The frosted glass door of Room 719 bore the words, "Roger Fielding Y Cia." The anteroom was dark, but Hall could see the dim form of a man sitting in a lighted inner room. He knocked on the glass without trying the knob. In a moment, the light snapped on in the anteroom, and the man from the inner office opened the hall door.
"Mr. Hall?" he asked. "I'm Roger Fielding. Welcome to San Hermano. And please come inside."
Fielding fitted to the last detail the mental image Hall had conjured of the man on the phone. Genial, peppery, he not only talked like a Hollywood Englishman, he was a casting director's dream. Let the call go out for a man to play a retired India colonel, a British Ambassador, the Duke of Gretna Green, the popular professor of Chaldean Culture at Oxford, the Dean of Canterbury or the Chief of Scotland Yard, and Fielding was the man who could slip into the role without even changing from street clothes to costume. Fielding was the man, complete to the faintly grizzled face with the gaunt features, the dazzling plaid jacket, the thick-walled Dunhill pipe with the well-caked bowl.
He ushered Hall into the inner office, whose shades were all drawn to the sills. There was a large mahogany desk at the window; against the wall stood a long table bearing a row of glass coffee makers, a tray of demi-tasse cups, and a series of earthen canisters. On the wall above this table hung a large sepia-tinted photograph of London, taken about 1920. It faced a large print of a cottage and a brook in the Shakespeare country. This engraving hung over a row of four filing cabinets with steel locks. The walls were further decorated with framed certificates of Fielding's membership in coffee associations of San Hermano, Rio and New Orleans.
"Sit down, sit down," Fielding urged, pulling a comfortable leather chair to the side of his desk for Hall, and taking the swivel chair behind the desk for himself. The highly polished desk was bare, except for a calendar pad and a folded red-leather picture frame whose picture faced Fielding.
"I'm in coffee, you see."
Hall glanced up at the certificates and the long table. "I see," he said.
"How was your trip? Not too tiring, I hope? That's the sad thing about planes. Faster than ships, but rather confining."
"It was not too bad," Hall said. "Besides, I stole an hour's cat nap at the hotel while waiting for you to get to town."
"Good for you," Fielding said. "I like a man who can steal an hour's sleep when the spirit so moves him. May I make you some coffee to keep you awake, though?"
"If it's not too much trouble."
The Englishman was already at his coffee table. He took the pipe out of his mouth, pointed with the end of the curved stem at one of the canisters. "I guess we'll mix you a little of that Monte Azul with some of this light roast from the south," he said. "If that doesn't sit well, I have two dozen other roasts you can try."
Hall asked him how good a blend would result from the mixture of Monte Azul, Bogota, and the various Brazilian growths Androtten had described to the Brazilian on the plane.
"Ah," Fielding smiled, "so you know coffees, too?"
"Not at all. My education started on the plane." Hall described Androtten, and told Fielding of the Dutchman's experiences in Java and his theories of the perfect blend.
Fielding set some coffee and water into one of the vacuum makers, put a match to the alcohol burner. "Androtten," he mumbled. "I don't remember meeting him before. However, if it's the Monte Azul bean he's after, I'll venture he'll be in to see us before the week is over. Let me see, Androtten ..." He picked up his phone, asked for a local number. "Hello," he said into the phone. "Sorry to call so late, old man. About a chap named Androtten. A Hollander. Blitzed out of Java by the Nippos. Of course. In coffee. Came in tonight on the Clipper to buy Monte Azul for blending. Know him? I see. Well, thanks, anyway."
The Englishman put the phone away. "One of my countrymen," he explained. "He's not in Monte Azul and I'm not in southern crops. We help one another in a case like this. Incidentally, he never heard of your Androtten." He chatted aimlessly about the coffee business until the coffee in the vacuum maker was ready, then he poured it into a small jug and brought the jug and two demi-tasse cups to the desk. "Sugar?" he asked.
Hall had lost his taste for sugar in San Sebastian. "I have it black and pure," he said.
"That's the only way to enjoy real coffee, Mr. Hall." Fielding took a key from his pocket and went to the first filing cabinet. "However," he said, "it wasn't to talk about coffee that you were generous enough to come here tonight. Not to talk about coffee." He pulled a brown-paper portfolio out of the file and returned with it to the desk. He undid the strings that bound the portfolio, removed a manila folder.
"I think you had better pull your chair around and sit next to me here," Fielding said. "We have to look over some things in this file."
Hall moved both the chair and the jug of hot coffee. From his new position, he could see that the leather folding frame on the desk contained two photos of what was evidently one person. One photo showed a young man of twenty-odd standing near a stone wall in what was undoubtedly England; the other photo was the young man as a laughing child in a pony cart.
"I lost my boy," Fielding mumbled, absently. He tapped the ashes from his pipe out into an ash tray on the window sill, filled it again with new tobacco from a worn ostrich pouch. Hall could see a thin, rheumy film cover the Englishman's eyes.
"The war?" Hall asked, softly, but if Fielding heard him he gave no indication that he had.
Fielding held a lighted match over the filled bowl of his pipe, started it burning with deep, sucking draughts. "Ah, your book," he said, when the pipe was burning. "You are a man of courage, Hall. You showed real guts. The kind of guts our Nellie Chamberlain didn't have when England needed them most."
Hall poured fresh coffee into both his and Fielding's cups. "Thank you," he said. "I tried to do it justice." He told him what the British censor in Cairo had said when he saw the manuscript.
The grizzled Englishman took the pipe out of his mouth, looked at Hall with amazement and disgust. "British grit, my foot!" He bellowed. "TheRevengerwas doomed the day Nellie Chamberlain decided to back Franco. I'm talking about your other book, Hall,Behind Franco's Lines. Any fool can get a battleship shot out from under him, but it takes a man ..." Suddenly he stopped, because both Hall and he were looking at the photos of the young man who was once a laughing boy in a canary-colored pony cart.
He opened the folder. A photostat of a multi-paged typewritten report lay on top of the neat pile of papers in the folder. "Now then, Hall, to get to the point. When I read that you had arrived in San Hermano, well, frankly, Hall, I thought it was the answer to my prayers. I know I'm a garrulous old man, but that comes from talking into the prevailing winds for so long that I just can't help myself."
"I know what you mean," Hall said. "Only I never thought of it in that way. I thought of it in terms of talking to a blank wall."
"Be it as it may, Hall, I don't think I'll be talking at a blank wall when I speak to you. As I said, there is a point to this meeting, and the point is brief. Hall, the Falange is in San Hermano, and it is up to much trouble."
"The Falange!"
"Oh, I know what you are thinking. Tabio made it illegal and it had to disband and all that. But Tabio's government never threw the whole Falange crowd into jail, where they belong, and they are still getting their orders from the Spanish Embassy."
Hall passed a hand in front of his smarting eyes. "Did you say they're up to trouble?" he asked.
"I said just that, Hall. Did you ever hear of the Cross and the Sword? Sounds like the name of a ha'penny thriller. Have you seen one of these since you arrived in San Hermano?" He handed Hall a gold lapel emblem; it was a sword with a blazing hilt, the letters ATN engraved across the cross piece of the hilt.
"The ATN stands for Acción Tradicionalista Nacional, but no one calls them that any more than they call the Nazis by their formal name. You know, National German Socialist something or other. It's a bad business, Hall, a very bad business. The Cross and Sword, alias the Falange Española."
"Are they very strong?"
"They don't parade around the streets in their blue shirts as they did until Tabio clamped down in '40, and they don't pack the Cathedral in their Falange uniforms any more to hold special masses for the rotten soul of that young snot old Primo de Rivera whelped. The Cross and the Sword is not like that. But go to the San Hermano Country Club or a meeting of the Lonja de Comercio or to a fashionable party in the country and every tailored jacket you see will have a Cross and a Sword pinned to the lapel.
"Go to a little country village the day after the local school teacher was murdered on some lonely dark road. Thecampesinosstand around muttering 'The Cross and the Sword is guilty,' and the next night the home of some local Spanish landowner goes up in smoke. Then it's only a matter of hours before the Cross and Sword members in San Hermano are raising hell because a fellow Cross and Sword member had his house burned down. They tell everyone that's what happens when you have a Red regime which forces a gentleman to sell his land to the government and then sells the land back to the peasants who have to borrow the money from the government to pay for the land."
Hall turned the Cross and Sword emblem over in his fingers. "That's what happened in Spain," he said. "It happened in just that way."
"Of course it did, Hall. Of course it did. Now look here. Look at this." From the bottom of the pile of documents in the folder, Fielding extracted a map of the nation's coastline.
"Here," he said, "is the coast. Now note these islands. I have numbered some of them in red ink. Now take this island, Number Three. Looks like an ink blot, doesn't it, now? Not much of a place for anything. Just a bunch of volcanic caves and some quite useless land. Good for grazing a few head of sheep, but not too good even for that. Belongs to a chap named Segundo Vardenio. Been in his family for years, over three hundred years. Own the island, own thousands of acres on the shore facing the bloody island. I know the whole family. More Spanish than the Duke of Alba, that family.
"Well, sir, they were all in the Falange. Segundo Vardenio was one of the big leaders of the Falange in the country. Used to wear his blue shirt and his boots and give his damned stiff-arm salute all over the place. And what do you think goes on at his island, Hall? I'll tell you. Oil and submarines, submarines and oil. The Vardenio lands on the shore are in sugar. They have a narrow-gauge Diesel railway of their own on the estates. Understand, Hall, aDiesel railway? The locomotives and the submarines burn the same type of oil."
"German subs?"
"Hun subs and only Hun subs, Hall. Look here. Look at this report. I sent it to the chief of Naval Intelligence at our Embassy. On the 29th of September, 1940, a Hun sub anchored off Vardenio's island. A small launch belonging to the Vardenio family towed the sub into the largest of the sea caves on the island. The sub took on a load of Diesel oil, fresh fruit, meat, cigars, razor blades and a sealed portfolio. I don't know what was in that portfolio. Three days later, the British freighterMandalay, carrying beef and copper from San Hermano, was torpedoed and sunk by a Nazi submarine at approximately this point." Fielding held a ruler between an X mark in the ocean and the island.
He continued to read the report aloud, running a bony finger under the words as he read them, pausing now and then to sneer at his detractors in the British Embassy or to chuckle at some particular sarcasm written into the report.
The facts in the report were set forth in great detail. They dealt with other submarine anchorages, with the role of the Cross and the Sword on the waterfront, and with the beginnings of an organized ring of sabotage. The report ended with the account of the events which followed the visit of theCiudad de Sevilla, a Spanish liner, to the port of San Hermano.
"Look here, Hall," Fielding said. "Listen to this. On the twentieth of September, '41, theCiudad de Sevilladocked in San Hermano at four-ten in the afternoon. At approximately five o'clock, the radio operator of the Spanish liner, one Eduardo Jimenez, left the ship and proceeded to a bar on the Paseo de Flores, the bar known as La Perrichola. There he met with two unidentified men, one of whom was later identified as a provincial leader of the Cross and the Sword. The three men went to a brothel near the waterfront, and at exactly ten o'clock left the brothel and got into a waiting sedan which, by a roundabout route, took them to Calle Galleano 4857, a quiet villa in the west suburb.
"The villa belongs to Jorge Davila, a lawyer for some of the great landowning families of the south. Davila's record as one of the leaders of the now illegal Falange and an organizer of the Cross and the Sword has been covered in my previous report, dated July 7th of this year." Fielding poured some fresh coffee for Hall and himself. "Tomorrow or the next day I can show you the report in question, Hall. But to proceed with this report.
"At Davila's home, a group of Cross and Sword leaders were waiting for the three men in the sedan. They had a long meeting, lasting over five hours. Then eight men, including the Spanish ship's officer, left the house and entered two fast cars of American make. The cars proceeded to the town of Alcala, in the sugar lands some seventy miles from San Hermano.
"In the morning, there was no trace of the eight men in Alcala. That night, the sugar fields of the English planter, Basil Greenleaf, were set on fire by incendiary flames started in over twenty different parts of his acreage at the same time. Two of Greenleaf's employees who were attempting to fight the blaze in the east field were killed by rifle fire. One of them lived long enough to stagger to the road where he told his story to the Greenleaf foreman, a man named Esteban Anesi.
"I must call your attention, sir, to the fact that Greenleaf was the only planter in the Alcala region who had contracted to sell his crop to Great Britain, and that the fire took place exactly two weeks before the harvest time.
"Eduardo Jimenez was next seen in San Hermano the day after the fire, when he appeared in the Municipal Police Headquarters in what was evidently a state of extreme intoxication. He complained that on leaving his ship on the twentieth, he had gone to a bar for a drink, met up with two pimps, and had then been taken to a brothel where, after two days of drunken revelry, he had been cleaned out of his life's savings and then been carried out to sleep it off in an alley off the Calle Mercedes. Having made his complaint, he passed out. A police doctor examined him, recommended a good night's sleep."
Fielding held his finger under the wordsleep. "Hah," he roared. "Damn clever, the bastards! Now then, where was my place? Oh, yes, good night's sleep. Yes."
"In the morning, Jimenez awoke, vomited, and started to yell for the jailer. He wanted to know what he was doing in a cell, and when shown his complaint, he expressed innocent amazement. He could not recall a thing. The warden gave him a hearty breakfast and sent him on his way. Jimenez joined his ship, which sailed for Spain that afternoon with a cargo of beef."
The case of Eduardo Jimenez was the last in the report. Fielding put the copy aside and leaned back in his chair. "Was this worth your while, Hall?" he asked.
Hall grinned. "You have the necessary proof?"
"Absolutely. To the last word, old man. To the last word."
"May I have a copy of your report?"
"Of course. I hope you will get better results, though."
"May I ask an impertinent question, sir?"
"Be as impertinent as you wish. I'm sixty-four years old, Hall, and if I can't put up with Yank impertinence in this late stage, I deserve no sympathy."
"Well then, and don't answer if you think me too brash, Fielding, it's simply ..."
"Hold on!" Fielding held up a restraining hand. "Let me write your question out on this slip of paper and after you ask it, I'll show you what I've written." He scribbled a few words on the paper, covered them with his left hand.
"Are you British Intelligence?" Hall asked him.
Fielding handed Hall the slip of paper. On it was written:Q. Fielding, old man, are you a British agent? A. No, my fine impertinent friend. Believe it or not, I am not a British agent.
He was not smiling when he put a lighted match to the slip of paper and watched it burn to ashes in the bronze tray. "As a matter of fact," he said, soberly, "I am not in very good repute at the British Embassy. I organized a dinner of the more sensible people in the British colony here in '38 and, after I'd made a blistering speech against Munich and non-intervention in Spain we all signed a row of a cable to Nellie Chamberlain. They have me down as a sort of an eccentric and a Red. Perhaps I am eccentric, but I'm no more a Red than poor Professor Tabio or your own Mr. Roosevelt."
"I've been called both things before myself."
"I'll bet you have, Hall. I'll bet you have. Let's have another jug of coffee and look through some more reports. Can you stay awake for an hour or so?"
"I can stay up all night."
"Well, maybe you can. But I'm not as young as I used to be. We'll finish the reports in this folder and call it a night. But first—the coffee."
The aroma from the jug warmed Hall's senses. In the cell at San Sebastian he would awake at night dreaming that he was smelling the sweet vapors of a fresh pot of coffee boiling away near his pallet. "God," he said, "I must tell you about what this smell means to me some day."
"There's nothing like it," Fielding agreed. "Now let me see, here's a photostat of a letter from the Embassy acknowledging the receipt of the report I just read, and here ... Ah...." He started to turn the next letter over, but Hall, reading the letter-head, laid a hand on the sheet.
"May I?" he asked.
Fielding handed him the letter. It was on the stationery of the International Brigade Association in London, dated January, 1938.
"The action on the Jarama front ... bitter ... your son Sergeant Harold Fielding leading squad of volunteer sappers ... missing in action ... thorough check on records of hospitals and field stations on that front ... no record of Sergeant Fielding ... we therefore regret ... must be presumed dead...."
The father of Sergeant Fielding held the picture of the boy in front of Hall. "This photograph," he said, heavily. "It was taken a year before he went to Spain. You didn't, by any chance, happen to know the lad, did you, Hall? He was my only child. Completing work on his Master's in biochemistry at Cambridge when the Spanish show started. You didn't happen to know him, eh, Hall?"
Hall studied the photograph.
"He fought with the British Battalion," Fielding offered.
"I was with them in the fighting for Sierra Pedigrosa," Hall said. "There was Pete Kerrigan, and a boy named Patterson I knew pretty well. And—but that was after the Jarama fighting."
"The boy is not alive," Fielding said. "I checked with the International Red Cross after the war, and he was not taken prisoner by the fascists. I just wanted to find someone who could tell me—who could tell me how my boy died."
Hall returned the red-leather frame. "I wish from the bottom of my heart I could help you. But I just can't. I'm afraid I never did meet the boy."
Roger Fielding read the letter from London for perhaps the thousandth time, sighed, and placed it face down on top of the pile to the left of the letters and reports in the folder. "Ah, well," he said. "Now for the living. Now here's a report I made three weeks ago. Some day those young stuffed shirts in the Embassy will have to read my reports seriously, Hall. Perhaps this is the report that will do it."
The second report bore the heading: "Neutrality or Belligerence: Gamburdo or Tabio."
Hall started. "What's this?" he asked.
"Let's look it over, old man." Fielding cleared his throat and began to read aloud.
"It is no secret, or it should be no secret to our vigilant intelligence services, that President Anibal Tabio is a warm friend of the cause for which the United Nations are fighting. It is no secret that Tabio, before being stricken with his present tragic illness, was planning to go before the Havana Conference himself to lead the continental campaign to declare war on the Axis powers.
"However, the views of Vice-President Gamburdo, who now has assumed the control of the government, are less well known. Gamburdo's views, however, are not among the best kept secrets of this war." Fielding chuckled, waved his pipe in the direction of the Presidencia, and added the comment, "I should say not! They are far from secret.
"Gamburdo's ties to the Cross and the Sword are very discreet. I have reason to believe that Gamburdo believes his link with the ATN is not known by anyone except a few chosen fascist leaders."
Fielding looked up at Hall. "Oho," he laughed. "That must have been hard to swallow. They don't like to call the Cross-and-Sword bandits 'fascists.' Oh, no. Not the Embassy. They've got them tabbed as 'conservatives' opposed to the extremes of the Red Tabio regime. The fools!
"Well, now, to continue. Ah—chosen fascist leaders. Oh, yes. But twice within the past two weeks, for three hours on the twelfth and for a full day on the fourteenth, Gamburdo was at the ranch of his brother Salvador in Bocas del Sur conferring with Cross and Sword leaders Jorge Davila, Segundo Vardenio, Carlos Antonio Montes, and José Ignacio del Llano. The second meeting was also attended by Ramos, the Spanish Consul General in San Hermano."
"Ramos," Hall commented. "I know something about him. Two years ago Batista gave him twelve hours to get the hell out of Cuba before the diplomatic courtesies were forgotten and a cot reserved for Ramos in the concentration camp for Axis nationals on the Isle of Pines."
"He did come to San Hermano from Havana," Fielding said. "So I'm not so crazy after all."
"You're not crazy at all."
"Hello!" Fielding exclaimed. "If you know that Ramos was kicked out, then the Embassy crowd must know it too. Now I begin to see why Commander New has invited me to have dinner at the Embassy tomorrow." He took a deep breath, straightened his tie with elaborate mock ceremony. "Mr. Hall," he said, speaking like an announcer at a royal court, "I have the pleasure of informing you that Roger Fielding, Esquire, is about to be released from the insane asylum to which His Majesty's Ambassador consigned him in September, 1938."
Hall laughed and helped himself to another pipeful of Fielding's tobacco. "Let's finish this report," he said. "I can't tell you how important it is to me."
"Here you are, old man." Fielding handed the report to Hall. "I was reading them aloud to keep you from falling asleep. But I think you're wide awake now."
Hall smiled warmly at the old man and read the rest of the report. It was very brief. It described how Gamburdo had shifted nearly the entire customs staff at San Hermano to other ports or to desk jobs on land, and replaced them with new customs men who were in many cases proven members of the Falange or the ATN or both. This move, the report stated, opened the gates to Axis arsonists assigned to cross the seas on Spanish liners.
"Cross and Sword members," the report concluded, "are in certain exclusive bars openly boasting that when Tabio passes away, Gamburdo will declare the nation a neutral in this war. His family has been sending copper, hides, beef, coffee, and sugar only to Spanish firms since 1940. It is an open secret in the Lonja de Comercio that these shipments do not remain in Spain but are immediately trans-shipped to Germany. None of the Spanish firms with which the Gamburdo family does business were in existence before July 18, 1936, the day the Spanish War started. They are all known in shipping and export circles as German enterprises. Gamburdo's brother has twice been heard to boast, while in his cups, that the Nazis are protecting his vast holdings in France.
"The Cross and Sword members in San Hermano business circles speak highly of Gamburdo and to a man they assert that if Tabio dies, Gamburdo will impose a foreign policy which in the name of neutrality will bring prosperity to the landowners and exporters. It will also, of course, bring vitally needed war supplies from this country to the Axis powers; a fact they don't even bother to deny."
Hall was puzzled by the report's lack of information on Gamburdo's link to the Falange during the Spanish War. He remembered that picture of Gamburdo at the Falange dinner held in San Hermano in 1936, the picture he had seen in the files of the secret police in Havana. "How much do you have on Gamburdo?" he asked.
"Gamburdo?" Fielding yawned twice, stretched his arms. "Not as much as I would like to have, Hall."
"Oh." Hall told him about the picture.
"I'm not surprised," Fielding said. "But it's really news to me. What do you know that I should know?"
"Nothing much, I'm afraid. How about this doctor who arrived on my plane, Varela Ansaldo?"
"He's never been in San Hermano before."
"Who sent for him?"
"I don't know.El Imparcialhas been giving Gamburdo the credit."
"What do you think of that?"
"I don't know, Hall. I think they might be trying to give Gamburdo credit for something he doesn't deserve.El Imparcialis very much pro-Gamburdo, you know."
"Don't I know it! I used to see Fernandez in his Falange uniform in San Sebastian."
"He's no good."
"Do you think his paper can be right about Ansaldo? I mean about his being brought to San Hermano by Gamburdo."
"Possibly I can find out."
"What do you think, Fielding? What's your hunch?"
"I have none, old man. But I can see that you have, and I can see what it is. You thinkEl Imparcialmight for once be telling the truth."
"Not the whole truth. I sawEl Imparcial, too. It also said that Varela Ansaldo was brought to San Hermano tocureTabio."
Fielding cocked his head, looked at Hall out of one eye. "And you think Ansaldo was brought in to kill Professor Tabio?"
"I don't know. I just don't know."
"But you mean to find out?"
"Quién sabe?"
"I'll help you. I'll give you all the help I can."
"But you think I'm nuts?"
The Englishman hesitated for a long while. "Ah ... Frankly, old man—well, damn it all, you could be wrong. But I'd never say you were—nutsI believe is the word you used."
"Thanks."
"Well, sir, it's been a busy day." Fielding put the letters back in the folder, then shoved the folder into the portfolio and tied the strings. "Unless I hear a motion to the contrary, I shall make a move to adjourn. Ah, the delegate from North America bows. The Ayes have it. Session is adjourned."
He rose from the desk, put the portfolio back in the filing cabinet, closed the drawer and tested the lock. "Suppose we meet again after I have my dinner with Commander New at the Embassy tomorrow night. He's our new Intelligence man. Understand he took quite a beating from the Hun at Dunkirk."
"Swell. Same place?"
"I don't know yet, old man. Suppose I give you a ring." The Englishman suddenly lapsed into a lisping, Castillian Spanish. "Señor Hall? Eh, Señor Hall? This is Father Arupe. Bless you, my son. Would you care to come to confession tonight?"
"Then it will be Father Arupe on the phone?"
"Yes, Señor. If I ask you to confession, it means this office in an hour. If I suggest you attend mass in the morning, drive out to my house. I'll write the address for you."
"Good."
"Oh, just another word about tonight's reports. If you could help me bring the facts about the waterfront to your government, I think it would be most beneficial. Most beneficial, old man."
"I'll do my best."
"I know I can count on you. Knew it before I ever laid eyes on you, Hall. One of my associates can keep us both posted on the waterfront. Name's Harrington. Grand chap, Harrington. Straight as a die, and intelligent."
Hall poured a cup full of cold coffee and swallowed it in a gulp. "God, that's good coffee," he said.
"How are you going back to the Bolivar?"
"I've got a car waiting downstairs. The driver insisted upon waiting."
"El Gran Pepe?"
"Yeah. I guess it is Big Joe." He described his driver. "And Souza says he is very reliable."
"Oh, he is, old man. He is. You know, since they turned the bloody lights down, it's worth your life to cross the streets at night. Awful lot of traffic accidents and all that, you know. Nothing like a reliable driver."
"How about you, Fielding?"
"Oh, I'll phone for my own reliable driver. Or better yet, tell Pepe to come back for me, will you, old man?"
Hall rubbed the right side of his face. "Why don't you ride back with me, and then continue on out to your house?"
"No. It would be better if you left here alone."
"But how about you?"
"There's no danger, old man. No danger. Besides ..." Fielding reached into his jacket pocket, took out a small black automatic. "She's loaded, and I can shoot in the dark, if need be. My Betsy is all I need."
"This is silly," Hall protested.
"Go on, now, old man. No one is going to break in to the office at this hour of the night. I'm in no danger at all."
"If you say so." Hall got up. "Don't see me to the door. I know my way."
The old man put his arm around Hall's shoulder. "We English," he said, "we're an undemonstrative tribe. Take pride in our cold hearts. But underneath the ice some of us have hearts. I'm glad to know you, Hall. And I'm glad we had this little chat. Good night, and sleep well. You're all in."
"Good night, Fielding. And thanks. You're swell."
Hall left the office, rode the elevator to the main floor. Outside, the reliable driver was asleep at the wheel, his right hand under the white chauffeur's cap which rested on his lap. Hall stood near the open window, smiling sardonically at Big Pepe. O.K., pal, he thought, we'll find out about you right now. He cleared his throat, suddenly barked, "Arriba España!"
Big Pepe awoke with a startled growl. The hand under the cap swung up toward the window. It was clenched around a large nickeled revolver.
"It's me, Pepe," Hall laughed. "Hall."
The driver groaned, shoved the pistol into his trouser-pocket. Then he also laughed. "Get in," he said. "Get in and thank your stars you're still alive."
Hall joined him in the front seat.
"Arriba España," Pepe muttered, starting the car. "That is no joke in the heart of any Delgado from the Asturias. That is an abomination."
"You're an Asturiano?"
"Look at me,compañero. Do I have the face of a Gallego? Do I have the head of a Catalan? Do I have the eyes of a Madrileño or the soul of aputa?"
"You fought in the war against the fascists?"
"Mother of God, he's asking me if I fought! Always until eternity they will ask, Delgado, did you fight? And what will I say?"
"Watch out!" Hall screamed. "You'll hit that pole!" He grabbed for the wheel. Big Pepe's steel arm stopped him.
"De nada," the driver laughed. "Didn't Fernando tell you I am a reliable driver?" The car missed the pole by inches, whirled around a corner on two wheels, and then rolled casually down the Avenida de la Liberacion. Another mad turn, and they were at the Bolivar.
"The Englishman, Fielding," Hall said. "He wants you to pick him up at the office and take him home."
"Bueno." Big Pepe put the car in gear.
"How much do I owe you?" Hall shouted.
"Mañana, compañero, mañana." Big Pepe had to stick his head out of the window and look back, while the car moved ahead, to answer Hall. One moremañana, the American thought, and the reliable driver would drive his car through a wall. He watched the car turn the corner on two wheels.
Souza was still on duty. He handed Hall the key to his room. "You look very tired, Señor Hall," he said. "I hope you sleep well."
"Thank you. Good night,amigo." When he got to his room, he phoned down to the desk.
"I forgot," he said. "But if thatcabrónof a waiter is still on duty, could you send up a bottle of mineral water with the elevator operator?"
"Of course. The operator is nocabrón."
"Thanks. And by the way, didn't I meet you the last time I was in San Hermano?"
"No, Señor. But if you will pardon me for presuming, I feel in a sense as if we are old friends, in a sense."
"Old friends?"
"Yes, Señor. You see, I have read your book."
"My book?"
"Sí, su libro. Buenas noches, compañero."
This time there was no confusion in Hall's mind. He knew which book Fernando Souza meant. He went to sleep feeling less lonely than he had in a long time.
The alarm in the pigskin traveling clock Bird had given Hall as a going-away gift went on at eight. Hall shut it off, glanced at the radium dial, and got out of bed. On the roof tops of the houses in old San Hermano roosters were crowing. Outside, trolley bells clanged a block away from the Bolivar. Hall took the half-emptied bottle of carbonated water into the bathroom, poured it over his toothbrush, sprinkled the wet brush with powder, and scrubbed his teeth. The charged water filled his mouth with a vigorous foam. He rinsed his mouth with the rest of the soda, bathed, shaved and dressed.
There was nothing in his box at the desk. He handed the day clerk the key and walked out to the street. At a little hole-in-the-wall stand on Virtudes Street he bought a glass of mouth-puckering tamarind juice. A few steps down the narrow street there was a newsstand. Hall bought two morning papers, found a café where he had a cup of coffee with hot milk and a toasted roll. He remained at his table in the soft morning sun, reading the papers and smoking a cigar, until nearly ten o'clock.
According to both papers, Ansaldo and Marina were to make a preliminary examination of Tabio, and would then spend the rest of the day consulting with San Hermano physicians who were attending the President. There was no hint of what was actually wrong with the President, simply a repetition of the old statement that Tabio's condition was still grave.
Jerry was on time for their breakfast appointment. She was wearing a bright yellow suit of very thin cloth. "Hello," she said. "Still want to be a tourist guide?"
"More than ever." He caught himself wishing that this could be just an ordinary date with a girl.
"What's wrong?" she asked.
"Why?"
"You're scowling."
"Sorry. My mind must have wandered. I'd never scowl at you."
She smiled at him. "Thanks," she said. "I thought for a moment that I'd pulled a boner. The suit isn't too loud, is it?"
It was his turn to smile. "God, no," he laughed. "It's perfect. Very hungry? Good. We're eating right here in the hotel."
They took a table near a potted orange tree.
"How do you say ham and eggs in Spanish?" she asked.
"Jamón y huevos.Want some?"
"Uh huh. But I want to order them myself."
"O.K. Order some for me, too." Hall hissed for the waiter.
"What's the idea of razzing the guy?"
"Relax, that's the way you call a waiter."
Jerry smiled at the waiter when he reached their table. With a childish directness, she pointed first at Hall and then to herself. "Jamón y huevos," she said.
"That is all the Spanish the señorita speaks," Hall explained. "I think we will have toast and coffee, too."
"Well, well," the waiter said in accented English. "The lady speaks good, no?"
"No," Jerry laughed.
"Well, well," the waiter said, "today is very nice and sunny. Very nice." He walked into the kitchen.
"I have a perfect itinerary," Hall said. "Old San Hermano first; that's the historic colonial part of the city. Then, at noon, we take the funicular railway to the top of the world for lunch. And after that—well, well, well, as the waiter said."
They walked about San Hermano all morning. Hall showed her through the old fortress of the Duke of La Runa, which the government had restored after Segura was overthrown, told her about the early colonial history of the city. They sat on the old sea wall for a few minutes, while Hall pointed out the Moorish and Spanish details of the stone houses along the sea drive above the wharves. The youngest of the houses was a century old; the tile friezes along their bellies had all been imported from Spain in sailing ships. Jerry watched the sun do magic tricks of blue and purple on the surface of the houses. They wandered through the old market places, deserted that day, but colored by the little stalls along the sidewalks. Hall bought a large spray of gardenias for the girl from an itinerant vendor.
"Where are those beaten-silver things you told me about?" she asked.
"Later," he said. "There's plenty of time for that."
"Where do we go now?" Jerry asked. "My feet are killing me."
"From now on we ride." He found a taxi parked near the Cathedral, and they rode to the funicular railway terminal at the base of Monte Azul. He told her how the railway was built by Segura, as they rode. "But it was when the Tabio junta threw the Seguristas out that the damned cable cars meant anything to the people of the country themselves. You see, Jerry, Segura gave the concession on top of the mountain to one of his thugs. The new regime opened it up to the little guys. And wait till you see what they did to the grounds."
They shared the cable car with an old water colorist, and two other young couples. "My God," Jerry exclaimed, when she saw the route the cars followed, "it's like climbing hand over hand up a sheer cliff!"
"Don't worry. It's perfectly safe. In a way, though, I'm sorry this is such a clear day. On a cloudy day, the tracks just vanish into the soup up there, and you feel that you are being towed into the clouds."
The cars climbed for five miles, creaking, whining, grunting, but steadily pushing on toward the peak. From the opened windows, Jerry could see the Moorish villas at the base of the mountain, then their red-tiled roofs, then the miles of scraggly wild orange trees. The sweet, heavy odors of their blossoms filled the car.
"Oh, look," she said, "the town is getting smaller. And the sea is growing bluer."
"Wait until we get off," he smiled. "Then you'll really see something."
The old artist took out a sketch pad, studied Jerry's excited face, and made some quick strokes with a charcoal stick. Hall winked at the old man. "Hola, viejo. Qué pasa?"
"La mujer es muy bonita."
"Muchas gracias, Señor.Es verdad."
"What are you saying to him?" Jerry asked.
"He said you are very beautiful and I said that's the Lord's gospel truth. He's sketching you, I think."
"Can we buy it if it's good?"
"I'll speak to him later. Up there."
The car stopped at the terminal on the man-made plateau about a thousand feet from the actual tip of Monte Azul. A wooden rail ran along the edge of the plateau for about a quarter of a mile. Within the rail was the funicular terminal, a souvenir stand, a tiny post office, and a large open-air restaurant.
"Let's eat," Hall said. "You get hungry as a horse up there."
They took a table with an enameled orange top near the rail. Large barbecue pits hugged the mountain side of the restaurant, and under a shed roof three cooks presided over a row of steaming pots. From their table, they could see the mile-deep belt of mountain flowers which had been planted in the days of the dictators and expanded by the democrats. There were flowers of every shape and color, but orange was the color which spoke most frequently in the cultivated beds. Below the flowers, the mountainside seemed to be daubed with various shades of green and brown. "But usually," Hall said, "the mountain is blue. Almost as blue as the sea."
Jerry looked down at the sea. "I've never seen such a deep blue," she said.
"I know. This is the bluest water in the world." He hissed for a waiter. "I'm going to order a hell of a meal, young lady. A side of barbecued beef and some corn cakes the like of which you never tasted and—just trust my judgment."
"Can we get drinks here?"
"They have a white wine that beats anything in France."
The food was good and the wine was potent. When they were done eating, Jerry wanted more wine. "No more wine," Hall smiled. "Nibble on this cheese, and while you're nibbling I'm going to order a punch I've just composed in honor of this day. Let's call it PunchPara Las Mujeres Bonitas."
"Whatever that means," Jerry said, dreamily.
"Oh, it's wonderful. Black rum and passion-flower juice and tamarinda and wild cherry juice and—just wait. I'll be right back." He walked across the plateau to the outdoor bar and had a long discussion with the attendants.
Jerry was staring into the sea when he returned. "You know?" she sighed.
"What?"
"Nothing. I was just thinking that I've been looking at the sea and not thinking at all."
"Cigarette?"
"Uh huh. Thanks for taking me up here. It reminds me of something nice, but I can't think of what."
"I know," Hall said. "The minute you get here for the first time you feel as if you've known this place all your life."
The waiter brought a pitcher of scarlet punch and two tall glasses to the table. Hall paid the check, and added a package of American cigarettes to his tip.
He filled the two glasses, tried a sip from his before handing one glass to the girl. "Let's see how this strikes you," he smiled.
"It's delicious!"
"Finish it and then try walking," Hall said, dryly.
"We'll try walking later." They finished the punch in the pitcher, and then Jerry looked at her face in a pocket mirror.
"Oh, Mr. Hall," she sighed. "It ate away what was left of my lipstick and I think it gave me a red nose and I suppose I should powder and paint but I won't."
"Madam," he said, "you are under the influence."
"I may be high, sir, but I'm not drunk."
Hall got up and took her arm. "Shame on you, nurse," he said. "There's still a thousand sights to see up here."
"Lead on," she commanded. "We'll see who's potted."
Hall pointed to the edge of the restaurant. There was a mountain path at that end, a graveled path leading into a park of streams and cypresses. They followed this path until the forest closed in around them, and they were alone.
"My feet," Jerry said. "These shoes were not meant for serious mountain climbing."
"My lady." Hall spread his brown gabardine jacket in the moss bank adjacent to a small stream. She took off her shoes and stretched out on the jacket, her hands clasped under her head.
"You know," she said, "if I weren't so full of food I'd take my stockings off and dip my feet in the creek. I just haven't the strength to move."
Hall lit a cigarette, put it in the girl's mouth. "If you ever dipped one of your dainty gringo toes in this burbling frigidaire," he said, "they'd hear your screams twelve miles out at sea."
Jerry sat up and hummed the tune of "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf." She took off her stockings, started to edge down toward the stream. "Here, help me up." She extended a hand to Hall, who pulled her to her feet. "I'm going wading."
There was no scream when Jerry stepped into the water. Her breath just stopped. She yanked her foot out of the stream as if it were a blazing inferno, hopped around on the dry foot with tears in her eyes, and then lay down on the jacket.
"Well, anyway," she said, when she could catch her breath, "I didn't scream."
"No. You were brave." He took out a large handkerchief, started to rub the foot which had been in the water.
"I never thought I'd wind up here when I left New York," she said.
"When do you go to work?"
"Tomorrow, I guess. The President is a pretty sick patient."
"Does Ansaldo think he can pull him through?"
"He didn't say."
"Did he find out what's the matter with Tabio?"
"Not yet. That's what he's doing today."
Hall wanted to ask her further questions about Ansaldo, but he was afraid to betray his interest too openly. "Let's cut it out," he laughed. "This is a party, and we're talking shop."
The girl sighed in contentment. "Oh, that's nice," she murmured. "I don't care what we talk about, as long as we stay here."
"Like it here?"
"Right now, I wish I could stay here forever." She had her hands clasped under her head, was talking to the tips of the cypresses as well as to Hall.
"Why don't you?"
"It's like Shangri-La," she said. "We should both be two centuries old. How old are you, Hall?"
"Thirty-six."
"I'm twenty-eight. Honest. Not twenty-one. Twenty-eight. In two years I'll be over the borderline. Then I'll be an old lady. But right now I'm not going to lie about my age."
"Right now I don't think you could tell a lie. Not even a white lie."
"No fair, Hall. First you get me drunk—only I'm not high any more—then you take me to Shangri-La. Can I call you Matthew? Or is it Matty or Matt the women in your life call you?"
"My friends call me Matt."
"My friends! There's no Mrs. Matt?"
"No. Never has been."
"I had a husband, once. Only I divorced him and became a nurse."
"That when you left Ohio? Or was it Indiana?"
Jerry turned her eyes from the cypresses and looked at Hall, who sat at her side, his face over hers. "Ohio," she said. "How did you know?"
Hall bent over and kissed her lightly on the lips. She neither resisted nor returned his kiss. "You sweet dope," he said. "I'm a Buckeye myself. Cleveland."
"I'm from Columbus."
"Pleased to know you, Miss Columbus. Did you know you have green eyes and there are little gold stars in each eye?"
"Nope."
"Nope. Sweet dope. No one ever told you."
"He calls me names!" Jerry sat up and put her arms around Hall's neck. "He calls me names." She put her slightly opened mouth against his lips and pulled him closer, and together they sank to the ground. They lay locked in the one kiss, the girl's full breasts pressing against Hall's chest.
"Don't," she whispered, "please. Ah, don't. Ah, Matt. Darling."
He found her lips again. They were trembling, and he could feel the tremors which started in the pit of her stomach and rose to her shoulders. "Please, Matt," she broke from his grip and turned her face to the ground. "Darling," she said, biting then kissing his hand. He put his arm around her and kissed the back of her neck. She shuddered deliciously. "Let's get up," she said.
"We're alone here," he said.
She smiled and kissed his hand. "I'm getting up," she said. "Let me sit up, Matt."
"Sure," he said. He sat up with her. She ran her hand lightly over his face, brushing the scars, the flatness of his nose.
"Gorilla," she said, and she kissed him softly on the mouth. "You tore off one of my buttons, you ape."
"Hello, Miss Columbus," he said, speaking with a Spanish accent. "It is a very nice day today. Very sunny."
"Yes," she said.
"Still want to stay here forever?"
"Uh huh. Do I look too messy?"
"No. Your hair could stand some combing."
"Will you get me some more of that punch?"
When she had combed her hair, they stood up and he took her hand and they walked back along the graveled path.
"Can we phone to town from here?" she asked. "Doctor wanted me to check in at about five."
"Going to work?"
"Don't know yet."
They had their punch. The light danced in Jerry's hair, gave it the same orange tint which dominated the flower beds. "I forgot to tell you," Hall said. "You're beautiful."
Jerry swirled the scarlet drops on the bottom of her glass. "You don't know a thing about me," she said.
"What should I know?"
"Nothing. But can I tell you, anyway? I want to, Matt."
"I want to know."
Jerry sighed. "I told you I was married before, didn't I? It didn't take."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be. I'm not really from Columbus. That is, my home town is nearer Columbus than to any other city, but it's just a hick village in the sticks." She told her story in very few words. High school, and then three years at the State University, and then marriage to a small-town high-school principal some years older than herself. After five years of small-town married life, Jerry came into a small inheritance, left the schoolmaster, and went back to get her degree. "I wanted to study medicine," she said, "but I didn't have enough money, so I took up nursing instead. The idea was to earn enough as a nurse to go back to medical school."
"What happened?"
"New York happened. I couldn't take hospital regimentation, and some of the doctors were so anxious to sleep with me that they got me some snap jobs. You know, sitting up with rich lushes and hanging onto the girdles of deserted dowagers who wanted to jump out of windows and handing the right scalpel to society surgeons while they carved out a million-dollar gut."
"It must have paid well."
"Too well."
"And so you became a glamour girl."
"That's a pretty cruel way to put it, Matt. I'm not really a dope, you know."
"I know."
"I guess I just stopped thinking because I was afraid to think."
"Where does Ansaldo fit into the picture?"
"I came with him because I admire his skill as a doctor. I can learn things by working with him. He's fantastically good, Matt."
"How long do you know him?"
"Not long. He came to New York about six months ago to operate on a drunk who'd been my patient for months. The patient had fallen down a flight of stairs on my day off. Ansaldo invited me to be one of the nurses when he operated on the patient's spine. Are you interested in operations?"
"A little. Why?"
"It was amazing. I thought I had seen some good surgeons at work. But Ansaldo is more than good, Matt. He's great. After that first operation, I was his nurse for all of his New York operations. And naturally, I jumped at the chance to come along. I'm a perfectionist, Matt. Some day, some day soon I hope, I'm going to go back to medical school. I've been saving every spare penny I could. And what I'm learning from Ansaldo couldn't be taught in any school."
"You amaze me," he said, honestly. It was hard to doubt her. He prodded her for details of Ansaldo's skill. She answered him earnestly, and with increased enthusiasm.
"But wait," she protested, finally. "I don't see why I should be telling all about myself. I haven't talked like this to any man for years."
"I haven't listened like this for just as long," he laughed.
"But it's not good, I know," she said, her voice abruptly breaking. There were tears in her eyes, and she turned away. "I've gone and made a fool of myself."
"Why?"
"I know," she said. "You probably have a wife and nine kids in New York. I bet you carry their pictures in your wallet."
"Do I?" Hall handed his wallet to Jerry. "Look for yourself. Take out every picture."
There were three photos in all. The first was of Bird, his wife and their baby. "My publisher," he explained.
There was a sepia photo of Hall pointing the lens of a camera at a bomb crater in Madrid. "London?" Jerry asked.
"Yeah," he said. "London."
The remaining photo showed Hall talking to an aged couple on a road packed with refugees. "France?" Jerry asked.
Hall shook his head. "No. Belgium." Again he lied. The picture had been taken in Spain.
"Don't hurt me, Matt," the girl said. She was dry-eyed now, but saddened. "Don't hurt me later."
"I won't hurt you," he said. He wondered at that moment if he would be able to avoid hurting her.
"Are you really alone?"
"Alone?" He did not laugh. "God! I'm the loneliest sonofabitch in the whole world."
The girl smiled again. "I have half a mind to believe you," she said. "Shall we get started back?"
"O.K. It's getting late. Have dinner with me?"
"I don't know, yet. Would you call the hotel and ask if there are any messages for me?"
"There's a phone in the souvenir stand."
The girl bought a batch of picture sets while Hall was on the phone. "Do we eat?" she asked when he came out of the booth.
"No. They want you in the Marti Memorial Lab at the University at seven."
"Shucks."
"I phoned for a driver to meet us at the bottom in twenty minutes. We still have time for a drive around the nicer parts of New San Hermano."
They went to the terminal to wait for their car. The ticket agent glanced at Jerry and then he reached under his counter and brought up a large envelope. "Señor," he said, "the painter left this for the lady." It was the sketch of Jerry, wide-eyed and happy as the car climbed Monte Azul. In the lower right-hand corner was an inscription Hall translated for her. "To a charming visitor—a memento of her visit to our free city. Horacio."
"It was sweet of the old man," Jerry said. "Tell the guy to thank him for me, will you?"
"I already did. But this is fantastic. An original Horacio water color is worth a baby fortune. This sketch is valuable, Jerry."
"Didn't you recognize him?"
"Never saw him before in my life."
Big Pepe was waiting for them with his LaSalle when they reached the bottom of Monte Azul. "How good are you with tourists?" Hall asked. "I want to show the señorita New San Hermano."
"I can drive you with my eyes closed," Pepe said.
Hall laughed. "Keep your eyes open. And your four wheels on the pavement," he said. "Or I'll kill you with your own gun."
"I have no fears of you," Pepe said. "Get in."
Hall held onto Jerry's hand as he described the sights that rolled by their window. Big Pepe handled the car like a model tourists' chauffeur. It rolled along smoothly, not too quickly, and when Hall tapped him on the shoulder he would stop, the motor running softly while Hall made his explanations to Jerry.
At six, Hall and Jerry agreed to have one last drink before parting for the night. "Let's ask the driver, too," he suggested. "He's a nice guy."
"Sure. So are you."
"Pepe, how about joining us for a drink at that bar near the Libro del Mundo?"
Pepe turned around and grinned at them. "With many thanks," he said. "I will join you."
"If we don't all join our ancestors first. Watch the road, you Asturian murderer!"
"I take it," Jerry laughed, "you were telling him to keep his eyes on the wheel."
"You're learning the language,muchachita."
They found an empty table on the sidewalk. Hall and Jerry had Scotch and sodas. Big Pepe ordered coffee. He was very happy to be with them. He beamed continuously at the girl, and to Hall he swore that never had he seen a more magnificent woman. "Of course," he purred, "she could stand more meat, but for a gringo, she is most magnificent."
"He says you're a sight for sore eyes," Hall translated.
"Then tell him to look at my face."
"The woman thanks you," Hall said.
Jerry pointed to the bar. "There's the little Dutchman," she said.
Androtten was standing alone at the bar, a wine glass in his hand.
"I'll call him over. He's a lonesome bastard too."
The Dutchman was delighted to see Hall. "This is indeed a damn surprise," he said. "Join you at the table? Happy as hell to join you, Mr. Hall. Ah, the nurse of the great doctor. Tell me, nurse, do you think the doctor could cure my rheumatism?" This, he made clear by his gesture of holding his side in mock agony and groaning, was meant to be a joke.
Hall translated the joke for Pepe.
The driver nodded. "I understood most of it," he admitted. "One doesn't drive American tourists for a century and learn nothing."
"Aha," Hall said. "Pepe knows a few words of English, it develops."
Jerry turned to the driver, smiled sweetly at him. "Tell me," she said, "did you ever have your eyes scratched out?"
Pepe grinned, shrugged his huge shoulders. "Did the señorita say I have nice eyes?" he asked Hall.
"No, Pepe. She said your eyes can bring you trouble."
The Asturiano closed his eyes and drew his finger across his throat, making the appropriate sounds. "I understand perfectly," he said.
"Let's sit down one of these days," Androtten said to Hall. "I am willing as hell to give you the damn story of what the Japanese did to me in Java, if you are still damn willing to listen."
"Oh, I am. Anxious as hell, Mr. Androtten." He explained to Big Pepe what had happened to the little man. Pepe's face instantly reflected his deep sorrow.
"I hate to break up this nice party," Jerry said, "but I have to go to work."
"Can we take you back to the Bolivar, Mr. Androtten?"
"Not just yet. I have a damn appointment here at seven."
Hall put some money on the table and followed Jerry to the car. "I forgot to tell you," he said. "There'll be a government car waiting to pick you up at ten to seven."
"The poor man," Pepe sighed. "The cruel Japanese!"
"It's been a wonderful day, Matt."
"When do we repeat it?"
"Can't tell. I'll leave a message for you tonight when I get back."
Hall ate alone after Jerry went to the laboratory, and then wandered around the dark streets of the waterfront, thinking how he could organize his work. That was the damned job, always. Planning your moves. Deciding exactly what it is you're after and then organizing a method of getting it. The letter to Santiago. That was a good start. With luck, there would be an answer in a week. But was a week too far away? How sick was Tabio, and could he hold out for another week? And anyway, was Ansaldo a fascist?
The face of Varela Ansaldo would not leave Hall's mind. Maybe Fielding could find out something, anything. At this moment, Fielding was probably eating a little crow with his dinner at the British Embassy. But would they tell Fielding anything? Did they know anything? And who the hell was Fielding and how in hell did he get the dope in his reports?No, my fine impertinent friend, I am not a British agent.He was the father of Sergeant Harold Fielding who hopped out of the wicker pony cart and picked up one of those thin rifles and died at Jarama.
Santiago's answer. There was the best bet. If the boys in Havana had no dope, at least they would tell him who to contact in San Hermano, and it was a safe bet that when Pedro de Aragon (or would it be a love letter from Maria de Aragon?) wrote, the letter would lead him to someone who would know Souza and Pepe Delgado. They were O.K., but just a little cautious, and this business of squiring Ansaldo's nurse would not set too well with them unless Ansaldo was not Gamburdo's man at all.
Hall was turning a corner when he first noticed the little man walking in the shadows of the opposite sidewalk. A little man in a black suit and a dirty stiff straw hat. Hall slowed his steps, waited for the man in the straw hat to walk closer to the yellowed street light. The man slowed down, too. Hall kept walking. He headed for an avenue, found a cab, told the driver to take him to La Perrichola. He looked around to see the little man get into the other cab at the stand.
"I changed my mind," Hall told the driver. "Take me to the Ritz instead."
He walked slowly into the lobby of the Ritz. It was one of the more modern hotels in New San Hermano. He found a phone booth and called Souza. "Where's Pepe?" he asked.
"Right outside. Do you need him?"
"Very much. Tell him to pick me up near the back entrance of the Ritz. I'm too drunk to trust a strange driver."
Souza laughed. "You Americans," he said. "Pepe will be there in five minutes."
Hall went to the bar, had a short brandy. The little man was sitting behind a potted palm near the street doorway, his face buried in a magazine. Hall looked at his watch and walked to the elevator. "Sixth floor," he said.
He walked through the sixth-floor hall, took the back stairs to the fourth floor, and then looked out of the window at the landing. Big Pepe's LaSalle was parked near the servants' door. Hall listened for the sound of footsteps on the stairs above him. Quietly, he walked to the basement, nodded at a waiter relaxing on a bench near the door, and walked slowly to the LaSalle.
"Qué pasa?"
"Trouble. Drive a few blocks down and then come back slowly toward the front of the hotel."
"Sit with me," Pepe said. He tapped the pistol in his pocket.
"No." Hall got down on the floor of the back part of the car. "And take your white hat off."
The car shot down three streets, then Pepe turned the corner, rode a block, and started to crawl along the street on which the main entrance of the Ritz opened. "Souza said you were in trouble," Pepe said. "He says you are not aborracho."
"I was followed. Watch for a little man in a black suit and a stiff straw hat. Park a block from the entrance to the Ritz and keep your motor running."
"Claro."
"I think he tried to sell me perfume this afternoon when I was walking with that nurse."
"She needs no perfume," Pepe said.
"She is not my woman," Hall said.
"Did you see that other woman who came with the doctor?" Big Pepe snorted violently. "I hatemaricones," he said.
"I hate them too, Pepe. Did you know that Franco is also a homosexual?"
"They are allmaricones. Hitler, Franco. They are all the same."
"Putas y maricones," Hall said. "La Nueva España!"
Big Pepe cleared his throat and spat out of the window. "Arriba España." Hall could feel the low, toneless laugh in the Asturian's throat.
"I think I see your dog," Pepe said. He described him for Hall. "He acts as if he lost something."
"Me."
"Falangista?"
"I don't know. Ever seen him before?"
"Who knows?Mira!"
"I can't look. What's he doing?"
"Hiring a car."
"Follow him. But ..."
"Mira, chico, that I can do with my eyes closed. And he won't know me for the offal on the streets."
"Don't lose him."
"I'd sooner lose mycojones." He started the car, slowly. "I am magnificent at this," he said.
"Good."
"During the war I did this all the time."
"When he stops, watch where he goes but don't stop yourself. Keep going after he stops."
"Don't worry," Pepe said. "I am not new at this."
"Very good."
"That girl with the nice hair,compañero. Why don't you take her into your bed some night? I think she would be very good there."
"Forget the girl."
"That will be very hard."
"Where are we?"
"Still following the little dog. We're moving toward the Plaza."
"Pepe. The Englishman's son. Did you know him?"
"He was very young. I only saw him once. He was very brave,compañero. The Centro Asturiano sent flowers to his father when the boy was killed. He died for the Republic, you know." Pepe slowed the car.
"What's the matter?"