Without Honor

by David Hagberg

  The music died again, the house lights dimmed, and a spot illuminated the tiny stage as the trumpet player stepped up to the microphone with a flourish. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he cried in a comic Mexican accent. “Miss Evita Perez!”

  Applause swelled, the bandleader stepped back, a drum rolled, and a slender woman with midback-length shimmering black hair bounced out onto the stage, her arms akimbo, her hips and shoulders in constant motion, her breasts nearly bursting from her low-cut sequined gown, which was slit all the way up to her hip. She was laughing and trilling. The band picked it up as she began to sing “La Paloma,” sensuously coo-cooing into the microphone as she continued to move around the stage.

  McGarvey was too far away to be able to tell much about her except that she had a great deal of energy, a modicum of talent, and that she could have been anywhere from twenty-five to fifty depending on the skill of her makeup artist. He figured that she would have to be at least in her early forties to have been married to Yarnell in the early sixties, but she looked good from where he sat.

  Her audience loved her. Between songs she called out names and joked with them, telling little supposedly intimate stories that she wasn’t supposed to be telling and then pretending coquettishly to be the naughty little girl who kissed and told.

  As he watched her, McGarvey began to get glimpses of a great sadness in her; and of fear that she was being laughed at and not laughed with. At times she became too strident, too shrill, and sensing this fault in herself, she pulled back from the brink … of what he wondered. At other moments she was cool and sophisticated, a talented woman very much in charge not only of herself but of the room. This was her command performance. She had the crowd eating out of her hand.

  Near the end of her forty-five-minute show, her age began to show on her. McGarvey sat forward. The spots were skillfully softened, yet it was obvious that Evita was wearing down. Her dancing became a little forced, as did her stories and, in the end, even her singing. Sweat glistened on her face and upper chest, ruining her makeup, but if anything the audience loved her even more for this effort. She went above and beyond the normal role of the performer. But it was sad; as if she were a marionette doomed to dance as long as her audience demanded; or as if she were the street dancer, holding out her tin cup for spare change.

  Then it was over and she was bowing deeply to thunderous applause, catcalls, and whistles. McGarvey lit a cigarette, and moments after Evita had left the stage his waitress came back to his table.

  “Mr. Glynn, Miss Perez will see you now.”

  McGarvey rose and followed the young woman across the floor as the guitarist in the band on stage began a sad, haunting classical melody. The nightclub became hushed. It was a change of pace, a breather, and the audience was appreciative.

  “Just up the stairs, sir,” the waitress said.

  Evita Perez’s apartment occupied most of the second floor. The salon itself, where she apparently held her parties, was huge, with a sunken conversation area, a large area for dancing, extremely long, plushly upholstered couches, and broad rugs of white fur. A fake fire burned in a Mexican tiled fireplace in the center of the room. Sculptures in wood, stone, and metal were scattered around the place as if it were a museum. The indirect lighting was soft, lending a curiously intimate effect to the large, open spaces. Evita, dressed in a short terry cloth robe, her hair up in a towel and her feet bare, breezed into the room. She stopped when she saw McGarvey, a sudden puzzled look coming to her narrow, sharply defined features. He decided she looked a lot better without all the garish makeup.

  “Well,” she said. “You’re a hell of a lot younger than I pictured you.” Her Mexican accent was all but gone.

  McGarvey smiled. “You don’t look so bad yourself.”

  She returned the smile. “I think you and I are going to get along just fine,” she said. She motioned him to the couch in front of the fireplace. “What are you drinking?”

  “Bourbon and water.”

  She mixed his drink at a buffet near one of the windows, then poured herself some white wine in a long-stemmed glass. “Have you got a cigarette?” she asked, returning. She sat down next to him, her feet tucked up under her.

  McGarvey lit one for her. This close, he could see a few flecks of gray in the loose strands of hair that escaped from beneath the towel. She had crow’s feet around the corners of her eyes and they were starting at the base of her nose. Her olive skin was beginning to go slack beneath and around her tiny jaw. She was definitely in her forties.

  “So, what brings you to see me, Mr. Glynn … or whoever the hell you are?”

  “I’m trying to get some information about a couple of people. Richard Harris and Artimé Basulto,” McGarvey said.

  “Never heard of them. Should I have?”

  “I thought you might’ve.”

  Evita held her silence for a long time before she spoke again. She stared at McGarvey, who noticed that her eyes were circled with tiny green specks. It made her look like a cat or some other night animal.

  “Are you a cop?”

  “No,” McGarvey said.

  “CIA?” she asked softly.

  “I used to be. Now I work on my own. I listen, I watch, I ask a few questions here and there. You know how it is.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I thought you might have heard of them. Harris was an agency man in the old days. Basulto worked for him.”

  “So what?” Evita asked defensively. “What does this have to do with me?” The ash from her cigarette dropped on the front of her robe. She didn’t notice.

  “Artimé has gotten himself in a bit of a jam with the DEA down in Florida. Something about running coke with the help of the Cuban government.”

  “You said you were looking for him.”

  “I am, in a way.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Evita said. “You are a cop. So what are you doing here? What do you want from me?”

  “I wondered if you had ever heard of Artimé Basulto. He might lead me back to Harris.”

  She shook her head, her eyes narrow. “And then what?”

  This time McGarvey took his time answering. The delay made Evita nervous. The room was warm. McGarvey sipped his bourbon. He felt like a heel with her. She was obviously in a fragile state for all of her bravado and energy on stage. He decided that Yarnell had probably hurt her very badly at one time, and she still hadn’t recovered.

  “It has to do with a long time ago, actually,” he said. “Mexico City in the old days. The late fifties, early sixties.”

  “I was just a little girl then,” she said wistfully. “What can any of this possibly have to do with me? Please, I am very busy tonight. I have another act to do in less than an hour, and afterward there will be a lot of people up here. Already I’m tired.”

  “They were doing some very important work for the agency in Mexico City,” McGarvey said.

  “I don’t know …”

  “Harris is dead. Someone killed him. I want to know who, and more important, why.”

  Evita reached forward with a shaking hand and stubbed out her cigarette. She got to her feet, drained her wineglass, looked at McGarvey for a long second, then went to the buffet where she poured herself another glass. She stared out the window down at the street, her back to McGarvey.

  “Why did you come here like this, Mr. Glynn?” she asked. “Why tonight?”

  “You were born and raised in Mexico City.”

  She laughed. “So were a lot of people.”

  “You were there in those years.”

  “It is a big place, I assure you.”

  “Your husband worked for the Company. He was stationed there.”

  McGarvey could see her reflection in the dark glass. She had closed her eyes.

  “Was this Harris working out of the embassy?” she asked. “If he was I never knew it.”

  “You remember some of the others, then?”

  She turned
around. She was frightened. “It was a long time ago. I was just a young girl, barely out of my teens. What did I know about anything? Ask yourself that, Mr. Glynn. What did I know? My eyes were filled with wedding veils.”

  “I came to help,” McGarvey said softly.

  At first it didn’t seem as if she had heard him. She looked toward the fireplace, her shoulders sagging. Idly she reached up with one hand, undid the towel around her head, and let it drop to the floor. She shook out her long, glistening black hair, then focused on McGarvey.

  “Help with what?” she asked, her voice husky. “What are you doing here? Who was this Harris to you?”

  “Harris was nothing to me. Just a name. But whoever killed him is now after Basulto and will be coming after anyone who knew what happened in those days.”

  “Those days …” She shook her head. “What are you talking about?”

  “The Ateneo Español. Does that mean anything to you?”

  Her eyes widened just a bit. He could see her fighting for control. If she hadn’t heard about Harris or Basulto, she certainly had heard of the Ateneo Español.

  “You have been to this place?” she asked, holding herself together.

  “No.”

  “It is not there any longer, I don’t think.”

  “It was important when Harris and Basulto were there. I think you know it now, and I think you knew it at the time.”

  Her lips parted. “And what do you expect me to tell you? I’m no spy, all right? It is dirty work. My hands are clean. I don’t want anything to do with it. All of it, everything, is finished.”

  McGarvey held his silence. What the hell was she telling him now?

  Evita leaned back against the buffet and looked up toward the ceiling. “Virgin mother,” she whispered. “Someone is filling your head with stories. This Harris you say is dead. So who sent you to me? This drug runner friend of yours?”

  “Just Company files.”

  She looked at him. “What?”

  “I went through the agency’s files to see who was stationed in Mexico City during those years. I wanted to find out who was active.”

  “Then why are you here? Why don’t you talk to Darby?”

  “He won’t talk to me,” McGarvey said, holding his triumph in check. She had admitted she knew her ex-husband was active.

  She laughed. “He’s a real prima donna, that one.”

  “A prima donna?”

  “My ex-husband has always been an important man. Sometimes a little more important in his own eyes than for the rest of the world. But he has always done big things.”

  “You were active in Mexico City?”

  “That is a filthy lie,” she snapped. “Who told you such a thing?”

  “How often does he come up here to see you?” McGarvey asked.

  Her face turned pale. She dropped her wineglass on the fur carpet, then reached back to the buffet for support. “What are you talking about?”

  “Your husband.” He wanted to keep her off balance. “Has he been up here to see you? Do you have any contact with each other?”

  She was shaking her head as if she didn’t understand a word he had said.

  “Evita?” he said softly. Something was drastically wrong, but he did not want to break her delicate mood. She wanted to tell him something.

  “You don’t know …”

  “I don’t know what?” he prompted softly.

  She shook her head. She seemed puzzled. “Get away from here,” she said. “Please, just get away from here. I don’t want to think about …”

  “About what?”

  “Go!” she screeched. “Mother of Christ, go! Get out of here you sonofabitch!”

  “I have to know, Evita …”

  Suddenly she snapped. She reached behind her, grabbed a half-full wine bottle from the buffet, and threw it toward McGarvey. Her aim was very bad and the bottle crashed against the side of the fireplace. Her robe came open, exposing her large, perfectly formed breasts, her slightly rounded stomach, and the narrow swatch of dark hair at her pubis.

  McGarvey got to his feet as she snatched up another bottle. He reached her before she could throw it, and he took it out of her hand. She came after him then like an insane woman, biting and scratching and kicking, all the while screaming obscenities. For a few intense moments McGarvey had all he could do to keep from getting injured. She was very quick and strong despite her slight frame.

  He got her away from the buffet and up against the wall where he pressed his body against her, immobilizing her as he held both her wrists over her head.

  Her face was screwed up in rage, her eyes narrow with hate, her nostrils flared, bright red blotches on her cheeks and forehead.

  “You bastard! You bastard,” she cried.

  “I didn’t come here to hurt you. Evita, listen to me! I came here to help.” McGarvey was conscious of the press of her breasts against his chest. It was oddly disturbing.

  Very slowly the fight began to drain out of her. She began to loosen up beneath him. He relaxed his grip and stepped back.

  For a long time she remained against the wall, her robe open, her legs slightly spread, her eyes locked into McGarvey’s. Finally she looked down at herself. She pulled her robe tightly closed and shivered.

  “Just go away now, Mr. Glynn. Please.”

  “Harris was a good man.”

  She looked up. She was on the verge of tears. “They were all good men. Young. Not so smart as now. Pretty boys.”

  “Who?”

  “All of them.”

  “At the embassy?”

  “Them, too,” Evita said. “The ones who came and went.”

  They could hear music from downstairs now as the mariachi band started up again. Evita cocked her head as if to listen to it.

  “Can’t we sit down and talk? I need your help,” McGarvey said gently.

  She looked at him again. “It’s been a terribly long road. I’m finished with all of that now.”

  “You could be arrested.”

  She smiled wanly. “That would never happen, Mr. Glynn. Don’t you know that?”

  “You won’t help?”

  “I don’t think so,” she said. She stepped around the buffet, crossed the room and, without looking back, disappeared through the rear door.

  McGarvey stared at the door for a very long time. In a way he was sorry he had come here. She was a sad lady. Nothing good was going to come from this business, he decided. Nothing good at all.

  He walked over to Lafayette Street and headed north, catching a cab around Astor Place. It was a long time before he got to sleep. When he woke in the morning, the television set was still on and he felt a ravenous hunger not only for food, but for the real world. On the way out to the airport, though, he began to get the terrible feeling that he would never know such a world. His sister had warned him when he sold the ranch that he was forfeiting his heritage. Maybe she’d been right.

  11

  Georgetown is a lovely section of pretty streets, beautiful old wood-beam and brick homes, the university, and numerous parks. Dumbarton Oaks and Montrose Park that morning were deserted of all but a few tourists and the occasional nanny pushing a baby carriage. Lovers Lane, a pleasantly broad walkway, separated the two, opening at its south end onto R Street.

  McGarvey had come directly from the Holiday Inn accross from the Naval Observatory, sure that no one had noticed his arrival in town. It had felt strange to be back in New York, but Washington seemed somehow even more distant for him. He felt as if he were looking through the wrong end of a telescope; it was all so familiar to him, yet everything was out of kilter. He could have been looking at a model of the city, instead of the real thing.

  This was Yarnell’s city, McGarvey thought, looking out from the park exit up toward 31 st and 32nd streets with their fancy houses, many of which had limousines parked in front of them. The man had worked as deputy director of operations out of headquarters at Langley. He had served as a U.S. s
enator from New York, working out of the Capitol. Now he directed Yarnell, Pearson & Darien, one of the largest, most prestigious lobbying firms in the city. Among his friends he counted the president, congressmen, the heads of the CIA, the FBI, and the NSA, the Joint Chiefs, journalists … the power base of the entire country. It was frightening to think not only of the power he had, but of the inroads to sensitive information he possessed.

  McGarvey crossed R Street and started up toward 32nd. Yarnell’s house was at the end of a narrow lane that led back into a mew. Trotter had described the place as a fortress; impossible to approach without being seen. The man could stop you in your tracks before you got within a hundred feet of his front door. He has to feel safe back there, McGarvey thought. Protected in his little cocoon. Perhaps safe enough to be lulled into a false sense of security? Perhaps safe enough to get careless?

  In the park he had strolled at a leisurely pace. Here he walked faster so as not to attract attention. It was midmorning on a weekday. People were supposed to be in a hurry. Busy. A delivery van rumbled by, followed closely by a Mercedes limo driven by a clearly impatient uniformed chauffeur. The car’s windows were dark so it was impossible for McGarvey to see if anyone was in the backseat. But the limo had to belong to someone important. The car passed through the intersection at 31 st Street and kept going. Perhaps to the White House. Maybe the Pentagon.

  McGarvey had to think back to why he ever left. Why he had run to the imagined safety of Switzerland. It was because of the Yarnells of the world, wasn’t it? At least he used to tell himself that. Now he was back again, and the same old gut-wrenching fear was beginning to climb up from his bowels; the same old quickness of breath, the supersensitivity to anything and everything around him.

  If you’re not careful, you’ll think that you can see and understand everything. Every car, every truck or bus, every person standing on a street corner, every window up or down, every bit of trash lying in an alley, every chalk mark on every fence post. You can’t, of course, know everything. Drive yourself crazy trying to. So you damned well better learn to be selective if you want to survive.