Double

Near the Bahia Ohuira we entered a stretch of heavy jungle, vivid green and spotted with bright-colored flowers. It was even hotter and more humid in there, which made the interior of the taxi — a twenty-year-old Dodge sans air conditioning — feel like the interior of a stewpot. We couldn’t even open the windows for a breath of air because, Hernando said, the jungle was the home of “oh so many millions of mosquitoes who will gladly suck out every drop of our blood.” The land around the village of Topolobampo, not far ahead, had remained uninhabited until recent years because of the mosquitoes, he said. Malaria, he said. But the disease had been wiped out, he said, except in rare cases, and then only tourists were afflicted.

Topolobampo was an old village with a cluster of new-looking hotels spread out along the narrows where Bahia Ohuira became Bahia Topolobampo and where there was a confusion of mangrove islands and dark estuaries. We went through the town, southwest toward the Sea of Cortez. And a little while later, in midafternoon and in the middle of a hot windstorm, we finally rolled into the town on the water with monkeys in it.

Los Monos was down near the mouth of the bay, tucked in between the water and a series of low jungly hills — maybe fifty buildings in all, most of them old, built around a central plaza with a fountain in its middle and a church at one end. At the other end was the shrimp cannery and a network of little piers and boat moorage, where three or four dozen fishing vessels writhed under the lash of the wind; the bay and the sea beyond were a dazzling blue laced with whitecaps. What looked to be the only hotel was on the west side of the square, a threestory tile-roofed adobe structure painted pink and called El Cabrillo.

The place looked like a ghost town: there wasn’t another human being in sight, nothing moving anywhere except a lot of dust and leaves and things swirled up by the wind. It gave me a vague eerie feeling, until I remembered that the afternoon siesta was practically a second religion in Mexico. That was where everybody was, inside out of the heat and that hammering wind, having themselves a short snooze. It seemed like a pretty good idea. But not as good as a cold cerveza, if they had cold beer in Los Monos, and a bucket of water to douse my head with.

Hernando slammed the Dodge to a quivering stop in front of the hotel. My legs felt a little weak when I got out; it had been some wild ride. I paid him the price we’d agreed on, plus a tip, and asked him to wait. If Carlton Ferguson didn’t live here I wanted a ride straight back to Los Mochis, even if it meant another hour and a half of fear and trembling. And if Ferguson did live here I might need a ride to wherever his house was. Hernando was cheerfully agreeable, and when I left him he was about to attack the contents of a huge straw lunch basket.

The lobby of El Cabrillo was small, hot, strewn with sturdy native furniture, and empty except for a round little man dozing in a desk area about as large as an elevator shaft. He didn’t speak English, it turned out, but he went and got somebody who did — a middle-aged guy with a Pancho Villa mustache, the fierce effect of which was spoiled by a ready smile and pleasant brown eyes.

“I am Pablo Venegas, owner of this first-class hotel,” he said. “You wish a room, señor? Two are available, one on the top floor with a magnificent view of water and jungle—”

“Thanks, but I may not be staying the night. That depends on what you’re able to tell me.”

“Por favor?”

“I’m looking for a man named Carlton Ferguson, an American engineer. Does he live in Los Monos?”

“Ah, Senor Ferguson. Sometimes he comes to have dinner in my first-class restaurant. He is my good friend.”

So far, so good, I thought with some relief. “Can you tell me where he lives?”

“On a hill beyond the village,” Venegas said. “Perhaps two kilometers from here. A fine villa. It was formerly owned by a general in the army, but his family moved away after he was blown up by guerrillas.”

“Would you know if Ferguson is home?”

He shrugged. “I have not seen him.”

“When did you see him last?”

“Perhaps two days ago.”

“Did he have a little boy with him? About seven years old, with light-colored hair?”

“Little boy? No, he has no children I know about.”

“Does he live alone in his villa?”

“Ah, no. With a woman who is not his wife, I think. A very beautiful woman.”

“How do I get there?”

He told me, and the directions seemed simple enough. I wasn’t quite ready to leave when I had them straight — I wanted to ask him a few more questions about Ferguson — but he must have thought I was. He said, “You seem hot and tired, señor. Some food before you go? My wife prepares the finest huachinango — what you call the red snapper — that you have ever eaten.” I started to shake my head, and he said without missing a beat, “A cold cerveza, then? Dos Equis, Tres Equis, Tecate, Carta Blanca?”

“Cold?”