“I imagine Washington has outlined my purpose here.”
“Yes. I wish I could say I approved. Not of you; you’ve got your instructions. And I suppose international finance will continue long after Herr Hitler has shrieked his last scream.… Perhaps I’m no better than the GOU. Money matters can be most distasteful.”
“These in particular, I gather.”
“Again, yes. Erich Rhinemann is a sworn companion of the wind. A powerful companion, make no mistake, but totally without conscience; a hurricane’s morality. Unquestionably the least honorable man I’ve ever met. I think it’s criminal that his resources make him acceptable to London and New York.”
“Perhaps necessary is a more appropriate term.”
“I’m sure that’s the rationalization, at any rate.”
“It’s mine.”
“Of course. Forgive an old man’s obsolete limits of necessity. But we have no quarrel. You have an assignment. What can I do for you? I understand it’s very little.”
“Very little indeed, sir. Just have me listed on the embassy index; any kind of office space will do as long as it has a door and a telephone. And I’d like to meet your cryp. I’ll have codes to send.”
“My word, that sounds ominous,” said Granville, smiling without humor.
“Routine, sir. Washington relay; simple Yes and Nos.”
“Very well. Our head cryptographer is named Ballard. Nice fellow; speaks seven or eight languages and is an absolute whiz at parlor games. You’ll meet him directly. What else?”
“I’d like an apartment.…”
“Yes, we know,” interrupted Granville gently, snatching a brief look at the wall clock. “Mrs. Cameron has scouted one she thinks you’ll approve.… Of course, Washington gave us no indication of your length of stay. So Mrs. Cameron took it for three months.”
“That’s far too long. I’ll straighten it out.… I think that’s almost all, Mr. Ambassador. I know you’re in a hurry.”
“I’m afraid I am.”
David got out of his chair, as did Granville. “Oh, one thing, sir. Would this Ballard have an embassy index? I’d like to learn the names here.”
“There aren’t that many,” said Granville, leveling his gaze at David, a subtle note of disapproval in his voice. “Eight or ten would be those you’d normally come in contact with. And I can assure you we have our own security measures.”
David accepted the rebuke. “That wasn’t my point, sir. I really do like to familiarize myself with the names.”
“Yes, of course.” Granville came around the desk and walked Spaulding to the door. “Chat with my secretary for a few minutes. I’ll get hold of Ballard; he’ll show you around.”
“Thank you, sir.” Spaulding extended his hand to Granville, and as he did so he realized for the first time how tall the man was.
“You know,” said the ambassador, releasing David’s hand, “there was a question I wanted to ask you, but the answer will have to wait for another time. I’m late already.”
“What was that?”
“I’ve been wondering why the boys on Wall Street and the Strand sent you. I can’t imagine there being a dearth of experienced bankers in New York or London, can you?”
“There probably isn’t. But then I’m only a liaison carrying messages; information best kept private, I gather. I have had experience in those areas … in a neutral country.”
Granville smiled once more and once more there was no humor conveyed. “Yes, of course. I was sure there was a reason.”
23
Ballard shared two traits common to most cryptographers, thought David. He was a casual cynic and a fount of information. Qualities, Spaulding believed, developed over years of deciphering other men’s secrets only to find the great majority unimportant. He was also cursed with the first name of Robert, by itself acceptable but when followed by Ballard, invariably reduced to Bobby. Bobby Ballard. It had the ring of a 1920s socialite or the name in a cereal box cartoon.
He was neither. He was a linguist with a mathematical mind and a shock of red hair on top of a medium-sized, muscular body; a pleasant man.
“That’s our home,” Ballard was saying. “You’ve seen the working sections; big, rambling, baroque and goddamned hot this time of year. I hope you’re smart and have your own apartment.”
“Don’t you? Do you live here?”
“It’s easier. My dials are very inconsiderate, they hum at all hours. Better than scrambling down from Chacarita or Telmo. And it’s not bad; we stay out of each other’s way pretty much.”
“Oh? A lot of you here?”
“No. They alternate. Six, usually. In the two wings, east and south. Granville has the north apartments. Besides him, Jean Cameron and I are the only permanents. You’ll meet Jean tomorrow, unless we run into her on the way out with the old man. She generally goes with him to the diplobores.”
“The what?”
“Diplo-bores. The old man’s word … contraction. I’m surprised he didn’t use it with you. He’s proud of it. Diplobore is an embassy duty bash.” They were in a large, empty reception room; Ballard was opening a pair of French doors leading out onto a short balcony. In the distance could be seen the waters of the Río de la Plata and the estuary basin of the Puerto Nuevo, Buenos Aires’ main port. “Nice view, isn’t it?”
“Certainly is.” David joined the cryptographer on the balcony. “Does this Jean Cameron and the ambassador … I mean, are they …?”
“Jean and the old man?” Ballard laughed loud and good-naturedly. “Christ, no!… Come to think of it, I don’t know why it strikes me so funny. I suppose there’re a lot of people who think that. And that’s funny.”
“Why?”
“Sad-funny, I guess I should say,” continued Ballard without interruption. “The old man and the Cameron family go back to the original Maryland money. Eastern Shore yacht clubs, blazer jackets, tennis in the morning—you know: diplomat territory. Jean’s family was part of it, too. She married this Cameron; knew him since they could play doctor together in their Abercrombie pup tents. A rich-people romance, childhood sweethearts. They got married, the war came; he chucked his law books for a TBF—aircraft carrier pilot. He was killed in the Leyte Gulf. That was last year. She went a little crazy; maybe more than a little.”
“So the … Granville brought her down here?”
“That’s right.”
“Nice therapy, if you can afford it.”
“She’d probably agree with that.” Ballard walked back into the reception room; Spaulding followed. “But most people will tell you she pays her dues for the treatment. She works damned hard and knows what she’s doing. Has rotten hours, too; what with the diplobores.”
“Where’s Mrs. Granville?”
“No idea. She divorced the old man ten, fifteen years ago.”
“I still say it’s nice work if you can get it.” David was thinking, in an offhand way, of several hundred thousand other women whose husbands had been killed, living with reminders every day. He dismissed his thoughts; they weren’t his concerns.
“Well, she’s qualified.”
“What?” David was looking at a rococo-styled corner pillar in the wall, not really listening.
“Jean spent four years—off and on—down here as a kid. Her father was in Foreign Service; probably would have been an ambassador by now if he’d stuck with it.… Come on, I’ll show you the office Granville assigned you. Maintenance should have it tidied up by now,” Ballard smiled.
“You’ve been employing a diversion,” laughed David, following the cryp out the door into another hallway.
“I had to. You’ve got a room in the back. So far back it’s been used for storage, I think.”
“Obviously I made points with Granville.”
“You sure did. He can’t figure you out.… Me? I don’t try.” Ballard turned left into still another intersecting hallway. “This is the south wing. Offices on the first and second floors; not many, three
on each. Apartments on the third and fourth. The roof is great for sunbathing, if you like that sort of thing.”
“Depends on the company, I suppose.”
The two men approached a wide staircase, preparing to veer to the left beyond it, when a feminine voice called down from the second landing.
“Bobby, is that you?”
“It’s Jean,” said Ballard. “Yes,” he called out. “I’m with Spaulding. Come on down and meet the new recruit with enough influence to get his own apartment right off.”
“Wait’ll he sees the apartment!”
Jean Cameron came into sight from around the corner landing. She was a moderately tall woman, slender and dressed in a floor-length cocktail gown at once vivid with color yet simple in design. Her light brown hair was shoulder length, full and casual. Her face was a combination of striking features blended into a soft whole: wide, alive blue eyes; a thin, sharply etched nose; lips medium full and set as if in a half-smile. Her very clear skin was bronzed by the Argentine sun.
David saw that Ballard was watching him, anticipating his reaction to the girl’s loveliness. Ballard’s expression was humorously sardonic, and Spaulding read the message: Ballard had been to the font and found it empty—for those seeking other than a few drops of cool water. Ballard was now a friend to the lady; he knew better than to try being anything else.
Jean Cameron seemed embarrassed by her introduction on the staircase. She descended rapidly, her lips parted into one of the most genuine smiles David had seen in years. Genuine and totally devoid of innuendo.
“Welcome,” she said, extending her hand. “Thank heavens I have a chance to apologize before you walk into that place. You may change your mind and move right back here.”
“It’s that bad?” David saw that Jean wasn’t quite as young at close range as she seemed on the staircase. She was past thirty; comfortably past. And she seemed aware of his inspection, the approbation—or lack of it—unimportant to her.
“Oh, it’s all right for a limited stay. You can’t get anything else on that basis, not if you’re American. But it’s small.”
Her handshake was firm, almost masculine, thought Spaulding. “I appreciate your taking the trouble. I’m sorry to have caused it.”
“No one else here could have gotten you anything but a hotel,” said Ballard, touching the girl’s shoulder; was the contact protective? wondered David. “The porteños trust Mother Cameron. Not the rest of us.”
“Porteños,” said Jean in response to Spaulding’s questioning expression, “are the people who live in BA.…”
“And BA—don’t tell me—stands for Montevideo,” replied David.
“Aw, they sent us a bright one,” said Ballard.
“You’ll get used to it,” continued Jean. “Everyone in the American and English settlements calls it BA. Montevideo, of course,” she added, smiling. “I think we see it so often on reports, we just do it automatically.”
“Wrong,” interjected Ballard. “The vowel juxtaposition in ‘Buenos Aires’ is uncomfortable for British speech.”
“That’s something else you’ll learn during your stay, Mr. Spaulding,” said Jean Cameron, looking affectionately at Ballard. “Be careful offering opinions around Bobby. He has a penchant for disagreeing.”
“Never so,” answered the cryp. “I simply care enough for my fellow prisoners to want to enlighten them. Prepare them for the outside when they get paroled.”
“Well, I’ve got a temporary pass right now, and if I don’t get over to the ambassador’s office, he’ll start on that damned address system.… Welcome again, Mr. Spaulding.”
“Please. The name’s David.”
“Mine’s Jean. Bye,” said the girl, dashing down the hallway, calling back to Ballard. “Bobby? You’ve got the address and the key? For … David’s place?”
“Yep. Go get irresponsibly drunk, I’ll handle everything.”
Jean Cameron disappeared through a door in the right wall.
“She’s very attractive,” said Spaulding, “and you two are good friends. I should apologize for …”
“No, you shouldn’t,” interrupted Ballard. “Nothing to apologize for. You formed a quick judgment on isolated facts. I’d’ve done the same, thought the same. Not that you’ve changed your mind; no reason to, really.”
“She’s right. You disagree … before you know what you’re disagreeing to; and then you debate your disagreement. And if you go on, you’ll probably challenge your last position.”
“You know what? I can follow that. Isn’t it frightening?”
“You guys are a separate breed,” said David, chuckling, following Ballard beyond the stairs into a smaller corridor.
“Let’s take a quick look at your Siberian cubicle and then head over to your other cell. It’s on Córdoba; we’re on Corrientes. It’s about ten minutes from here.”
David thanked Bobby Ballard once again and shut the apartment door. He had pleaded exhaustion from the trip, preceded by too much welcome home in New York—and God knew that was the truth—and would Ballard take a raincheck for dinner?
Alone now, he inspected the apartment; it wasn’t intolerable at all. It was small: a bedroom, a sitting room-kitchen, and a bath. But there was a dividend Jean Cameron hadn’t mentioned. The rooms were on the first floor, and at the rear was a tiny brick-leveled patio surrounded by a tall concrete wall, profuse with hanging vines and drooping flowers from immense pots on the ledge. In the center of the enclosure was a gnarled fruit-bearing tree he could not identify; around the trunk were three rope-webbed chairs that had seen better days but looked extremely comfortable. As far as he was concerned, the dividend made the dwelling.
Ballard had pointed out that his section of the Avenida Córdoba was just over the borderline from the commercial area, the “downtown” complex of Buenos Aires. Quasi residential, yet near enough to stores and restaurants to be easy for a newcomer.
David picked up the telephone; the dial tone was delayed but eventually there. He replaced it and walked across the small room to the refrigerator, an American Sears Roebuck. He opened it and smiled. The Cameron girl had provided—or had somebody provide—several basic items: milk, butter, bread, eggs, coffee. Then happily he spotted two bottles of wine: an Orfila tinto and a Colón blanco. He closed the refrigerator and went back into the bedroom.
He unpacked his single suitcase, unwrapping a bottle of Scotch, and remembered that he’d have to buy additional clothes in the morning. Ballard had offered to go with him to a men’s shop in the Calle Florida—if his goddamned dials weren’t “humming.” He placed the books Eugene Lyons had given him on the bedside table. He had gone through two of them; he was beginning to gain confidence in the aerophysicists’ language. He would need comparable studies in German to be really secure. He would cruise around the bookshops in the German settlement tomorrow; he wasn’t looking for definitive texts, just enough to understand the terms. It was really a minor part of his assignment, he understood that.
Suddenly, David remembered Walter Kendall. Kendall was either in Buenos Aires by now or would be arriving within hours. The accountant had left the United States at approximately the same time he had, but Kendall’s flight from New York was more direct, with far fewer stopovers.
He wondered whether it would be feasible to go out to the airport and trace Kendall. If he hadn’t arrived, he could wait for him; if he had, it would be simple enough to check the hotels—according to Ballard there were only three or four good ones.
On the other hand, any additional time—more than absolutely essential—spent with the manipulating accountant was not a pleasant prospect. Kendall would be upset at finding him in Buenos Aires before he’d given the order to Swanson. Kendall, no doubt, would demand explanations beyond those David wished to give; probably send angry cables to an already strung-out brigadier general.
There were no benefits in hunting down Walter Kendall until Kendall expected to find him. Only liabilities.
/> He had other things to do: the unfocused picture. He could begin that search far better alone.
David walked back into the living room-kitchen carrying the Scotch and took out a tray of ice from the refrigerator. He made himself a drink and looked over at the double doors leading to his miniature patio. He would spend a few quiet twilight moments in the January summertime breeze of Buenos Aires.
The sun was fighting its final descent beyond the city; the last orange rays were filtering through the thick foliage of the unidentified fruit tree. Underneath, David stretched his legs and leaned back in the rope-webbed chair. He realized that if he kept his eyes closed for any length of time, they would not reopen for a number of hours. He had to watch that; long experience in the field had taught him to eat something before sleeping.
Eating had long since lost its pleasure for him—it was merely a necessity directly related to his energy level. He wondered if the pleasure would ever come back; whether so much he had put aside would return. Lisbon had probably the best accommodations—food, shelter, comfort—of all the major cities, excepting New York, on both continents. And now he was on a third continent, in a city that boasted undiluted luxury.
But for him it was the field—as much as was the north country in Spain. As much as Basque and Navarre, and the freezing nights in the Galician hills or the sweat-prone silences in ravines, waiting for patrols—waiting to kill.
So much. So alien.
He brought his head forward, took a long drink from the glass and let his neck arch back into the frame of the chair. A small bird was chattering away in the midsection of the tree, annoyed at his intrusion. It reminded David of how he would listen for such birds in the north country. They telegraphed the approach of men unseen, often falling into different rhythms that he began to identify—or thought he identified—with the numbers of the unseen, approaching patrols.
Then David realized that the small chattering bird was not concerned with him. It hopped upward, still screeching its harsh little screech, only faster now, more strident.
There was someone else.
The Rhinemann Exchange: A Novel Page 24
