Chapter 12 The Long Goodbye

A month went by in which I learned nothing new. Then I came into the office one day and found a stranger waiting for me. A tall, well-dressed Mexican. He sat by the open window smoking a brown cigarette that smelled strong. He was wearing his black hair longer than we do north of the border. He was also wearing green sunglasses. He stood up politely.

'Senor Marlowe?'

'What can I do for you?'

He handed me a folded piece of paper and told me in Spanish that it was an introduction from Senor Starr of Las Vegas.

'Let's speak English,' I said, 'if you speak English.'

'Of course I do,' he said. He didn't have much of an accent, but he spoke in the American Spanish way, stressing every second or third word in his sentences.

I unfolded the paper and read 'This introduces a friend of mine, Cisco Maioranos. I think he can help you. S.'

'Let's go into my office, Senor Maioranos,' I said, and held the inner door open for him. I smelled perfume as he went past me. He had a thin, neat moustache. He looked delicate and harmless. Except he probably wasn't as delicate as he looked, because he had knife scars on both cheeks.

'You wish to know about Senor Lennox,' he said as he sat down. 'I was working at the hotel in Otatoclan.'

'You don't look the type.'

'Sometimes life is difficult,' he said.

'Who mailed the letter to me?'

'I mailed it,' he said. He took out a cigarette case and offered it to me as he lit another cigarette for himself.

'I don't like Cuban cigarettes, thank you. You mailed the letter?'

'That's correct. The boy was afraid to go up to the room because there was a policeman outside the door. A cop, as you say. So I went up and he gave me the letter.'

'There was a lot of money in that letter, Senor Maioranos. You should have looked inside.'

'The letter was not open,' he said coldly. 'I am an honest man.'

'I apologize. Continue please.'

'I went into his room with the coffee. He was holding a gun. The letter was on the table. He told me to take it and go. He gave me some money. Naturally, I gave it to the boy later.'

'I was on my way down the stairs when I heard the shot. I hid the letter and came right back. The police were in the room. Senor Lennox was dead.'

I asked him if the hotel had been full.

He thought for a moment. He lit another Cuban cigarette.

'No,' he said, 'it was not full. Perhaps six or seven guests.'

'Americans?' I asked.

'Yes, two American hunters. One of them spoke border Spanish, I think.'

'Did they go near Lennox's room at all?'

'Why should they?' It wasn't an answer but I couldn't see his eyes because of the sunglasses, so I didn't know why he hadn't answered.

'Well,' I said, standing up, 'it was nice of you to come here. You can thank Randy for me. And you can tell him, too, that next time he can send somebody that knows what he's talking about.'

He stared at me hard. I looked at those knife scars again. He had not always been a polite man in a hotel. He did not like being doubted.

'Let's try this,' I said. 'The two Americans were two men named Menendez and Starr. They did go into Lennox's room. Lennox knew they were there. He knew why. He wrote me that letter because he felt guilty. He had tricked me and a man like Lennox doesn't like tricking his friends. By the way, did you put the letter in the mailbox?'

Maioranos frowned. 'Mailbox? Otatoclan is not Mexico City, Senor. There is no mailbox.'

'No, there isn't. And there was no coffee. You did not bring Lennox anything. You did not go into his room. The Americans did. One of them took a gun and shot Lennox. He shot him very carefully, so that the bullet did not go into Lennox. It gave him a nasty wound but it did not kill him. The idea was to fool the lawyer that would come down. So when he came, Lennox was drugged and packed in ice and the lawyer saw him in a dark room. The fingerprints were real enough but Lennox wasn't dead. The Americans paid the Mexican policeman, of course. They must have paid a few people. Isn't all this possible?'

Maioranos seemed to be thinking it over.

'Possible, yes. Policemen everywhere have to eat. Otatoclan is far away from the cities and no one asks too many questions there. It is all possible except for one thing, Senor.'

'What's that?'

'If it is true, then I am a liar. Then I did not go in and give him his coffee and take his letter.'

'You were already in there, pal - writing the letter.'

The tall Mexican took off his sunglasses. Nothing can change the colour of a man's eyes.

'I suppose it's a bit too early for a gin and lime,' he said.

They had done a wonderful job on him in Mexico. Why not? Their doctors, painters, architects, are as good as ours, sometimes better. They had changed his nose. They couldn't take the scar off, so they gave him another, on the other cheek. Knife scars are not uncommon south of the border.

'How close did I come?' I asked.

'Close enough. A few details wrong, but they are not important. We had to work very quickly. I was supposed to be followed to Otatoclan of course. Mendy didn't want me to write you, but I insisted.'

'You knew who killed Sylvia?'

He didn't give me a straight answer. 'It's tough to let a woman be arrested for murder — even if you never really loved her.'

'It's a tough world,' I said. 'Was Potter in this with you?'

He smiled. 'I don't think so. I'm not sure, but I think he believes I'm dead. Who would tell him otherwise — unless you did?'

'Don't worry. We don't have tea together any more. Have you heard that the police have Mendy?'

He smiled again. 'They had him. He's in Mexico now. He's not as bad as you think. He has a heart.'

'So does a snake.'

'How about that gin and lime?'

I got up without answering him and went to my safe. I opened it and took out the five-thousand-dollar bill. I put it on the desk in front of him. 'I enjoyed playing with it. But it's yours now.'

He looked at it but he didn't touch it.

'I've got plenty of money,' he said. 'You could have left things alone.'

'I know. After she had killed her husband she might have done more wonderful things. He was nothing special, anyway. Just a man. He knew what happened, too, and he tried hard to live with it. He wrote books. You may have heard of him.'

'I didn't want anyone to get hurt. I was frightened and I ran. If I'd stayed, I wouldn't have had a chance. What should I have done?'

'I don't know.'

'She was crazy. She might have killed him anyway.'

I agreed that she might. He smiled, thinking that fixed things between us. 'So let's go have a drink. Let's go to Victor's.'

'No time right now, Senor Maioranos.'

'We were good friends once, weren't we?' he asked unhappily.

'Were we? I forget. It seems to me it was two other guys who were friends,' I said quietly. 'Take back your money. It has too much blood on it.'

'You need the money.'

'How would you know?'

He picked the bill up and put it in his pocket. He bit his lower lip with the very white teeth you can have when you have brown skin.

'You remember I gave you a chance to call the police, to have me stopped, don't you?' he said suddenly.

'I'm not sore at you,' I said. 'You're just that kind of guy. For a long time I tried to understand you. You had good qualities but there was something wrong. You made your own rules. You were a nice guy but that was just luck, I think. You liked your gangsters as much as you liked honest men. Maybe the war did it to you but maybe you were born that way.'

'Don't you understand?' he said sadly. 'I couldn't have told you more than I did. You wouldn't have stood for it.'

'That's as nice a thing as was ever said to me.'

'You call them gangsters. I was in trouble, and they know about trouble. They owed me for the one right thing I did in my life. When I needed them, they were there. And for free. You're not the only one in the world who can't be bought, Marlowe.'

He took one of my cigarettes and had a little trouble lighting it.

'I can be bought, Terry. You bought a lot of me. For a smile and a nod and a few drinks in quiet bars here and there. It was nice while it lasted. So long, pal. I won't say goodbye. I said it to you when it meant something, when it was sad and lonely and final.'

'I came back too late,' he said. 'The doctors took a long time on my face.'

'You wouldn't have come at all if I hadn't been asking some difficult questions.'

I saw tears in his eyes. He put his green glasses back on quickly. 'They didn't want me to tell you anything.'

'I'm not judging you, Terry. I never did. You're a nice guy in many ways. It's just that you're not here any more. You've been gone for a long time. You've got nice clothes and you smell nice and you have a pretty litte moustache.'

'That's just an act,' he said almost desperately.

'But you like it.'

'An act is all there is. There isn't anything eke. I'm hollow inside. I've had it, Marlowe. I had it long ago. Well — I guess that's all we have to say.'

He put his hand out. I shook it. 'So long, Senor Maioranos.'

He said, 'Goodbye,' and walked out. I watched the door close. I listened to his footsteps. Did I want him to stop, to come back, to make me change the way I felt? Well, he didn't. That was the last time I saw him.

I never saw any of them again — except the cops. No way has yet been invented to say goodbye to them.