“There goes Mr. Big-Talk!” yelled Mr. Melton at the departing gentleman. He turned and looked at Susan. “Hey. Someone’s crying. Breakfast’s no time for people to cry, now is it?”
At nine fifteen, Susan stood on the balcony of their room, gazing down at the plaza. Mr. Simms was seated there, his neat legs crossed, on a delicate bronze bench. Biting the tip from a cigar, he lighted it tenderly.
Susan heard the throb of a motor, and far up the street, out of a garage and down the cobbled hill, slowly, came William in his car.
The car picked up speed. Thirty, now forty, now fifty miles an hour. Chickens scattered before it.
Mr. Simms took off his white Panama hat and mopped his pink forehead, put his hat back on, and then saw the car.
It was rushing sixty miles an hour, straight on for the plaza.
“William!” screamed Susan.
The car hit the low plaza curb, thundering, jumped up, sped across the tiles toward the green bench where Mr. Simms now dropped his cigar, shrieked, flailed his hands, and was hit by the car. His body flew up and up in the air, and down, crazily, into the street.
On the far side of the plaza, one front wheel broken, the car stopped. People were running.
Susan went in and closed the balcony doors.
THEY CAME DOWN the Official Palace steps together, arm in arm, their faces pale, at twelve noon.
“Adios, señor,” said the mayor behind them. “Señora.”
They stood in the plaza where the crowd was pointing at the blood.
“Will they want to see you again?” asked Susan.
“No, we went over and over it. It was an accident. I lost control of the car. I wept for them. God knows I had to get my relief out somewhere. I felt like weeping. I hated to kill him. I’ve never wanted to do anything like that in my life.”
“They won’t prosecute you?”
“They talked about it, but no. I talked faster. They believe me. It was an accident. It’s over.”
“Where will we go? Mexico City?”
“The car’s in the repair shop. It’ll be ready at four this afternoon. Then we’ll get the hell out.”
“Will we be followed? Was Simms working alone?”
“I don’t know. We’ll have a little head start on them, I think.”
The film people were coming out of the hotel as they approached. Mr. Melton hurried up, scowling. “Hey, I heard what happened. Too bad. Everything okay now? Want to get your minds off it? We’re doing some preliminary shots up the street. You want to watch, you’re welcome. Come on, do you good.”
They went.
They stood on the cobbled street while the film camera was being set up. Susan looked at the road leading down and away, at the highway going to Acapulco and the sea, past pyramids and ruins and little adobe towns with yellow walls, blue walls, purple walls and flaming bougainvillea. She thought: We shall take the roads, travel in clusters and crowds, in markets, in lobbies, bribe police to sleep near, keep double locks, but always the crowds, never alone again, always afraid the next person who passes might be another Simms.
Never knowing if we’ve tricked and lost the Searchers. And always up ahead, in the Future, they’ll wait for us to be brought back, waiting with their bombs to burn us and disease to rot us, and their police to tell us to roll over, turn around, jump through the hoop. And so we’ll keep running through the forest, and we’ll never ever stop or sleep well again in our lives.
A crowd gathered to watch the film being made. And Susan watched the crowd and the streets.
“Seen anyone suspicious?”
“No. What time is it?”
“Three o’clock. The car should be almost ready.”
The test film was finished at three forty-five. They all walked down to the hotel, talking. William paused at the garage. “The car’ll be ready at six,” he said, coming out.
“But no later than that?”
“It’ll be ready, don’t worry.”
In the hotel lobby they looked around for other men traveling alone, men who resembled Mr. Simms, men with new haircuts and too much cigarette smoke and cologne smell about them, but the lobby was empty.
Going up the stairs, Mr. Melton said, “Well, it’s been a long, hard day. Who’d like to put a header on it. Martini? Beer?”
“Maybe one.”
The whole crowd pushed into Mr. Melton’s room and the drinking began.
“Watch the time,” said William.
Time, thought Susan, if only they had time. All she wanted was to sit in the plaza all alone, bright day in spring, with not a worry or a thought, with the sun on her face and arms, her eyes closed, smiling at the warmth—and never move, but just sleep in the Mexican sun…
Mr. Melton opened the champagne.
“To a very beautiful lady, lovely enough for films,” he said, toasting Susan. “I might even give you a test.”
She laughed.
“I mean it,” said Melton. “You’re very nice. I could make you a movie star.”
“And take me to Hollywood?”
“Get the hell out of Mexico, sure!”
Susan glanced at William, and he lifted an eyebrow and nodded. It would be a change of scene, clothing, locale, name perhaps, and they would be traveling with eight other people, a good shield against any interference from the future.
“It sounds wonderful,” said Susan.
She was feeling the champagne now, the afternoon was slipping by, the party was whirling about her, she felt safe and good and alive and truly happy for the first time in many years.
“What kind of film would my wife be good for?” asked William, refilling his glass.
Melton appraised Susan. The party stopped laughing and listened.
“Well, I’d like to do a story of suspense,” said Melton. “A story of a man and wife, like yourselves.”
“Go on.”
“Sort of a war story, maybe,” said the director, examining the color of his drink against the sunlight.
Susan and William waited.
“A story about a man and wife who live in a little house on a little street in the year 2155, maybe,” said Melton. “This is ad lib, understand. But this man and wife are faced with a terrible war. Super-Plus Hydrogen bombs, censorship, death, in that year and—here’s the gimmick—they escape into the past, followed by a man who they think is evil, but who is only trying to show them what their Duty is.”
William dropped his glass to the floor.
Mr. Melton continued. “And this couple take refuge with a group of film people whom they learn to trust. Safety in numbers, they say to themselves.”
Susan felt herself slip down into a chair. Everyone was watching the director. He took a little sip of wine. “Ah, that’s a fine wine. Well, this man and woman, it seems, don’t realize how important they are to the future. The man, especially, is the keystone to a new bomb metal.
So the Searchers, let’s call them, spare no trouble or expense to find, capture and take home the man and wife, once they get them totally alone, in a hotel room, where no one can see. Strategy. The Searchers work alone, or in groups of eight. One trick or another will do it. Don’t you think it would make a wonderful film, Susan? Don’t you, Bill?” He finished his drink.
Susan sat with her eyes straight ahead.
“Have a drink?” said Mr. Melton.
William’s gun was out and fired, three times, and one of the men fell, and the others ran forward. Susan screamed. A hand was clamped to her mouth. Now the gun was on the floor and William was struggling with the men holding him.
Mr. Melton said, “Please,” standing there where he had stood, blood showing on his fingers. “Let’s not make matters worse.”
Someone pounded on the hall door.
“Let me in!”
“The manager,” said Mr. Melton, dryly. He jerked his head. “Everyone, let’s move!”
“Let me in. I’ll call the police!”
Susan and William looked at each other quickly, and then at the door.
“The manager wishes to come in,” said Mr. Melton. “Quick!”
A camera was carried forward. From it shot a blue light which encompassed the room instantly. It widened out and the people of the party vanished, one by one.
“Quickly!”
Outside the window in the instant before she vanished, Susan saw the green land and the purple and yellow and blue and crimson walls and the cobbles flowing like a river, a man upon a burro riding into the warm hills, a boy drinking orange pop. She could feel the sweet liquid in her throat; she could see a man standing under a cool plaza tree with a guitar, could feel her hand upon the strings. And, far away, she could see the sea, the blue and tender sea; she could feel it roll her over and take her in.
And then she was gone. Her husband was gone.
The door burst wide. The manager and his staff rushed in.
The room was empty.
“But they were just here! I saw them come in, and now— gone!” cried the manager. “The windows are covered with iron grating; they couldn’t get out that way!”
In the late afternoon, the priest was summoned and they opened the room again and aired it out, and had him sprinkle holy water through each corner and give it his cleansing.
“What shall we do with these?” asked the charwoman.
She pointed to the closet, where there were sixty-seven bottles of chartreuse, cognac, crème de cacao, absinthe, vermouth, tequila, 106 cartons of Turkish cigarettes, and 198 yellow boxes of fifty-cent pure Havana-filler cigars …
The End
