"It needed changing," Mike said.

"Was she any kind of hooked?" I asked them.

"I wouldn't know," Mike said. "I didn't know her. It's unfair to make guesses. Maybe one of those d.a.m.ned cows came clumping onto the road and she swerved and lost the car. But it's fair to say she was some kind of user, because it was users she was with, mostly, but I don't know how much or how often, or even what."

"Those seven over there at that table. Would any of them know more about her?"

Uella leaned back and made a careful inspection. "I just don't know. If any of them, it would be the girl facing this way, with the round face and the reddish hair and the big sungla.s.ses, and the skinny follow sitting on her left. I think they've been here the longest."

"Got a name for either of them?"

"Mike, isn't that the girl they call Backspin?"

"Yes. G.o.d knows why."

I used my little notebook to refresh my memory. "liere are the names of the ones she came into the country with back in January. Stop me if I come to anyone you know. Carl Sessions? Jerry Nesta? Minda McLeen?"

"Whoa," Della Davis said. "Little bit of a darkhaired girl. She and that Bix were usually together. Strange-acting girl. Haven't seen her around lately. But that doesn't mean anything. Mike, darling, that horrible bore of a man with the funny hat. Wasn't his name...?"

"McLeen. I went to the public market last week with Del and he introduced himself. Said he was looking for his daughter."

"He still around?"

"I have no idea."

"Walter Rockland?" They both looked blank, both shrugged.

"They came down in a Chevy pickup, blue, with a new camper body on it."

She looked at Mike. "Rocko?" she asked.

"He says the name is Rockland, and the truck fits. Mr. McGee, is he a little older than the rest of the bunch? Husky?"

"That fits."

"Then Miss Bix came down here in bad company if she came with that one," Della said. "That one is one mean honkey son of a b.i.t.c.h. That one is a smart a.s.s and a hustler. When did we have that fuss with him, honey?"

"About the fourth of July I think. The day after the fourth." They took turns telling me about it. They'd gone to visit a couple they knew, who were living in a travel trailer at the trailer park over near the Plaza de la Danza. Rocko's camper was in a nearby site. Evidently someone had pried open a little door in the side of the camper and stolen his little tank of bottle gas. He came over to the travel trailer in an ugly mood, acting as if it was the fault of the friends of Mike and Della for not seeing it happen. Mike told him to take it easy. Rocko looked the situation over and told Mike he didn't need any advice from him or his spade chick. They were standing outside the travel trailer.

Mike swung on Rocko and missed, and Rocko tagged him as he lunged forward off balance.

"And," said Della, "Mike was out of it right then. And that mean b.a.s.t.a.r.d knew it, but he hit him three more times before he could fall down, and then kicked him in the side. I jumped on his back and reached around to claw his face, and he bucked me off right into the side of the trailer. It sprained my neck and I went around for a week with my head way over on the side like this."

"Is he still there?"

"Our friends left not long after that. We had no reason to go back. Maybe he's still there." They told me how to find it. It was on the west side of town. It was near a street carnival. It was near a school. It had an iron fence around it. It was near the Ford garage. Oh. And called Los Pajaros Trailer Court.

With considerable animation, Della said, "We've got a crazy pad, built like into a corner of a walled garden where there used to be some kind of tourist home that burned. We met such a sweet guy in Mexico City at the art school, and we were running out of money, and he said we could stay there. Outdoor plumbing, and a well with a pump that Mike fixed, and all the tame flowers have gone wild. It's about a mile along the Coyotepec road. You ought to come and see us and..."

She froze, and her eyes changed and narrowed. "You are some kind of sneak, man. What the h.e.l.l am I saying? Who knows you?"

"We know him, honey,," Mike said gently. "You have to go along with your own reaction. We can't keep all the walls up all the time. We can't demand credentials."

"Easier for you," she said obliquely. "The man can be so dear, and then his partner takes over and raps you on your kinky haid until your ears bleed, and then the dear man takes his turn with sweet talk."

"Come and see us if you get a chance. On the left on the way to the airport," Mike said. "Look for an old red jeep parked under the trees by the wall."

"I'm sorry," Della Davis said.

"I'll stop by and say h.e.l.lo. Thanks for the invitation. One thing I forgot to ask. The man who owned the car she drove off the road. Bruce Bundy. Know him? Or the woman who identified her body, the French woman, Mrs. Vitrier?"

They did not know them. Mike said, "There are some eerie people living in these little resort spots in Mexico. Here and in Cuernavaca and Taxco and San Miguel. Some are loaded and some are just making it. And the summer is hunting time, both ways. All the kids come flooding down, and there are weirdo types who stalk the kids, and hard kids that stalk the resident crazies. I used to make that scene. Now I don't need it. I can't use it. Depending on what hangups you run into it can go all the way from laughs and kicks to nightmares you couldn't believe."

Their waiter came with the tab. I made a foolish move to pay it, and nearly lost both of them. I relinquished it to Mike, saying, "It was going to be a deductible contribution to the fine arts."

They softened, their pride undamaged.

We said good-bye, see you around, see you soon, and I went back to Meyer.

Four.

JUST AS I was finishing my factual summary report to Meyer, four departed from the group of seven. One of the girls and three of the boys took off and headed slowly along one of the shady walks that angled across the zocalo, in the somnolence of the warm siesta afternoon. Only a half dozen tables on the porch were occupied. The sun was slanting in. The three who were left-the round-faced redhead with the curious nickname, the very skinny boy, and a muscular girl with a tight cap of brown curls under sungla.s.ses with blue lenses-moved back to an empty inside table out of the sun. A yawning waiter went over to them.

A red jeep went by with Mike driving. Della was talking to him, gesturing with little chopping strokes of a slender black hand. The windshield was down, and the breeze of pa.s.sage streamed back his silky hair and beard.

Our waiter brought us more Negro Modelo, and when I glanced again at the three of them, I saw that after the departure of their four friends, they were no longer turned inward upon themselves, making their own closed world of talk but were now aware of what was around them. They had become interested in us. The redhead, staring at us, said something inaudible to the others. The boy laughed and laughed. The big-shouldered girl in the blue gla.s.ses did not react. It was idle interest, and we were fair game, Business types.

Establishment. She was pretty good at her little jokes. She kept the boy laughing, never taking her eyes off me. The quite obvious intent was to make me uncomfortable, and if they could get a reaction it would improve the game. So I provided the reaction.

I gave Meyer a warning wink and got up and walked over to them, properly stuffy and irritated, and said, "Something seems to be very, very funny. How about letting me in on it?"

They were delighted. The victim had walked right up to the gun. The skinny boy took it. He said, "Think maybe big tourist fella like to make bangbang with nice clean American college girl? This one here name Jeanie. Nice big strong girl. Three hundred pesos maybe? Take her up to your room right now, big fella. She give you a good time. She likes you. Right, Jeanie? you like the big fella, sweetie?"

The girl's head turned very slowly and I could not see her eyes behind the blue lenses as she looked up at me. I pulled the extra chair out and sat down. The skinny boy and the redhead waited in mildly pleasurable antic.i.p.ation for the shocked reaction. This was called blowing the mind of the random member of the establishment. I let my mouth sag in stupefaction as I appraised them, looking for clues to the best approach. At such close range they were far less attractive than at a distance. The bigger girl looked less muscular, more suety, and smelled slightly rancid. There was grime in the creases of the redhead's neck, and stains on the front of her Indian shirt. The dark boy's hands were filthy. The two pair of eyes I could see were not quite right. They were subtly out of focus, with that slightly gla.s.sy and benign look of the mind behind the eyes being skewed a degree or two off center.

There were several ways to go with it. I picked the one I thought might sting the most. I shoved my chair around so that I could call to Meyer and at the same time keep the edge of my eye on the trio.

"Hey Charley!" I called to Meyer.

"What do you want?" he yelled.

I said to the trio, "My buddy is a little hard of hearing." I raised my voice to a pitch that startled the serape sellers. "Charley, there's nothing here worth fooling around with. The big one with the the shades he wants twenty-four bucks for. The redhead would maybe go for thirty. But, honest to G.o.d, Charley, they're both of them so d.a.m.n dirty it would turn your stomick. The redhead has spilled food down her shirt, and you should see her neck."

"Knock it off!" the boy said in a pinched little voice.

"Charley, the big one here is named Jeanie, and she doesn't take baths. And all three of them are stoned out of their skulls on something. The kid has got the dirtiest hands I ever seen. Scrawny little b.a.s.t.a.r.d. If you ever could get him cleaned up, I don't think even old Crazy Eddie would grope him."

"Get away from us! Get away from us! Get away from us!" It was the redhead, in a dismayed little whine. All the waiters were wide awake. Pedestrians had stopped to admire the volume of sound. Some tourist tables were staring, eyes bulging slightly. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the boy make the move, s.n.a.t.c.h at the bottle. So I gave him full attention, snapped my hand up and let the bottle slap into the palm. I twisted it away and put it carefully back on the table and gave him a wolfsmile and said, "That's lousy manners, sonny."

I stood up and said, "Charley, maybe a couple of years ago these fatso broads would have been worth a free jump, but now they're so far over the hill... Charley! Can you hear me, Charley?"

"Just barely," he roared.

"Even if they were cleaned up and dressed nice, they couldn't even make expenses at a hardware convention in Duluth."

I dropped all the way back to merely a hearty conversational tone and smiled down at them and said, "Thanks anyway, kids. You got any slim clean pretty little friends who need more vacation money, send them on up to the Victoria and tell them to ask for McGee. But don't send any turned-on slobs like you two sorry girls. Fun is fun, but a man likes to keep his self respect. Right? See you around."

I went back to Meyer. He rolled his eyes when I sat down with him. I slid down in the chair, ankles crossed, thumbs hooked in my belt, and smiled amiably at the three.

They tried to bra.s.s it out for a little while. But the redhead started snuffling and choking. They gathered up their market bundles and took the route around the nearest corner and out of sight.

Meyer sighed. "In a queasy kind of way, I think I enjoyed it. Did you?"

"The target was the redhead."

"And?"

"She won't be able to leave it alone, Meyer. She'll have to pick at it. She's not so far gone as the other two. She can't endure anybody having that reaction to her. They have to be wrong. So she'll have to tell me how wrong I am. Ruptured pride. And then I can ask about Nesta, Rockland, and company. What if I'd asked them today?"

He nodded. "I keep forgetting how devious you are at times. McGee, it was one of your better performances. You were in good voice. But... it was brutal."

"Because it was too close to the truth. Let's go."

The car was ready when we got back to the Ford garage. The shift still whammed me on the knee bone, but everything else was fine. I found a place to park it not far from the Ford place, and we walked over to the street carnival area and then located the Los Pajaros trailer park. There was a spiked iron fence around it, crumbling stone pillars. There were big old trees with dusty leaves shading unkempt flower beds. Paths had worn the gra.s.s away, and n.o.body had picked up the sc.r.a.ps of litter in a long, long time.

The bossman was a jolly fat little type in a ragged blue work shirt and paint-spotted khakis. He had a big gold-toothed grin, and more English than I had Spanish. We went into his little office-store and he looked the information up in his registration notebook. When he p.r.o.nounced Rockland, it came out "Roak-lawn."

"Ah, yes. The Senor Roak-lawn, on place numer seexteen, from... ah... twenny-four of Abreel to... ah... twenny three in Zhuly? Yes. Tree month. He was having a camper here, was Chevrolet trock of Florida, color... how you say?... azul."

"Blue."

"Ah, yes. Blue!" Suddenly his smile dwindled. "Ah! Yes, it was that one. You his fren?"

"No. I am not his friend, senor."

"Then I say. Many, many people here. Nice American turista people. That one, that Roak-o, the only one I must ask to leaving when the month is up. Too much the fights and noise. Too many times he called me bad words. This is not right, that is not right. Nothing is right for him. I have to get policia to make sure he is going."

"Where did he go from here?"

"Who knows? Away from Oaxaca, for surely."

"Who was with him when he left?"

"Who knows. Different people live with him here the two month. One two three four. Different girls sometimes. Boys and girls. I have no names, nothing. It is nothing to me. So, he is going now for... wan month and six day." The grin was broad as he said, "I am not missing him moch, you bet. One other senor was asking the same things, maybe it is two weeks ago, I think. And he is asking about his daughter."

"Was his name McLeen?"

"Ah, yes. Senor McLeen. But I do not know of the girl nothing. To me, senor, a father is never letting his daughter go off far away in these times. All is changing, no? Some of these young American, they are very nice and good. But there are the ones such like Roak-o, doing bad things."

"Are there any young people here who were friendly with Rockland?"

"Some would know him, I think maybe. Some are here many month. Perhaps the young ones, the senor and senora... I cannot say. Here, look, is the name."

Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin Knighton, of Kerrville, Texas.

They were in s.p.a.ce number twenty. It was a travel trailer with canvas rigged to make an extra area of living s.p.a.ce. But whatever towed the trailer was not there, and the trailer was locked. Happy Fats explained that the young man was an amateur archeologist who was writing a novel about the Zapotecan civilization in pre-Columbian Mexico, and said that the couple went on a lot of field trips in their "Lawn Roover."

"Very young. Very nice. Very hoppy."

So it was then a little past five on that twenty-ninth day of August, and I asked Meyer if it might not be a good time to chat with that expatriate American, Bruce Bundy, who had loaned his car to some unknown named George, who had loaned it to Bix, who had died in it, or near it.

"I used to be young and nice and hoppy." Meyer said wistfully.

"So now you are old, and nice, and hoppy. And you don't listen. Bundy. Bruce Bundy. Now?"

"Why sure."

I studied the map and found Las Artes, a short street about ten blocks north of the zoealo, toward our hotel. I parked at the end of the street and locked up, and we went looking for number eighty-one.

It was a very narrow two-story house squeezed between its bulkier neighbors. Its plaster front was painted in a faded hue of raspberry Grilled iron doors were locked across the arched entrance, but the inner doors were open. We could see down a long shadowy corridor to the sun-bright flowers of the rear courtyard. I tugged a woven leather thong and a bell hanging in the archway clanged. A man, slender in silhouette, appeared and came swiftly along the corridor, and then slowed as he saw us, and stopped, frowning, in the edge of daylight, one long step inside the doorway.

"Are you looking for someone?" he asked.

"For a Mr. Bruce Bundy."

"I am he," he said, and it surprised me because he looked no more than thirty-four, and the police report had said he was forty-four. "What do you wish to see me about?"

"It's about the fatal accident involving your vehicle on the third of this month."

He shook his head and sighed. "Oh dear Lord, will I never come to the end of the b.l.o.o.d.y red tape. I have answered endless questions, and have filled out endless reports. What is your part in it?"

"This is my a.s.sociate, Mr. Meyer. My name is McGee. I'm sorry to bother you, but this is a necessary part of the insurance investigation. Could we come in."

"Now really! Are you men trying to be terribly tricky or something? The whole matter has been settled. And I must say that it was terribly unfair. I should have gotten full value for my marvelous little car, but they kept talking about my not putting that fellow, George, on the list of people authorized to drive it. Actually I shall never loan anyone a car, ever again, no matter how nicely they ask."

"Insurance," I said, "on the life of the deceased, Miss Beatrice Bowie of Miami, Florida. There is an accidental death clause in the policy."

"And you came here from Florida!"

"A large sum of money is involved, Mr. Bundy."

"And I'm sure it's all terribly important to you and your company and the beneficiary and all that, and I suppose you are here to practically lunge at any hint that the pretty child killed herself so that you can save great wads of money, which I suppose is what you are paid to do, but I am expecting guests, and I was just about to make my famous salad dressing. So why don't you plan to come back tomorrow, Mr. McGoo? But I won't be able to tell you a thing, actually. I did meet those girls, but I knew them so slightly I had the names mixed up. I thought it was the little dark one they called Bix, and I was surprised to find it was the tall, quiet blond one."