Double

Fifty feet of landscaped ground — scrub palms, jacaranda, some other vegetation — separated Bungalow 6 from Bungalow 5. But the foliage wasn’t dense enough to obscure completely the view of anybody looking out of Number 5’s side windows toward the front of 6. I followed the path over to 5 and knocked on the door.

Nobody answered immediately. I thought that maybe this was one of the allegedly deserted bungalows and started to turn away — and the latch clicked and the door edged open and I was looking at a tiny woman somewhere in her seventies. A tiny bald woman: except for a few strands of wispy red hair, the whole top of her head was barren. She saw me looking at it, showed me her dentures in a pleased way, and said, “Never saw anything like it, did you, young man?”

“Ma’am?”

“My bald spot. I’m bald as an eagle.”

“Uh, well...”

“Been that way for years now. Started getting the bald spot when I was sixty-two, along with my Social Security. At first I wore wigs, you know. Then I turned seventy and I said phooey on that. When you get that old you don’t mind people staring at you. It’s better than no attention at all.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You woke me up,” she said. “I was taking a nap. I always do in the afternoons. Old people need naps, same as kids.” She squinted at me out of bright blue eyes. “Are you with the hotel?”

“No, ma’am. I’m a guest here too.”

“What do you think of the place?”

“Well...”

“Used to be a first-class hotel — not anymore. Some conglomerate bought it. Japanese, I believe.” She paused. “That’s funny, don’t you think?”

“Ma’am?”

“A Victorian hotel with a Spanish name owned by Japanese.”

“It does seem kind of odd.”

“The Perkins family built it and they had a sense of humor. Called the place their Spanish Victorian. They knew how to run a hotel, too. Now... well, the service is terrible. I had to call the desk three times to get clean towels. Three times. And I’ve been coming here thirty years, with one husband or another.”

“Yes, ma’am. I was wondering—”

“Drunks,” she said, “that’s something else we never had to put up with in the old days. A bunch of rowdies last night, whooping it up like Indians. One of them puked in the rhododendrons out front. I complained about that, I’ll tell you.”

“Did you happen to get a good look at these rowdies, Mrs. ...?”

“Andersen. But it’s Miss. I took back my maiden name when my fourth husband died. Oh, yes, I saw them. Nasty specimens. Never did like a man who couldn’t hold his liquor.”

“Was one of them a big guy in a red shirt?”

She nodded emphatically. “He was the loudest one.”

“Did he go next door, this man?”

“Next door?”

“Bungalow Six.”

“I didn’t see him if he did. When the big fat one puked in the rhododendrons I went straight to the phone to call the manager.”

“What about the people staying in Bungalow Six, Miss Andersen? Have you seen them in the past day or two?”

“I didn’t know anybody was staying in that bungalow, not until this afternoon.”

“Oh? Then you did see them — a little boy about seven, a brown-haired woman in her middle thirties?”

“That’s right. Why are you so excited about that?”

“I’m trying to find them,” I said. “They seem to have disappeared. You wouldn’t have any idea where they went?”

She shook her bald head. “Not a clue. They went away with that Mexican fellow.”

“What Mexican fellow is that?”

“I can never remember his name. He’s the assistant manager, I believe.”

“Ibarcena? Victor Ibarcena?”

“That’s him,” Miss Andersen said. “I’m not nosy, you understand; I’m too old to be nosy. Only reason I saw them was that I was getting ready for my nap and I like the window open when I sleep. I chanced to look out just as the woman and the boy and the Mexican fellow were leaving. He was carrying their bags.”

“Did you see which way they went?”

“Out to the highway. I expect they had a car parked there. That’s the way Hank and I always used to come and go. Hank was my fourth husband. He hung himself.”

“Ma’am?”

“Hung himself. Left a note saying there wasn’t much use to go on living when he couldn’t get an erection anymore and had a bald wife besides.”

She said that with a straight face, but there was a twinkle in the blue eyes and I had the feeling she was pulling my leg at least a little. She was some little old lady. She’d probably mowed the men down pretty good in her time, and not just a field of four husbands.

I thanked her, and she said, “Don’t mention it, young man,” and I went straight back to the hotel. All right, now I had confirmation that Timmy and his mother had been staying in Number 6. And now I knew that Victor Ibarcena had hustled them away this afternoon. But there was still a lot I didn’t know, a lot that was still puzzling. Like, where had Ibarcena taken them? And why in such a hurry? And why had the desk clerk and the maid both lied to me about them being registered?