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PARTISAN REVIEW
with the local elements." He gave the man some money. "Know
another thing. Local elements this moment, to best of my knowledge
cooperating with themselves."
That had been two weeks ago. Now Bradshaw's air luggage stood
on the stone floor of the Grand Hotel. Beside it lay a roll of gaudy
serapes and a gourd or two. He was a bit ashamed of this tourist loot;
he would have liked a few pre-Columbian figurines, but somehow,
whether because of the absence of tourists or the iconoclastic zeal of
the clergy, he had been able to find none of them in San Rafael. But
he did have, wrapped in the serapes, a white board painted with a
scene of resurrection which had been intended for a child's coffin
lid, which had cost thirty pesos and which he knew his wife, who had
American primitives round the apartment, would be crazy about.
He had not seen anything wrong about buying the coffin lid; in
some way his report justified him; perhaps, if his report did what he
believed it would do, these people would think less about death be–
cause there would be less of it.
In one hour, if the taxi could start and the plane could get off
the ground, he would be saying his farewells to San Rafael and to
Senor Orquienz. It was only on this last day that Bradshaw had
yielded to Senor Orquienz' repeated hints that he would like very
much to have a "look-see" at Bradshaw's report.
Except for a little tinkering with the introduction it was almost
ready for the typist, but Bradshaw was not confident that even thus
far completed, it would convey very much to Senor Orquienz. Ac–
tually, it conveyed a great deal, though hardly what Bradshaw had
intended.
Bradshaw had originally said with frank modesty that he was
in San Rafael merely to "clean up" a report. An even more modest
and accurate definition of his function would have been that his job
was to "dress up" a report. In any case the explanation had for Senor
Orquienz a purely commercial meaning. Somebody would clean up.
A killing was in the air. A coup. A take. A melon would be cut. Senor
Orquienz had nodded, heavy with complicity, his whole body a know–
ing wink. Since then he had behaved towards Bradshaw's briefcase
as if it had contained something both valuable and disreputable–
as
if,
under the pretense of peddling pornographic literature, Brad–
shaw were in reality a dealer in smuggled currency.
