mother was referred to by maiden name: Anita Monser. The ancestry was traced into French Canada.
Antone Luac’s record might have been copied out from a biographical encyclopedia. Garson recognized names and dates, out of his previous research.
Anita Luac’s age worked out to twenty years. Her mother had been dead fifteen years.
The second page proved to be covered with rows of story titles. Beneath each title was a name, date and address. There were four names, among them George Merrill, the name attached to the story in the notebook.
Why addresses? Garson wondered. Is there actually a George Merrill? Is Luac having people front for him rather than use pseudonyms?
The back of this page carried another list of titles under the heading: “Unpubl. Luac.”
Anita Luac’s insurance policy?
The third page carried a brief history of Hacienda Cual—previous owners back to the period following the conquest, the list of improvements instituted by Luac.
On the bottom half of the page was a list of organizational names headed by “The Friends of The Poor,” and beneath that another list of names. The list included one Olaf Sigurts, 21 Avenida Guzmán, Mexico, D.F.
Is that the mysterious Olaf?
Garson closed the notebook, stared at the cover.
What’s Luac trying to tell me?
Choco Medina interrupted Garson’s musing by bringing in the suitcase forwarded from the Palacio.
“This just arrived. Where’ll I put it?”
“On the foot of the bed there.” Garson got to his feet, tossed the green notebook onto the nightstand. “Choco, is Separdo a Communist agent?”
The reaction left Garson open-mouthed.
Medina threw the suitcase at the foot of the bed, darted to the door, peered down the hallway, shut the door, ran to the front windows, looked right and left. He was breathing heavily when he returned to plant himself in front of Garson.
“I don’t think anybody heard you.”
“What the dev…”
“I haven’t had a fright like that since the night we took Parral. That’s where I got this.” He indicated a thin scar beside his nose. “Now, look, Mr. Garson—please think before you blat…”
“Is he?”
“Ask Antone Luac. Only, in the name of God, please do it when you’re sure you’re alone with him.”
“What would’ve happened if I’d been heard?”
Medina lowered his voice. “The thing we’re trying to avoid: a signal would’ve been given. Raul’s boys would come swarming across the lake and…” He drew a hand across his throat.
“You’ve answered my question, Choco.”
Medina frowned. “I guess I have.”
Garson looked out at the lake. So, in his own cute fashion, my ever-lovin’ agent had it figured. But what did he have figured? What’s going on here?
“They’d come swarming across, eh?”
“Like locusts.”
Garson shook his head. “One rifleman could hold them off. They wouldn’t dare the caribe.”
“After dark they would.”
“Oh. Where does the Cricket stand in all this?”
“El Grillo?” Medina shrugged. “Quién sabe?”
Garson took the notebook from the nightstand, pulled out the inserted pages, handed them to Medina.
Medina glanced at them, swallowed, pulled nervously at his mustache. “Did Antone give you this?”
“Yes.”
Medina looked at the doorway, then to the windows.
Garson said, “You’d better put them in a safe place. It wouldn’t do for them to be found on me.” He took a deep breath. “Now… can we talk?”
“No.” Again Medina looked at the doorway. “It’s time for comida—luncheon.” He folded the papers, stuffed them under his shirt. “I’ll carry these on me until you ask for them.”
Garson looked at Medina’s pock-marked face, thought: Luac said he’s to be trusted. But does Luac know? Maybe I’ve just made a serious mistake! And—good God! How do I know Luac’s to be trusted? Maybe he wanted those pages to be found on me!