The Adventurers (82 page)

"I want to look at you," I said. "It has been a long time."

Amparo turned her face away. "You do not have to look at me like that. I do not like it."

"All right." I sat down in a chair near her. "I was told that you had been ill."

"What else did they tell you?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing?" Her voice was skeptical.

"Nothing."

She was silent for a moment. "I have not been ill," she said. "That is merely the story he gives out. He does not approve of my actions so he forbids my appearing in public."

I didn't speak.

"I didn't think he would let you come to see me."

"Why?" I asked.

She glanced at me again, then turned her face away. An emptiness came into her voice. "I was wrong, he is smarter than that. He knew the best thing was to let you come. When you saw how I looked there could be nothing more between us."

"There is nothing wrong with the way you look, but what was between us was over a long time ago. It went wrong when we tried to recapture something that had disappeared with our childhood."

Amparo reached for a cigarette. I held a light for her. The faintly pungent odor of the tobacco filled the room. She let the smoke out slowly through her parted lips as she looked at me. "Poor Dax, you have not been lucky with your wives, have you?"

I didn't answer.

"It was because you let others choose you. Next time, you do the choosing."

I still didn't speak.

"But not the Guayanos girl," she said unexpectedly, "she will get you killed!"

I stared. "How do you know about her?"

Amparo laughed. "Everyone knows everything you do. There are no secrets in this city. Everybody's life is subject to el Presidente's scrutiny."

"But how do you know?" I persisted.

"I have friends in the secret police." She began to laugh. "Do you like your suite in the hotel?"

"Yes," I said, "it's the most luxurious suite there."

"It should be. It was designed expressly for el Presidente's important guests."

"If you are trying to tell me something," I said, annoyed, "tell me. Stop hinting like a child."

"You're the child." She got out of her chair and walked over to a cabinet and opened a drawer. "Come, I have something to show you."

I went over and looked down. A tape recorder was mounted in the drawer. "Listen," she said, pressing a button.

Presently from the speaker came the sound of a telephone ringing. Then there was a click and man's voice. "Hello."

It was a fraction of a second before I realized it was my own voice. Everyone thinks they sound completely different from the way they do.

Then I heard a girl's voice. "Senor Xenos?"

"Yes."

"Beatriz Guayanos. I promised I would call." "I have been waiting all morning—"

Amparo hit the switch and the tape stopped. She looked at me. "You do not have to hear the rest. You already know what was said."

She went back to her chair and sat down. "It's not only the telephones. If there were a way to record your thoughts he would have a copy of those, too."

"But the tape? How did you get it?"

"Simple." She laughed. "He gave it to me. To prove to me something I had already realized a long time ago. But he was taking no chances."

I looked at her thoughtfully. "Why do you tell me all this?"

Amparo ground out her cigarette angrily in the tray. "Because I feel sorry for you. Because he will use you exactly the way he uses everyone and then when he is through he will cast you aside!"

"I know that."

"You knew that and still you came back?"

"Yes. I've always known it, even before my father died. My father realized it, too, but it did not matter. The important thing to my father was the good he could do. There are many men like your father, he is not the only one. They have their uses and in time they will disappear, the evil with them. All that will remain will be the positive things they have accomplished."

"You really believe that, don't you?"

"Yes. Just as I believe that someday Corteguay will be free, truly free."

Amparo laughed but there was no humor in it, only an empty, hollow mockery. "You are as big a fool as the others. Why can't you see that that is the secret of his strength— the unspoken promise that will never be kept."

I didn't answer, and Amparo came over and looked up into my face. There was a wildness in her eyes I had never seen there before.

"Corteguay will never be free so long as he is alive He has played God too long to stop now."

I still did not speak.

Amparo turned away and picked up another cigarette She looked into my eyes as I held the light for her 'If freedom is what you really want for Corteguay, the only way to get it is to kill him!"

I stared at her for a moment. There was not a flicker of expression on her face. I shook my head. "No," I said, "that is not the way of freedom. That is the way it always has been with us, and the people still are not free. This time the desire for freedom must come from them."

"The people," Amparo replied scornfully. "They think the way they are told to think."

"Not always. I have seen enough of the world to know that. Someday it will change here too."

"When it does we shall all be dead," she said, walking away from me. She stopped at the cabinet and closed the drawer, then looked back at me. "Except my father. He will live forever!"

I didn't answer.

Amparo took a deep drag on the cigarette, then let the smoke out slowly. "El Presidente was right. He is always right," she said almost in a whisper. "You are too much like your father!"

CHAPTER
4

"This is Lieutenant Giraldo," el Presidente said. "I am making him personally responsible for your safety while you are here."

The young soldier saluted smartly. "A su servicio, excelencia."

"Thank you, Lieutenant." I turned to el Presidente. "I feel rather foolish. Is this really necessary?"

El Presidente nodded. "Especially if you persist in going to your hacienda in the mountains. The bandoleros are very active in that region."

"I must go there. It has been too long since I visited the graves of my parents."

"Then Giraldo and his men will accompany you." There was a finality in that voice that brooked no argument. He turned to the soldier. "You will have your men at the ready, Lieutenant."

The soldier saluted smartly and left.

"You saw Amparo?"

"Yes."

A strange expression came into his face. I could not make out what it was. "What did you think?"

"Amparo has changed," I said cautiously.

He nodded. "Amparo is very ill."

"I could not tell. She seemed all right to me."

"Not physically," he said in a low voice, "up here." He tapped his brow with a finger.

I did not speak.

"I suppose she suggested you kill me?" His voice was casual.

My voice was as casual as his. "She did say something like that."

"Isn't that evidence of a sick mind?" There was a hint of anger beneath his controlled voice. "The desire to kill her own father?"

"Yes." There was no other answer I could give. "Have you thought of sending her to a doctor?"

"What could a doctor do?" he asked bitterly. "She is consumed by her hatred of me."

"There are doctors abroad who have worked with such cases."

"No," he said, "she must remain here. There is no telling what might happen if she were not here with me. There are those who would take advantage of her sickness." He changed the subject abruptly. "Have you spoken to the American consul?"

"No, I have an appointment with him this afternoon."

"Good," he said. "Let me know his reactions after the meeting."

'Twenty million dollars," he said, leaning back in his chair.

"Don't sound so shocked, George. It is nothing compared to what you've given others. And it's merely a loan, not a grant. You've pissed away that much and more on Trujillo and Batista, not to mention others."

"I know, I know. But we knew exactly where we stood with them."

"I know," I replied sarcastically. "Maybe if you worried less about how you stood with them you'd be hated less by their people."

George Baldwin looked at me. "I don't want to get into a policy argument with you."

"I'm not arguing. A borrower does not have arguments with his banker."

"Oh, buddy. You're not mincing any words."

"The situation is too serious to fuck around," I said. "I'm not saying everything the old man has done is right. But he has done more for his country than the others. And don't forget he has accomplished it without the official help of the American government. Now the problem is no longer solely our own, it's one that involves all Latin America and yourselves. Like it or not, the Communists are in Latin America to stay. And it will be only your ignorance that will allow them to obtain control."

Baldwin's face grew serious. "What are you telling me?" He reached for a cigarette. "Are you beginning to fall for that Commie-under-every-bed bit, too?"

"No," I said, "but they're clever. They've allied themselves with many groups. In time you may even find yourself supporting one of them. When you do you'll have turned over a country to them."

"I can't believe that. We know who the Communists are."

"Do you?" I asked. "Maybe. But what if they are well concealed? Will you be able to discover them when they're hidden beneath the surface?"

He was silent.

"That is one way they'll take over," I said. "But there is another and that will be even easier for them. American support has come to mean stability for any Latin American government. Withdraw or withhold that support, and that government will fall. The first time you do so you'll be conceding that country to them."

George Baldwin smiled a bitter smile. "What you're saying is that we're damned if we do and damned if we don't."

"In a way, yes."

"That we must continue to support these two-bit dictators whether we like it or not?"

"Not entirely," I said, "there are valuable concessions that can be obtained in return for your aid. Like the ones we're willing to give."

"We've had samples of el Presidente's concessions," Baldwin answered bluntly. "He's not especially noted for keeping his word."

"This time he must. He is approaching the end and he wishes to be remembered with respect."

George looked thoughtful. "He may already be too far gone to help."

"It is not for him that I am asking," I said. "It is for Corteguay."

George was silent, studying me.

"Each day that goes by," I added, "more guns are entering this country. Not just rifles, but big guns, mortars, and light cannon. It is only a question of time before they will be used. And the guns do not come from your factories but from behind the Iron Curtain. If a revolution succeeds, whom will the people be grateful to? You or those who helped them?"

George took a deep breath. "I will pass the word along. But I can't promise anything, you know that."

"I know." I got to my feet. "Thanks for listening to me."

He held out his hand. "If you find yourself free one evening give me a call. Perhaps you can join us for dinner."

"I'll try," I said.

But when I left the cool air-conditioned office and got out into the baking-hot street in front of the embassy, I knew I wouldn't. Just as I knew that the Americans would always follow their classic pattern. For whatever their reasons, they would keep hands off. And their money in their pockets.

I looked at my watch. It was a few minutes past four. Just after siesta. The streets were beginning to fill with people again. It was too early to go back to the palace. El Presidente would not be back in his office before five.

I strolled idly down the hill to the port, past the market where the peddlers were just beginning to uncover their afternoon wares. I smelled the aroma of tropical fruits and listened to the chattering of the women calling their invitations from the windows of the cheap cribs. I watched the children at play, barefoot and ragged, weaving their way in and out of the stalls in the secret games that I had long ago forgotten.

I bought a mango ice from a peddler and sat down on the same stone steps looking out over the harbor where I had sat savoring the same sticky sort of mess many years ago as a boy. I looked out over the water. There were only two ships in port and in the distance on the far side of the harbor I could see the rusting offshore oil derricks that had been abandoned not too long ago.

The shadows lengthened as the sun moved deeper into the west, and the smells of frying fish came to my nostrils as the fishermen began to cook and eat what they had been unable to sell. Curatu. At one time I had thought it the biggest city in the world.

I looked at my watch again. It was almost five. I got to my feet and as I began to walk back toward the city, a lottery peddler crossed my path trailing his string of tickets idly from his hand. A strip of them fluttered to the ground at my feet, and he walked on without so much as a backward glance.

I smiled. Nothing had changed. The tricks they used to hawk their tickets were still the ones they had used when I was a boy. If you called attention to the tickets they had dropped they would insist that Lady Luck had sent you an omen, that these were obviously the winning tickets you had always sought. It did not matter whether you wanted them or not; they would trail you for blocks insisting that you were missing the opportunity of a lifetime.

The ticket vendor went on a few paces, then, unable to resist the temptation, stopped and looked back at me. I grinned as I stepped over the tickets. His face darkened and he glowered at me as I came up to him. He reached out and grabbed my arm, silently pointing to the ground.

"So what?" I shrugged. "They're yours."

"Pick them up!" he hissed. 'They contain a message for you!"

I glanced at him again, then I went back and picked up the tickets. The message was scrawled in pencil across the back of one of them.