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tight against the sun. Major Martinez arrived at the hotel and insisted on
seeing me personally to assure himself I was still there.
Darkness fell at last. I waited until the inn was totally silent, then
leaving a note for Isa telling her not to worry, and asking her if there was
any chance she could cajole Jean Pierre into using his banking connections to
find out about Gomez Arias s financial status, I climbed out the bathroom
window one last time.
It was considerably more difficult in a skirt and carrying a large tote bag,
but eventually I managed it. I waited until a couple of revelers went by, then
climbed the wall and ran as fast as I could for the Paseo de Montejo, where I
pulled on the mask and mantilla and tried to blend into the partying crowd.
While I had been fairly systematic pulling together my costume, I really
hadn t thought through a plan in any realistic way. I knew I had to rid myself
of this knife before I lost my sanity, so I followed the crowds on thepaseo
until we were near the museum, then moved quickly through the side streets and
then once again into the garden.
When I was sure no one was looking, I went back into themuseo, filled with
real dread. I went down to the basement as quickly as I could, into the
fragments room, into Maria Benitez s desk, and then her computer, to find the
drawer I needed. Soon the knife wiped clean, I hoped, of my fingerprints was
back in the drawer.
Like some modern-day Lady MacBeth, I felt as if my hands were covered in
blood. As indeed they were. In my fervent cleaning of the blade, I had cut one
hand quite badly. This was not a good start.
I looked for a public washroom, and found one several long blocks away in the
bus station. I washed my hand, telling the attendant that I was suffering from
too much Carnaval, a lie she found amusing. She was kind enough to find me
some iodine and a length of gauze, and soon I was on my way again.
As I passed the ticket window I thought of the ticket stub I had found among
Don Heman s belongings, and I watched as people picked up their tickets. They
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seemed to match the stub in appearance.
I went to the board that listed departures, looking for somewhere that ended
inolid, and found one that seemed to fit the bill. There was a bus leaving
almost hourly, every two hours during the night, for Valladolid, some one
hundred miles to the east of Merida. I bought a ticket, then melded back into
the Carnaval crowds while I waited for the appointed hour of two a.m.
I had very little cash left, only traveler s checks, but I found an all-night
exchange that demanded an exorbitant surcharge, but was not picky about things
like identification, a good thing since Major Martinez still had my passport.
When the hour came, I waited until the last possible minute, then boarded the
bus. No one seemed to think a tall woman dressed all in black with mantilla
and mask out of place here. Perhaps they assumed I had gone to Merida for the
evening to enjoy Carnaval and was now returning home.
I moved to an empty seat at the back of the bus and hoped the driver would be
turning the lights out as soon as we departed. He did, and I hunkered down in
the darkness.
I was very tired and soon drifted off. The bus stopped once at Piste, but
soon enough it arrived in Valladolid. Valladolid is much smaller than Merida,
and not quite the Carnaval town that Merida is, so I quickly removed my mask
and mantilla, and hiked the skirt up as best I could.
I didn t think I could check in at a decent hotel, with so little luggage and
not wanting to use credit cards with my name on them, so just as dawn was
breaking, I found a fleabag hotel not far from the bus station where once
again they were not too picky about things like proper identification. I paid
cash for a two-night stay.
It was a walk-up, a dingy little place. There was only a sink in the room,
the bathroom was down the hall, and the bed creaked horribly. I was afraid to
take my clothes off, so pulled back the bedspread, a very nasty green color,
checked carefully for bugs, and lay fully clothed on top of the sheets. Not
since my student days, and maybe not even then, had I stayed in such a place.
I had only a hazy notion of why I had come here, perhaps because Don Hernan [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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