Angels in Heaven

or at least pretending to be, while Doris was at
her desk repainting her nails, which I figured was probably just her way of
keeping herself from nibbling them down to the quick.
    By one o’clock I was so restless I
took myself out for a walk around the block. I returned by the back way to
check, first of all, that the key Fred had given me for the rear door
downstairs worked—it did—and second to check that the stairwell was open all
the way up to our floor—it was. It had belatedly occurred to me that perhaps
Ethel stored her millions of unwanted posters out there or that Fred had rented
the entire staircase between floors one and three to a tribe of gypsies plus a
llama or two, which carried the loads that were too heavy for even the women.
While on my stroll, I noticed a Yucatán gray pigeon engrossed in its courtship
ritual with a rather scraggly-looking female of the species. I also noticed
that our Chevy was still parked where Benny had left it that morning—in the
nearest legal parking place to the downstairs door—and also that it still had
all its wheels as well as all our baggage, which we’d stowed in the trunk after
checking out of the hotel.
    At two o’clock me and the troops ran
over the plan of action one more time, just for something to do. At
two-fifteen, just for something else to do, I began climbing the walls. At
two-thirty, I said a dirty word loudly.
    “Now what have we forgotten?” said
Benny.
    “Now what has el supremo bizarro forgotten, is more like it,” Doris said.
    “I forgot to have someone posted
downstairs like I was posted last time for the same reasons,” I said. “Which
one of you is the more distracting today, I wonder.”
    “Her,” Benny said immediately.
    “Yeah,” said Doris, “especially in
this sleaze you made me buy yesterday.”
    “Now, Doris,” I said. “You have the
perfect figure for a four-inch miniskirt and you know it. With that, ol’
smoothie’ll probably kiss your hand all the way up to your opposite shoulder.
And with any luck, it’ll give the guard something to pop his eyeballs at and
keep his mind well off his work, which is just where we want it.”
    “So what am I supposed to do down
there while I’m waitin’?” she wanted to know. “Practice my nonexistent Spanish
on Freddy?”
    “Why don’t you lurk in the ladies’
room next to the elevator,” I said. “That’s what I would do—only in my case, of
course, I would select the men’s room. Then pop out and herd ’em all up here
pronto before they get into trouble. Simple.”
    “Sure, sure,” she said. “And what if
they’re late? Won’t Fred start gettin’ suspicious if he sees me go in and not
come out for twenty minutes?”
    “Must you always look on the difficult
side of everything, Doris?” I said wearily. “It seems obvious to me that he’d
find it a lot more suspicious if he saw a tourist who went by a bathroom and
didn’t go in for twenty minutes.”
    “You oughta know,” she said. “But OK,
you’re the boss, although who elected you, I’ll never know.”
    “Benny, got all your stuff ready?”
    “Yes, Vic.”
    “Have I asked you that before,
Benny?”
    “Yes, Vic.”
    “I thought I might’ve,” I said.
    At ten to three I said to the kid:
“Time to get moving, sugarplum. Break a leg—beat it, to you.” She beat it.
    At three-ten I said, “Maybe they’re
not coming.”
    “They’re coming,” Benny said.
    At three-fifteen I said, “I told you
they’re not coming.”
    “They’re coming,” he said.
    At three-twenty they came, or at
least we heard someone heading our way down the corridor. Benny folded up and
pocketed his weeny chess set just before I told him to.
    It was them all right, and without
any extras. Doris entered first, followed by the lieutenant, who had gallantly
held the door open for her, then Gray Wolf in a clean but unpressed white suit
far too big for him. He was limping slightly, perhaps from having proper shoes
on for the first time in a long time. Billy was followed by a large, uniformed,
unsmiling, armed sergeant of the guard, who closed the door behind him and
immediately came to attention in front of it.
    I went into Doris’s office to greet
them; Benny remained at his desk frowning down at some paperwork.
    “Lieutenant!” I exclaimed. “¡Que
gusto!”
    He saluted me con brio with panache,
and we shook hands warmly.
    “And Sr. Brown,” I said. “So glad you
could make it.”
    “I managed to find the