A Game for the Living

  “Was she wearing it while I was gone?” Theodore asked. “Maybe it’s even still at the shop.”

  “No, I think she was wearing it while you were gone,” Ramón said, “but I’m not sure.” He gave a little shrug.

  “What does it look like?” Sauzas asked.

  “The obsidian pendant is flat—shaped like this,” Theodore said, indicating its four-inch length with his thumb and forefinger. “The rest is long, thin obsidian pieces linked with gold links. I wonder if Josefina has it now?” Theodore said, looking at Ramón.

  “I would not know,” Ramón said. “You were offered some of her jewellery, but I was not.”

  “Excuse me,” Theodore said, and went to the telephone and dialled Josefina’s number. Juana answered, and then Josefina came on. Theodore greeted her and asked after her health before he put the question about the necklace.

  “Ah, I know the necklace, of course!” Josefina said. “No, it was not among her jewelry, Teo. I had not thought of it before, but—I suppose I thought she was wearing it that night—”

  “Perhaps it’s still where I took it to be repaired,” Theodore said. “Don’t worry, Tía Josefina.”

  “Is there any news? Why do you ask this?”

  “Only because I suddenly remembered it—and I liked it, you know, even though it was not very valuable. And I hoped you had it.”

  “You are telling me the truth, Teo? It’s not that you know it was stolen from her that night?”

  Theodore told her it was probably still at a repair shop in the Avenida Juarez, and that he would call her when he found out tomorrow, and this quietened her somewhat. Theodore opened his hands to Sauzas. “I shall call the shop tomorrow to make sure it’s not there. Ramón, do you remember ever seeing this fellow on the street around Lelia’s house?”

  “As far as I’m concerned, I do not remember ever seeing him at all,” Ramón replied, walking restlessly about the room. “He looks like hundreds of other young men.”

  “Not to me,” said Theodore. “Señor Capitán, do you think now that this boy could be the killer?”

  Ramón hurled a match into the fireplace.

  “It is possible,” Sauzas said with a lift of his brows. “But I think it takes quite a motive for such a crime. This boy is more of a petty thief. His shop murder was an accident, I’m sure. This boy is full of vanity. He likes a lot of money in his pocket—pretty things. And Lelia’s apartment was not even robbed, except for the keys.”

  “Hm-m. Well, I have another idea. In regard to the muffler,” Theodore said. “Ramón told me yesterday that he was also accosted by a fellow who offered him a muffler, Señor Capitán. Undoubtedly the same fellow.”

  “When?” Sauzas asked, sitting up.

  “Before the arrival of the postcard from Florida. A few days after the funeral, that would be. Tell him, Ramón.”

  Ramón repeated the story quickly, and it was just as Theodore had told Sauzas his own encounter with the boy.

  “My idea is that the fellow is after money,” Theodore said. “He knows the muffler belongs to the man who did the crime. Maybe he found it on the steps of her building—or even in the apartment. Maybe he’s the one who got in with the flower delivery—or the necklace delivery—and found her dead— and found the muffler—” Theodore paused.

  “Go on,” said Sauzas.

  Theodore turned to Ramón. “And Ramón said he had not lost a muffler. You are sure of that, aren’t you, Ramón?”

  “I have only one muffler, the grey one. It’s in my suitcase now.”

  “That’s true,” Theodore said, smiling.

  “And you, Señor Schiebelhut,” said Sauzas. “Are you missing a muffler?”

  “Not that I can see. I looked—just a few minutes ago. I don’t know how many mufflers I have exactly, so I suppose it’s possible I could be missing one.”

  Sauzas tapped the cocktail table with his fingertips. “Well—go on with your idea.”

  “After finding the muffler, he took it and left, taking the keys with him possibly. The door might have been open when he arrived, if the murderer had run out. And this boy also took my keys, you remember, Señor Capitán.”

  “Yes,” said Sauzas. “It’s an interesting idea.”

  “I admit I’m missing a motive—possibly. The motive for Infante calling on her in the first place.”

  “Ah, but she was a handsome woman!” Sauzas said. “There’s a possible motive. Maybe he had his eye on her, watching her house. Maybe he had seen other men calling on her.”

  “Not so many,” Ramón put in.

  “Oh, enough. Like the Capitán,” Theodore said, “I also think Infante watched her house. He watched our houses, too, Ramón.”

  “What men, Teo?” Ramón demanded.

  “Why—Sanchez-Schmidt, Eduardo Parral now and then, Ignacia and Rodolfo, Carlos Hidalgo—”

  “Hidalgo?” asked Sauzas.

  “Yes. Lelia sometimes painted backdrops for him. For his plays at the Universidad, you know.”

  “And this Eduardo?” Sauzas asked.

  “He is a young painter,” Theodore said. “He used to come around to Lelia’s once a month or so.”

  “You have his address?”

  “Yes. It’s in Tacubaya. Just a minute.” He turned with his foot on the stairs. “But is it necessary to bother him, Señor Capitán?”

  “It’s about the muffler,” Sauzas said. “We’ve got to find who the muffler belongs to. And I expect to have the muffler in less than twenty-four hours. As soon as we find Infante.”

  Theodore climbed his stairs and got his address book from his suitcase pocket.

  “You should have mentioned him to me before,” Sauzas said reproachfully, when Theodore showed him Eduardo’s address.

  Theodore started to say something in his own defence, then realized that Sauzas would remind him that the quietest people were sometimes criminals.

  “The danger,” Sauzas said as he copied the address, “is that Infante is already blackmailing someone with the muffler. He may have found the owner in the month he’s been looking for him, and it may be someone not on our lists.”

  “But he took Ramón’s address book only yesterday,” Theodore said. “Perhaps he’s still looking for people to question about the muffler.”

  Sauzas began gathering up his photographs.

  “Señor Capitán, I should like to talk to Infante as soon as you find him,” Ramón said. “Would that be possible?”

  “I should like you to talk to him,” Sauzas said politely to Ramón, and smiled. “Now I must be going.”

  Theodore asked Sauzas if he could have Infante’s picture, and Sauzas graciously presented it to him and said he was going to have hundreds more printed.

  “Thank you, Inocenza,” Sauzas said as she came forward with his coat.

  “And where are you going to be tomorrow, Señor Capitán?” Theodore asked.

  Sauzas said he was going to be right in the city, told Theodore his office hours for tomorrow, and promised to notify him as soon as there was anything to report.

  “At any hour,” Ramón added. “I would like to see Infante as soon as you find him.”

  “It will be done, Don Ramón,” Sauzas said.

  Theodore saw him to the gates, and though they spoke only of the fine night it was, Theodore could feel that Sauzas’s hopes had been lifted like his own.

  “Ready to turn in, Ramón?” Theodore asked as he came back into the living-room.

  Ramón looked up from the photograph of the boy, and tossed it on the sofa. “No, Teo, I think I’ll go out for a walk.”

  “Will you be gone long? It’s eleven.”

  “Not long, Teo,” Ramón said with an attempt at a smile. “No, no coat.” He opened the door for hims
elf and went out.

  Inocenza lingered in the living-room as Theodore drank his coffee. “Señor, may I ask if the Señor Ramón—You have asked me not to speak to him about the Señorita Lelia, señor,” she said respectfully.

  Theodore took a breath. “He still does not want to believe anyone else but himself is guilty, Inocenza. But I am sure he will change. Very soon now. As soon as we find the young man with the muffler.”

  “Oh, yes, the muffler,” Inocenza said with a confident smile.

  “And who owns it,” he added and had a moment of depression. Why should he think the muffler had been found by the fellow on the scene of the crime? The paper bag under his arm might have contained nothing but erotic postcards. The boy might never have entered Lelia’s apartment in his life! Theodore climbed the stairs to work for a while on his cover illustration for The Straightforward Lie. He would work until Ramón came home, whatever hour that might be, because he was not sure that Ramón had taken his keys with him.

  Theodore had been drawing in his studio less than an hour when he decided to take his bath and continue his work in his dressing-gown. As he emptied the pockets of his suit, he found his address book. He opened it and went to the telephone.

  Eduardo Parral lived in a pension. A maid answered, and there was a long wait while she went to see if he was in. Then a young male voice said:

  “Bueno?”

  “Bueno, Eduardo. Teodoro Schiebelhut. How are you?”

  Eduardo sounded glad to hear his voice, asked how he was and if he had heard any news, by which he clearly meant news about the investigation.

  “Well, some. We do not know how important it is yet. My reason for calling you at this hour is to tell you that the investigator, the Capitán Sauzas, will probably ask you some questions tomorrow. I hope it won’t disturb you, Eduardo.”

  “Of course, it will not, Don Teodoro!” Eduardo said in a friendly tone. “I’ll be out in the afternoon, but here in the morning.”

  “Good. I think it’s better if I leave it to Capitán Sauzas to tell you what it’s about.”

  “Yes. Naturally,” Eduardo said politely.

  Theodore squeezed the telephone. “You’ve had no strange telephone calls or such things, Eduardo?”

  “No-o.” He laughed in his shy way. “Unless I count one today. A man telephoned me and asked if I had lost a muffler. In a threatening tone, too. He wouldn’t say his name. He told me to think twice if I hadn’t lost one, because it was my last chance. My very last!” He laughed again.

  “At what time did he ring up?” Theodore asked.

  “A couple of hours ago. Just after eight o’clock, in the middle of supper.”

  “Did it sound like a long-distance call?”

  “No-o. Sounded like a local call. Why?”

  “Oh—” Theodore wiped his damp forehead. “The Capitán will tell you, Eduardo. I must not say anything else.”

  “But what’s it all about? Do you know?”

  Theodore hesitated. “Did he offer to sell you the muffler?”

  “No-o. Just asked me if I’d lost one. He seemed sure I had lost one, but I’m just as sure my three mufflers are safe in my drawer. I even looked later to make sure.”

  “Good. Very good,” Theodore said with relief. “I had best not say any more, Eduardo. Give me a ring tomorrow after you have seen the Capitán, if you wish.”

  “Very well, Teo. How goes the painting? Are you doing anything?”

  “Yes—some. And you?”

  “Yes. Portraits still. After June, landscapes.”

  Eduardo was a methodical young man. Portraits and nothing but portraits for a solid year. And after the year of landscapes would come probably a year of still lifes. Lelia had used to tease him about his routines, but she also had respected his talent. Theodore returned to his work, and after a few minutes lost all thought of anything but his pen-line drawing of the cigarette-smoking, cynical slouch of a man who was the villain of the book, and who represented reality, fatalism, and pessimism.

  When he heard a murmur of voices at his gates, he realized it was after two in the morning. Then a key turned. Theodore stood up. Another key turned in the house door, and quiet steps crossed the living-room. It was probably Ramón, Theodore thought, so why was he afraid to call his name? And those were Ramón’s steps, he thought, coming up the stairs. Theodore looked through the half-open door of his studio and saw Ramón’s head appear as he climbed.

  “Hello, Ramón! You’re late!” Theodore said.

  “You’re still up? I was trying not to wake you.”

  Theodore laid his pen down. “Come in a moment. I have something to tell you. I called up Eduardo Parral tonight and out of the blue he said a man telephoned him this evening at eight and asked him if he had lost a muffler.”

  “Really?” Ramón said, but with only mild interest.

  “Is Eduardo’s name in your address book?”

  “I think so. Yes.”

  “So that’s what he is using. He’ll probably call others of your friends, and he’ll surely walk into a trap, if we can set one fast enough.”

  Ramón looked at him a moment, then bent over the drawing. “This is the villain?”

  “Yes. And the hero’s going to be standing here—much smaller—looking at him.” Ramón had read the book in Guanajuato, and had seemed to enjoy it.

  “I like the eyes. They’re just right,” Ramón said. “It’s a good book, Teo, and your drawings will make it famous.”

  There were not a great many names in Ramón’s address book, Theodore was thinking. If they instructed two or three people to claim the muffler and make an appointment with Infante—But perhaps the boy was too wary now to make his transactions in person. Infante must have been aware of the police cordon around the city. “Were you talking to someone down at the gates just now, Ramón?”

  “Yes, the police guard. He came up as I was unlocking the gates and grabbed my arm before he recognized me. We should feel very well protected,” Ramón added with a smile.

  Theodore made no more effort that night to talk to Ramón of the implication of the muffler story. It was simply not penetrating Ramón as yet.

  It gave Theodore some satisfaction the next morning to see Infante’s picture in a double column on the front pages of the major newspapers under the caption “Have You Seen This Youth?” His smirking face would be seen, and perhaps remembered, even by people who were too poor to buy a paper.

  The next morning, Theodore called the Palacio Real Silver Shop. They did not have a necklace left in the shop in Lelia Ballesteros’s name.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  “Hello, Teo. This is Isabel Hidalgo. . . . I am all right, thank you, and you?” She spoke in English, as she often did when she was in a gay mood, but her voice sounded anxious now. “What do you make of this story in the papers today? Do they really think Infante is the guilty one?”

  “They aren’t sure,” Theodore replied. “He certainly has something to do with it, of that I’m quite sure.”

  She went on asking him questions, which Theodore answered very cautiously, not wanting to label the fellow the murderer when there was really not yet enough evidence to prove that he was. The papers said that “police authorities” had reason to think the youth was implicated in the gruesome Ballesteros murder of last February, and Theodore told her nothing more than that, except he admitted having seen the boy loitering in front of his house.

  “Somebody told me your house was guarded.”

  “This was several weeks ago—before the guard,” Theodore said. “And how is Carlos, Isabel?”

  “Oh-h, just as usual, Teo, maybe a little worse.” Then she lapsed into Spanish. “The work at the Universidad—the plays in addition to his classes—and now he is thinking of accepting an offer to direct a play for
the round theatre in Chapultepec, and meanwhile all this makes him nervous, so he drinks one too many and even during the day, I’m afraid.”

  Theodore murmured something sympathetic, suggested a vacation, but Isabel told him Carlos would say it was impossible. Isabel chattered on, and even in Spanish, in which she tried to make her words light in tone, Theodore could hear that she was quite upset and that the situation was beyond minimizing any longer. Carlos had even missed a few days’ work, and had not gone to the Universidad today.

  “Is he there now?” Theodore asked.

  “No, he’s gone out.”

  It was a quarter past noon. Theodore wondered if Sauzas had telephoned Carlos, and Carlos had gone out because he could not face a visit on a hangover morning.

  “Teo dear, could you do me a favor?”

  “Of course. What?”

  “Come over to the house now. I’d like you to be here when Carlos gets back. You’re a good influence on him. Not that you have to give him a talking-to. I don’t mean that. Just be yourself. I can fix a little lunch for you! Would you, Teo?”

  It was the last thing he wanted to do, but he could not resist her pleading voice. “Yes, Isabel. How soon?”

  “As soon as you can. If Ramón is with you, he’s welcome, too.”

  He knew she would prefer that Ramón did not come, but he promised to ask Ramón, anyway.

  Ramón at that moment was out, and had been gone since ten, though he had said he would be back at one for his lunch. Theodore felt sure that he had walked to the Cathedral, and en route looked the streets for Infante.

  Theodore took a taxi. He had not been to the Hidalgos’ since the fatal night, and that vision of himself, light-hearted and free, with his heavy portfolio, came back to him painfully as he rang their bell. Isabel took him into the living-room, where the many-colored mobile hung, bigger and brighter by daylight, and suggestive of a false gaiety. Isabel did her best, but her hands were nervous, spilling a few drops of the Dubonnet as she poured it.

  “One would think I’m the one who’s been drinking!” she said with a laugh.

  She expected Carlos any minute. Isabel said he always preferred to come home for lunch, but at a quarter to two he still had not come. Isabel took something from the oven—the maid came only mornings and the maid had cooked it, she explained—and they sat down. She questioned him about Ramón, having heard of his belief in his own guilt through some of their mutual friends, and Theodore replied that he was ‘progressing’ and that he had never, or at least only for a few days, believed that Ramón was guilty.