Dress Her In Indigo by John D. MacDonald

Author:John D. MacDonald [John D. MacDonald]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Crime
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

The knowledge of the huge black beard on Jerome Nesta simplified the search.

"El americano con una barba negra y grande. Un escultor. "

Ah, yes. I have seen him. Yes, he goes often to the ruins. Also to the Museo de Arte Zapoteca, near the plaza and central market. No, I do not know where he lives.

We found an American student at the small museum. He was an archeology major from the University of New Mexico, an exchange student working on the continuing excavation and restoration program at the Mitla ruins. His name was Burt Koontz, and he was out in the rear courtyard, carefully washing and brushing the fragile shards of an old broken vase. He was burned to the rough red shade of roof tiles. He wore a white T-shirt, khaki shorts, and G.I. boots.

"I know Jerry. I mean as much as I guess you can get to know him. They let him come in and make sketches. He's been sketching some of the old stone heads. I haven't seen him around the last few days though. Maybe even a week. I couldn't say for sure."

He told us, as he worked, that he had been curious about Nesta. He was big and he moved carefully, as if he were convalescing from a serious illness. A Mexican girl always came with him. Young, but not pretty. One of those broad, stocky ones with the same kind of Indio face you see in the old carvings. She would sit with infinite patience under one of the trees and wait for him, then get up when he came out, and follow him, a few steps behind, usually carrying one of those baskets they take to the market.

He had the impression that Nesta was living over toward the south side of town, up one of those steep dirt streets to the left of the main road as you come in.

So Meyer and I trudged up and down a lot of steep little streets, and met with varying degrees of suspicion, indifference, and secret amusement. But with the help of pesos and persistence, we finally found the place, on Calle Alivera, halfway up the hill. There was a pink house that seemed to be crumbling away. There was a walled courtyard with a broken gate. In the courtyard were mounds of litter, a couple of dozen small noisy children, and some women squatting around a pump, several of them nursing the future members of the gang.

We had a twelve-year-old businessman who led us across to a room in a far corner with a door that opened onto the roofed gallery that extended along the side of the courtyard. It was a dark little room. There was a cement and plaster fireplace-stove built into one corner. There was a raised platform along the opposite wall, where pallets could be placed for sleeping. The little room was entirely empty. I could not get it through the boy's head that I wanted him to speak slowly and clearly.

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