Free Please Write for Details by John D. MacDonald Page B

sent me up to meet this plane. I am the head instructor for the session this summer. A Mrs. Kilmer is supposed to be on the same flight. Did you meet her?”
    “No, I didn’t.”
    As three more people emerged from the customs room, Torrigan said, “Mrs. Kilmer, Mrs. Kilmer.”
    John Kemp felt his heart give a little joyous leap as the tall ash-blonde with the black brows and the dark-blue eyes turned and came toward them. It was the girl he had watched at the counter in New Orleans. He moved quickly forward to help her with her two heavy suitcases, one step ahead of the porters who suddenly appeared.
    John Kemp felt that Torrigan held onto the girl’s hand too long as he made the same speech he had made to John, and he sensed that the girl was not pleased by it. He was glad to know she would be one of the group. He had had numerous misgivings about what he might be getting into. For a time he had been tempted to give it up, write off the five hundred as a bad and impulsive gesture. Torrigan had made a bad impression on him. The rest of the group might be impossible. But at least there was one other student to whom he would be able to talk. But he guessed from her manner that it would be unwise to try to move too quickly.
    They all got into a red VW bus that, in spite of a fresh coat of paint, looked as though it had seen better times. The driver was a cretinous-looking young man who, when introduced as Fidelio, responded with a remote and surly nod. Torrigan sat in front beside the driver. John Kemp sat behind the driver, with Barbara Kilmer beside him.
    When Fidelio started the motor, Torrigan reached over and turned the key off. Fidelio gave him an enraged look which Torrigan ignored. He turned in the seat and said, “Friends, we have a small problem. This so-called driver is a madman. He very nearly finished both of us off on the way down the mountains into Mexico City. He has no English and I have no Spanish.”
    “I have a little Spanish,” John Kemp said.
    “Good. The trip back takes an hour and a half. There is another student arriving by air today.” He took a piece of paper out of the pocket of his corduroy shirt. “Name is Monica Killdeering from, honest to God, Kilo, Kansas. But she gets in at six-twenty this evening. So I can leave it up to you people as to whether we go on back right now or kill time in Mexico City and meet her plane. I will tell you one very certain thing. If I get back across the mountains alive with this party, I am not going to be the one who comes back after Miss Monica.”
    “Can’t you drive us back?” John asked.
    “I can’t do anything with this Fidelio. He wants to drive. It’s obsessional with him.”
    “If we wait, we’ll be going over the mountains at night?”
    “Yes.”
    “Then by all means let’s go now. Do you agree, Mrs. Kilmer?”
    “It really doesn’t matter to me,” she said in a subdued voice.
    “Ya vámonos a Cuernavaca, por favor, Fidelio,”
John said,
“Y, por favor, despacio en las montañas.”
    “Sí, señor,”
Fidelio said with a quick glance over his shoulder.
    “That certainly sounded fluent, John,” Torrigan said.
    “It isn’t fluent, Mr. Torrigan. It isn’t even grammatical. But it’s serviceable. I’m an architect. I’ve worked in Peru and Cuba. I’ve picked up a little.”
    There was little opportunity for conversation as Fidelio fought the Mexico City traffic. They were too busy helping him watch the other cars. But once they were through the toll gate and grinding up the mountain with a slowness that obviously depressed Fidelio, Torrigan turned around again and hooked a big hairy arm over the back of the seat and said, “I’d like to give you nice people a briefing on the situation you’ll find at the Hutchinson. We’ll have thirteen students. The first two arrived yesterday, and there are probably more there by now. This Miles Drummond is a nice enough little fellow, but this is his first venture in this sort of thing.