‘I know you’re doing the best you can, old man, but if you could fit a doctor in the schedule somewhere
‘
‘That’s next,’ Parker told him. ‘Lay down.’
‘No sooner said.’ Smiling, Grofield lay down again, across the seats. When he closed his eyes, he looked dead.
4
PARKER walked into American Express with one hundred dollars and walked out with one thousand two hundred fifty pesos. Same difference.
Downstairs on the ground floor at American Express there was a counter where people could have mail delivered, and a steady stream of vacationing Americans passed by there, looking for letters or money from home. There were young schoolteachers on vacation, in groups of three and four, middle-aged couples awkwardly overdressed in clothing too dark and heavy for the climate, groups of shaggy young expatriates looking exactly like their brothers and sisters in Greenwich Village or the Latin Quarter or North Beach.
Parker hung around outside for about ten minutes, until a shaggy loner went in looking hangdog and didn’t get any mail at the counter. He came out looking even sadder. His shoes were unshined, his trousers were unpressed, his flannel shirt was unwashed, his hair was uncut.
Parker said to him, ‘You. One minute.’
‘What? Me?’
‘You speak Spanish?’
‘Spanish? Sure. How come?’
‘You want to make a fast ten?’
‘Dollars?’
Everything this kid said was a question. Parker nodded. ‘Dollars.’
The kid grinned. ‘Who do I kill?’
‘You come with me and you translate.’
‘Lead on.’
‘Come on, then,’ Parker said, and started down the street.
He was in Mexico City, on Avenue Niza. He led the way to the corner, which was the Paseo de la Reforma, the main east-west street in Mexico City, and turned right. Reforma is a broad avenue, with grassy walks on both sides and statues on pedestals along the grassy walks and huge statues at almost every major intersection.
Parker turned right on Reforma and walked down to the Avenue de Los Insurgentes, the main north-south street. At the intersection of Reforma and Insurgentes there was a regal statue of an Indian named Cuauhtemoc.
On Insurgentes, Parker flagged a pesero,a cab that would take him as far as he wanted to go on Insurgentes for one peso, or eight cents. Peserosworked both Insurgentes and Reforma, tearing back and forth in red or orange Chevies and Opels and Taunuses, carrying from one to five passengers.
There were already three passengers in the back of this cab, so Parker and the kid got in front with the driver, and they went shooting north.
Parker and the kid were the last passengers off, up at Avenue Paganini near the city limits. Parker had to break a ten peso note, and the cabby made change in a hurry; he wanted to turn around and race south again. As soon as Parker had his eight pesos and was out of the cab, the driver tore away.
‘This way,’ said Parker, and walked down Avenue Paganini, passing the jeep where he’d left it for good.
Mexico City was five hundred miles farther from the American border than Casas, but it made sense to come here and so Parker had come. England and the rest of his crowd would be looking hard for Parker now, but they’d be looking in all the wrong places. Up at the border and down around Ciudad Victoria, depending whether they thought he was trying to break away or find Baron. So the thing to do was stay away from Ciudad Victoria and stay away from the border.
And the other thing to do, until he could get out of Mexico completely, was go where Americans were the least noticeable, and that was Mexico City. So when he’d left Casas with the suitcases he’d retraced the original route back through Soto la Marina and south from there past where they’d picked up the road in the first place when they’d come inland from the sea, and from there on down to Aldama, where there was a government station selling Pemex gas, the only brand available in Mexico. They didn’t have any Gasolmex, the premium grade, so Parker had them fill the jeep and the spare five-gallon can with Supermexolina, the cheaper grade. With luck this would carry him all the way to Mexico City, and he wouldn’t have to make any more stops along the way, leave any more signs of his trail.
Below Aldama the road improved. He continued south to Manuel, then west to Ciudad Mante, a fair-sized town full of men and boys but short on visible women, where he picked up route 85, a main north-south route that took him straight into Mexico City. They slept on the road above Zimapan Monday night, and got into Mexico City a little before noon on Tuesday, and Parker was no sooner across the city line than he found a doctor for Grofield and he ditched the jeep.
He’d decided Grofield could wait for a doctor, rather than waste time on the road before they could get rid of the jeep. Grofield’s wound wasn’t bleeding, and he was unconscious most of the time, so he was no trouble to transport. Every now and then he’d wake up, do some of his comic routines, and then fade away again.
Now, with Grofield at the doctor’s, with pesos in his pocket, with a good Spanish-speaking guide who looked too naive to do anything but keep his mouth shut, Parker felt he had breathing room again. He walked down Avenue Paganini and when he got to the doctor’s house he said to the kid, ‘Don’t ask any questions. Don’t say anything at all. You’re a clam.’
The kid nodded. ‘I’m a clam,’ he said. He no longer looked hangdog; excitement and curiosity danced in his
