George Baldwin smiled a bitter smile. “What you’re saying is that we’re damned if we do and damned if we don’t.”
“In a way, yes.”
“That we must continue to support these two-bit dictators whether we like it or not?”
“Not entirely,” I said, “there are valuable concessions that can be obtained in return for your aid. Like the ones we’re willing to give.”
“We’ve had samples of el Presidente’s concessions,” Baldwin answered bluntly. “He’s not especially noted for keeping his word.”
“This time he must. He is approaching the end and he wishes to be remembered with respect.”
George looked thoughtful. “He may already be too far gone to help.”
“It is not for him that I am asking,” I said. “It is for Corteguay.”
George was silent, studying me.
“Each day that goes by,” I added, “more guns are entering this country. Not just rifles, but big guns, mortars, and light cannon. It is only a question of time before they will be used. And the guns do not come from your factories but from behind the Iron Curtain. If a revolution succeeds, whom will the people be grateful to? You or those who helped them?”
George took a deep breath. “I will pass the word along. But I can’t promise anything, you know that.”
“I know.” I got to my feet. “Thanks for listening to me.”
He held out his hand. “If you find yourself free one evening give me a call. Perhaps you can join us for dinner.”
“I’ll try,” I said.
But when I left the cool air-conditioned office and got out into the baking-hot street in front of the embassy, I knew I wouldn’t. Just as I knew that the Americans would always follow their classic pattern. For whatever their reasons, they would keep hands off. And their money in their pockets.
I looked at my watch. It was a few minutes past four. Just after siesta. The streets were beginning to fill with people again. It was too early to go back to the palace. El Presidente would not be back in his office before five.
I strolled idly down the hill to the port, past the market where the peddlers were just beginning to uncover their afternoon wares. I smelled the aroma of tropical fruits and listened to the chattering of the women calling their invitations from the windows of the cheap cribs. I watched the children at play, barefoot and ragged, weaving their way in and out of the stalls in the secret games that I had long ago forgotten.
I bought a mango ice from a peddler and sat down on the same stone steps looking out over the harbor where I had sat savoring the same sticky sort of mess many years ago as a boy. I looked out over the water. There were only two ships in port and in the distance on the far side of the harbor I could see the rusting offshore oil derricks that had been abandoned not too long ago.
The shadows lengthened as the sun moved deeper into the west, and the smells of frying fish came to my nostrils as the fishermen began to cook and eat what they had been unable to sell. Curatu. At one time I had thought it the biggest city in the world.
I looked at my watch again. It was almost five. I got to my feet and as I began to walk back toward the city, a lottery peddler crossed my path trailing his string of tickets idly from his hand. A strip of them fluttered to the ground at my feet, and he walked on without so much as a backward glance.
I smiled. Nothing had changed. The tricks they used to hawk their tickets were still the ones they had used when I was a boy. If you called attention to the tickets they had dropped they would insist that Lady Luck had sent you an omen, that these were obviously the winning tickets you had always sought. It did not matter whether you wanted them or not; they would trail you for blocks insisting that you were missing the opportunity of a lifetime.
The ticket vendor went on a few paces, then, unable to resist the temptation, stopped and looked back at me. I grinned as I stepped over the tickets. His face darkened and he glowered at me as I came up to him. He reached out and grabbed my arm, silently pointing to the ground.
“So what?” I shrugged. “They’re yours.”
“Pick them up!” he hissed. “They contain a message for you!”
I glanced at him again, then I went back and picked up the tickets. The message was scrawled in pencil across the back of one of them.
TRAITOR! LEAVE NOW BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE. IN CORTEGUAY THERE IS ONLY DEATH FOR THE BETRAYER OF MY FATHER.
EL CONDOR
I spun around but the man was already gone. He had disappeared into the crowd walking around the market. I crumpled the tickets angrily and shoved them into my pocket. Suddenly the feeling of danger was very real as I stood there studying the crowds. Almost any one of them might be an agent of the bandolero.
I took a deep breath and resolved never to go out alone again without Fat Cat to protect my back. It had not taken them long to find out I had returned.
A lone taxi came cruising through the marketplace. I hailed it and got in with a feeling of relief. Now I realized why el Presidente took the precautions he took. Now I knew why he felt as he did. It would be a relief to go home, to go back into the mountains. At least up there you never had to worry about who might be standing behind you.
169
I looked out the car window in the direction that Fat Cat pointed. There was a faint wisp of smoke drifting lazily up from the chimney.
“Is anyone living in the house?” Lieutenant Giraldo asked.
I shook my head. “No, it’s been closed ever since I first left Corteguay.”
“Stop the car for a moment.”
Giraldo got out and walked back to the jeep that had been following us. In the rear-view mirror I could see him talking to the soldiers. I saw them take up their rifles, and in a moment he came back to the car and got in beside me. “We can go now, but let them enter the courtyard first.”
“It is probably nothing,” I said.
“Probably. But there is no point to taking chances.”
The jeep pulled in front of us before we entered the yard. I followed it and came to a stop in front of the galería. We sat there silently looking at the closed front door.
After a moment I got out of the car. “This is silly. If there were bandoleros in there they would have opened fire on us by now.”
I started up the steps and just as I reached the top the front door began to open. I felt a sudden tightening in my gut. I heard the quick scramble of the soldiers behind me, then the rush of footsteps on the stairs. Without looking back I sensed that Fat Cat was right behind me.
“Bienvenida a su casa, Señor Xenos.”
The voice that came from the shadowed doorway was a familiar one but it was a moment before I recognized the man who spoke.
“Martínez!”
The old man came out and we embraced. “Ah, señor,” he sighed. “It is good to see you again!”
“Martínez!” I smiled down at him. The old man who lived on the edge of our land perhaps ten miles from the hacienda. The old man who kept stray animals, who ate only vegetables because he could not bear to kill his chickens, the campesino who gave me the little puppy I had had as a boy.
“When I heard you had returned I knew it would not be long before you came home,” he said. “I did not want you to return to a cold, empty house. So I started a fire and brought a few things for you to eat.”
I could feel the tears coming to my eyes. “Thank you, Martínez.”
I looked back at the soldiers. They were getting back into the jeep. I waved to the lieutenant. “Martínez is an old friend.”
“I have straightened up and cleaned as much as I could, señor,” the old man continued as we walked into the house. “You should have given me more time. I would have found a woman to put it all in order.”
“You have done fine, old friend. I am more than grateful.”
“It is little enough to repay all your father has done for me.”
Years ago my father had allowed Martínez to move into an old shack at the edge
of the cane fields. It was his as long as he wanted it, my father had said, and in return for this he used to come down to the house once a week with a few chickens and occasionally a suckling pig. The animals were always alive though. La Perla would have to butcher them because the old man didn’t have the heart.
“How has it gone with you, my friend?”
“It goes well.”
“There has been no trouble?” I asked. “I have heard talk of bandoleros.”
“What would they want of me?” Martínez asked, opening his hands. “I have nothing. They do not bother me.”
“Have you seen anything of them?”
“I see nothing,” he replied, “just my companions, the animals who live with me. We are all happy together.”
I looked at Lieutenant Giraldo. His face was impassive. He knew as well as I that even if the old man had seen the bandoleros only ten minutes ago he would not say anything.
“I have your permission to allow my men to erect their tent in the yard, señor?” Giraldo asked politely.
“Of course, Lieutenant.”
“I will have them put up my tent as well.”
“No, Lieutenant,” I said, “I will not hear of it. You will stay in the house with me.”
“You are most kind.”
“I will bring in the food,” Fat Cat said, and Martínez hurried after him.
I watched them go out the door. “What do you think, excelencia?” Giraldo asked. “Has the old man seen them?”
I turned to look at him. “Of course he has seen them, Lieutenant. But how do you think he has managed to live this long, alone and defenseless? He has learned to close his lips against his eyes.”
I awoke to the familiar sound of birds calling to each other in the tree outside my window. For a moment I lay there half awake, half dreaming, and I was a boy again.
I looked up at the ceiling. It was yellowed and cracked now, but I remembered when it had been glistening white and I used to lie in bed and lose myself looking up at it. On very hot nights I would imagine it was the snow glistening on the mountaintops and I would feel cool and fall asleep.
As I lay there I could hear the sounds of the house as it used to be. The whisper of the barefooted servants walking past the door, the shrill voice of La Perla coming up from the kitchen, the creak of the wagons and the neighing of the horses, with my little dog barking and yapping at their heels.
I could hear my sister again, the sound of water splashing into her washbasin as she filled it from the pitcher, then the low music of her voice as she hummed to herself as she washed. And the soft footsteps of my mother as she hurried past my door, then the heavier tread of my father. Almost at any moment I expected to hear her ask La Perla, as she always did when she entered the kitchen, “Has Dax come down yet?”
And I remembered the faint exasperation that would come into her voice when she learned I had not. “That boy!” she would say to my father. “Someday when he is married and has children of his own he will discover how important it is to start the day early.”
And then the amused low chuckle of my father as he soothed her. “He is still little more than a baby and already you have him married and with children!”
I half-smiled to myself, warm in the imagery of memory. Married and with children. How shocked my mother would have been had she known how it had really turned out with me. I wondered what she would have said. Nothing, probably. In the end it was always she who made the excuses for me. Nothing was ever my fault. Now I knew better. There was a weakness in me that had never existed in my father. My father had had a genuine capacity for love. All people felt it, though only my mother possessed it. For him there was never another woman.
Not so with me. I was too much the victim of my own loins. The sight of a woman, the smell of her, the taste of her, was enough to displace the one before. And the promise of the next served only to accentuate my greed. Somehow I had never experienced the tender, gentle love my father had had for my mother. Perhaps I simply lacked the capacity.
My kind of love was another kind. It was physical, it was compulsive, demanding. I could be with a woman and satisfy both her and myself, saturating our senses to the point of complete exhaustion, and yet after it was over, I would again be alone. And so would she. Somehow it was as if we each knew in our secret souls that there was nothing more I had to give her.
Perhaps this was the something more that Caroline had sought in me and never found. Or the child that Giselle had always wanted and I would not give her. And even with the two who were most like me, professing to the same physical drives and nothing more—Amparo and Sue Ann—there was something missing. Or was it because we were too much alike, demanding only that which we had to give to each other?
We were like strangers on a brief voyage, exchanging a polite pleasantry, giving each other a small comfort because soon the voyage would be over. When we would look into each other’s faces afterward there would be no signs of recognition. The night had passed and we were again alone. Each with the knowledge that we would pass through the harsh white light of day seeking still another stranger with whom we could pass the coming night, so we would not have to see ourselves in the clarity the next morning would reveal.
A sudden silence came to my ears. I listened but the song of the birds had vanished from the tree. I got out of bed and looked out the window. On the far side of the yard a soldier stood urinating against a post, another knelt in front of the tent making a fire.
There was a knock at the door behind me. It was faint at first and I scarcely heard it, for I was still lost in my thoughts. But the second time it was louder.
“Quién es?”
“Me.”
I opened the door and Fat Cat stood in the opening, grumbling. “I have ham and tortillas and beans on the stove. I knocked before but you didn’t hear me.”
I smiled at him. “I was thinking of the house as it used to be.”
Fat Cat stared at me for a moment, his eyes wise and penetrating. “It is good sometimes for a man to listen to the ghosts of his family.”
I looked at him curiously. “What is it?”
“I, too, have been listening to your ghosts,” he replied seriously.
“And what have they told you?” I asked with half a smile.
Fat Cat looked at me oddly. “They have lived too long here in this empty place. They are waiting for you to bring home a woman so they can leave in peace.”
Then Fat Cat turned abruptly and walked on down the hall. I watched him descend the staircase and when I closed the door I could still hear the sound of his heavy footsteps. I went back to the bed and sat down, reaching for my shoes.
Perhaps that was it. I had never brought a woman home, except Amparo that one time. But then I had never met one who would love the place in the way I did. Then a thought came to me and I cursed myself for not thinking of it before. One. There might be one.
Beatriz. Almost from the moment I first saw her I had felt as if we belonged in the same world, the same place, the same time. I had not felt like that with any of the others.
Perhaps it could be as my mother hoped after all.
170
“I am giving a small dinner party,” el Presidente had said. “You may bring someone if you like.”
“I’ll ask Amparo,” I answered dutifully.
“No, Amparo is not to come.”
I knew better than to ask why. If he did not want her, she would not be there.
“Bring the Guayanos girl if you like,” he said unexpectedly.
“I thought—”
But el Presidente interrupted. “I do not fight children. It is her father with whom I quarreled.”
I didn’t speak. It was all very strange. I had the feeling he wanted Beatriz there.
“I’ve heard you have been seeing a great deal of her. It is true, is it not?”
“Yes,” I answered.
“Then bring her.” There was a finality in his voice that made it an o
rder.
“How do I look?” Beatriz asked nervously as Fat Cat turned the car into the palace grounds.
I smiled. “You will be the most beautiful woman there.”
As the car stopped a soldier opened the door. I got out first and helped Beatriz. The long dark gown set off her lush figure to perfection.
I smiled reassuringly as the butler announced us but I felt her hand tighten anxiously as we walked into the drawing room. A silence fell and the people there turned to look at us. They seemed as curious as I about the reception el Presidente would give the daughter of his foremost enemy.
El Presidente was dressed in a simple blue uniform without medals. Only his eyes and his step were young as ever as he crossed the room to us. He took Beatriz’s hand and pressed it to his lips as she curtsied. “You are an even lovelier woman than you were a child,” he said, smiling.
“Thank you, excelencia.”
In the corner of the room a small orchestra began to play. “You are just in time,” el Presidente continued, and with an old-fashioned kind of courtesy he bowed to me. “May I have just this one dance with her?”
I bowed and he led Beatriz to the edge of the dance floor. I watched them move away in a sedate waltz, then turned and walked over to the bar. “A whiskey and soda, please.”
“What’s up, Dax?” I turned and saw George Baldwin standing next to me. “I don’t think I quite believe what I see. The old man dancing with the daughter of his most outspoken enemy?”
I looked at him and shrugged. “His quarrel is with her father, not her.”
“That sounds to me like a quote,” George replied shrewdly.
I lifted my drink. “It is.”
“What’s behind it?”
“I don’t know,” I answered frankly. “Perhaps he wants to indicate that he is not the monster you think him.”
Harold Robbins Thriller Collection Page 156
