by Allan Topol
“No. I mean alone. Later. This town has lots of good tango bars. Can you find one for us?”
“Of course,” he said, knowing that the concierge could supply the info and for a generous tip would keep his mouth shut. “But will you be able to get away?”
“I have my own room. I can do anything I want,” she said sounding suspicious. “Why did you ask that?”
He backpedaled fast to recover from his foolish comment. He wasn’t supposed to know about her relationship with Bryce. “In my experience, press people tend to hang out in packs on trips like this.”
“Oh that. You don’t have to worry. I don’t know the American reporters.”
He had satisfied her. “I’m in room 614,” she had said. “Later after the party breaks up, I’ll come back up here. You call me.”
Following the reception, they moved into the adjacent room for dinner. Three round tables of eight were set. Place cards were on the tables for each guest. Craig had no doubt that Estrada had arranged the tables. With a proper sense of political decorum, President Garcia and his wife were seated at table number one and joined there by West, the American ambassador to Argentina, and some top Argentine business leaders. Estrada was seated at table number two. On Estrada’s right was Bryce. On his left, Gina, with Craig on the other side of Gina. Then came Miranda, an Argentine general, and an American military officer. On Bryce’s other side was an attractive Argentine opera singer. Colonel Schiller was seated at the third table along with a mixture of American and Argentine military and civilian officials.
Once dinner began, Craig leaned toward Gina and talked with her about Buenos Aires and the sights he had seen. As he did, he was trying to eavesdrop on Estrada’s conversation with Bryce. What he heard Bryce say was, “Everything bears out your version of the facts.”
“Because that’s what happened,” Estrada said. “But I’m happy to hear you say it. There is still one thing I would like from your government.”
Gina was rattling on about the beauty of Iguazu Falls. “I know you couldn’t see much from where we were today. But you must go back and visit. The Falls are 269 feet high over an area of two and a half miles. The flow this time of year is fast with runoff from the winter snow. The best ways to appreciate the incredible sight are from a helicopter over the Falls or in a boat. At the bottom of the Falls, you can move up so close in the boat that the spray from the water soaks you.”
Craig strained to hear the discussion between Estrada and Bryce.
“Surely,” Bryce said, “You can’t want more arms or planes from us. After the surface-to-air missiles and rocket grenade launchers, your army should be loaded. We’ve even agreed to a reduced, deferred payment schedule with lots of aid to offset much of the bill.”
Estrada nodded. “No. You’ve been very generous. I couldn’t ask for any more in that sphere. What I want now is very easy for you to supply.”
“What’s that?” Bryce asked.
“And you also have to go to the far south,” Gina said to Craig, “to Patagonia and …”
“If Brazil attacks again,” Estrada was telling Bryce, “we intend to give them a powerful beating to deter their aggressive behavior once and for all. I’d like the commitment of your government to stay out of it and let us finish the job. That’s what I want.”
“That sounds reasonable,” Bryce responded. “I’m sure President Treadwell will agree to it. I’ll talk to him as soon as we get back.”
“Good and when you go to Brazil, you can deliver the message that we are prepared to defend ourselves.”
Craig heard Gina say, “Have you ever seen penguins?”
He shook his head.
“They’re amazing animals. They …”
“I won’t be going to Brazil,” Bryce told Estrada. “They refuse to meet with our delegation. They claim we’re too biased to be a mediator.”
That comment elicited a wry smile from Estrada. “I think there’s another explanation.”
“What’s that?” Bryce asked.
“They recognize how wise you are. That you’ll cut through their deceit in a minute. For my part, I’d like to take advantage of that wisdom. We seem to understand each other. I hope that you and I can open up a direct line of communication between the two of us for the future. Perhaps you’ll come and visit at my country house in January and provide some advice.”
Bryce swallowed Estrada’s blatant flattery. “I would be delighted to do that.”
Estrada then directed the conversation and Bryce’s attention to the singer on Bryce’s other side. “Our Melina,” he said, “has performed with opera companies all around the world.”
Craig turned back to Gina, who was telling him, “You haven’t touched your Argentine steak. It’s superb.”
A waiter came by and filled his wine glass. It was Miranda’s excellent 1990 malbec, he noticed.
He sipped the wine and leaned toward Miranda to tell him how good it was. When he turned the other way, Gina was locked in a whispered conversation with Estrada, too low for him to overhear. Through the corner of his eye, he watched them and tried to understand the nature of their obviously close relationship. It wasn’t romantic. More like a close father-daughter relationship, but with business components. A daughter working in a family business, where she did her father’s bidding. It was odd. Everything about this situation was bizarre.
Several different wines, all from Miranda’s winery, were freely poured during the multicourse dinner. As Gina drank more and more, she became demonstrably friendly toward Craig, not only giggling like a schoolgirl, but touching him from time to time. First, she placed her hand on his. He moved it away gracefully. But then she rested it on his arm. When he also moved that, she reached behind his chair and stroked the back of his neck.
“This is not smart,” he wanted to tell her, but he kept still. The alcohol had broken down her inhibitions and eroded her discretion. Through the corner of his eye, he noticed Bryce watching what was happening. The American lawyer was shooting green poison dart looks at both Craig and Gina.
This was not what Craig needed right now.
He was happy when she told him, “I have to go the little girls’ room to pee. You want to come and go to the little boys’?”
“I’m okay.” The last thing he wanted right now was for Bryce to see him leave the room with Gina.
He took a deep breath when she spun off the chair, touched his cheek, and cut across the room toward the entrance, which was being guarded by three armed soldiers.
Craig’s relief was short-lived. The minute Gina was gone, Bryce stood up, moved over, and sat down in her empty chair.
“We never really had a chance to talk today,” Bryce said to Craig. “I gather from General Estrada that you’re an investment banker from San Francisco down here looking for opportunities.”
“That pretty well describes it,” Craig said warily. He was altering his voice because Bryce had heard him speak as Craig Page in two meetings with Treadwell.
“Been here long?”
“Oh a week or so.”
“Where are you staying?”
“Here at the Alvear. In fairly modest digs.” He smiled, but Bryce, his face stone rigid, was in no mood for humor.
“I would think it’s a tough economy to make money in.” Bryce’s voice had a suspicious edge.
“In my experience, that’s the best time to invest. Find the opportunities before others do. When the storm is abating. Anybody can sail a boat in calm water.”
“Are you married, Mr. Gorman?”
“Please, it’s Barry.” He guessed that the jealous Bryce wanted to point out to Gina that her new friend was married as a way of pulling her back, but Craig was ready for him. Sticking with the Barry Gorman bio, he said, “I tried it once. It didn’t agree with me. What about you? I’ll bet you’re part of a forty year marriage. My parents had one of those.”
Bryce reddened slightly. Before he had a chance to respond, Gina returned. “Listen,
honey,” Bryce told her, “go take my seat for a while. This is all guy talk. Business and boring stuff like that.”
Craig could tell that she was clearly pissed, but she did what Bryce said.
“What firm are you with?” Bryce asked.
“The Philoctetes Group.”
“I haven’t heard of that one.”
“It’s a private equity fund based in San Francisco. I specialize in international investments.”
“Really. How interesting. I’ve been looking for something like that for myself. I’m tired of having my own net worth repeatedly battered by the American stock market.”
Staring at Bryce, Craig said sternly, “We have a $10 million minimum.”
Bryce smiled. “I can handle that. Do you have a card?”
Play it natural, Craig cautioned himself. “Sure.” He pulled out his wallet and handed Bryce a card, which the American lawyer studied.
A waiter passed cigars. Craig took one and lit it up. Bryce declined.
“Do you have a cell phone number?” Bryce asked.
“All of my business calls go into the San Francisco office. The number’s on the card. They always find me.”
With the card still in his hand, Bryce stood up and said to Gina, who was in a pout, “You can have your chair back.” In a voice dripping with sarcasm, he added, “I’d say I warmed it up, but you’re so hot tonight that I probably cooled it down.”
She glared at him and moved over.
“What’d he want?” she asked Craig.
This is getting so dicey it’s almost funny, he thought. Back to his own voice. But softly, “Bryce wants to talk to me about investing some of his money.”
Any thought Craig had that the situation with Bryce was humorous dissipated rapidly. Through the corner of his eye, he watched Bryce, still with the Barry Gorman card in hand, walk over to Colonel Schiller, standing near the doorway puffing on a cigar and talking to one of the soldiers. Once he saw Bryce approach, Schiller moved forward to meet him.
Craig couldn’t hear what Bryce and Schiller said, but he saw Bryce hand the card to Schiller, which the colonel glanced at and returned. They chatted for a couple of minutes. Then Schiller reached into his pocket, took out a card of his own and handed it to Bryce.
At that point, Craig made a decision. Tomorrow morning he would fly back to the United States. The focus had shifted to Washington. The key now was whether Bryce could convince Treadwell to do what Estrada wanted. Besides, he had pushed his luck with Schiller as far as he possibly could. If he didn’t get out of the country damn fast, he’d end up like Dunn. He had no doubt that Schiller would make his death look like an accident in order to avoid Estrada’s wrath.
A few minutes later, the dinner was breaking up. As Gina stood and Craig held the chair for her, she whispered in his ear. “Remember room 614. I’ll be waiting for your call.”
“Absolutely,” he replied softly.
On her way to the door, Bryce cut her off. Pretending to say good night to Miranda, Craig moved close enough to hear Bryce say to her, “Let’s go out on the town. You’ve always told me that Buenos Aires starts at midnight. That’s ten minutes from now.”
Gina yawned. “Oh Edward, not tonight. I’m so tired.”
“But I thought you were a night person.”
“On last night’s flight I was in the press section of the plane. We didn’t have beds like you people. I’ll take a rain check.”
“Just for a little while.”
“Please. I’m too tired for anything.”
Bryce was visibly annoyed, but there was nothing to do about it. She wasn’t going.
El Bodegon was a grimy down-and-out tango joint in a seedy area of San Telmo, a fifteen-minute cab ride from the Alvear. While mentioning the name of the place to Craig, the concierge said, “I doubt whether any foreigners have ever been there. At any rate, with the increased crime that’s an unfortunate consequence of our recession, I would not recommend it.”
“Then I certainly won’t go there,” Craig had told him, in case any of Estrada’s people asked.
Walking through the front door of El Bodegon, he and Gina looked like porteños. She was dressed in a bright blouse and short black skirt. Her shoes were black patent leather with a strap across the instep. She had left the cross in the hotel room. He was in a pair of khakis and muted plaid shirt.
Since neither of them wanted to be seen, he had told her to come to the eighth floor of the Alvear, to which she readily agreed. He had met her at the elevator, then took her down to the basement and outside through the service entrance he had used yesterday.
It was still early. El Bodegon was dimly lit and half empty. He led her to a booth in the corner and ordered a couple of margaritas with salt.
The accordion-like bandonéon was playing a hauntingly sad song. The words described a lonely man at a bar drinking to drown his troubles to forget the woman who had left him. On the dance floor, couples, quite adept at the tango, moved together, giving the appearance of one stalking the other. Two sweat-slicked bodies fused, simulating copulation. Wide-eyed, watching their overt sexuality, Gina said, “I’ve never been to a place like this before. I can’t believe it took a gringo to get me here.”
She had given him the opening he wanted. He took a sip of his drink, then moved right in. “Have you ever lived in Buenos Aires?”
“Only for a few months when I began at La Nación. I was born in Mendoza. My mother died when I was only two. With my father in the army, I grew up with his parents on their farm. They’re wonderful people. The family has been in Argentina for more than two hundred years.
“Though I was only ten when my father died, he had spent lots of time with me—whenever he could. He was kind, warm, and caring. A marvelous human being. I loved him so much. Everybody did. He was a great man, a hero of the Republic. Very popular. My grandparents told me that people cried for days when they found out the Communists assassinated him. I was away at school at the time. It was horrible.” She paused to wipe tears from her eyes.
“What was his name?”
“Miguel Galindo. General Miguel Galindo.” Looking over at Craig with pride, she asked, “Have you heard of him?”
He hadn’t, but he didn’t want to admit that. So he said, “I saw his name in some of the articles I read before coming down here. They were all very complimentary.”
She gulped down the rest of her drink. “I’m so thirsty.”
The waitress was passing by. Gina told her, “I’ll have another one.”
The waitress looked at Craig. “You, too?”
“I’m good for now.”
“How’d you get to know General Estrada?”
“What makes you think I do?” She sounded defensive.
“The way he was talking to you tonight. The fact that he selected you for his dinner partner.”
She was beaming. “I guess that’s right. Alfredo served under my father. After papa’s death, Alfredo treated me like one of his own children. I spent many weekends at his country house. He’d send an army car to pick me up at the girls’ school. He took me skiing with his family in the winter and to a mountain lake in the summer. Now that I’m grown up, he’s helped my career at the newspaper.” She paused to take another sip. “But I’m tired of talking about myself. I want to talk about you. How did you get into this investment business?”
She said it in such a forced way that he decided Estrada had told her to obtain information from him.
The waitress brought her drink. She sipped it and looked at him, waiting for an answer.
“I always liked money,” he said, laughing easily.
She laughed with him. “Most people do.”
“And I found that I’m good at it.”
“Your office is in San Francisco?”
He nodded. “I’d love to show you around California some time. What do you think, Gina?”
“That would be great,” she said with enthusiasm. “Also, I like that you call me by m
y name. Not honey or dear. You treat me like a real person.”
She was slurring her words, blinking her eyes as if getting them to focus. She’d had too much to drink.
“And of course you are a wonderful person,” he said. “If you give me your cell number, I’ll call you when I can arrange it.”
She took a pen out of her purse and sloppily wrote down a number on a paper napkin. “My cell,” she handed it to him.
“I have to go back to San Francisco for a couple of days. To do some work on one of the investments I’m discussing with your friend Alfredo.”
She smiled like a cat who had just swallowed a canary. In a soft voice, she began singing. “A kiss on the hand may be quite continental, but diamonds are a girl’s best friend.”
She picked up her left hand and waved her ring finger at him.
Startled, he responded, “How did you know that?”
“My friend Rosie has tons of CDs from Broadway musicals. That’s from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.”
“No. I mean how did you know that Alfredo and I were discussing diamonds?”
She held a finger up to her lips and gave him a coquettish look. “There’s plenty that I know, but I’ll never tell.”
Just how tight with Estrada was she, he wondered. He decided that it was time to close up shop before arousing her suspicions. He had already gotten more from her than he had hoped. A new song was beginning. “We didn’t come here to talk,” he said. “We came to tango.”
He led her out to the floor, where they joined half a dozen other couples.
Back at the Alvear, Bryce was calling Gina’s room for the third time. As before, it rang and rang with no answer. In a white fury and in his stockinged feet and Alvear terrycloth robe, he charged down the hall from his suite in 601 to 614. He pounded on the door so loudly that a security guard came up an inside staircase and eyed him with apprehension, ready to go for his gun.
“I’m sorry,” Bryce mumbled. “I must have made a mistake.”
But he knew damn well he hadn’t made a mistake. He was absolutely certain what had happened.
Going for total certainty to make himself as miserable as possible, Bryce went back to his own suite and asked the operator to connect him with Barry Gorman.
