“It wasn’t important.” She shrugged. “It had nothing to do with what you wanted.”
“Did you see him?”
“No. But I found him. That part was easy. He’s living in our old house. Same staff for all I know,” she said bitterly. “I had to find out.”
McGarvey hadn’t been following her until that moment when it suddenly occurred to him what she was talking about. “It was your daughter, Juanita.”
“Someone told me she was there.”
“With Baranov?”
“I didn’t know. She went down with some of her friends from school. He would know she was there.”
“Was she with him?”
“What do you want from me?” Evita flared. “Cristo!”
“Was she there? Was your daughter with Baranov?”
“Yes,” she said in a small voice. “She and her friends were there. But I didn’t find out about it until later. I didn’t know at the time.” She shook her head. “She was proud of herself. For all I know Darby made the introductions.”
“Why didn’t you do something about it?”
“I wanted to,” she flared again. “I wanted to take a gun and shoot him dead. I wanted to make him suffer like I had. But it wasn’t possible. Nothing is possible against him.”
“Why did he come to you in New York, then?”
“He offered to give her back,” she said. Her eyes were filling. “Do you understand me? He offered to sell me my own daughter. Which was a laugh because when she finally did come back to the States she went straight to her father. So everything I’ve done in the past nine months has been for nothing.”
It was coming now, McGarvey thought. The truth, so far as Evita knew it. And he thought he had a good guess what it might be. All a part of Baranov’s plan. The Russian had made his calculations well.
“What was the price?” he asked. “That you spy for him?”
“I had been his whore in the early days. It was time to graduate. To grow up. It was important that we all expand, that each among us finds our place, our purpose in life.”
“You supplied the club and the call girls?”
She nodded. “And Valentin arranged for the marks. Most of them were diplomats from the UN. But we got a steady Washington crowd, too, especially on the weekends.”
“The tables are wired for sound?”
“That’s right. The cameras are in the ceilings and in my apartment, of course.”
“Who collects the film?”
“No film. It’s all electronic this time. Goes out over a phone line to somewhere in the city.”
“No one comes to maintain the equipment?”
“Not in the nine months since it was installed.”
“Do you have a switch so that you can turn the system off?” McGarvey asked. “When you want privacy?”
She shook her head.
“Everything that’s said or done in the club, in your apartment, is transmitted?”
She nodded.
“Including our conversations?”
“Yes,” she said. She smiled wanly. “I tried to warn you.”
“But I wouldn’t listen,” McGarvey mumbled to fill the gap.
“Men never do.”
He might not have heard her. He was thinking of everything that had gone before. The unexplained, the unexplainable had come clear. Or at least a significant portion had. But he hadn’t told her everything. She hadn’t been told, for instance, about Janos. She was a leak, but she wasn’t the only one. He wondered then, about his own stupidity. He had made a colossal blunder with Evita. What other blunders had he made? In how many other instances had Baranov forseen his moves; in how many other places had Baranov anticipated his actions and lain in the bushes waiting for him? Somewhere a long time ago he had heard the notion that some lives are inevitable and that of those lives some are terrible yet necessary. It wasn’t fate; rather it was more akin to the ball rolling downhill—once it began its journey nothing short of catastrophe could stop it, which was ironic because at the bottom of the hill lay another sort of catastrophe. McGarvey felt at that moment as if he were rushing headlong down his own path of inevitability, and had been ever since Santiago.
Evita told him a story about a young boy who lived in the small town of Bellavista and dreamed someday of going to the big city and doing great things. The problem was, he had no idea what a big city was and even less of an idea what a great thing might be. Nevertheless, he prayed every night for his dreams to come true and eventually they did. Only they turned into nightmares because of his stupidity.
It was clear she was telling a story about herself. “What happened?” McGarvey asked.
“It’s simple. He got in over his head. He attracted too much attention and the vultures came after him.”
“And?”
“In all of his life, the young boy never had more than a single centavo to call his own. One coin in his pocket. So his wish was that as often as he put his hand in his pocket, there would be a centavo for him. Hundreds of centavos. Thousands of centavos. Millions. But still only one centavo at a time.”
“So he went to the big city. Did he do great things?”
“You don’t understand. Who cares about a single centavo at a time, no matter how many of them there are? The little boy was not only very stupid, but he turned out to be a freak and finally an outcast among his own people.”
“The problem is, I can’t figure out what it is that Baranov is really after,” McGarvey said. “He’s been working on it for months, perhaps even years, and something is about to happen. Do the names Ted Asher or Arthur Jules mean anything to you? Anything at all?”
“Never heard of them,” she said. “What have they got to do with this? Are they friends of Darby’s?”
“They were murdered last year on their way to Mexico City.”
Her eyes widened. “Valentin?”
“Most likely.”
“Why? Were they investigating him?”
“I don’t know,” McGarvey said. “But I’d guess they were.”
“He’ll kill us, too, you know.”
“He might try.”
“He’d be crazy not to,” Evita said. “And why are we going to him like this? What exactly do you hope to accomplish? Are you going to try to kill him?”
McGarvey thought again about Janos and Owens, and about himself. Baranov had had plenty of opportunities to have him killed. But not so much as one attempt had been made on his life. Baranov knew about him and so did Yarnell, through the surveillance equipment in Evita’s club if nothing else. So why hadn’t someone come after him in the middle of the night? Why hadn’t someone planted a bomb in one of the cars he had rented? Why hadn’t his hotel been staked out? Why hadn’t they come after him and Basulto in Miami? Especially Basulto. It was the Cuban who blew the whistle, who fingered Yarnell and therefore Baranov.
“He owns Mexico City,” Evita said. “He’s been there twenty years or more. What do you think you can do against him?”
McGarvey just looked at her.
“What are you doing? You an ex-CIA officer and me a whore.”
“He knew I was coming. He knew that someone like me would be talking to you.”
“He knows everything.”
“How, Evita? How could he know? Nine months ago I didn’t even know.”
“He’s a magician.”
“He’s a Soviet spy, nothing more.”
“He has friends everywhere.”
“Like you?”
“I’m no friend of his!” she flared.
“But you worked for him.”
She passed a hand over her eyes. “You don’t understand, you can’t understand even after everything I told you.” She looked up. “But you will if you ever meet him face-to-face. Then you’ll see.”
“Does the name Basulto mean anything to you, Evita?” he asked. She stiffened. “Yes?” he prompted.
“It’s a cubano name,” she said. “Fairly common.” She wasn
’t convincing.
“Francisco Artime Basulto. He was in Mexico City in the old days.”
She closed her eyes. “Maybe,” she said hesitantly. “Did he say he’d gone to the Ateneo Español? Was he ever there? Did he know the names and places?”
“Yes. Do you remember him?”
“He was young. A fancy dresser. Threw his money around.”
“That’s the one,” McGarvey said. “Did you know him?”
“He was around.”
“You saw him, at the Ateneo?”
“At some of the parties, too.”
“Was he ever with Baranov?”
She nodded. “And Darby. He was one of the regular crowd for a while.”
“Baranov knew him?”
“Yes.”
“Did he ever talk about Basulto with you? Did he ever mention his name? Say what kind of a person he was? Who he worked for?”
She was trying to remember. She shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know. Maybe. But he wasn’t much, or I would remember him better. There were so many of them.”
“Did he ever do any work for Baranov, that you know of? Or maybe for your husband?”
“I don’t know.”
“What happened to him?”
“He just left, I guess. I wasn’t paying much attention in those days, I’ve already told you. Most of them were leaving then anyway. It wasn’t the same any longer.”
“Would you recognize him if you saw him now?”
“I might,” she said.
“Did Baranov ever mention his name to you? In New York, perhaps, nine months ago?”
She was finally catching his drift. She looked a little closer at him. “No he didn’t. What does Basulto have to do with this?”
“He told me that he saw your husband and Baranov together in Mexico City, when the Ateneo was going strong. Before the Bay of Pigs.”
“So?”
“But he didn’t know who your husband was, only that he was an American.”
“That’s hard to believe. Everyone knew Darby in those days.”
“Basulto was arrested in Miami a few weeks ago. He told the FBI that your husband was working for the Russians. He said your husband was on the beach at the Bay of Pigs, where he murdered a CIA case officer who might have had certain suspicions.”
“He’s lying to you.”
“About what?”
“About not knowing Darby and probably about everything else. He was at our house. More than once.”
“He’s coming to Mexico City to help us.”
She laughed. “Then you are a bigger fool than I thought you were. If that Cuban is in on this, you’ve been led into a trap. All of us have.”
“That’s what we’re going to find out,” McGarvey said.
The night was very hot and still. A dense smog hung over the great city. Riding in from the airport in a beat up old taxi, McGarvey could taste the air and feel it at the back of his throat and in his eyes. Evita sat next to him, looking straight ahead, her slight body held rigidly erect. She had not said a thing since they landed except when the customs official asked if she had anything to declare. She did not, and she was passed through. Traffic was very heavy. The city was ablaze with lights. Much of the damage from the recent earthquake was still evident, and poverty was apparent everywhere from the side of the road. They came to the Hotel del Prado, across from La Alameda Park downtown, and McGarvey paid off the cabbie. Evita did not want to go upstairs immediately, so McGarvey gave their bags to an oddly reticent doorman and they walked across the street.
“It doesn’t feel like home and yet it does,” she said. “It’s all different now.”
“How?”
“I’m not a little girl anymore, and there’s no one left for me.”
“Harry didn’t think you’d leave if you came back here.”
“He’s probably right, because there is nothing for me in New York or Washington, either.”
“Your daughter …”
“Was lost to me the day Darby took over. And if she’s been with Valentin, she’s doubly lost.”
Some sort of demonstration was going on across the park along the Avenida Hidalgo. People were hurrying toward the noise from all over the park and the surrounding streets. McGarvey thought the crowd sounded angry, but Evita didn’t seem to notice at first.
“You’ll be safe once this is finished,” McGarvey said, trying to sound convincing. A bonfire was burning in the street. They could see the flames through the trees. “You’re her mother. Once her father and Baranov are exposed, she’ll come back to you.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Everything will be different …”
They suddenly came within sight of the large crowd choking the avenue. Evita pulled up short. Long banners had been hung in the trees and between the streetlights. A lot of people carried signs.
“I think we should go to the hotel,” she said.
“What do the banners say?”
“‘Glory to work,”’ she read. “‘The party and the people are united. Long live the Soviet people, builders of Communism.”’
McGarvey took her by the arm and they headed back toward the protective darkness of the park. A huge roar went up from the crowd. McGarvey turned around in time to see a straw-filled figure dressed in tails, red-striped trousers and a top hat, a white goatee on its chin, burst into flames over the bonfire.
“Libertad!” the crowd screamed. “Libertad!”
28
At ten that evening McGarvey called Hialeah. “Morgan here, who’s calling?”
“This is Kirk McGarvey. Let me talk to Artimé.”
“Oh, they said you’d be calling,” the FBI field man said. “When do we get rid of this scumbail?”
“In the morning. I want him on the first plane to Mexico City. But stay with him until the plane actually takes off.”
“We’ve babysat the bastard this long, another ten or twelve hours won’t hurt much. How much money do you want us to give him?”
“Fifty bucks. I don’t want him having enough to wander off on me.”
“Listen pal, once we get him aboard that plane in the morning and watch it take off, he’s no longer our responsibility. I just want to get that straight with you. Once he leaves, he’s your headache.”
“Has anyone else called or tried to come up there?”
“No one except Washington.”
“Trotter?”
“Yes.”
“Put Basulto on, would you?”
“Yeah,” the cop said. “It’s for you,” McGarvey heard the man say away from the phone.
“Yes?” Basulto answered the phone cautiously.
“It’s me. You’re coming to Mexico City. We’ve got some work to do.”
“Are we going to nail that bastard, Mr. McGarvey? Are we finally going to get him? Is he down there now? I thought he would be in Washington.”
“I’ll tell you about it when you get there. They’ll take you out to the airport in the morning. I want you in Mexico as soon as possible.”
“Sure thing. Will you be meeting me?”
“I want you to take a cab downtown. To the Hotel Del Prado just across from La Alameda.”
Basulto laughed. It was the same hotel at which he had met his case officer, Roger Harris, in the sixties. “Sure,” he said. “I think I can find the place. What room?”
“I haven’t checked in yet. I’ll leave word for you at the desk.”
“Are you in Washington?”
“That’s right,” McGarvey lied. “We’ll be flying down in the morning.”
“We?”
“An old friend. Anxious to meet you as a matter of fact.”
“Who is this …?”
“Tomorrow, Artime. We’ll talk tomorrow.” McGarvey hung up.
Their room was on the small side, but clean and reasonably well furnished. A crucifix hung over the bed, and on the opposite wall, over the bureau, was a large print of the Last Supper. A
braided rug covered most of the tiled floor, and the large windows opened inward from a tiny balcony. Evita stood at the balcony’s ornamental grillwork and looked across the park at the demonstration still going on.
“They don’t like Americans,” she said. “They’ve always blamed their poverty—and even their earthquakes—on the Americans.”
“Is there anything more I should know about Basulto before he gets here?”
“Kirk McGarvey is a good name,” she said seriously. “Better than Glynn, I think.”
“Evita?”
“I told you everything I know.” She turned around. “Nobody liked him. I don’t think anybody trusted him. There was a rumor that he had worked for the Batista government. We were surprised that Castro’s people didn’t assassinate him.”
She’d been a naive little girl, intimidated by events around her, yet she remembered Basulto from twenty-five years ago even though she’d said she only saw him a few times. Who could he trust? Who could he believe? He didn’t know any longer. Perhaps he’d never really known.
“Let’s take a drive.” McGarvey removed his pistol from the false bottom of his toiletries kit. “We’ve talked enough about Baranov; I want to see him.”
Despite the lateness of the hour, McGarvey was able to arrange for a rental car through the hotel. The desk clerk asked him twice how long he would be staying in Mexico City and seemed pleased when McGarvey replied that unfortunately business would probably be taking him back to Washington in a day, two at the most.
The clerk looked at Evita as if he knew her, or wanted to. She said something to him in Spanish and he reared back as if he had been slapped. Leaving the hotel she refused to talk about it. McGarvey thought she looked ashamed.
Their car was a gray Volkswagen beetle with a very loud muffler and a radio that did not work. McGarvey found a street map in the glove compartment.
“It’s in the south,” Evita said. Her face was pale in the light from the hotel entrance. The doorman was watching them.
“What?” McGarvey asked, looking up.
“Valentin’s house. Our old house. San Juan Ixtayopan. In the mountains.”
“We’ll get out there. First I want to swing past the Soviet embassy.”
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