The Follower, page 6
It had stopped snowing, but in the dusk Park Avenue was white and fluffy as a lamb. Pedestrians hurried by carrying gaily wrapped packages. Holy Night, Silent Night trailed from the radio of a passing taxi.
Suddenly the lights on the Christmas trees came to life, and for miles, it seemed, the Manhattan twilight was spangled with little twinkling globes …
8
IT was one-thirty in the afternoon when Mark drove from the Mexico City airport. Bad weather had made the plane several hours late and the delay had frayed his nerves dangerously.
The taxi took him down a broad new boulevard, landscaped with young trees which would look impressive in several years. Most of the buildings to his left and right were in construction. The mountain sunlight was bright and crisp; it heightened the effect of rawness, of a city growing too fast. Soon the traffic thickened. The air was loud with the irresponsible honking of horns. The taxi plunged into narrow, excitable streets, competing recklessly with other cars. A huge cathedral loomed and was left behind. Elegant shops crowded on either side. The taxi swerved to a stop in front of a canopied doorway.
Mark had changed money at the airport. He paid the driver in pesos, pulled out his suitcase and stood looking at the doorway. Hotel Granada was written across the canopy above him. A corridor led past a tobacco stall and a long rack displaying American magazines to a lobby inside. A barefoot Indian padded by with a pile of Christmas trees roped to his back.
Mark walked into the lobby. The enormous ordeal was over. In a moment he would be with her.
After the brilliance of the sunshine it was almost dark inside the lobby. A few people, mostly American, sat around in heavy old-fashioned chairs. They looked harassed, as if worn out by a morning’s sight-seeing. There was a solid family atmosphere. It wasn’t Ellie’s sort of place. He wondered why she had picked it.
He saw the desk in a far corner. A clerk stood before the high pigeon-holes for keys and mail. A bellhop, very small and dark, hurried for Mark’s bag. He nodded him away and carried the suitcase to the desk.
The front of the desk had a glass top and served as a showcase for tourist trinkets, silver ornaments, combs, leather belts, little pottery figures. As Mark reached it, the clerk moved along the desk and stopped in front of him.
‘Yes, sir?’ he inquired in English. ‘You wish a room?’ He was young, about twenty, scrupulously tidy with dandified black hair and brown eyes framed by thick black lashes. Mark said: ‘What is Mrs Liddon’s number?’
‘Mrs Liddon?’ The boy watched him thoughtfully. ‘Mrs Mark Liddon?’
‘That’s right.’
‘You are, perhaps, her husband? The gentleman who telephoned yesterday from New York?’
‘I am.’
The boy smiled dazzlingly. ‘I am so sorry. Yesterday when you call I make an error. I think Mrs Liddon has just made a walk, but no — ‘He shook his head and ran a delicate brown finger over the side wing of his hair. ‘She has gone. She has already checked out.’
He felt as if iced water had been dashed in his face. Was it always going to be this way? Was the pattern going to repeat itself endlessly?
‘She didn’t get my message?’
‘Oh no, sir. I am sorry, sir. It was an error.’
A plump middle-aged American woman, covered in Taxco silver with a spray of bougainvillea in her hair, flounced to the desk and asked querulously:
‘Hey, Oscar, any mail for me?’
‘I am sorry, madam.’ The clerk turned on her a white, infinitely friendly smile. ‘Is Christmas time. The letters come late.’
The woman pouted and stomped away.
Mark said: ‘But she was here? Mrs Liddon was at this hotel?’
‘Oh yes, sir.’
‘Where did she go?’
Oscar looked blank. ‘Who knows, sir?’ He began to study the manicured nails of his right hand. ‘Yesterday morning about twelve a gentleman comes to see her. They go out together to take the lunch perhaps.’
Mark’s hand suddenly tightened into a fist. ‘What sort of gentleman?’
Oscar pondered this problem solemnly. ‘He was from the States like you, sir, and blond-haired like you. But more small, less beautiful.’
‘What happened then?’
‘I have the afternoons free and return for the evening. Soon after they leave, I leave too and the other boy is on duty. But Mrs Liddon returns with the gentleman. They pay the bill and they take her bags away. This I do not see myself.’ He looked proud. ‘But after you telephone I make inquiries and find this out from the other boy.’
‘Where is the other boy now?’
Oscar’s dark eyes became almost dreamy. ‘His mother is sick. This morning he goes to his mother. Where does she live?’ He gesticulated. ‘Guadalajara? Oaxaca? Vera Cruz? Who knows?’
This may or may not have been the Mexican temperament at work, but, whatever it was, it was immensely irritating. ‘She didn’t leave a forwarding address?’
Oscar did not answer. He had lowered his gaze and was studying the trinkets on sale beneath the glass top of the counter. Without looking, up he announced:
‘We have here many pretty things. Mementoes; souvenirs of your stay in Mexico. Perhaps you wish to buy a watch bangle?’
‘No.’
Oscar looked up mournfully. ‘No, sir?’ His gaze had settled now on the grey cashmere sweater which showed under Mark’s jacket. ‘Is a fine sweater you have. Such a sweater here in Mexico costs very high. Eighty pesos perhaps you pay for such a fine sweater.’ One of his small hands reached out and, very daintily, took a pinch of sweater between finger and thumb. Yes, very fine. Most elegant.’
His hand went back to the counter. His eyes, almost coaxing, met Mark’s. It was the crudest overture to a shakedown that Mark had ever experienced. Its very crudity made it rather disarming. He took out his wallet.
‘Guess you could buy a sweater for fifty pesos?’
Oscar’s smile was blinding. ‘Sixty pesos.’
Mark pulled out a fifty-peso and a ten-peso bill. Oscar took them from his hand as delicately as a cat taking a chicken scrap. ‘The other boy, he brings Mrs Liddon’s bags to the taxi. He thinks he hears her say the Hotel Reforma.’
‘Is that near here?’
Oscar waved. ‘Just down the Avenida; and then down the Paseo. Some few blocks, sir.’
‘Okay, thanks.’
Oscar darted the bills into his pocket and ducked down behind the counter. He came up carrying a small pottery ashtray designed in the shape of a Mexican sombrero. There was a little pottery band ending in tassels twisted around the crown. One of the tassels was broken. Oscar pressed it into Mark’s hand.
‘Is a souvenir, sir. Is free. Is your present from me.’ ‘Thanks, Oscar.’
‘Oh, no trouble. Thank you very much, sit. Happy Christmas, sir.’
Mark walked out of the Hotel Granada into the sunlight again. It was probably all right. Why should the blond young man have anything to do with Victor? Ellie was an inveterate acquaintance-gatherer. She had probably picked up some American boy to take care of the chore of changing hotels. Carrying his topcoat and suitcase, he started past a broad, tropical park and reached a vast boulevard. After a few minutes he saw the Hotel Reforma, climaxing a row of large modernistic apartment and office buildings. He crossed the wild traffic and climbed the steep steps into the hotel lobby. A Christmas tree, ornamented with shining balls and silver streamers, stood in its center. There were American tourists here too, but they put on more of a show. They looked like money, and the place looked as if it knew how to take money away from them. This was a more appropriate hangout for Ellie.
He went to the desk, this time carefully bridling his hope. One of the clerks moved to wait on him.
Mark said: ‘Is Mrs Liddon — Mrs Mark Liddon — staying here?’
‘Yes, sir. Mrs Liddon is in Suite 332.’
At last the moment had come.
‘I’m her husband.’ Mark took the tourist card out of his pocket and put it down on the desk. Okay if I go right up?’
The clerk examined the card. ‘Is Mrs Liddon expecting you?’
‘Yes,’ he prevaricated.
The clerk looked at the card again and handed it back. ‘Very well, sir, if you wish. You will kindly register?’
A bellhop ran over and took Mark’s suitcase. Mark registered and turned from the desk. Behind him, the clerk’s voice sounded:
‘I’m afraid Mrs Liddon isn’t in just now, sir.’
Mark swung round. ‘Where is she?’
‘I don’t know, sir. I happened to notice her leaving about half an hour ago.’
The bellhop at his side blurted: ‘Mrs Liddon has gone to the bulls.’
‘The bulls?’
‘The bullfight. A gentleman came for her. They went to buy tickets over there where they sell themselves.’ He pointed to a desk at the other side of the lobby. ‘I hear them, sir. They buy tickets.’
‘When do the fights start?’
‘At four o’clock, sir.’
Mark looked at his watch. It was three fifteen. ‘Can I buy a ticket over there?’
‘Of course, sir. Sure, sir.’
Mark crossed to the desk where the bullfight tickets were sold. A Mexican girl with hair piled on top of her head smiled at him.
He said: ‘Do you know Mrs Liddon?’
‘Yes, sir. She was just here with a gentleman. He buys two tickets in the Sombrao.’
‘I’m her husband. Can you get me a seat near them?’
The girl glanced at a book in front of her. ‘I think I can.’ She ran a painted fingernail through a box of tickets. ‘Here. I have AL45 8. Is right next to them, I think.’
Thanks.’
Mark bought the ticket. The bellhop hovered. Mark gave him his suitcase and topcoat and told him to take them up to Ellie’s suite. Downstairs he found an American soda fountain. He had a hamburger and a milk shake and then told one of the taxi-drivers waiting outside the hotel to take him to the bullring.
He relaxed against the torn upholstery. He could afford to let himself be happy. The man with Ellie couldn’t have anything to do with Victor. No henchman of Victor’s would be taking Ellie to the bullfight. She was being just an ordinary tourist. Probably by now she’d completely forgotten Victor and her gambling debt. She was quite capable of that sort of convenient amnesia.
Smiling, he started to hum the Toreador’s Song from Carmen.
9
THE great circular structure of the Plaza de Toros loomed over a white, unfinished suburb. Mark paid off the taxi in front of a gate in the high concrete wall. Broad sidewalks alternated with areas of dust and rubble. The feeling was of a city that had been bombed rather than of a town which was catching up with itself. The little stalls selling fruit, candy, cold meat and weird omelets which sizzled over charcoal braziers looked improvised after disaster. Even the people who were storming the gates seemed a refugee-mixed swarm … fashionable women, bare-foot Indians, men in prosperous business suits, girls with rebozos over their heads, half-naked children and dogs.
His ticket was rejected at the first gate and he was waved towards another entrance further around the wall. He bucked the crowd. A little boy selling lottery tickets whined after him.
Chickens squawked away from him and almost got run over by a passing limousine. Music, blaring from a loudspeaker, was incongruously American.
‘Candy, I called my sugar candy…’
Mark reached the next gate and presented his ticket. He was let into a spacious parking area jammed with expensive automobiles. The great wall of the bullring reared ahead of him, split with stairways and entrances. He was jostled towards cement stairs and up them. He passed through one of the gaps, to find himself half-way up one side of a monstrous cup of stone. Far below, the circle of the arena itself looked hardly bigger than the cardboard cap of a milk bottle. Tiny men in red coats and white pants were scurrying around smoothing the sand. A brass band was playing a paso doble. The stone tiers of seats, beveling the huge crater, were already a third full. Clusters of people alternated with great grey gaps of stone. Ribbons of bright advertisements stretched around the circumference of the arena — Carta Blanca Beer, Gayosso, Buy Adam’s Hats.
Mark pushed his way around the circular walk, searching for his seat. If Ellie and the unknown gentleman’ had left the hotel half an hour before him, they must certainly be here by now. He found his section. He started down steep stone steps towards his row. ‘L ‘was much nearer the ring. There was an iron railing to help the descent. The music stopped. One patch of people on the far side of the arena were mad about something. They started to whistle and shout. Mark reached Row L’. The outside seats were occupied. He eased past Mexican knees, looking ahead for Ellie. There was no sign of her.
A little boy, staggering under an immense basket, screamed: Cerveza. Hay cerveza. Bohemia. Dos Equis. Hay cerveza.’
Ahead of Mark were three empty seats. he struggled to them. He looked at the numbers 454, 456, 458. A man selling cushions was wandering in the next aisle. Mark signaled him. The man scrambled through the tier below and threw him a cushion.
Mark handed down a peso, dropped the cushion on his scooped-out cement seat and sat down. He glanced at his watch. It was exactly four o’clock. Maybe Ellie and her escort were having lunch first. Ellie had never been on time for anything in her life. Suddenly a trumpet sounded. It must have been a signal, for the people sitting in the high tiers across the ring started to run and tumble downwards to take the unoccupied seats below. It was strange to watch the mad rush of those tiny, distant figures. They had a false air of panic as if a tremendous ship were sinking.
Down in the ring one of the wooden gates in the corral that surrounded the arena was thrown open. An old man, dressed in antique splendor with a long plume in his hat, rode out alone on a white horse. He crossed the full extent of the ring. He reined his horse below Mark, took off the hat, made a sweeping bow, and then slowly, majestically, backed the white horse away again across the ring.
When he reached the point from which he had started a group of matadors in brilliant costume appeared behind him. The florid pageant started to parade around the arena.
In the din, Mark suddenly heard an American voice, a girl’s voice, saying
‘Excuse me. I’m so sorry. Thank you.’
He looked sharply to his right. A girl in a grey tailored suit with blonde hair to her shoulders was pushing past the knees of the other people in the row, coming towards him. She had a scarlet handbag on a strap slung over her shoulder. She was tall and slim. She managed to be graceful while she scrambled across wedged skirts and pants. She reached the empty seats next to him, Ellie’s seats. She had a ticket in her hand. She leaned down to look at the number on the seats and then sat down next to Mark.
Behind the loose fair hair, her profile, with its marked cheekbones and pure chin line, had a kind of laconic beauty. Her lips were heavily made-up with a shade of scarlet that matched the handbag. She had the general ambience of a New York model, of a girl who knew her way around.
‘Sorry, lady,’ said Mark. ‘That’s my wife’s seat.’
The girl still had her ticket stub in her hand. She held it out to him, watching him with blank indifference.
‘Can you read, bub?’
Mark looked at the ticket. It said Section AL 456. Exasperation welled up in him. Had it happened again? Had the girl at the Hotel Reforma given him the wrong seat? He turned his head, scanning the seats behind him. They were all occupied and Ellie was not there.
‘Well?’ said the girl. ‘Want to make something of it?’
‘Sorry.’
‘Always the gentleman.’
Mark paid her no attention. He felt frustrated and angry. What should he do? It was hopeless to try to locate Ellie in this giant bedlam. Should he go back to the hotel and wait for her there? The prospect of another indefinite wait was almost more than he could bear.
The girl had crossed her legs and lit a cigarette. She was watching the ring, indolently, as if she didn’t know what was going to happen and cared less. The parade was over now. The arena was deserted. A wooden gate opened to one side and a great black bull with a frivolous red ribbon curled on its back stomped into the ring, pawing the ground, snorting, looking important. Men with large magenta and yellow capes ducked out from behind the barrier and started fluttering the capes like butterflies. The bull charged half-heartedly at one of them. The girl turned, the cigarette still in her hand and said:
‘Where’s your wife, anyway? Down there fighting the bulls?’
‘Yeah,’ said Mark. ‘She’s the one on the horse.’
The girl’s speculative gaze did not alter its expression. ‘Going around shedding wives all over the place! Sloppy, that’s what it is.’
She looked back at the ring. So did he. One of the men was swooping his cape back and forth around the terrified bull. People were cheering and yelling Ole. To Mark it was just a slaughter-house in Technicolor, but the audience was loving it. He thought Ellie’s here somewhere. He tried to picture her as one of those little insects clinging to the side of the vast cup. It didn’t bring her closer. She only seemed less real.
The girl waved at a drink vendor and bought a beer in a cardboard cup. She leaned back comfortably with it, surveying the arena. A man was sticking darts in the bull’s back. They were gay fluffy darts like little pink Christmas trees. Mark made his decision. He would go back to the hotel and wait. As he shifted in his seat to get up, a man’s cheerful voice called in English from the aisle beyond the girl:
‘Hi, there you are, Mrs Liddon.’
Mark reacted to the name as if he had been stabbed by a dart. He spun around. Ellie was here. Then all this time … Eagerly he scanned the row of faces on the tier behind him again. They were all Mexican and unfamiliar.
He turned back to the man who had called Ellie’s name. He was pushing his way down the row towards the girl with the red handbag. He was just as obviously American as she. In his early forties, he had a happy pink moon-face, shrewd eyes, crinkled at the corners, an expensive suit and a loud hand painted tie. He looked like the vice-president of any prosperous company with an eminent position in the Elks or Shriners. He reached the seat next to the girl and sat down.
