Through half-closed eyes, David focused above, beyond the foliage. He did so without moving any part of his body or head, as if the last moments were approaching before sleep took over.
The apartment house had four stories and a roof that appeared to have a gentle slope covered in a terra-cotta tile of sorts—brownish pink in color. The windows of the rooms above him were mostly open to the breezes off the Río de la Plata. He could hear snatches of subdued conversation, nothing threatening, no loud vibrations. It was the Buenos Aires siesta hour, according to Ballard; quite different from Rome’s afternoon or the Paris lunch. Dinner in BA was very late, by the rest of the world’s schedule. Ten, ten thirty, even midnight was not out of the question.
The screeching bird was not bothered by the inhabitants of the Córdoba apartment house; yet still he kept up his strident alarms.
And then David saw why.
On the roof, obscured but not hidden by the branches of the fruit tree, were the outlines of two men.
They were crouched, staring downward; staring, he was sure, at him.
Spaulding judged the position of the main intersecting tree limb and rolled his head slightly, as if the long-awaited sleep were upon him, his neck resting in exhaustion on his right shoulder, the drink barely held by a relaxed hand, millimeters from the brick pavement.
It helped; he could see better, not well. Enough, however, to make out the sharp, straight silhouette of a rifle barrel, the orange sun careening off its black steel. It was stationary, in an arrest position under the arm of the man on the right. No movement was made to raise it, to aim it; it remained immobile, cradled.
Somehow, it was more ominous that way, thought Spaulding. As though in the arms of a killer guard who was sure his prisoner could not possibly vault the stockade; there was plenty of time to shoulder and fire.
David carried through his charade. He raised his hand slightly and let his drink fall. The sound of the minor crash “awakened” him; he shook the pretended sleep from his head and rubbed his eyes with his fingers. As he did so, he maneuvered his face casually upward. The figures on the roof had stepped back on the terra-cotta tiles. There would be no shots. Not directed at him.
He picked up a few pieces of the glass, rose from the chair and walked into the apartment as a tired man does when annoyed with his own carelessness. Slowly, with barely controlled irritation.
Once he crossed the saddle of the door, beneath the sightline of the roof, he threw the glass fragments into a wastebasket and walked rapidly into the bedroom. He opened the top drawer of the bureau, separated some handkerchiefs and withdrew his revolver.
He clamped it inside his belt and picked up his jacket from the chair into which he’d thrown it earlier. He put it on, satisfied that it concealed the weapon.
He crossed out into the living room, to the apartment door, and opened it silently.
The staircase was against the left wall and David swore to himself, cursing the architect of this particular Avenida Córdoba building—or the profuseness of lumber in Argentina. The stairs were made of wood, the brightly polished wax not concealing the obvious fact that they were ancient and probably squeaked like hell.
He closed his apartment door and approached the staircase, putting his feet on the first step.
It creaked the solid creak of antique shops.
He had four flights to go; the first three were unimportant. He took the steps two at a time, discovering that if he hugged the wall, the noise of his ascent was minimized.
Sixty seconds later he faced a closed door marked with a sign—in goddamned curlicued Castilian lettering:
El Techo.
The roof.
The door, as the stairs, was old. Decades of seasonal heat and humidity had caused the wood to swell about the hinges; the borders were forced into the frame.
It, too, would scream his arrival if he opened it slowly.
There was no other way: he slipped the weapon out of his belt and took one step back on the tiny platform. He judged the frame—the concrete walls—surrounding the old wooden door and with an adequate intake of breath, he pulled at the handle, yanked the door open and jumped diagonally into the right wall, slamming his back against the concrete.
The two men whirled around, stunned. They were thirty feet from David at the edge of the sloping roof. The man with the rifle hesitated, then raised the weapon into waist-firing position. Spaulding had his pistol aimed directly into the man’s chest. However, the man with the gun did not have the look of one about to fire at a target; the hesitation was deliberate, not the result of panic or indecision.
The second man shouted in Spanish; David recognized the accent as southern Spain, not Argentine. “Por favor, señor!”
Spaulding replied in English to establish their understanding, or lack of it. “Lower that rifle. Now!”
The first man did so, holding it by the stock. “You are in error,” he said in halting English. “There have been … how do you say, ladrones … thieves in the neighborhood.”
David walked over the metal transom onto the roof, holding his pistol on the two men. “You’re not very convincing. Se dan corte, amigos. You’re not from Buenos Aires.”
“There are a great many people in this neighborhood who are as we: displaced, señor. This is a community of … not the native born,” said the second man.
“You’re telling me you weren’t up here for my benefit? You weren’t watching me?”
“It was coincidental, I assure you,” said the man with the rifle.
“Es la verdad,” added the other. “Two habitaciones have been broken into during the past week. The police do not help; we are … extranjeros, foreigners to them. We protect ourselves.”
Spaulding watched the men closely. There was no waver in either man’s expression, no hint of lies. No essential fear.
“I’m with the American embassy,” said David curtly. There was no reaction from either extranjero. “I must ask you for identification.”
“Qué cosa?” The man with the gun.
“Papers. Your names.… Certificados.”
“Por cierto, en seguida.” The second man reached back into his trousers pocket; Spaulding raised the pistol slightly, in warning.
The man hesitated, now showing his fear. “Only a registro, señor. We all must carry them.… Please. In my cartera.”
David held out his left hand as the second man gave him a cheap leather wallet. He flipped it open with minor feelings of regret. There was a kind of helplessness about the two extranjeros; he’d seen the look thousands of times. Franco’s Falangistas were experts at provoking it.
He looked quickly down at the cellophane window of the billfold; it was cracked with age.
Suddenly, the barrel of the rifle came crashing across his right wrist; the pain was excruciating. Then his hand was being twisted expertly inward and down; he had no choice but to release the weapon and try to kick it away on the sloping roof. To hold it would mean breaking his wrist.
He did so as his left arm was being hammerlocked—again expertly—up over his neck. He lashed his foot out at the unarmed extranjero, who had hold of his hand. He caught him in the stomach and as the man bent forward, David crossed his weight and kicked again, sending the man tumbling down on the tiled incline.
David fell in the thrust direction of the hammerlock—downward, to his rear—and as the first man countered the position, Spaulding brought his right elbow back up, crushing into the man’s groin. The arm was released as the extranjero tried to regain his balance.
He wasn’t quick enough; Spaulding whipped to his left and brought his knee up into the man’s throat. The rifle clattered on the tiles and rolled downward on the slope. The man sank, blood dribbling from his mouth where his teeth had punctured the skin.
Spaulding heard the sound behind him and turned.
He was too late. The second extranjero was over him, and David could hear the whistling of his own pistol piercing the air above him, crash
ing down into his skull.
All was black. Void.
“They described the right attitude but the wrong section of town,” said Ballard, sitting across the room from David, who held an ice pack to his head. “The extranjeros are concentrated in the west areas of the La Boca district. They’ve got a hell of a crime rate over there; the policía prefer strolling the parks rather than those streets. And the Grupo—the GOU—has no love for extranjeros.”
“You’re no help,” said Spaulding, shifting the ice pack around in circles on the back of his head.
“Well, they weren’t out to kill you. They could have thrown you off or just left you on the edge; five to one you’d’ve rolled over and down four flights.”
“I knew they weren’t intent on killing me.…”
“How?”
“They could have done that easily before. I think they were waiting for me to go out. I’d unpacked; they’d have the apartment to themselves.”
“What for?”
“To search my things. They have done that before.”
“Who?”
“Damned if I know.”
“Now who’s no help?”
“Sorry.… Tell me, Bobby, who exactly knew I was flying in? How was it handled?”
“First question: three people. I did, of course; I’m on the dials. Granville, obviously. And Jean Cameron; the old man asked her to follow up on an apartment … but you know that. Question two: very confidentially. Remember, your orders came through at night. From Washington. Jean was playing chess with Granville in his quarters when I brought him the eggs.…”
“The what?” interrupted David.
“The scrambler; it’s marked. Washington had your sheet radioed in on a scrambler code. That means only myself or my head man can handle it, deliver it to the ambassador.”
“O.K. Then what?”
“Nothing. I mean nothing you don’t know about.”
“Tell me anyway.”
Ballard exhaled a long, condescending breath. “Well, the three of us were alone; what the hell, I’d read the scramble and the instructions were clear about the apartment. So Granville figured—apparently—that Jean was the logical one to scout one up. He told her you were coming in; to do what she could on such short notice.” Ballard looked about the room and over at the patio doors. “She didn’t do badly, either.”
“Then that’s it; they’ve got a network fanned out over the city; nothing unusual. They keep tabs on unoccupied places: apartments, rooming houses; hotels are the easiest.”
“I’m not sure I follow you,” said Ballard, trying to.
“We can all be smart as whips, Bobby, but we can’t change a couple of basics: we have to have a place to sleep and take a bath.”
“Oh, I follow that, but you can’t apply it here. Starting tomorrow you’re no secret; until then you are. D.C. said you were coming down on your own; we had no idea precisely when or how.… Jean didn’t get this apartment for you. Not in your name.”
“Oh?” David was far more concerned than his expression indicated. The two extranjeros had to have been on the roof before he arrived. Or, at least, within minutes after he did so. “How did she lease it then? Whose name did she use? I didn’t want a cover; we didn’t ask for one.”
“Jesus, I thought I talked fast. Sunday is Sunday, Monday is Monday. Sunday we don’t know you; Monday we do. That’s what Washington spelled out. They wanted no advance notice of your arrival and, incidentally, if you decided to stay out of sight, we were to adhere to your wishes. I’m sure Granville will ask you what you want to do in the morning.… How did Jean lease the place? Knowing her, she probably implied the ambassador had a girl on the side, or something. The porteños are very simpático with that sort of thing; the Paris of South America and all that.… One thing I do know, she wouldn’t have used your name. Or any obvious cover. She’d use her own first.”
“Oh, boy,” said Spaulding wearily, removing the ice pack and feeling the back of his head. He looked at his fingers. Smudges of blood were apparent.
“I hope you’re not going to play hero with that gash. You should see a doctor.”
“No hero.” David smiled. “I’ve got to have some sutures removed, anyway. Might as well be tonight, if you can arrange it.”
“I can arrange it. Where did you get the stitches?”
“I had an accident in the Azores.”
“Christ, you travel, don’t you?”
“So does something ahead of me.”
24
“Mrs. Cameron is here at my request, Spaulding. Come in. I’ve talked with Ballard and the doctor. Stitches taken out and new ones put in; you must feel like a pincushion.”
Granville was behind his baroque desk, reclining comfortably in his highbacked chair. Jean Cameron sat on the couch against the left wall; one of the chairs in front of the desk was obviously meant for David. He decided to wait until Granville said so before sitting down. He remained standing; he wasn’t sure he liked the ambassador. The office assigned to him was, indeed, far back and used for storage.
“Nothing serious, sir. If it was, I’d say so.” Spaulding nodded to Jean and saw her concern. Or, at least, that’s what he thought he read in her eyes.
“You’d be foolish not to. The doctor says the blow to the head fortunately fell between concussion areas. Otherwise, you’d be in rather bad shape.”
“It was delivered by an experienced man.”
“Yes, I see.… Our doctor didn’t think much of the sutures he removed.”
“That seems to be a general medical opinion. They served their purpose; the shoulder’s fine. He strapped it.”
“Yes.… Sit down, sit down.”
David sat down. “Thank you, sir.”
“I gather the two men who attacked you last evening were provincianos. Not porteños.”
Spaulding gave a short, defeated smile and turned to Jean Cameron. “I got to porteños; I guess provincianos means what it says. The country folk? Outside the cities.”
“Yes,” said the girl softly. “The city. BA.”
“Two entirely different cultures,” continued Granville. “The provincianos are hostile and with much legitimacy. They’re really quite exploited; the resentments are flaring up. The GOU has done nothing to ease matters, it only conscripts them in the lowest ranks.”
“The provincianos are native to Argentina, though, aren’t they?”
“Certainly. From their point of view, much more so than Buenos Airens, porteños. Less Italian and German blood, to say nothing of Portuguese, Balkan and Jewish. There were waves of immigrations, you see.…”
“Then, Mr. Ambassador,” interrupted David, hoping to stem another post analysis by the pedagogical diplomat, “these were not provincianos. They called themselves extranjeros. Displaced persons, I gathered.”
“Extranjero is a rather sarcastic term. Inverse morbidity. As though employed by a reservation Indian in our Washington. A foreigner in his own native land, you see what I mean?”
“These men were not from Argentina,” said David quietly, dismissing Granville’s question. “Their speech pattern was considerably alien.”
“Oh? Are you an expert?”
“Yes, I am. In these matters.”
“I see.” Granville leaned forward. “Do you ascribe the attack to embassy concerns? Allied concerns?”
“I’m not sure. It’s my opinion I was the target. I’d like to know how they knew I was here.”
Jean Cameron spoke from the couch. “I’ve gone over everything I said, David.” She stopped and paused briefly, aware that the ambassador had shot her a look at her use of Spaulding’s first name. “Your place was the fourth apartment I checked into. I started at ten in the morning and got there around two o’clock. And leased it immediately. I’m sorry to say it was the patio that convinced me.”
David smiled at her.
“Anyway, I went to a real estate office at Viamonte. Geraldo Baldez is the owner; we all know him. He’s p
artisan; has no use for Germans. I made it clear that I wanted to rent the apartment for one of our people who was living here and who, frankly, found the embassy restrictions too limiting. He laughed and said he was sure it was Bobby. I didn’t disagree.”
“But it was a short lease,” said David.
“I used it as an excuse in case you didn’t like the apartment. It’s a standard three-month clause.”
“Why wouldn’t Bobby—or anyone else—get his own place?”
“Any number of reasons. Also standard … here.” Jean smiled, a touch embarrassed, thought David. “I know the city better than most; I lived here for several years. Also there’s a little matter of expense allowance; I’m a pretty good bargainer. And men like Bobby have urgent work to do. My hours are more flexible; I have the time.”
“Mrs. Cameron is too modest, Spaulding. She’s an enormous asset to our small community.”
“I’m sure she is, sir.… Then you don’t think anyone had reason to suspect you were finding a place for an incoming attaché.”
“Absolutely not. It was all done in such a … light-hearted way, if you know what I mean.”
“What about the owner of the building?” David asked.
“I never saw him. Most apartments are owned by wealthy people who live in the Telmo or Palermo districts. Everything’s done through rental agencies.”
David turned to Granville. “Have there been any calls for me? Messages?”
“No. Not that I’m aware of, and I’m sure I would be. You would have been contacted, of course.”
“A man named Kendall.…”
“Kendall?” interrupted the ambassador. “I know that name.… Kendall. Yes, Kendall.” Granville riffled through some papers on his desk. “Here. A Walter Kendall came in last night. Ten thirty flight. He’s staying at the Alvear; that’s near the Palermo Park. Fine old hotel.” Granville suddenly looked over at Spaulding. “He’s listed on the sheet as an industrial economist. Now that’s a rather all-inclusive description, isn’t it? Would he be the banker I referred to yesterday?”
“He’ll make certain arrangements relative to my instructions.” David did not conceal his reluctance to go into the matter of Walter Kendall. On the other hand, he instinctively found himself offering a token clarification to Jean Cameron. “My primary job here is to act as liaison between financial people in New York and London and banking interests here in Buenos … BA.” David smiled; he hoped as genuinely as Jean smiled. “I think it’s a little silly. I don’t know a debit from an asset. But Washington okayed me. The ambassador is worried that I’m too inexperienced.”
The Rhinemann Exchange: A Novel Page 25
