Double

“My first-class hotel is equipped with a gasoline-powered refrigera tor. The cerveza is very cold indeed.”

The inside of my mouth and throat felt like a sandpit; I didn’t need any more persuading. I followed Venegas into a little bar, where a pair of ceiling fans stirred the air with sluggish monotony and gave free rides to a colony of flies as big as bees. The bottle of Dos Equis he sold me was as cold as advertised.

“Tell me, Senor Venegas,” I said, “what sort of man is Carlton Ferguson?”

“You do not know him?”

“No. I’m here to see him on a private matter.”

“Ah, he is a fine man. He gave the padre ten thousand pesos to fix the roof of the church.”

“A generous man, then?”

“Yes. Very generous.”

“How long has he lived here?”

“For almost one year.”

“And what does he do?”

“Do, señor?”

“For a living. How does he make his money?”

“Ah. He is a very great engineer. He works on the government project to improve the port of Topolobampo.”

“Would you say he’s well liked?”

“Oh, yes. Everyone likes him.”

“So there’s been no trouble with him since he came to Los Monos.”

“None,” Venegas said. He was frowning now, so that his mustache bristled and he looked a bit more like a bandit. “Why do you ask these questions, señor? They are very odd questions.”

“A private matter, like I said.”

He lowered his voice, even though there was no one else around. “You are policia?”

“In a way,” I said.

“Ah,” he said. “A matter of seriousness, señor?”

“No. It’s nothing for you to concern yourself about. You can just forget I was ever here.”

“Of course,” he said solemnly. He had misunderstood: he thought I was some sort of government official, from the State Department or maybe even from the C.I.A. He was very impressed. He said, “If you desire to have a room later on, I will see to it that you are accommodated to the utmost. The finest room in El Cabrillo — I guarantee it.”

I thanked him and went back outside. Hernando was asleep on the front seat of the Dodge, which he had moved over into the shade of a date palm. I woke him up, climbed into the back seat, repeated Venegas’s directions, and off we went in a screech and a roar.

Beyond the church, an unpaved road climbed up into the low hills that flanked the bay to the north. That road connected with another one, and we climbed higher through lush jungle, an open area dotted with papaya trees, then more jungle, toward the crest of one of the hills. Here and there, high stucco walls with wooden gates marked the location of villas hidden among the vegetation. We passed three of these; the fourth we came to was almost invisible behind a screen of mango trees that had pink-flowered tropical vines climbing through them. This, according to Venegas, was where I would find the villa that belonged to Carlton Ferguson.

Hernando skidded the car over under the mangoes, narrowly missing their trunks, and braked to a stop about an inch from one of the gateposts. I asked him again to wait, and he nodded and smiled and lay down on the seat to continue his siesta. I got out, went over to the gate. It wasn’t nearly so windy up here, but it was just as hot and more humid; the air had that wet drippy feel I was beginning to hate.

You couldn’t see anything through the gates because they were made of solid wood. And you couldn’t see anything over the wall because it was a good eight feet high. I looked for a bell or something for a visitor to announce himself, but there wasn’t anything at all. So now what? I thought. Climb the wall like one of the monos? Beat the gate down? Stand around and wait until somebody comes out? Start yelling? Use my private-eye cunning?

Cunning was what solved the problem for me: I reached down and tried the gate latch, and it wasn’t locked, and I opened it and walked in. Norteamericano mentality. People down here didn’t have to put bolts and locks and chains on their property, like we did up in the civilized world.

A gravel drive led through a jungle garden of palms, banana trees, flowering shrubs, and mosquitoes that kept trying to bite my neck. Behind the screen of vegetation I had glimpses of the villa; then the drive jogged to the left and widened into a clearing, and I could see all of the house. It was perched at the edge of a downslope, no doubt to take advantage of an impressive view of the bay and the Sea of Cortez in the distance. It had three wings, all of them of white stucco with red tile roofs, framing a central courtyard that contained more trees and shrubs and the inevitable mosaic-tile fountain. To one side of the clearing was a carport with two cars parked under it — a dusty black Mercedes and a small Japanese compact.

I went toward the courtyard. When I got close enough, I could see that a tunnel-like passageway led through the villa’s back wing, so that you could go straight from the courtyard onto what appeared to be a large terrace. From the terrace, carried on the dying wind, came the sound of voices. And one of them was the piping voice of a child.