Against the Wind

by Anne Stuart

Maddy had opened her tired eyes to look up at the owner of that querulous voice. Her mother looked perfect, as always, her slim, elegant figure encased in Moygashel linen, not a crease in evidence, her silvery hair a perfect coiffe for her remote face.

  “Sam’s dead,” she said abruptly.

  “I’m aware of that. It would be hard to miss. It’s been all over the news for the last twelve hours. Did you see him?”

  There wasn’t the slightest trace of regret in her mother’s cool tones. “For a short while. Don’t you care that he’s dead?”

  “Not particularly.” Helen moved into the room, seating herself daintily on a chair a little removed from Maddy’s rumpled figure. “We severed all our ties years ago.”

  “Then why did you want me to go get him?”

  Helen made a moue of disdain. “Because he was an embarrassment to me personally, to our government, to Max. He was a half-mad old troublemaker, and it finally looked as if he was sick enough to be brought home where he could do no more harm.”

  Maddy shook her head despairingly. “He’ll do no more harm where he is now.”

  Helen smiled. “St. Sam. Sitting on the left hand of God, no doubt. I hope St. Peter doesn’t mind being deposed. Did he send anything back with you?”

  The question was idly phrased, and Maddy was almost tired enough to miss its significance and answer honestly. Almost.

  “Like what?” she countered.

  Helen brushed an imaginary speck off the spotless arm of her chair. “I’m sure Sam wasn’t about to die in peace. He must have sent you back with exhortations to blacken the name of the San Pablo government, perhaps even gave you papers and documents.” She smiled affably at her daughter. “You ought to give them to me if he did.”

  “Why?”

  Helen’s eyes narrowed. “Because the San Pablo government has suffered enough at the hands of that old man. “It’s—”

  “The San Pablo government is a corrupt nest of snakes, and President Morosa is the biggest snake of all,” Maddy interrupted. “Give me one good reason why I should want to protect an evil bully whose family for generations has sucked the life blood out of San Pablo?”

  “I’ll go you one better. I’ll give you two very good reasons. Number one is quite simple. You’ve seen enough of what’s happened in Central America over the last twenty years. Morosa may be a pig, but he’s as anticommunist and pro-capitalism as they come. As FDR said about Somoza, ‘He may be an S.O.B. but at least he’s our S.O.B.’ The thought of another communist stronghold on our doorstep gives me shudders.”

  “I don’t think you care one tiny bit about communist strongholds on your doorstep, Mother,” Maddy said shrewdly. “What’s your second reason?”

  “It should be your reason too, Madelyn. After all, you’re now my only heir.”

  “The thought touches me deeply,” Maddy said in a dry tone of voice.

  Helen ignored her. “I have substantial investments in San Pablo. Investments that date back to the time of your grandfather.”

  “Get rid of them.”

  “They’ve been very lucrative, Madelyn dear. I have no intention of dissolving them until absolutely necessary.”

  Maddy pulled herself up from the sofa, her muscles screaming with weariness. “If I were you, Mother, I would do something now. You forget, I was down there. Morosa and his bullies are not going to be in power for too much longer.”

  Helen didn’t move, just looked up at her daughter with a serene smile on her face. “Perhaps. Perhaps not. Why don’t you go on up and get some rest, darling? You look exhausted. And then maybe tomorrow we can call a news conference. I’ve told reporters that I won’t talk to them yet, but that we’d have a statement soon enough. Max will help us work it out tonight when you’re feeling better.”

  Maddy stood there, swaying slightly. “What sort of statement?”

  “Oh, something tactful and reasonably supportive of our country’s foreign policy, don’t you think? Something to the effect that Sam was a wonderful old eccentric who’ll be missed by all of us. President Morosa has been talking about a memorial in La Mensa. They’d want us down for the dedication. I promised him that we would present a united family front.”

  Maddy shook her head slightly, more to clear away the mists of disbelief than to argue with her mother.

  “Now, now, don’t make up your mind too quickly,” Helen said, and the soothing tone was a mockery. “This wouldn’t happen until sometime next year. They need to get the rebels under control first. But a monument to your father would be a wonderful healing gesture, and I think …”

  Maddy walked out of the room.

  The cook looked at her curiously when she walked into the kitchen, but made no comment when Maddy picked up the phone and called a taxi. For the ten minutes it took for the car to come Maddy sat waiting by the kitchen window, staring sightlessly out into the carefully manicured sidewalks, trying not to think about the rubble that once was a tumbled-down old villa.

  After leaving her mother’s house, her energy had carried her back into the District, up to Capitol Hill and through the miles and miles of hallways to Michael O’Malley, junior senator from New Hampshire and possessor of the most liberal record in all of Congress. He was also the most vocal opponent of military aid to San Pablo. They spoke briefly, she handed him the candy box, and an hour and a half later she was flying back to LAX.

  Her mother hadn’t spoken to her since the news hit the airwaves. The videotape included not only a last interview with Sam Lambert, looking wise and not at all fanatical, merely tired and grieving, but also atrocities committed by the Gray Shirts in their quest to wipe out the pockets of resistance that flourished around the mountainous country. Maddy had watched it once, on Dan Rather, but the sight of a tall, familiar figure in the background of one village scene had been too much. She’d switched off the television, sat back down on her sofa, and, for the first time since she’d left San Pablo, began to weep.

  She’d cried from six in the evening till eleven the next morning. She’d wept and coughed and vomited and wept some more, and still the tears came. She screamed into her pillow, beat her fists against the bed, stuffed a towel into her mouth to stop the howls of anguish that threatened to overwhelm her. And nothing did any good. The only thing that finally stopped her was an exhaustion that was more passing out than falling asleep. When she awoke her eyes were dry and swollen, making the extended-wear contact lenses she’d bought when she came back to the States feel like pennies in her eyes, and her heart was like ice. The only thing that could warm it were her father’s children.

  The Greater Hollywood Help Network was a busy place, just three blocks down from the infamous corner of Hollywood and Vine. Maddy’s job as administrator had little connection with their actual social service work. She saw to it that the money came but had little connection with how it flowed out.

  They worked with street people, with the large inner-city population of Armenians, Asians, blacks, and with the vast influx of San Pablan refugees.

  It must have started by accident. She heard a familiar accent and drifted out of her office, into the front room crowded with hungry, lost, frightened-looking people. Clearly to them she was one more of a vast array of officious norteamericanos, and they stared at her with a wariness at variance with the faint stirrings of hope. A small girl, not much more than four, wandered up to her, tugging at her skirt.

  “Hey, gringa,” she said, “do you work here? I’m hungry, and they keep asking questions.”

  The entire room took in a deep breath of horror at the child’s artless words. In the best of times “gringa” was a drawling insult, though clearly the child didn’t know better.

  A harassed-looking woman, clearly in the last stages of a monumental pregnancy, came up and pulled the child’s hand away from Maddy’s white skirt. The small imprint was clearly marked. “Please excuse the child, lady. Samuelita doesn’t mean to give offense.”

  Two more blows to the memory. Jake ha
d called her lady when he’d pretended not to recognize her. “Samuelita?” Maddy echoed.

  The woman drew herself up proudly. “She is named after El Patrón, Sam Lambert. A norteamericano who—”

  “I know very well who Sam Lambert was,” Maddy said, the smile on her face only a little stiff. “He was my father.”

  You would have thought, she mused later, that she’d said she was the Virgin Mary herself. The cries of gladness, the crushing embraces, the tears were embarrassing and absurd and oddly moving.

  The last grant hadn’t come through yet, and the coffers of the Greater Hollywood Help Network were low. Twenty-seven San Pablans, Maddy, and three social workers closed the office, trailed down Hollywood Boulevard, and ended up in Burger King, with Maddy footing the bill. It was a few days later when she began hearing the phrase “La Patronita” when she walked by.

  And the oddest thing of all, Maddy mused as she dodged and parried the twenty million cars that took to the L.A. freeways at rush hour, was her sudden friendship with Soledad Alicia Maria Mercedes Lambert de Ferrara y Morales. Her sleek, catlike stepmother.

  Perhaps the days in San Pablo had made life in Hermosa Beach seem far too tame. Her friends, most of them married couples with meaningful jobs in advertising or insurance, no longer seemed to have anything in common with her. The rounds of barbecues, beach volleyball, and discos belonged to someone else, someone who lay buried in San Pablo with a childhood dream.

  She ran into Soledad by accident one day, on Rodeo Drive of all places, and for a moment they’d circled each other like wary dogs, sniffing for danger. Then Soledad’s darkly beautiful face broke into a smile, and she’d held out her slender arms and cried, “Give your stepmama a kiss, little one.” And to Maddy’s amazement, she had.

  Perhaps it was Soledad’s undisguised venom toward all and sundry that was so refreshing. Or her passionate devotion to sloth, high living, and clothes that had little to do with pretensions and everything to do with being a wealthy widow. Or perhaps it was just the fact that they’d both loved the same men. For there was no question that Soledad had been in love with Jake Murphy in her own, lackadaisical way, and the terrifying, grief-benumbed trip they’d shared from Puerta Pelota back to the U.S. had cemented their odd relationship.

  Soledad went through men at an amazing rate, yet there always seemed to be hordes waiting to take the last one’s place. They were all very young, very handsome, and, to Maddy’s amazement, very rich. Even in her hedonistic fervor Soledad had a head on her shoulders.

  “Let me arrange a little something for you, Maddy,” she’d suggested over cobb salad at the Rusty Pelican. “I know any number of handsome, inventive young men who would adore to make La Patronita forget her broken heart.”

  Maddy had shook her head, smiling. “Broken hearts take at least eight months to heal, mi madrastra. It’s only been six.”

  Soledad had acquiesced. “As you say. But in two months’ time expect a six-foot-tall, two-hundred-pound present awaiting you on your doorstep in Hermosa Beach.”

  And during the sunlight and shadows of those six months of mourning, only one thing had the ability to frighten both of them: word of Carlos the Jackal’s reign of terror.

  There was no doubt that Morosa’s government would lie about the atrocities. No question but that they’d use propaganda, falsified photographs, lying witnesses, and altered documents to blacken the name of the man who was rapidly becoming one of the most well-known leaders of the Patronistas. But there was also no doubt that the hollow-eyed refugees who crowded through the offices of La Patronita would have no reason to lie. And Carlos the Jackal frightened them very much indeed.

  Soledad had simply shrugged her shapely shoulders when Maddy had questioned her about it. “That Carlos, he was always a little mad, yes? Jake kept him under control most of the time, but he never trusted him. The danger with Carlos, daughter, is that he’s a fanatic, just like your father. He doesn’t care about himself, about human life, about anything more than his bloody cause. And that’s the most dangerous man of all. Give me a bad, selfish man over a saint any day.” She fanned herself vigorously.

  “Well, he’s no longer any concern of ours,” Maddy had replied doubtfully.

  Soledad smiled. “Perhaps not, as long as he stays in San Pablo.”

  “Why would he leave?”

  “I have no idea. But then, I have never understood the working of Carlos’s mind. Let us hope for both our sakes that he stays put. I wouldn’t think he’d be pleased at our norteamericano lifestyle. He wasn’t able to make use of your father’s death. He might not be adverse to having one of us take his place.”

  Maddy shuddered. “Don’t even mention such a thing, mamacita. I have enough on my mind.” It had amused the two of them to call each other mother and daughter. Even though Soledad was actually two years younger than her tall, slim stepdaughter, it entertained her to watch people’s reactions when she introduced her. Maddy had no objections. She would have claimed anyone as her mother rather than Helen.

  Her house was cool and dark as she let herself in that afternoon, and the sea breeze brought a freshening to the dead air of late summer. Tossing the stack of letters on her glass-topped coffee table, Maddy headed straight for the refrigerator, kicking off her sandals as she went. A few minutes later she sank down on the sofa, her bare feet on the table in front of her, a can of Tab in her hand, as she flicked on the remote-control switch for the TV and began to delve through the bills, advertising, charity appeals, and circulars that comprised her mail. Dan Rather was off that night, and she paid little attention to his replacement, sorting through her mail with half a mind trying to decide whether to go for a walk before or after dinner, when a name caught her attention.

  “The latest delegation from San Pablo arrived in Washington today, headed by General Anastasio Ortega, to try to talk the U.S. Congress into reinstating military aid for that besieged country. This will be the fourth such mission …”

  Maddy stared at the TV, at the smiling, handsome face of Ortega, clad in his natty gray uniform glittering with medals and orders and not a weapon in sight, and her hands clenched into fists. He’d been the one in charge of the shelling of civilians in that aging hacienda, and now he was in Washington to bleat about the peaceful efforts of the Morosa government.

  He must have heard her thoughts. “I plan a great many things for this visit,” he said smoothly. “I wish to set our case before your Congress, with all the true facts that have been ignored …”

  True facts, Maddy sneered, taking a swig of her Tab.

  “… and pay my respects to the widow and daughter of our national hero, Sam Lambert,” he continued smoothly.

  Maddy grimaced. Soledad would be charmed to hear that.

  But apparently Ortega had forgotten about Soledad. “I will be visiting with Senora Maxfield Henderson tomorrow afternoon, to present my government’s condolences on the death of her late husband and to talk over plans for a suitable memorial to this great man.”

  This great man you wanted to kill, Maddy fumed. And with the suddenness of television news the story was over and gone, leaving Maddy feeling angry and just a little shaken.

  She knew who would be on the phone when it rang shrilly in her ear a half an hour later. She hadn’t heard her voice since she walked out of the house in McLean six months ago, but she knew the peremptory tone of the ring.

  “Hello, Mother,” she said politely.

  “I assume you watched the news,” Helen said without preamble.

  “I did.”

  “Ortega wants to see you.”

  “Ortega can go to hell.”

  “Madelyn, do not be more difficult than you have been already. Now is your chance to do something positive for your beloved little Patronistas. I wouldn’t have thought La Patronita would let them down for a matter of pride.”

  Maddy didn’t even ask how her mother had heard that nickname. She knew with sudden weariness that as usual her mother was p
ulling the right strings. She’d have to come, just on the off-chance that bloodthirsty, murdering Ortega might see reason. “When do you want me?”

  She could almost hear Helen purring at the other end of the line. “Anastasio is coming tomorrow afternoon with his party. There’ll be plenty of media around. I think you should be here to provide a united front. Come in the morning and I’ll have your room made ready.”

  “I’ll be there at three tomorrow afternoon,” Maddy said. “And I’ll stay at the Sheraton.”

  “But, darling, that’s so far away.”

  “Sorry.”

  “You’re being uncooperative,” Helen said in a dangerous voice.

  “I’m being far more cooperative than you have any right to expect. Tomorrow at three.” And she hung up before her mother could say another word.

  It was a vain hope that all the flights might be booked. It was a vain hope that her plane might crash over the Grand Canyon. And it was a vain hope that the taxi drivers would refuse to take her into Virginia, the limousine drivers would be on strike, and the rental agencies be out to lunch. At quarter of three Maddy pulled into her mother’s spacious driveway, the clumsy American car ending a few feet beyond the front door with a screech of power brakes.

  It was sheer luck that she hadn’t rammed into one of the myriad television vans outside the house. Her hands were trembling slightly as she climbed out of the seat and headed toward the house, and she told herself it was the near miss with the unaccustomed vehicle that made her nervous. But she knew it wasn’t.

  It was going to take every bit of her self-control not to jump, screaming, on Ortega’s compact little body and try to rip his eyes out. He would doubtless be surrounded by brawny Gray Shirts imported for the purpose. Hadn’t Helen mentioned his party? No doubt consisting of bodyguards and more bodyguards. He certainly didn’t need a translator.

  With a move that was now almost characteristic she reached down and touched the medallion through the light cotton shirt. The heavy warmth of it soothed her, reminded her to be patient as she walked through the door and definitely not to cry.