The Rodriguez Affair (1970) by James Pattinson

does?” Cade said. “But don’t worry. I’m clean. You can frisk me if you like.” He had left the Colt in his bag at the hotel. He had thought of bringing it and had decided not to. Perhaps it was as well in the circumstances.
    The girl gave him a long, cool stare. She had just the right amount of sun-tan for a blonde and she was not the kind who came out in freckles. With that face and that figure she certainly had all the makings of a stripper; it was easy to see how the rumours had got started in San Borja.
    “Maybe you’d enjoy that,” she said.
    “Maybe I would,” Cade said.
    But she did not give him the pleasure. “I’ll take your word, Mr. Cade. Come along. It’s this way.”
    They went down a corridor, carpeted, their feet falling silently as if on turf. From somewhere came a smell of cooking, but there was a stillness about the house, an impression of life having stopped; it was like a retreat where you waited to die. Delia Lindsay did not really fit in; you could not imagine her waiting to die.
    They came to a door and she paused with her hand resting on the knob, “Be careful what you say to him.”
    “I’ll be careful,” Cade promised.
    She opened the door. “Go in then.”
    Cade walked in. He had expected Della to follow, but instead he heard the sound of the door closing and when he turned he saw that she had gone away and left him to it.
    It was an unusual kind of room to say the least. It was much longer than it was wide and at the far end it opened off to the right, apparently L-shaped. It was stiflingly hot and close and completely devoid of any furnishing. There were no windows, but a subdued greenish illumination came in through skylights in the lofty roof, rather like the light in deep jungle. The floor was of concrete, quite bare, and down the centre ran awide, shallow pit. The sides of the pit were concave with an overhanging lip, like a cliff undermined by the sea. In the pit were rocks and boulders, pools of stagnant water, logs of wood and a number of plants and bushes growing in patches of soil.
    There were other things in the pit too; Cade saw them when he went to the edge and looked down. Some were gliding sinuously on mysterious errands known only to themselves, others were motionless, coiled and sleeping, their skins gleaming like metal. Snakes.
    He could understand then why Della had not come in with him. She was probably not a lover of snakes. He was not sure that he was himself.
    He was still looking down into the pit when he heard a sound like the whine of an electric motor. He turned and saw a man approaching in a wheeled chair which must have come from the other part of the room beyond the angle. It stopped about six feet from Cade and the man stared at him. He was wearing a loose linen suit, and he was very thin and his hair was white. His face looked fallen-in all over; even his temples had a hollowed-out appearance; it was as though there were a vacuum inside that was sucking down all the surface areas and revealing the bony structure like the peaks and ridges of a mountain range. His hands also were thin and bony, and the veins stood out like blue cords. In the left hand he was holding a small automatic pistol. It looked to Cade like a .25 calibre. It was pointed at him.
    “Señor Cade, I believe,” the man said. His voice too was thin, like a whisper; it seemed as drained, as bloodless as the man himself.
    “Yes‚” Cade said. “You don’t need the gun, Señor Gomara.”
    “I am a cautious man‚” Gomara said. “But no doubt you have already heard that. There may not be many more years of life remaining to me but I should not wish to have them shortened.”
    “Is that probable?”
    “Probable? Who knows?” He lowered the pistol and let it lie in his lap. “Delia tells me that you have a great desire to see me.”
    “Yes,” Cade said.
    Gomara had changed. He had grown older; older by more than the mere extent of the years that had passed. He looked