Jack Higgins - Wrath of God

There was a sudden muffled crash from the bedroom that had me out of the bath and reaching for my revolver all in the same movement. I flattened myself against the wall beside the door, out of line of fire if anyone intended to shoot their way in.

I got my robe on one-handed and not without difficulty and listened. There was no sound, so I did what seemed the obvious thing, flung open the door and dropped to one knee.

The man who stood by the bed searching my jacket was straight out of the market-place, a mestizo in ragged trousers and shirt and palm-leaf sombrero. He had just taken the wallet from the inner pocket. Everything I had in the world.

‘Not today, compadre,’ I said. ‘Put it on the bed and quickly.’

At first it looked as if he was going to do as he was told. His shoulders sagged. He said brokenly, ‘Señor, my wife, my children. For pity’s sake.’

Which didn’t particularly impress me for any painter specializing in theological subjects would have found him a fair likeness for Judas Iscariot. It worked to a certain degree for when he turned to fling the jacket in my face and ran, he definitely caught me off balance.

When I reached the door, he was almost at the head of the stairs which didn’t give me a great deal of choice as he was still clutching my wallet in his right hand, so I brought him down with a snap shot in the right leg.

He went over the edge of the stairs without a cry and I heard him crash against the ironwork banisters twice. When I reached the head of the stairs he was lying face-down on the next landing. He glanced back over his shoulder, his face twisted with rage and to my complete astonishment, started to slither down the rest of the broad marble stairs leaving a snail’s trail of blood behind him.

Several things happened at about the same time then. Janos came stumping out of the shadows leaning on his black ivory walking stick, a couple of retainers from the kitchen at his back. ‘By God, sir, what’s going on here?’

‘My wallet,’ I said. ‘He stole my wallet.’

The thief slid the rest of the way down to the hall and collapsed at the fat man’s feet. Janos leaned over him and poked around in the shadows. When he straightened his face was grave and baleful.

‘Wallet, sir? I see no wallet here.’

Which was when my heart really started to sink as it suddenly occurred to me that there was just a faint possibility that there was more to this than met the eye.

The police arrived on the run, armed to the teeth as usual, ready to spray everything in sight as they came through the door, although the sergeant in charge was exquisitely polite and listened to my story with the utmost patience.

The wretch on the floor, whom no one seemed to be particularly concerned about, clutched his leg, blood oozing between his fingers and cursed all gringos and their seed to the tenth generation. He was wholly innocent and employed by Señor Janos as a general porter. The sergeant booted him casually in the ribs, left his men to search for the wallet and took me up to my room to get dressed.

‘Do not worry, señor,’ he comforted me. ‘The man is a known thief. Señor Janos gave him honest work out of the largeness of his heart and this is how he serves him. We will find this wallet. Fear not, your name will be cleared.’

But when we returned to the foot of the stairs, and he discovered his men’s lack of success, a fact to which I had already become resigned, his face assumed a more melancholy expression.

‘This is a grave matter, señor, you realize my position? To shoot this man for stealing your wallet is one thing …’

‘But to shoot him, full stop, is quite another.’

‘Exactly, señor, I am afraid you must accompany me to headquarters. The jefe will wish to question you.’

His hand on my arm was no longer gentle and as we moved forward, Janos said passionately, his jowls shaking, ‘By God, sir, I’ll stand by you. Trust in me, Mr Keogh.’

Hardly the most comforting of thoughts on which to be led away.

Above the town the Sierras floated in a blue haze, marching north towards the border. It was all I could see when I hauled myself up by the iron bars on the narrow window and peered out.

I was in what was known as the general reception cell, a room about forty feet square with rough stone walls that looked as if they might very well pre-date Cortez. There were about thirty of us in there which meant it was pretty crowded and the smell seemed compounded of urine, excrement and human sweat in equal proportions.

An hour of this was an hour too much. An indio got up and relieved himself into an over-flowing bucket and I moved out of the way hurriedly, took a packet of Artistas out of my pocket and lit one.

Most of the others were indios with flat, impassive brown faces, simple men from the back country who’d come to town looking for work and now found themselves in prison and probably for no good reason known to man.

They watched me out of interest and curiosity because I was the only European there which was a very strange thing. One of them stood up from the bench on which he sat, removing his straw sombrero and offered me his seat with a grave peasant courtesy that meant I couldn’t possibly refuse.

I sat down, took out the packet of Artistas and offered them around and hesitantly, politely, those closest to me took one and soon we were all smoking, amicably, the lighted cigarettes passing from mouth to mouth.

The bolt rattled in the door which opened to reveal the sergeant. ‘Señor Keogh, please to come this way.’

So we were being polite again? I followed him out and along the whitewashed corridor as the door clanged behind me. We went up the steps into a sweeter, cleaner world and crossed towards the administration block of the police barracks.

I had been here once before about four months previously to obtain a work permit and had been required to pay through the nose for it which meant that the jefe in Bonito was about as honest as the usual run of police chiefs.

The sergeant left me on a bench in a whitewashed corridor under the eye of two very military-looking guards who stood on either side of the jefe’s door clutching Mauser rifles of the type used by the Germans in the war. They ignored me completely, and after a while the door opened and the sergeant beckoned.

The room was sparsely furnished; desk, filing cabinet and not much else, except for a couple of chairs, one of which was occupied by my fat friend from the Hotel Blanco, the other by the jefe.

Janos lurched to his feet, and swayed there, propped up by his ivory stick, sweat shining on his troubled face. ‘A dreadful business, Mr Keogh, but I’m with you, sir, all the way.’

He subsided again. The jefe said, ‘I am Jose Ortiz, Chief of Police in Bonito, Señor Keogh. Let me first apologize for your treatment so far. A regrettable error on the part of my sergeant here who will naturally answer for it.’

The sergeant didn’t seem to be worrying too much about that and the jefe opened a file before him and studied it. He was a small, olive-skinned man in his fifties with a carefully trimmed moustache and most of his teeth had been capped with gold.

He looked up at me gravely. ‘A most puzzling affair, Señor Keogh. You say this man was stealing your wallet?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Then what has he done with it, señor? We have searched the stairs and the foyer of the hotel thoroughly.’

‘Perhaps he had an accomplice,’ I suggested. ‘There were several people milling around there.’

‘By God, he could be right,’ Janos cut in. ‘It could explain the whole thing.’

The jefe nodded. ‘Yes, that is certainly a possibility and on the whole, I am inclined to believe your story, señor, for the man is a known thief.’