Message From Malaga (8 page)

He entered a room that was dark and silent. A staircase ran steeply up the wall on his right, barely lighted by two naked bulbs on the landing that ran the full width of this hall. There were two entrances up there separated by a clock on the wall. There seemed to be a doorway, too, underneath the landing, down on this level. He had the uncomfortable feeling of being an intruder, and he hesitated, now mistrusting the instinct that had brought him here in such a hurry. The dusty blond American with the hunched shoulders and narrow chest might only have been searching for a men’s room, although there was one near the wineshop entrance, much closer to that back-corner table, much more obviously in use than this place; or he could have light fingers and a drug habit to support, but there was nothing down here that could be lifted without the help of two men.

And where was Jeff? The silence worried Ferrier. No sound of voices, no laughter. He decided to try on this floor first, and quickly skirted the foot of the staircase to reach the door under the landing. He almost fell over Jeff Reid, lying sprawled, face down, one leg twisted under him.

For a moment of complete shock, Ferrier looked down at his friend. He knelt, touched the body. It remained inert. “Good God, Jeff—” he burst out. The head turned a little, the eyes opened, the jaw unclenched, and Reid let out his first groan. His face looked ghastly under the feeble light that filtered down here from the landing; his tan had turned grey, his forehead was beaded with cold sweat, his white lips were bloodied where he had bitten them.

He said softly, “I thought it was that—that—that little creep coming back to make sure.” He had a violent attack of shivering.

I’ll hear about that later, Ferrier thought grimly. “I’ll get help,” he said, rising.

Reid made an effort. “Don’t alarm the courtyard. Get Magdalena—upstairs. Blanket. Smelling salts.”

“An ambulance is more like it,” Ferrier said, looking at Reid’s leg. Smelling salts?

“But first—blanket. Smelling salts. Fresh air. Pull me near the draught. Pull me!” His voice was desperate.

“You shouldn’t be moved,” Ferrier warned him, but he took Reid’s shoulders, helping him to turn on his back, and then pulled slowly for the six feet necessary to get him away from the lee of the staircase. It must have been the worst kind of torture, but Reid endured it without screaming. He groaned several times, once bit back a yell, and then lay in the cooler draught of pure air with his eyes closing. Ferrier stooped to loosen Reid’s collar and tie, and then was running two steps at a time upstairs. Afterwards, he’d wonder how he—twenty pounds lighter and two inches shorter—had managed to pull Reid’s dead weight so easily, or even how his feet had seemed to fly up these stairs, but now he thought of nothing except Magdalena.

She heard the pounding of his feet on the wooden landing, came out to meet him as he yelled her name. He looked at her in amazement: she was old and slow-moving, not young, as he had imagined, and probably useless. He pointed down to the room below, grasped her arm to yank her over to the edge of the landing, from where she could see Reid. “Blanket—smelling
salts.” God, what was the Spanish for smelling salts? “Ammonia.” In desperation, he dragged her into the nearest room, picked up a large shawl from a chaise longue, kept saying “s
els, sels
” (That was French, but what the hell.) He lifted a small bottlelike vase from a table, threw away its rose, and then sniffed at it in mime. She understood. She nodded vehemently, and pulled a small flask out from the pocket of her wide black skirt, where it had been all the time. He took it, tested it, nodded back, and turned to leave. He pointed to the telephone now, and some of his Spanish came back to him. “Call a doctor. Call the hospital. Señor Reid has broken his leg.”

“Yes, yes.” She pulled the shawl away from him, shaking her head at man’s wastefulness, and replaced it with a less elegant (and warmer) blanket from a chest near the door. “Do not disturb the dance!” she warned him in a deep hoarse whisper. He waved a hand, ran on. Magdalena might be old, but she was neither stupid nor useless. Apart from her initial horror and fear, when she had recognised Reid lying on the floor below, she had reacted with a cool sense of the desperate need for haste.

He ran down the staircase, noted that its only weakness was the railings: the treads were solid and firm, built to last like the rest of this place. There’s something more to this than a fall and a broken leg, he thought. Reid was semiconscious. He had vomited, and he was shivering. Half-opened eyes looked up at Ferrier, then at the bottle of smelling salts. He nodded gratefully. Something more, Ferrier thought again.

From the courtyard outside came the abrupt silence of a dance that had ended, then the shouts of applause.

* * *

Tavita had noticed Reid’s empty chair when she had risen
to dance, and then as the music caught hold of her she had forgotten about it. Now, standing at the centre of the stage with her arms held out for the applause that poured toward her, Miguel and Pablo spaced behind her, she saw that Ferrier had left, too: strangers sat at that table. Her glance swept on to the rest of the audience, a proud smile of delight on her lips, anger in her heart. I never danced so well, she thought, and they missed it, Jeff and his friend. She bowed her head, let her arms drop to her sides. Raised her head, bowed again. Now the anger was being replaced by worry. She remembered, just in time, to turn to Miguel and then to Pablo, drawing them into the ovation, before she walked back to her chair. She shook her head, as she heard the demands for an encore of the last part of the dance. “Later,” she called out, “later,” and fanned her face with her hand. She draped her shawl over her warm shoulders, tried to pin back her hair into a coil, wondered how long she would have to sit there. She pressed her fingers to her brow and cheeks, eased the neckline of her dress away from her skin, fingered her hair again, and prepared in general for an exit.

“You look hot,” Constanza said, not without malice. You are getting old, the large dark eyes were saying.

“I am hot,” she admitted. This dress is too heavy. I must change.” She smoothed her hair again, found it hopelessly disobedient, shook her head over her little defeat, and rose with unconcern. “A
fandango
,” she told the guitarists as she left the stage. “Keep it going. Get them dancing in turn. I’ll be back in ten minutes.” That will hold them, she thought as she made her way, with smiles and bows for the various tables, toward the doorway. Behind her, she heard Constanza’s harsh clear voice calling “
Anda, anda!
” The little minx was taking
charge. Let her, Tavita thought. I have more to worry about tonight than discipline.

As she stepped over the threshold, she looked back in Esteban’s direction. Yes, he had noticed her summons. He would follow her. She started upstairs, got no farther than the first step when she became aware of the visiting American, Jeff’s friend, standing in the shadows of the room. “You did not like my dancing?” she began, and then came over slowly, unbelievingly, to where he waited. She stared down at Jeff Reid. She kept staring. “Dead?” She burst into a stream of Spanish, her hands at her face.

“He is alive. He fell from the staircase, and broke his leg. We are waiting for the ambulance. It should be here—”

“Fell? Impossible!” She swirled round to speak to Esteban, who had just entered, and again there was a flow of Spanish. Esteban made to close the door.

“No,” Ferrier said quietly, “he needs the fresh air. Just keep your voices low.” But who would hear anything outside? Flamenco blotted out all other sounds. I never heard the crash of Jeff’s fall. And was it a fall? He couldn’t understand all of Tavita’s denunciation, although he got the idea that she was blaming Tomás: Tomás did this, Tomás tried to kill him. She looked, at this moment, as if she could kill Tomás herself. And so did Esteban. I’m glad I’m not this Tomás, whoever he is, thought Ferrier and glanced at his watch. Every three minutes, Jeff had told him; smelling salts every three minutes. So he knelt beside him, and applied the bottle again. Jeff was looking slightly better, his colour was still strange, but the nausea had stopped, and the violent shivers. There was silence in the room. Ferrier looked up to see Tavita watching him. Her anger had
vanished. She knelt beside him, touched Jeff’s brow, smoothed back his hair. Then she rose, crossing herself quickly, and turned toward the staircase. There were heavy tears on her face.

“I must change,” she said, her voice quite calm, even businesslike. “I have to dance.” She ran up the stairs, lifting her wide skirt before her. “Magdalena! Magdalena!” No anger now; no tears; just her eyes on the clock. Halfway up to the landing, she remembered to call to Esteban, “Go back into the courtyard. Watch Rodriguez. Do not let him enter. If he is curious, keep talking. Keep him out of here!” She was running again, her dark-red skirt filling the stairway, her black hair fallen loosely down her back.

Esteban had been watching Reid with a mixture of compassion and worry on his gaunt face. “He will be all right,” he predicted, and moved toward the courtyard. “I shall send Jaime to be with you.”

“Who is Rodriguez?” Ferrier asked, rising, dusting off his trouser legs. Jaime, for Christ’s sake—that kid! He wished he had Esteban’s confidence about Jeff Reid’s recovery, too.

“Captain Rodriguez is State Security,” Esteban said, his face quite expressionless.

“Oh, the policeman.”

Esteban almost smiled, and went into the courtyard.

Ferrier sat down cross-legged on the floor beside Jeff. He lit a cigarette, smoked it slowly, started to wonder. What was Tavita trying to hide? Allowing for that old business-as-usual, the-show-must-go-on routine, there was yet something else. Secrecy. Reid’s accident was to be kept quiet; no one was to know about it, especially Captain Rodriguez. And Jeff, too, hadn’t wanted any attention drawn to him. When Ferrier had
tucked the blanket around him, told him an ambulance was on its way, he had said, “Stay here, Ian. Until it comes.” Then he had made a special effort and added, “No fuss. Don’t sound any alarm.” At the time, Ferrier had thought Reid was trying to let Tavita’s dance end without any distractions, but now he was beginning to believe that there was something more involved. Which, in the cold light of day, would seem ridiculous. Only, this was not the cold light of day. This was a room of shadows off a moonlit courtyard, with an injured man lying on the floor beside him. He finished his cigarette, decided he would have to alter his own plans, remain some extra days in Spain until Jeff was out of danger and had become reconciled to a long stay in a hospital bed. He might even have to cancel that side jaunt to northern Italy, perhaps even his visit to England. The tracking stations in both those places weren’t official, anyway: just two interesting, and successful, amateur efforts that had aroused his curiosity and appealed to his sense of humour. In an age of giant, expensive machines, it was encouraging to see what a little money and a lot of human ingenuity could do.

Jaime came into the room, looking both alarmed and excited. He stood over Reid, and Reid—eyes opening at the sound of his footsteps—let out a small, strangled cry.

“Okay, okay,” Ferrier said quickly. “It’s Jaime.” He looked at his friend curiously, offered the smelling salts again.

“No need—I’m feeling better. It’s the leg that really bothers me now.”

“It’s the one that got busted before?”

Reid nodded.

“That figures.”

“I was lucky that you—”

“Don’t try to talk. Just take it easy.”

“But I must—” Reid’s face twisted with pain. He recovered, but hesitated, looked at Jaime.

“Jaime, would you please check on the ambulance?” Ferrier tried, in a mixture of Spanish and English. Jaime caught the meaning. He hurried toward the back of the room, disappeared through its doorway. So that’s the way we’ll make our exit, Ferrier thought, by some back entrance to a small street. No procession through the courtyard, no disturbance, no gossip. These people really knew the meaning of discretion.

“Has he left?” Reid asked. And as Ferrier nodded, he said, “You must phone tonight. Business. Important.”

“Take it easy, Jeff. Nothing’s so important as getting you—”

“Tonight. Make the call tonight!”

“All right, all right. Where?”

“To Madrid.”

“What’s the number?”

“Better write it down. There must be no mistake. You won’t find it in the book.” Reid was speaking as if he had misgivings, as if he were persuading himself, finding good reasons.

“Have you pencil and paper I can reach? My stuff is in my jacket.” And his jacket was now bundled under Reid’s head. “Oh, here’s a matchbook,” he said, fishing it out of his shirt pocket “Now all I need is a—”

“Try my pocket. Right-hand pocket. Quick, quick!”

Ferrier pulled back the blanket, searched, and found a pencil. It was an automatic one, small and slender, ornate to the touch, possibly made of silver, but it worked all right. “Ready and waiting.”

Reid’s voice was low. Ferrier had to bend over closely to
hear the number clearly. The light was so bad that he struck one of the matches to verify that he had jotted down the figures readably and accurately: 21-83-35. He repeated them aloud, but softly.

Reid nodded. “Ask for Martin—don’t write it!”

“I didn’t,” Ferrier said reassuringly. “I’ve just written the number. Not Madrid. Not Martin.”

“Good. Tell him—tell him I can’t keep the Monday appointment. The Monday appointment.”

“Sure. You can’t keep the Monday appointment.”

“Tell him I’m laid up. For weeks. Hell, what a mess!”

“Do I include that?” Ferrier asked with a grin.

“Might do no harm.” There was a deep sigh. Reid’s eyes stared up at the heavy timbers in the ceiling as if he could find the answers to his problems up there among the decorated beams.

“What if I can’t reach him?”

“He will get the message.” There was a hesitation. “It’s important. We’ve a lot of competitors.”

“I won’t forget.” Ferrier pocketed the matchbook. “Here’s your pencil back.” He made a move to replace it.