The Mobius Man Read online

  He turned and looked at the boats on the Potomac and hunched down into his coat. His nose was already blue. I wondered if he saw something out there on the river. But he gave his head a little shake as if to say it was nothing after all. He looked back at me and gave the pavement an authoritative tap with his umbrella.

  “The man in jail is named Bassett, Harold Bassett. He may be one of theirs. On the other hand—” the tip of the umbrella dug at a crack in the sidewalk— “he may just be Harold Bassett. But we have to know which.”

  There were tears in my eyes from the wind, and I reached up to wipe them away.

  “No gloves? You’ll catch your death.” Kestering cleared his throat. “To now, it’s just a murder. We’ve arranged to have Bassett held separately. But we can’t guarantee more than a few days. LaCour wasn’t completely unknown by our opposites there. It’s only a matter of time before they send a special interrogration team down from Mexico City. National pride and all. Then, when they’re finished, they’ll dump him in the river and we’ll never know.”

  “When do I go?”

  Kestering looked at his watch. “Two hours. That’ll put you in Mexico City at two-thirty, their time, Tabasco by four. Your travel documents, cover, and suitcase will be with a courier at the airport.” He gave another perfunctory glance at his watch. “He’s probably waiting for you right now.”

  “Leah won’t like this,” I said. “She’s threatened to leave.”

  “I could pull you off the job.”

  “No.”

  “Good.” We walked on a few paces, and he frowned as if hunting for the right words to use. “You’re a good agent, David. You’ve seen your dossier.” Indeed I had. Jobs in Argentina, Panama, Mexico … Ten years’ worth, since my discharge from naval intelligence, and Vietnam; fifteen years since my college years at Amherst, and my studies of political science; eight years since my meeting with a voluptuous assistant curator at the National Art Gallery, our courtship, and subsequent marriage. “There’s one trend that shows up. You sometimes get over-involved, over-identify with a subject. It’s a dangerous habit.”

  I nodded, but I was still thinking about the dossier and the blurred memories it had stirred. As if reading my thoughts, he patted my arm with a gloved hand. “And I’m assuming the amnesia has cleared up?”

  “I’m fine now,” I lied.

  “Very good. Because if there were any doubt …” He smiled and gave me his hand. “Good luck, then, David.”

  I left Adrian Kestering standing beside the Potomac and caught the plane. And a few hours later I was away from the cold wind, in a slightly beaten hotel room in Mexico, watching the fan trace circles over my head and smelling the river and the rotting jungle vegetation outside, and remembering Leah’s voice over the phone when I called her from the airport. Well, they would just be leaving work in Washington now. Maybe the two of them would be together at some little restaurant, and he would be asking her to make a decision. He had been patient; he wasn’t such a bastard that he’d ask her to leave a sick man, but I was well now and couldn’t she see I hadn’t changed, leaving her without even having had the decency to explain in person? But, of course, he only existed in my mind, and I was building trouble out of nuances, and that’s a very dangerous thing to do. The blades of the fan went around and around and I let them hypnotize me.

  I must have fallen into a light sleep, because it was cooler when I awoke and called the number Kestering had given me. The man who answered told me to walk down to the little park at the end of the block and he would meet me there in ten minutes.

  Chapter Two

  Everything in the office was a month behind the world, from the calendar provided by a brewery in Orizaba to the map of Mexico, which had come loose from the flaking wall and now curled over on itself. The man contrasted with his surroundings. Except for a knife scar on one cheek, Teniente Obregon might have been a banker instead of a policeman. His moustache was evenly trimmed, his dark hair graying at the temples, and his jaw firm. He took a seat behind the cluttered desk and motioned to a chair. From the window at his back you could look down into the evening life of the plaza below, but somehow the office seemed remote from the world outside. He offered me a cigar, and when I declined, lit it himself.

  “His tourist card,” he said, reaching across the desk to hand me the folded slip of paper.

  Harold L. Bassett. Born, Charleston, South Carolina. August 7, 1942. Port of Entry, Matamoros, on the Texas border. I handed the document back. “He’d been in the country four months,” I said, referring to the date stamped on the card.

  “This time,” Obregon said in English. He leaned back in his chair, arms behind his head. “You know how it is, though. A game. You leave the country every six months and come back the next day. He has been living here for about a year.”

  “Working?”

  “Yes and no. That is, he was an aficionado, an amateur. Apparently he collected butterflies.”

  “Butterflies?”

  “Yes.” Obregon nodded. “He sold them to other collectors. He was well known in his neighborhood. He was called the hombre mariposa, the ‘butterfly man.’”

  For the first time I noted little sweat rings under the arms of the lieutenant’s white guayabera.

  “Mariposa also means homosexual,” I said.

  “Yes, but he lived with a woman.” Obregon shook his head and waved his cigar in the air as if to get on with it. “He was seen to go to LaCour’s house in the morning to bring him some kind of specimen. As far as anyone knows, that is the extent of their dealings. Then servants heard voices from the recamara, the bedroom.”

  “Excuse me. But isn’t it strange that business would be transacted in the bedroom?”

  Obregon shrugged and exhaled a blue cloud of smoke. I wondered if the cigars came from Veracruz or were the better cubanos.

  “Well, we are dealing with strange people. No offense. It seems that this LaCour transacted many businesses from his bedroom. He was a man who collected many things, if you understand me. He liked to work in bed.” The lieutenant smiled good-naturedly. “They said he had a special desk made, a board that could fit across the bed like a tray, so he could work without getting up. As I say, the servants heard voices arguing, but in ingles, so they didn’t know what was being said. They heard a door close and they saw this Bassett go down the sidewalk. No one saw the victim until lunchtime. Then the cook heard the bell ring from his room, so she went in. What she found was too bizarre.” He leaned forward over his desk and touched me on the arm with a well-manicured finger. “The patrón was dead in his bed, and there was a knife, a—how do you say it?—letter opener, right through the body. He had been stabbed.” He sat back again to watch my reaction.

  “And the call bell?”

  He raised his hands. “He must have lain there an hour, dying, and finally made himself grasp the bell pull.”

  “What’s your theory of the crime?”

  Obregon tapped his cigar into the ashtray and smiled. “At first glance, some sort of dispute. A quarrel over—” he laughed—“butterflies? But there is more, or you wouldn’t be here. We have some idea of the kind of services this LaCour performed. But the butterfly man? Well, maybe he will tell you more than he has told us. You understand, there are ways; however, at your people’s request we have done nothing. But soon they’ll be sending someone from Mexico City. Then …” He shrugged.

  “I understand,” I told him, and let him lead me out. We went down a flight of stairs to the first floor and then along a series of corridors until we came to a desk with an iron grille door beside it. A fat policeman behind the desk raised his hand in half-hearted salute.

  “Do you have a gun?” Obregon asked, reaching under his loose shirt to take out a revolver, which he handed to the policeman. I shook my head. “Muy bien.” Obregon nodded, and the heavy door swung open. A cold breath rushed out at us, composed of the stink of bodies, urine, and vomit. My stomach turning, we followed a dark corrid
or whose only light was a dim bulb at the end. As we passed the cells I could hear snores, footsteps pacing, and from one there came the sound of convulsive retching. Faces looked out at us apathetically, and as we came near the end I saw frantic movement in the darkness between two cells, and then I saw the women and I understood. We reached the end of the hall and came to a closed wooden door. Obregon ushered me through and up a narrow stairway. At the top was another hallway, better lit and smelling of disinfectant, with solid doors before the cells and small gratings with sliding windows in each door.

  A tired-looking old man was sitting in a chair, his gray uniform wrinkled and his shirt open halfway to his belt. He got up as we approached and put down his comic book. We reached a door midway down and Obregon slid back the little panel over the peephole. There was a dim bulb in the ceiling of the little room and it threw muddy shadows on the wall. It was a long time before I could make out the man on the mattress, and longer before I could detect the rising and falling of his chest.

  I felt Obregon’s hand on my shoulder and smelled the sweet scent of his cologne. “Muy bien. This section is automatically locked. I will leave you now. When the door opens, you may enter. When you wish to come out, call for Arturo.”

  I watched his shape disappear, and as he passed the man in the chair, the latter dragged himself up and tugged down the lever that opened the cells. I pulled back the door and stepped inside.

  There was a slop bucket in one corner, and the stench hit me like an evil wave. I took a step back and then heard the door close behind me. I was trapped. Suppose there was a mistake? How long could a person endure? I looked over the graffiti-covered walls. Someone had left a 1972 calendar with a picture of green hills and men on horseback, an imitation window into a world that no longer existed outside. I looked down at the sleeping man. Even with his dirty clothes and a face covered by three days’ growth, he seemed happy curled up on the mattress, as if he might be outside in the green fields. It was a shame to awaken him, I thought, but I forced myself to bend down and touch a shoulder.

  His eyes sprang open and he looked out of their corners at my face. There was an instant of terror and then he fumbled for his glasses.

  “Bassett?” I said.

  He nodded dully, then lurched to his feet. His pale-blue eyes lost their glaze, and he grabbed my shoulders.

  “Yes. Yes. You’ve come. Thank God. I knew they’d send somebody.”

  I let him pump my hand until he was tired. “My God. What day is it? I’ve lost track of time.”

  “Wednesday. You’ve been here three days.”

  “Three days. Christ, it seems like a month. I didn’t think anybody knew I was in here.”

  “My name is Dennison,” I said.

  “With the consulate? I mean …” A terrible doubt stabbed at his features. “They didn’t lock you up?”

  “No. I’m here to find out what happened.”

  “Yeah.” He wiped a hand across his mouth. “Well, I’ll tell you what happened. I was at home, getting ready to sit down and eat lunch and a couple of hundred blue-suited bastards broke in the door and hauled me off. For no goddamn reason. Look—” he clutched the fabric of my shirt and I could see the tears of hysteria in the corners of his eyes—“I never touch dope, I don’t smoke marijuana, I don’t bother anybody. I don’t know what they planted in my house, but I swear to God—”

  “It’s about murder,” I said, and watched his face go through the changes. He was good, I thought. Damned good, or else …

  “Murder?” His hands fell down to his sides, then he half raised them, and let them fall down again. “Oh, my God!”

  He cried for a few minutes, then wiped his eyes with his arm, and turned around to face me. “I can’t believe this.”

  “Did you know Paul LaCour?”

  “LaCour? Sure. I saw him the day they—You mean he …?

  “Dead,” I said, and suddenly, more than ever, wanted to be out of here and away from this place.

  “When?”

  “Monday. The day before yesterday.”

  “Yes. I brought him a specimen Monday. But he was fine then. There was nothing wrong at all.”

  “You argued.”

  He gave a little shrug. “LaCour wasn’t a very likable man. He wasn’t a scholar. He was a collector. He just wanted the things to have them, to display. He wanted me to bring him a Morpho theseus. There are only four in private collections. Told me he’d pay any price. When I tried to explain about its habitat, its breeding characteristics … Look, I hate to kill the poor things. I feel bad enough chloroforming them. It’s only because the insect world is so prolific and I have to survive … He was a gross man, LaCour. A real bastard and—” He stopped in shock at what he was saying, and his eyes darted about the cell for an out until they realized there was none and came back to rest on mine. “I know that sounds bad. But I didn’t kill him. You’ve got to believe me.”

  “How long have you been in Mexico?” I asked.

  “A year, give or take a few weeks.”

  “Address here?” I handed him a pencil and paper. “What about in the U.S.?”

  “I don’t have anything in the U.S.,” he said with a trace of bitterness. “Or else I wouldn’t be here.”

  “Do you have a passport?”

  “Passport? No. You don’t need a passport to come to Mexico. Look, what is this? Twenty questions? I just want to get the hell out of here. I’m a United States citizen, and they picked me up and threw me in here without even an explanation. Goddammit, I have rights. You tell them I’m an American citizen and I want out of here.”

  I was beginning to feel very tired. Maybe if I hurried back, made a long-distance call to Leah …

  “Let’s cut the crap,” I said. “Paul LaCour was killed the morning you saw him. You argued with him, though about what I still don’t know. You claim the whole thing was over butterflies. Well, you’d better find a better story than that because if I can’t make better sense out of this, you’ve had it. One day, two days, at the most three, and then a specialist comes down from Mexico City. And you know what that means. When they’re finished, they’ll have all the answers and they won’t have any use for you. You better practice swimming with iron weights.”

  “What are you talking about?” His anger had turned into fear again, and he was trembling as if he had the malarial chills. He tried to talk but, his mouth stuck half open and his eyes bulged. “I—I’m innocent. Why—kill me?”

  A quaking hand grabbed my arm, but I shook it off. “Arturo.” I only wanted out of there now, and away to think. Either he was a very good actor or … But then, of course, he would have to be a very good actor. Arturo opened the door and I left Harold Bassett to his fear.

  I stopped where Arturo sat in his chair, like a withered mummy, and looked down at him. His skin had gone gray from the years of working here and his eyes were the color of stone walls.

  “The bucket,” I said in Spanish. “Can you empty it?”

  He nodded very slowly. I found a twenty-peso bill and his hand came up and took it. Either he would do it or he wouldn’t. I’d know tomorrow. I passed quickly through the demonic tunnel, feeling eyes reaching out for me from the darkness. Midway down a man was urinating through the bars and I had to walk around the pool that was forming in the middle of the floor. I banged on the outer door and heaved a breath of fresh air when it was opened. Dante, I thought, had missed a good bet.

  I stood for a long time beside the river, trying to rid myself of the contamination of the prison. I looked down into the black waters. The river started in the highlands, five thousand feet up, where the air was cleaner. Up there it was clear, and Indians who were little bothered by civilization floated their canoes on it. But by the time it had wound its way to the Gulf, it was muddy and wild, and its waters were mixed with the oil of the boats that now lay tethered in the current. Four hundred years ago the Spanish had blasted the falls upriver to bridge the gap between civilization and the p
rimeval world. It hadn’t worked, of course, except to bring down a greater torrent of water from the hills, and somewhere, up near the clouds, some Indians had seen the water level go down a foot or so and wondered what the gods had wrought.

  The stars were the same as they had been then, I thought, give or take a little for precession. I looked up and wondered if he were imagining them in there. I thought of my own captivity in the apartment in Washington and how sometimes I had gone down to the street with Leah, just to feel the night air. But there was too much light in the city to see the stars, and we had to drive all the way down to the Potomac. Suddenly, on the bank of another river, thousands of miles away, I realized how important the stars were.

  There was nothing to do but do it. I took out the piece of paper he had scribbled on and walked over to a taxi.

  Chapter Three

  The house was in a distant section of town, neither the best nor the poorest. I had glimpsed open doors as we passed, letting in the occasional sighs of fresh air from the river. Families sat in chairs on the sidewalk in front of the doorways, watching children play in the streets. It was in the middle of one of these blocks, a stone wall with a green wooden gate that closed it off from the street. The red tiled roof was a dull blood in the moonlight. Someone had chalked the house number under the little grille in the gate. I pushed the buzzer and waited.

  The grille opened, and I saw the face of a woman with oriental almond eyes. “My name is Dennison,” I said. “Is this where Harold Bassett lives?”

  She looked at me for a long time, and then nodded.

  “I want to help him,” I lied. “May I come in and talk to you?”

  There was another interval and her head gave a slight nod. The door opened and I stepped inside. The woman was not beautiful. At least, I did not think so then. She must have been very young, though her face had an ageless quality, and her black hair seemed to blend into the shadows of the garden. Her lips were slightly parted and under her eyes there was the faint blue sheen of capillaries near the surface. A small gold cross on a chain hung around her neck.