"You are Juanita, are you not?" the young woman asked.
"Si, Doña."
Pesquiera eliminated himself by going in to get his mail.
"What is it that I can do for you?" asked Valencia.
The Mexican girl broke into an emotional storm. She caught one of her hands in the brown palm of the other with a little gesture of despair.
"They have gone to kill him. Doña. I know it. Something tells me. He will never come back alive." The feeling she had repressed was finding vent in long, irregular sobs.
Valencia felt as if she were being drowned in icy water. The color washed from her cheeks. She had no need to ask who it was that would never come back alive, but she did.
"Who, child? Whom is it that they have gone to kill?"
"The American—Señor Gordon."
"Who has gone? And when did they go? Tell me quick."