The Rhinemann Exchange (45 page)

“It wasn’t bad,” answered Hal. “But bumpy as a son of a bitch over Cuba.”

“Those were probably heavy air masses coming up from the island,” said David, watching Lyons out of the corner of his eye. The physicist responded now; a slight glance at Spaulding. And there was humor in the look.

“Yeah,” replied Hal knowingly, “that’s what the stewardess said.”

Lyons smiled a thin smile.

David was about to capitalize on the small breakthrough
when he saw a disturbing sight in the driver’s rear-view mirror—instinctively he’d been glancing at the glass.

It was the narrow grill of an automobile he’d previously spotted, though with no alarm. He had seen it twice: on the long curb in the taxi lineup and again on the turnout of the front park. Now it was there again, and David slowly shifted his position and looked out the taxi’s rear window. Lyons seemed to sense that Spaulding was concerned; he moved to accommodate him.

The car was a 1937 La Salle, black, with rusted chrome on the grillwork and around the headlights. It remained fifty to sixty yards behind, but the driver—a blond-haired man—refused to let other vehicles come between them. He would accelerate each time his position was threatened. The blond-haired man, it appeared, was either inexperienced or careless. If he
was
following them.

David spoke to the taxi driver in urgent but quiet Spanish. He offered the man five dollars over the meter if he would reverse his direction and head away from San Telmo for the next several minutes. The
porteño
was less of an amateur than the driver of the La Salle; he understood immediately, with one look in his mirror. He nodded silently to Spaulding, made a sudden, awkwardly dangerous U-turn, and sped west. He kept the taxi on a fast zigzag course, weaving in and around the traffic, then turned abruptly to his right and accelerated the car south along the ocean drive. The sight of the water reminded David of Ocho Calle.

He wanted very much to deposit Eugene Lyons in San Telmo and get back to Ocho Calle.

The La Salle was no longer a problem.

“Christ!” said Hal. “What the hell was that?” And then he answered his own question. “We were being followed, right?”

“We weren’t sure,” said David.

Lyons was watching him, his look inexpressive. Johnny spoke from the front seat.

“Does that mean we can expect problems? You had this guy tooling pretty hard. Mr. Kendall didn’t mention anything about trouble.… Just our job.” Johnny did not turn around as he spoke.

“Would it bother you if there were?”

Johnny turned to face Spaulding; he was a very serious
fellow, thought David. “It depends,” said the male nurse. “Our job is to watch out for the professor. Take care of him. If any trouble interfered with that, I don’t think I’d like it.”

“I see. What would you do?”

“Get him the hell out of here,” answered Johnny simply.

“Dr. Lyons has a job to do in Buenos Aires. Kendall must have told you that.”

Johnny’s eyes leveled with Spaulding’s. “I’ll tell you straight, mister. That dirty pig can go screw. I never took so much shit from anyone in my life.”

“Why don’t you quit?”

“We don’t work for Kendall,” said Johnny, as if the thought was repulsive. “We’re paid by the Research Center of Meridian Aircraft. That son of a bitch isn’t even from Meridian. He’s a lousy bookkeeper.”

“You understand, Mr. Spaulding,” said Hal, retreating from his partner’s aggressiveness. “We have to do what’s best for the professor. That’s what the Research Center hires us for.”

“I understand. I’m in constant touch with Meridian Research. The last thing anyone would wish is to harm Dr. Lyons. I can assure you of that.” David lied convincingly. He couldn’t give assurance because he himself was far from sure. His only course with Johnny and Hal was to turn this newfound liability into an asset. The key would be Meridian’s Research Center and his fictional relationship to it; and a common repugnance for Kendall.

The taxi slowed down, turning a corner into a quiet San Telmo street. The driver pulled up to a narrow, three-storied, white stucco house with a sloping, rust-tiled roof. It was 15 Terraza Verde. The first floor was leased to Eugene Lyons and his “assistants.”

“Here we are,” said Spaulding, opening the door.

Lyons climbed out after David. He stood on the sidewalk and looked up at the quaint, colorful little house on the peaceful street. The trees by the curb were sculptured. Everything had a scrubbed look; there was an Old World serenity about the area. David had the feeling that Lyons had suddenly found something he’d been looking for.

And then he thought he saw what it was. Eugene Lyons was looking up at a lovely resting place. A final resting place. A grave.

There wasn’t the time David thought there would be. He had told Stoltz to call him after five at Córdoba; it was nearly four now.

The first boats were coming into the piers, whistles blowing, men throwing and catching heavy ropes, nets everywhere, hanging out for the late drying rays of the sun.

Ocho Calle was in the Dársena Norte, east of the Retiro freight yards in a relatively secluded section of La Boca. Railroad tracks, long out of use, were implanted in the streets along the row of warehouses. Ocho Calle was not a prime storage or loading area. Its access to the sea channels wasn’t as cumbersome as the inner units of the La Plata, but the facilities were outmoded. It was as if the management couldn’t decide whether to sell its fair waterfront real estate or put it into good operating order. The indecision resulted in virtual abandonment.

Spaulding was in shirtsleeves; he had left Ballard’s tan jacket at Terraza Verde. Over his shoulder was a large used net he had bought at an outdoor stall. The damn thing was rancid from rotting hemp and dead fish but it served its purpose. He could cover his face at will and move easily, comfortably among his surroundings—at one with them. David thought that should he ever—God forbid!—instruct recruits at Fairfax, he’d stress the factor of comfort. Psychological comfort. One could feel it immediately; just as swiftly as one felt the discomfort of artificiality.

He followed the sidewalk until it was no more. The final block of Ocho Calle was lined on the far side by a few old buildings and fenced-off abandoned lots once used for outside storage, now overgrown with tall weeds. On the water side were two huge warehouses connected to each
other by a framed open area. The midships of a trawler could be seen moored between the two buildings. The next pier was across a stretch of water at least a quarter of a mile away. The Ocho Calle warehouses were secluded indeed.

David stopped. The block was like a miniature peninsula; there were few people on it. No side streets, no buildings beyond the row of houses on his left, only what appeared to be other lots behind the houses and further pilings that were sunk into the earth, holding back the water of a small channel.

The last stretch of Ocho Calle
was
a peninsula. The warehouses were not only secluded, they were isolated.

David swung the net off his right shoulder and hoisted it over his left. Two seamen walked out of a building; on the second floor a woman opened a window and shouted down, berating her husband about the projected hour of his return. An old man with dark Indian features sat in a wooden chair on a small, dilapidated stoop in front of a filthy bait store. Inside, through the glass stained with salt and dirt, other old men could be seen drinking from wine bottles. In the last house, a lone whore leaned out a first-floor window, saw David and opened her blouse, displaying a large, sagging breast. She squeezed it several times and pointed the nipple at Spaulding.

Ocho Calle was the end of a particular section of the earth.

He walked up to the old Indian, greeted him casually, and went into the bait store. The stench was overpowering, a combination of urine and rot. There were three men inside, more drunk than sober, nearer seventy than sixty.

The man behind the planked boards which served as a counter seemed startled to see a customer, not really sure what to do. Spaulding took a bill from his pocket—to the astonishment of all three surrounding him—and spoke in Spanish.

“Do you have squid?”

“No.… No, no squid. Very little supplies today,” answered the owner, his eyes on the bill.

“What have you got?”

“Worms. Dog meat, some cat. Cat is very good.”

“Give me a small container.”

The man stumbled backward, picked up pieces of intestine
tine and wrapped them in a dirty newspaper. He put it on the plank next to the money. “I have no change, señor.…”

“That’s all right,” replied Spaulding. “This money’s for you. And keep the bait.”

The man grinned, bewildered. “
Señor?
…”

“You keep the money. Understand?… Tell me. Who works over there?” David pointed at the barely translucent front window. “In those big dock houses?”

“Hardly anybody.… A few men come and go … now and then. A fishing boat … now and then.”

“Have you been inside?”

“Oh yes. Three, four years ago, I work inside. Big business, three, four … five years ago. We all work.” The other two old men nodded, chattering old men’s chatter.

“Not now?”

“No, no.… All closed down. Finished. Nobody goes inside now. The owner is a very bad man. Watchmen break heads.”

“Watchmen?”

“Oh, yes. With guns. Many guns. Very bad.”

“Do automobiles come here?”

“Oh, yes. Now and then.… One or two.… They don’t give us work.”

“Thank you. You keep the money. Thank you, again.” David crossed to the filthy storefront window, rubbed a small section of the glass and looked out at the block-long stretch of warehouse. It appeared deserted except for the men on the pier. And then he looked closer at those men.

At first he wasn’t sure; the glass—though rubbed—still had layers of film on the outside pane; it wasn’t clear and the men were moving about, in and out of the small transparent area.

Then he was sure. And suddenly very angry.

The men in the distance on the pier were wearing the same paramilitary clothes the guards at Rhinemann’s gate had worn.

They were Rhinemann’s men.

The telephone rang at precisely five thirty. The caller was not Stoltz, and because it wasn’t, David refused to accept the instructions given him. He hung up and waited less than two minutes for the phone to ring again.

“You are most obstinate,” said Erich Rhinemann. “It is we who should be cautious, not you.”

“That’s a pointless statement. I have no intention of following the directions of someone I don’t know. I don’t expect airtight controls but that’s too loose.”

Rhinemann paused. Then he spoke harshly. “What happened last night?”

“I told Stoltz exactly what happened to
me.
I don’t know anything else.”

“I don’t believe you.” Rhinemann’s voice was tense, sharp, his anger very close to the surface.

“I’m sorry,” said David. “But that doesn’t really concern me.”

“Neither of those men would have left Córdoba! Impossible!”

“They left; take my word for it.… Look, I told Stoltz I don’t want to get mixed up in your problems.…”

“How do you know you’re not … mixed up?”

It was, of course, the logical question and Spaulding realized that. “Because I’m here in my apartment, talking to you. According to Stoltz, the others are dead; that’s a condition I intend to avoid. I’m merely purchasing some papers from you. Let’s concentrate on that.”

“We’ll talk further on this subject,” said Rhinemann.

“Not now. We have business to transact.”

Again the German Jew paused. “Do as the man told you. Go to the Casa Rosada on the Plaza de Mayo. South gate. If you take a taxi, get off at the Julio and walk.”

“Your men will pick me up when I leave the apartment, I assume.”

“Discreetly. To see if you’re followed.”

“Then I’ll walk from here. It’ll be easier.”

“Very intelligent. A car will be waiting for you at the Rosada. The same automobile that brought you here last evening.”

“Will you be there?” asked David.

“Of course not. But we’ll meet shortly.”

“I take the designs straight to Telmo?”

“If everything is clear, you may.”

“I’ll leave in five minutes. Will your men be ready?”

“They are ready now,” answered Rhinemann. He hung up.

David strapped the Beretta to his chest and put on his jacket. He went into the bathroom, grabbed a towel from the rack and rubbed his shoes, removing the Aeroparque and La Boca dirt from the leather. He combed his hair and patted talcum powder over the scratches on his face.

He couldn’t help but notice the dark crescents under his eyes. He needed sleep badly, but there was no time. For his own sake—survival, really—he knew he had to take the time.

He wondered when it would be.

He returned to the telephone. He had two calls to make before he left.

The first was to Jean. To ask her to stay in the embassy; he might have reason to call her. At any rate, he would talk to her when he returned. He said he would be with Eugene Lyons at Terraza Verde. And that he loved her.

The second call was to Henderson Granville.

“I told you I wouldn’t involve the embassy or yourself in my work here, sir. If that’s changed it’s only because a man on your staff closed a naval surveillance file improperly. I’m afraid it directly affects me.”

“How do you mean ‘improperly’? That’s a serious implication. If not a chargeable offense.”

“Yes, sir. And for that reason it’s imperative we raise no alarm, keep everything very quiet. It’s an Intelligence matter.”

“Who is this man?” asked Granville icily.

“An attaché named Ellis. William Ellis—please don’t take
any
action, sir.” Spaulding spoke rapidly, emphatically. “He may have been duped; he may not have been. Either way we can’t have him alerted.”

“Very well. I follow you.… Then why have you told me … if you want no action taken?”

“Not against Ellis, sir. We do need a clarification on the surveillance.” David described the warehouses on Ocho Calle and the trawler moored between the two buildings.