“It is requested, señor, that you come at once to room six-sixteen.”
I asked, politely, why the hell I should come to room six-sixteen. The white blur shifted. The brown blur bent a little closer.
“It is urgent, señor. Most urgent.”
I replied that I could think of nothing more urgent than what I was doing, which was to stay drunk.
The soft voice purred, “It concerns, I believe, the beautiful Señora MacCauley.”
Hannah? Hannah in distress? I fell off my stool and mounted my white charger. The damned beast was obstreperous, refusing to gallop in a straight line, and the trail we left across the lobby looked something like a graphic representation of the spelling scores in third grade. We made the elevator bank, however, and a small brown monkey in a bright red uniform grinned evilly and took us up to six.
The hall up there was dimly lighted. For a guy in my condition, it should have been equipped with fog lights. The numbers on the doors retreated into shadows, refusing to be recognized. I used the Braille system, working along the hall, and finally I came to it. Sweeping curve down and sharp curve up and over…straight line…repeat the first movement…six-sixteen. I knocked, and a voice that was not Hannah’s told me to come in.
The room was small. The man sitting in a chair facing me was also small. Short, that is, but plump. He had straw colored hair that stood erect at the crown of his head. His face was round, and his cheeks jiggled when he talked. There was a brown Mexican cigarette in his mouth that leaked smoke. He squinted at me through the smoke, and his lips moved in something that might have been a smile. Add up the parts, and he sounds like nothing. But, even drunk, I was conscious of the parts. Some guys, for some reason, just register.
“Good evening, Mr. MacCauley. Or morning, I should say. My name’s Smith. Perhaps you’d better sit down before you fall down.”
His voice sounded as if he’d make a good first tenor in close harmony, and I’d have bet a bottle of tequila that his name wasn’t Smith. I spread my feet and kept standing.
“Where’s Hannah?” I said.
A fat little chuckle crawled up out of his fat little belly. “Mrs. MacCauley? Asleep, I presume. At least, our friend Ivan left her at the door of her room an hour or so ago.”
“Ivan is not our friend. Maybe yours, but not mine. He’s my arch foe whom I have treated, nevertheless, like a gentleman.”
. “So I’ve noticed. Well, he’s no friend of mine, either, when you come right down to it. And I doubt very much, if I were in your shoes, if I’d treat him like a gentleman. At any rate, if I were you, I’d see my wife and tell her earnestly that she had better, for the good of her soul as well as her pretty skin, rid herself of Señor Ivan in a hurry.”
“No good, Mr. Smith. My wife’s in love. Unfortunately, not with me. Have you ever tried to tell a woman that the man she loves is a louse?”
“I see your point. Women are headstrong in such matters. Nevertheless, the situation is desperate. I suggest you use the opposite approach. See Ivan, I mean. He might be more amenable to reason.”
“You think so? I doubt it. At any rate, why should I see him? Are you trying to imply that Ivan is a sort of Latin Bluebeard? As far as I can tell, he seems to be a healthy and handsome Mexican cad.”
“Ivan is deceptive that way.”
“What way?”
“I don’t propose to go into details. I have no interest in this business other than a natural desire to save a very lovely woman from making a grave mistake. I repeat my suggestion that you see Ivan.”
“For what purpose? To ask him if he will, pretty please, not swipe my wife? No, thanks?”
“There are other methods.”
“Beat him up? Knock his teeth out? Hannah would just gather up the scraps and tie a ribbon around them.”
“You are being facetious, Mr. MacCauley. I assure you it’s not a matter for levity.”
“You’re telling me? Who’s losing his wife around here, anyhow?”
“Quite so. My apologies, Mr. MacCauley. A threat, I think, is the proper method. Nothing crude, of course. A very gentle kind of threat. Are you in condition to remember simple instruction?”
“I’m in excellent condition, thanks. I can remember the first canto of Paradise Lost”
“Very well. Go to Ivan’s room. It’s on this floor, around the corner, and the number is six-o-eight. Say to him: Señor, you are on the border of disaster. Emphasize the word border. It has special significance for him. Have you got that?”
“I’ve got it for what it’s worth.”
“It may be worth more than you think. It may, indeed, save your wife.”
That struck the note for departure, so I departed. Outside in the hall, leaning against the wall, I tried to make sense out of it. It seemed, at best, a bit queer. And, incidentally, somewhat humiliating. A plump, little stranger who called himself Smith trying to save Carey MacCauley’s wife from a fate worse than death. Why? The question wandered around, crying plaintively, in the fog inside my skull.
Border? Let’s see, where was I? Mexico, as I recalled. North of Mexico is the United States of America. There’s a border between them…mostly a river designed for wading. Things get run across borders sometimes: Narcotics…aliens.…
There was within me a guy who can be called Schizo Number One. His immediate reaction was to render a loud and raucous raspberry. But there was also another guy who can be called Schizo Number Two. He was a guy who always wanted to climb on a white horse. When he was drunk, he was a very dominating personality. Almost before I knew it, he had me galloping around
