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Cuernavaca, Felipe Cedro was known as a shrewd and greedy and dangerous man. He owned fragments of many small business enterprises, some of which were almost entirely legitimate. Through his excellent contacts with police officials and politicians, he had become a valuable man to know, whether your problem was that of disposing of stolen goods or finding a young woman suitable for a certain German tourist.
    Felipe had about decided to terminate his association with Miles Drummond and had, in fact, made a mental list of the small objects he would take with him upon his departure when this Workshop venture had taken form. Felipe decided at once that it might present sufficient chance for gain to warrant remaining with Miles until September. And on this day his hunch had been partially justified. He had steered Miles to those vendors who could be depended upon for a kickback. And the quantities purchased had been large enough to make for a profitable afternoon. He was certain that rich and foolish American women would come to study painting. And there, if you kept your eyes open and your wits about you, was a chance for much greater profit.
    He nodded and dreamed in the red bus on the way back to the Hutchinson. Don Felipe Cedro would one day own a vast house with a pool for the swimming, and three mistresses, all of whom had been in the cinema or appeared upon the television. He would ride in a great, long golden car with a top that went up and down, and they would bow to Don Felipe when the car passed them.
    And then they arrived and he had to unload the supplies and help carry them into the kitchen area. Work for a burro.

Chapter Three
    On Wednesday morning at ten o’clock Miles Drummond held a meeting of his service staff in the big gloomy kitchen. Though it heartened him to have them all in one place and to be able to look at them, when he examined them individually he had a feeling of misgiving, a drear knowledge of the inevitability of disaster.
    He could find no reassurance in the familiar face of Felipe Cedro. Felipe had seemed moody lately, and his work had not been entirely satisfactory. Rosalinda Gomez would be in charge of the kitchen. She was a very fat Mexican woman with a generous mixture of Indio blood. She wore a broad smile upon her dark face. Miles had found it extraordinarily difficult to establish communication with her. No matter what he said to her, she giggled as though he had made some delicious joke. And, from the few meals she had served the small group thus far, he was certain that she was a startlingly bad cook. When he had overheard her talking to Alberto Buceada, the stringy janitor, her speech had been bristly with the clickings and glottal stops of Indian words. And from her manner toward Alberto he had come to suspect that, out in the building that served as storage space and staff quarters, Rosalinda and Alberto hadcome to some intimate arrangement satisfactory to both parties. He had no intention of investigating this arrangement further.
    The least consequential member of the staff was named Pepe. Miles assumed he was about twelve years old, a raggedy child with black hair that grew down from the top of his head like a conical thatched roof. His function was to serve as kitchen help to Rosalinda, to run errands and perform other duties that might present themselves from time to time.
    Pepe, Rosalinda, Alberto, Felipe and Fidelio Melocotonero would live at the Hutchinson, though it might be assumed that Fidelio would retain his habit of sleeping in the red VW bus.
    The two maids, who would double as waitresses, both lived nearby in humble family dwellings perched on the slope of the barranca. The prettier of the two, Margarita Esponjar, made him particularly uneasy. She was smoking a cigarette and leaning her pert and jaunty haunches against one of the kitchen tables and looking directly at Miles with a telling and sensual vacuity. She wore a rather sleazy red dress and red shoes. The shoes