The second inclination came from his mother?s part of the family. Berryman thought of it as his ?country gentleman? side. He?d first taken this second urge seriously, as seriously as the first urge, in 1971. He was working in Mexico when it happened.

SeNor Jorge Amado Marquez?s hacienda was located some ninety miles west of Mexico City. It was a labyrinth of white stucco rooms, newer flamingo pink stables, and green-as-your-garden fences and railings. It was situated on a deep blue lake like Italy?s Como, looking straight up at a small volcano.

Jorge Marquez was living alone on the huge estate in 1971.

His wife had died mysteriously that year (a self-inflicted gunshot while out in a family motorboat). His daughter was living with a photographer in Mexico City, a handsome, high-pompadoured man who would have been perfect for Costa-Gavras movies.

Jorge Marquez had invited Berryman to stay with him for the week before he would do his work. As the particular job was a simple one, automatic, Berryman had entertained his whims for gracious living, and accepted the invitation.

He?d slept in a third-floor suite equipped with a wraparound terrace some seventy-five feet over the lake. The front windows looked over at the volcano. A large back window looked out on bush country: brazil-wood and palms, streaming with parrots.

In the early morning, dark-haired thirteen- and fourteen-year-old girls would be out on his terrace from sometime before sunrise. They were pretty little girls with dusty brown legs. They played silent barefoot games until Berryman came to the door leading out onto the terrace. Then, giggling, blushing, curtsying like the maids in American movies, the pubescent seNoritas would bring him bananas, papaya, mangos; bacon, whitefish from Lake Chapala.

His afternoons could be peaceful sailing out and around the volcano; swimming in lake water clear enough to see bottom whenever it hadn?t rained; hunting deer with or without Marquez, who was gentleman enough to give Berryman his choice.

Finally, the evenings would consist of large dinner parties or less formal cookouts. At those, Berryman would be introduced as an American businessman connected with Marquez? tin and banana conglomerate. American women and wealthy, cosmopolitan seNoritas would attend these parties, and in the mornings, the teenage Mexican girls would get to secretly examine these women from Berryman?s terrace.

When the week ended, Thomas Berryman held the firm idea that he would soon try Mexican life again. For the moment though, Marquez? business was on.

Riding in a coughing, gasping native bus, he traversed Route 14 to Mexico City one afternoon. Some tinkling burros outside kept pace with the bus, but he was in no real hurry.

Once inside Mexico City, he exchanged his country whites for dusty huaraches and bluejeans. He moved into a hostel for students and teachers, and began to wear silver wirerim eyeglasses.

The first two evenings there were spent carousing with carefree students from the University of Wisconsin and their quiet, homosexual advisor. Berryman became known as a high school teacher from Westchester in New York.

Late in his third afternoon in Mexico City, however, Berryman stole a gray pickup truck. The truck was full of goats, chickens, and a few squealing pigs. The truck was heavy of itself, yet Berryman found it could get up to seventy miles per hour with not too much strain.

During that evening, the gray truck was seen several times parked in, and driving around, the Plaza de la Constitucion.

Slightly before midnight, it struck the Costa-Gavras photographer head-on in a narrow, one-way street; it was moving at nearly fifty-five miles per hour at the time.

The Marquez girl?s lover had had a high wet-looking pompadour and flashing white teeth that stood out in the dark. Even that was more than Thomas Berryman wanted to know about him. He preferred to store memories from his week with SeNor Marquez. Dwelling on the other thing was self-defeating.

An elderly woman, a southern woman, tapped at Berryman?s arm and he slowly removed his Braniff Airlines stereo earphones.

She wanted her seat moved back, which was fine, but she also wanted to talk about her recently deceased son-in-law. ?Michael was only fifty-eight,? she said. ?Michael has two lovely daughters at Briarcliff. Michael had been planning to retire in just five years??

Berryman occasionally glanced away from the woman; he saw the beginnings of Nashville out the window.

The fasten seatbelts order was given. The earphones were collected.

Berryman found himself taking a deep breath. Examining his clothes in relation to the dress of the southern businessmen on board.

When the front door stewardess welcomed crew-cut Thomas Berryman ?home,? he smiled like a goat, and spoke perfect southern to her.

Carrying his small, black leather bag across the airfield?s landing tarmac, Berryman thought of it this way: he was just making a stopover on his way back to Mexico.

Nashville, June 26

On the second Tuesday before the Fourth, Berryman came out the electric doors of the Farmer?s Market with a milkbottle quart of orange juice and a pound of Farmwife powdered doughnuts. He was wearing khaki pants, a wrinkled Coca-Cola shirt with the sleeves rolled up over his biceps; and he was a dead ringer for a Tennessee redneck. In his body, and in his mind.

He sat down on the warm hood of his Hertz Ford Galaxie, fingered the milkbottle Braille, and admired Nashville women doing their thing: shopping. He ate several of the warm doughnuts, which were nice, even sitting on hot metal.

As usual, his independence delighted him: it was 11 A.M. and his job for the day was easy, with high pay.

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