The Rodriguez Affair (1970) (6 page)

“You’re really set on it, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Well,” she said doubtfully, “I can try. But it won’t be any use today; he’ll have to be worked round to the idea gradually. Can you come back tomorrow?”

“I’ll do that.”

“Am I to tell him you know Harry?”

Cade thought that one over before answering. Then he said : “No, better not.”

“I think you’re right,” Delia said.” Tell him that and he’d fly through the roof.” She gave him a long, cool stare, faintly puzzled, it seemed. “I don’t altogether get you, Mr. Cade. What’s in this for you? What are you getting out of it?”

“Just call it a kick,” Cade said. “Yes, just call it that.”

“Where are you staying?”

“At the Phoenix in San Borja.”

“Harry stayed there for a while.”

“Yes, I know,” Cade said. He wondered whether she knew about the other two men, about Manuel Lopez and Luis Guzman. “Then he came to work here. Is that right?”

“I imagine he told you.”

“He didn’t tell me how he got the job.”

She smiled. “Harry’s a very persuasive man. He talked Carlos into it.”

He had talked her into something too, and Cade would have liked to know just what. But perhaps it had not needed much talking in her case.

“What exactly did he do?”

“Didn’t he tell you?”

“He told me he was a kind of man about the place. Maybe a handyman.”

She gave a laugh. “That could describe it. Handy with a gun maybe. He was Carlos’s bodyguard.”

“I see.” And yet he did not see, not with complete clarity. He would have liked to ask more questions but decided that it might not be advisable to do so. Better not to let the girl know just how much in the dark he was. Perhaps there would be a bit more light when he had seen Gomara. If he saw Gomara.

“How did you get out here?” Delia asked. “You didn’t walk from San Borja, did you?”

“Not all the way. A man named Earl Johnson gave me a lift in his jeep.” He was about to add that Johnson was prospecting for oil, then remembered that Johnson had asked him to keep that business under his hat. He need not have worried.

“Oh, that oil man,” Delia said. “He’s been around here. Wanted to do some soundings or something on the place. Carlos sent him packing.”

“He saw Gomara?”

“No. He didn’t get past the gate. But he got the message. Is he going to take you back to San Borja?”

“If I’m at the road junction at four o’clock.”

“You expected to be here as long as that?”

“I didn’t expect anything. I took a chance.”

She looked thoughtful for a moment; then she said:
“You could stay until afternoon but I think it would be better if you didn’t. If you like I’ll take you back to town in the car.”

“That’s very good of you.”

“Don’t let it go to your head,” Delia said. “There’s some things I have to do in town.”

C
ADE WAS
in the Phoenix lounge when Earl Johnson walked in. There was no sign of Juanita Suarez and Cade supposed that she had gone to her room. Johnson looked hot and dusty.

“Glad to see you got back okay, Rob. I was a shade worried when you weren’t at the rendezvous. Did you walk?”

“No, I was brought back in style. In a Mercedes.”

“You don’t say. Whose?”

“Gomara’s.”

Johnson looked incredulous. “You saw him?”

“No. I saw Miss Lindsay instead. She drove the Mercedes. And a pretty good driver too.”

“Miss Lindsay! You mean that blonde he keeps around the place for decoration?”

“None other.”

Johnson tapped himself on the chin. He spoke with a certain grudging admiration. “Well, I have to hand it to you, Rob; you’re a fast worker. I didn’t even make first base.”

“So she told me. Maybe you didn’t use the right technique.”

“Maybe I didn’t. Like to teach me yours?”

“Some day,” Cade said. “Not now.”

“I may hold you to that promise. The blonde is really quite a dish.”

“So you’ve seen Miss Lindsay?”

“In town. I’ve never spoken to her.”

“Did she come with Gomara when he took the place?”

“So I heard. The story is she was on the stage. A stripper maybe. I don’t think anybody really knows. They just make up these tales.”

“It could be true just the same; she’s got the attributes. Where did they come from?”

“Who knows? Gomara is a mystery man. Nobody even gets to see him.”

“I may get to see him tomorrow.”

Johnson whistled softly. “How’d you manage that?”

“I did a little work on Della Lindsay and she’s going to do a little work on Gomara—on my behalf.”

This time there was a trace of envy mixed with Johnson’s admiration. “Well, I’ll be hung. You sure do know your way around, Mr. Cade. I’d have laid a hundred to one in dollars you wouldn’t get past the gate, but oh, how wrong I was. Let me buy you a drink.”

“No,” Cade said. “Let me buy you one. You look as though you need it.”

At dinner Miss Suarez looked cool and poised, as though utterly unaffected by the dust and heat of her expedition to the hills. Cade willingly accepted an invitation to join her and Johnson at their table.

“Might as well be sociable‚” Johnson said. “We Anglo-Saxons ought to stick together.”

“I am not an Anglo-Saxon‚” Miss Suarez said.

It was an unnecessary protestation, Cade thought. Anyone less like an Anglo-Saxon would have been difficult to imagine.

“We’ll elect you an honorary member of the club,” Johnson said. “No entrance fee.”

She gave a small mock bow, smiling. “I am deeply grateful for the honour.”

“Have you had a successful day, Miss Suarez?” Cade asked.

She made a gesture with the fingers of her right hand, as graceful as the flutter of a butterfly’s wings. “Oh, call me Juanita. We are friends, I hope. Yes, I have had a good day. In the mountains the only problem is in deciding which of so many excellent subjects to choose. One regrets too that one is not more talented with the brush.”

“Now you are being too modest,” Johnson said. “Incidentally, our friend Rob has also had a successful expedition.”

She glanced quickly at Cade and he was surprised at the keen interest she showed. “You saw Señor Gomara? You actually saw the hermit?”

“No,” Cade said. “I was not quite so successful as that But I went into the house.”

“He has ingratiated himself with Gomara’s blonde,” Johnson said. “She’s going to arrange an interview with the man himself.”

“She’s going to try. She didn’t promise anything. Gomara may be difficult.”

Johnson grinned. “Judging by her looks, that baby could persuade the President of the United States to vote communist”

Miss Suarez regarded Cade with her softly glowing eyes, “You have perhaps fallen a little for this Miss Lindsay? Is it not so, Roberto?” She was gently teasing, but behind the teasing Cade seemed to detect a more serious note. Both she and Johnson had a keener interest in Gomara than could have been explained by mere idle curiosity. He wondered why this should be.

But when he answered it was in the same light bantering tone that Miss Suarez had used. “Not so, Juanita. Gentlemen may prefer blondes, but I am no gentleman. My taste is rather for the darker type.”

She smiled. “No gentleman perhaps, but most certainly a diplomat.”

Earl Johnson looked amused.

Cade went to his room after dinner. He was staring down into the Plaza when he heard a gentle tap on the door.

“Come in,” he said, turning away from the window.

The door opened immediately and Jorge Torres slipped into the room. He closed the door and stood with his back to it, looking at Cade, saying nothing.

“What is it?” Cade asked. “What do you want?”

Torres smiled ingratiatingly, but there was a certain cunning calculation in his smile and also in the shifty eyes. It was as though he were weighing Cade up.

“I wish to talk with you, señor.”

“On what subject?”

Torres moved away from the door and rubbed his
hands together as though washing them with invisible soap and water. “On the subject of money perhaps.”

“Always an interesting subject,” Cade said, and waited for Torres to be more specific.

Torres stopped washing his hands and fiddled with the ends of his moustache; his gaze wandered about the room, fell on Cade in passing and flickered away again. “Yesterday, señor, we had an interesting conversation. You asked me questions about certain people—Señor Banner, Señor Gomara, two other men. You did not wish me to speak of this conversation; you gave me a small token to remind me not to speak of it.”

“So?” Cade said.

“Today another person also asks me questions.”

“About what?”

“About you, señor.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes, señor. But of course I say that I know nothing. I forget all about those things you ask me. I remember the small token and I remember to forget.”

“Good,” Cade said.

Torres’s gaze fell upon Cade and this time it did not move away. “Not so good perhaps. I could have earned a little money if I had talked, if I had not remembered to forget Another time it might be more difficult unless I have another token to remind me.”

Cade saw how it was : Torres had spotted a possibility of making some more easy money. The story he had just spun might well be true; possibly Johnson or Miss Suarez had asked questions. But what if they had? It made little difference whether or not they knew of his interest in Harry Banner. As far as he was concerned
all that really mattered was to find out how Banner had come by the diamonds that were now in Holden Bales’s keeping and why he had been killed. It had been a mistake in the first place to bribe Torres to keep his mouth shut about the conversation; it had merely roused the man’s curiosity; but he was certainly not going to let Torres extract any more bolivars from his pocket The señora had warned him not to give money to her husband and in future he would heed that warning.

“You’ll get no more tokens from me,” he said.

Torres looked disappointed. “That is unfortunate, señor. Without the token my memory cannot be relied upon; indeed, it will be most unreliable. I may forget not to mention what we have spoken about.”

“Señor Torres,” Cade said, “you may go to the devil.”

Torres shrugged. “Eventually perhaps, but not immediately. And I think you would be well advised to help my memory with another token, because it is not only our conversation that I might forget not to talk about. There is now another matter of some importance.”

Cade glanced at him. There was an unmistakable threat in Torres’s voice. “What other matter?”

“Shall we say, for example, the small gun that you have in your bag?”

So that was it Torres had been snooping through his luggage while he had been away from the hotel and had found the gun. Well, it was only what might have been expected of such a man. The gun was a .38 revolver with a stubby barrel; he had bought it in Caracas on a sudden impulse. He did not imagine he would need
a gun, but it was not beyond the bounds of possibility that he might. Harry Banner could have used a gun in London; it might have saved him from being killed. And the people who had killed Banner were still at large, unless Superintendent Alletson had made an arrest in the last day or two; and he did not think that likely. All things considered, a gun might not be altogether superfluous; a gun and one box of .38 ammunition.

“You have been searching my luggage.”

“The bag was not locked.”

“Does that give you the right to stick your nose in it?”

“The right? Perhaps not The opportunity—certainly. Do you wish me to keep silent about the small gun, señor?”

“I am telling you to do so,” Cade said.

There was a greedy look in Torres’s eye. “Without some incentive that might well be impossible. How do I know that you have not come here to kill Señor Gomara for example? Perhaps I should warn him.”

“Perhaps you should mind your own business,” Cade said. He was becoming a little tired of Jorge Torres. On one point his mind was now made up : gun or no gun, Torres would get no more bribes out of him. That talk of going to Gomara was probably nothing but an idle threat anyway. And even if he did go, why should Gomara believe such a fantastic story? Unless, of course, it was the kind of thing that Gomara was expecting, the reason why he had hidden himself away and felt the need for a bodyguard.

“But,” Torres said, “this is my business. Be sensible, señor. Give me another fifty bolivars and I guarantee
that my tongue will be as still as a sleeping lizard.”

Cade advanced two paces very sharply, seized Torres’s right arm and twisted it savagely up behind his back. Torres gave a cry of pain,

“If you are wise,” Cade said, speaking directly into Torres’s ear, “you will keep a still tongue in your head anyway. I am a patient man but my patience is not inexhaustible. Do you understand?”

Torres tried to get free, cursing. Cade twisted the arm a little more, making Torres cry out again.

“Do you understand?”

“I understand,” Torres gasped. “I will say nothing. Depend upon it. Only let me go. I will not say a word. I promise.”

“You had better not.”

Cade gave Torres a push and released the arm. Torres fell face downward on the bed and got up slowly, looking as venomous as a cobra. He had been hurt and he had been humiliated, and if the opportunity ever came his way to do Cade an injury there was little doubt that he would seize it. Cade knew this; he knew that he had perhaps acted rather too hastily and had made an enemy. Twisting Torres’s arm would not even make the man hold his tongue; it had served no useful purpose at all except to relieve Cade’s anger. It would perhaps have been better to fork out the fifty bolivars.

Torres retreated to the door and there was hatred in his eyes. He massaged his right arm. “Señor Cade,” he said, “you should not have done that.”

“You asked for it.”

“I did not ask for it and you should not have done it.”

“Go away,” Cade said.

Torres opened the door. “I will go now, but later there may be a reckoning, and then you may be sorry for what you have just done to me.”

He went out of the room and closed the door very softly behind him.

Cade saw no more of Jorge Torres that evening, but he saw Maria Torres. He wanted her advice.

“I wish to hire a car. Do you know where I can get one in San Borja?”

“A car with a driver or one to drive yourself?”

“To drive myself.”

Señora Torres considered the matter for a moment, then said : “You had better go and see Martin Duero. He may be able to provide you with what you need.”

“Where do I find this Señor Duero?”

Señora Torres went into detailed directions. They sounded complicated. “Do you think you can find your way now?”

“I doubt it.”

“Perhaps it would be better if I found a boy to take you there.”

“I think it would be much better,” Cade said. “Can you do that?”

“But of course, señor.”

“Tell him to be here after breakfast tomorrow.”

The boy had been burnt so deeply by the sun that he was almost black. His name was Pablo and he was ten years old. When he grew up, so he informed Cade in all seriousness, he was going to emigrate to the United
States and become an astronaut. He was fascinated by the stars and space travel.

“You think they will take me, señor?”

“Why not, Pablo? They’re always looking for good men. Maybe you’ll be the first man to land on Venus.”

The boy’s eyes shone like precious stones. “I cannot wait to grow up. Why don’t the years go faster?”

“One day you’ll wish they didn’t go so fast,” Cade said.

They crossed the Plaza, walked through a narrow alleyway where some plump, black-haired women were gossiping, and came out on to what could have been the main street of the town. There were some shops, some motor lorries, a few cars, people.

“This way, señor,” Pablo said.

They turned to the left, continued on for about two hundred yards, then plunged down another alleyway and came suddenly on a patch of waste ground where an old Chrysler convertible had come to the end of its journeys. It stood there rusting gently, with no tyres and the hood nothing but a skeleton. Some small fry were sitting in it and they were not even squabbling; perhaps in imagination they were driving down the shining streets of Caracas with all the glittering shops and nightclubs and hotels on either side.

“They’re going places,” Cade said.

Pablo looked infinitely contemptuous. “Children’s games,” he said with all the superiority of one who was ten years old and going to be an astronaut.

It turned out to be a rough timber building with no paint and a corrugated iron roof. It had the smell of oil and rubber that you get wherever motor vehicles
congregate. There were half a dozen cars of various ages and conditions, none very new, and there were two Italian scooters with worn saddles and smooth tyres. A man was working at a bench on the left as you went in; he was filing a piece of metal held in a vice and drops of sweat were falling on to it from his forehead. He was not much more than five feet tall and as fat as a leg of pork. He was standing on a box to give him added height.