The Listening Walls Read Online Free PDF Page B

the telephone exchange, as well as cases of sudden death.
    It was comforting having someone to blame, and Es­camillo was beginning to feel better when another point suddenly occurred to him. “What of the suite, 404? It is empty and yet it is not empty. I must charge for it or lose money. But I cannot charge if there is no one in it. And I cannot put anyone in it while the señoras’ belongings are still there. What must I do?”
    â€œYou must learn not to think so much of money,” Mer­cado said firmly and picked up the silver box and nodded to his colleague, Santana. “Come along. We will examine 404 once more and then lock it until the little señora re­covers.”
    The balcony doors had been left open but the suite still reeked of whiskey, from the carpet where it had spilled and from the bottle itself which Consuela had left uncorked on the bureau.
    â€œIt would be a shame,” Mercado said, reaching for the bottle, “to let this product stand here and evaporate.”
    â€œBut it is evidence.”
    â€œEvidence of what?”
    â€œThat the señora was drunk.”
    â€œWe already know from the bartender that she was drunk. We must not accumulate too much evidence. It would only confuse matters. The case is, after all, quite simple. The señora was drinking much tequila and be­came depressed. Tequila is not for amateurs.”
    â€œWhy did she become depressed?”
    â€œUnrequited love,” Mercado said without hesitation. “Americans make much of these things. It is in all their cinemas. Have a nip.”
    â€œThank you, friend.”
    â€œOne thing we can be sure of. It was not an accident. I thought at first, the señora, after drinking heavily, may have rushed out to the balcony to get some air, perhaps also to relieve her stomach. But this is not possible.”
    â€œHow is this not possible?”
    â€œShe would never, in such an emergency, stop to pick up the, silver box.” Mercado sighed. “No. She killed her­self, poor lady. It is a sad thing to think of her wandering around in hell, is it not?”
    Dawn was breaking through a gray drizzle.
    â€œIt rains,” Santana said.
    â€œGood. It will wash off the sidewalk and drive the peo­ple home.”
    â€œThere are no more people. It is all over.”
    â€œAmen,” Mercado said. “Still I wonder, along with Señor Escamillo, why did she jump from this particular spot with all the American places to choose from.”
    â€œThe Empire State Building.”
    â€œOf course. And the Grand Canyon.”
    â€œThe Brooklyn Bridge.”
    â€œNiagara Falls.”
    â€œAnd others.”
    â€œMany others.” Mercado closed the balcony doors and locked them. “Well, one must not argue with the will of God.”
    â€œAmen.”

4.
    Rupert Kellogg’s office was on the second floor of a new concrete building that stood just on the edge of Mont­gomery Street’s ancient prestige. Here he ran a small ac­counting business with the aid of his secretary, Pat Bur­ton, a spinster addicted to changing the color of her hair, and an apprentice, a young man named Borowitz who was working his way through San Francisco State College.
    Rupert was forty, a tall, bland-faced, soft-talking man who’d been in the accounting business for nearly twenty years. He was moderately efficient, and moderately suc­cessful, in his work, but he didn’t enjoy it. He would have preferred to do something more interesting and amusing, to own a pet shop, for instance. He had a pro­found love for animals and an intuitive understanding of them. The hours he spent at Fleishhacker Zoo seemed to him to be full of the fundamental meanings of life, but he never told this to anyone, not even his wife Amy; and the only time he’d suggested the possibility of opening a pet shop there’d been such a rumpus among his in-laws that he’d given up the