In the patio a fountain splashed water across scarlet tiles and the cool darkness of the terrace looked very inviting. The owner of the place lounged in a wicker chair by the screen door, fanning himself with a palm fan. His name was Janos and he was Hungarian as far as I could make out, although his English was excellent. The most noticeable thing about him was his great size. He must have been seventeen or eighteen stone at least, with a great pendulous belly and sweated constantly.
‘Ah, Mr Keogh. A hot day. You will join me in a beer?’
There were several stone bottles of lager in a bucket of water at his side. I helped myself to one and pulled the cork. As I did so, another volley sounded in the courtyard opposite. I sat on the rail beside him as the crowd began to disperse.
‘A nasty business,’ Janos said, managing to sound as if he didn’t give a damn.
‘Yes, too bad,’ I answered automatically, for I was watching for the priest.
He emerged from the gateway with the officer who walked to the Mercedes with him. They stood talking for a while, then the officer saluted and the priest got into the car and drove away.
‘A strange sight that,’ Janos commented. ‘Not only a priest, but a priest in an automobile.’
‘I suppose so.’ I emptied the beer bottle and stood up.
‘But not to you, Mr Keogh. Here, have another beer.’ He lifted one, dripping wet from the bucket and held it out to me. ‘In your Ireland you will have been familiar with many such vehicles. Here, they are still a rarity. You can drive yourself, I understand?’
Which was leading to something. I said, ‘It’s not very difficult.’
‘For an intelligent man perhaps not, but these peasants.’ He shrugged. ‘They are incapable of learning anything beyond the simplest tasks. I myself have a truck. The only one in Bonito. Most important to my business. I imported a driver-mechanic specially from Tampico, but the wretched man had to go and involve himself in politics.’
‘A dangerous thing to do in this country.’
He wiped a fresh layer of sweat from his fat face. ‘He was in the first batch they shot this morning. Most unfortunate.’
He obviously meant for himself personally. I said, ‘That’s life, Mr Janos. He shouldn’t have joined.’
A pretty hard way of looking at it, but then most of the more human feeling had been burned out of me a long time ago, particularly where that kind of situation was concerned. It was none of my affair and I was tired of the conversation which for some reason had a strange air of unreality to it. I was hot and I was tired and wanted nothing so much as a bath and perhaps a couple of hours on my bed before the train left.
I stood up and Janos said, ‘I have a rather important consignment to go to Huila. You know the place, perhaps?’
I saw then what he wanted, but there was no reason why I should make it easy for him. ‘No, I can’t say I do.’
‘Two hundred miles north of here towards the American border. Dirt roads, but not too bad in the dry season.’
But by then, I’d had enough. I said, ‘I’m catching the two-thirty train for Tampico.’
‘You could be back by tomorrow night. Catch the train the following day.’
‘But miss the boat to Havana tomorrow evening,’ I said. ‘And there’s no refund on the ticket.’
‘How much was it? Forty-two American dollars?’ He shrugged. ‘I will pay you five hundred, Mr Keogh. Five hundred good American dollars and very easily earned, you must admit.’
Which brought me up rather sharply because after paying for my tickets I’d no more than twenty or thirty dollars left.
‘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