_Chapter three_
The frosted glass door of Room 719 bore the words, "Roger Fielding YCia." The anteroom was dark, but Hall could see the dim form of a mansitting in a lighted inner room. He knocked on the glass without tryingthe knob. In a moment, the light snapped on in the anteroom, and the manfrom the inner office opened the hall door.
"Mr. Hall?" he asked. "I'm Roger Fielding. Welcome to San Hermano. Andplease come inside."
Fielding fitted to the last detail the mental image Hall had conjured ofthe man on the phone. Genial, peppery, he not only talked like aHollywood Englishman, he was a casting director's dream. Let the call goout for a man to play a retired India colonel, a British Ambassador, theDuke of Gretna Green, the popular professor of Chaldean Culture atOxford, the Dean of Canterbury or the Chief of Scotland Yard, andFielding was the man who could slip into the role without even changingfrom street clothes to costume. Fielding was the man, complete to thefaintly grizzled face with the gaunt features, the dazzling plaidjacket, the thick-walled Dunhill pipe with the well-caked bowl.
He ushered Hall into the inner office, whose shades were all drawn tothe sills. There was a large mahogany desk at the window; against thewall stood a long table bearing a row of glass coffee makers, a tray ofdemi-tasse cups, and a series of earthen canisters. On the wall abovethis table hung a large sepia-tinted photograph of London, taken about1920. It faced a large print of a cottage and a brook in the Shakespearecountry. This engraving hung over a row of four filing cabinets withsteel locks. The walls were further decorated with framed certificatesof Fielding's membership in coffee associations of San Hermano, Rio andNew Orleans.
"Sit down, sit down," Fielding urged, pulling a comfortable leatherchair to the side of his desk for Hall, and taking the swivel chairbehind the desk for himself. The highly polished desk was bare, exceptfor a calendar pad and a folded red-leather picture frame whose picturefaced Fielding.
"I'm in coffee, you see."
Hall glanced up at the certificates and the long table. "I see," hesaid.
"How was your trip? Not too tiring, I hope? That's the sad thing aboutplanes. Faster than ships, but rather confining."
"It was not too bad," Hall said. "Besides, I stole an hour's cat nap atthe hotel while waiting for you to get to town."
"Good for you," Fielding said. "I like a man who can steal an hour'ssleep when the spirit so moves him. May I make you some coffee to keepyou awake, though?"
"If it's not too much trouble."
The Englishman was already at his coffee table. He took the pipe out ofhis mouth, pointed with the end of the curved stem at one of thecanisters. "I guess we'll mix you a little of that Monte Azul with someof 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 MonteAzul, Bogota, and the various Brazilian growths Androtten had describedto the Brazilian on the plane.
"Ah," Fielding smiled, "so you know coffees, too?"
"Not at all. My education started on the plane." Hall describedAndrotten, and told Fielding of the Dutchman's experiences in Java andhis theories of the perfect blend.
Fielding set some coffee and water into one of the vacuum makers, put amatch to the alcohol burner. "Androtten," he mumbled. "I don't remembermeeting 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. Abouta 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 Azulfor 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 oneanother in a case like this. Incidentally, he never heard of yourAndrotten." He chatted aimlessly about the coffee business until thecoffee in the vacuum maker was ready, then he poured it into a small jugand brought the jug and two demi-tasse cups to the desk. "Sugar?" heasked.
Hall had lost his taste for sugar in San Sebastian. "I have it black andpure," he said.
"That's the only way to enjoy real coffee, Mr. Hall." Fielding took akey from his pocket and went to the first filing cabinet. "However," hesaid, "it wasn't to talk about coffee that you were generous enough tocome here tonight. Not to talk about coffee." He pulled a brown-paperportfolio out of the file and returned with it to the desk. He undid thestrings 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 newposition, he could see that the leather folding frame on the deskcontained two photos of what was evidently one person. One photo showeda young man of twenty-odd standing near a stone wall in what wasundoubtedly England; the other photo was the young man as a laughingchild in a pony cart.
"I lost my boy," Fielding mumbled, absently. He tapped the ashes fromhis pipe out into an ash tray on the window sill, filled it again withnew tobacco from a worn ostrich pouch. Hall could see a thin, rheumyfilm cover the Englishman's eyes.
"The war?" Hall asked, softly, but if Fielding heard him he gave noindication that he had.
Fielding held a lighted match over the filled bowl of his pipe, startedit burning with deep, sucking draughts. "Ah, your book," he said, whenthe pipe was burning. "You are a man of courage, Hall. You showed realguts. The kind of guts our Nellie Chamberlain didn't have when Englandneeded 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 censorin Cairo had said when he saw the manuscript.
The grizzled Englishman took the pipe out of his mouth, looked at Hallwith amazement and disgust. "British grit, my foot!" He bellowed. "The_Revenger_ was 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 aman ..." Suddenly he stopped, because both Hall and he were looking atthe photos of the young man who was once a laughing boy in acanary-colored pony cart.
He opened the folder. A photostat of a multi-paged typewritten reportlay on top of the neat pile of papers in the folder. "Now then, Hall, toget 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 agarrulous old man, but that comes from talking into the prevailing windsfor so long that I just can't help myself."
"I know what you mean," Hall said. "Only I never thought of it in thatway. 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 wallwhen I speak to you. As I said, there is a point to this meeting, andthe point is brief. Hall, the Falange is in San Hermano, and it is up tomuch trouble."
"The Falange!"
"Oh, I know what you are thinking. Tabio made it illegal and it had todisband and all that. But Tabio's government never threw the wholeFalange crowd into jail, where they belong, and they are still gettingtheir orders from the Spanish Embassy."
Hall passed a hand in front of his smarting eyes. "Did you say they'reup 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 thesesince 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 thecross piece of the hilt.
"The ATN stands for Accion Tradicionalista Nacional, but no one callsthem that any more than they call the Nazis by their formal name. Youknow, National German Socialist something or other. It's a bad business,Hall, a very bad business. The Cross and Sword, alias the FalangeEspanola."
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"Are they very strong?"
"They don't parade around the streets in their blue shirts as they diduntil Tabio clamped down in '40, and they don't pack the Cathedral intheir Falange uniforms any more to hold special masses for the rottensoul of that young snot old Primo de Rivera whelped. The Cross and theSword is not like that. But go to the San Hermano Country Club or ameeting of the Lonja de Comercio or to a fashionable party in thecountry and every tailored jacket you see will have a Cross and a Swordpinned to the lapel.
"Go to a little country village the day after the local school teacherwas murdered on some lonely dark road. The _campesinos_ stand aroundmuttering 'The Cross and the Sword is guilty,' and the next night thehome of some local Spanish landowner goes up in smoke. Then it's only amatter of hours before the Cross and Sword members in San Hermano areraising hell because a fellow Cross and Sword member had his houseburned down. They tell everyone that's what happens when you have a Redregime which forces a gentleman to sell his land to the government andthen sells the land back to the peasants who have to borrow the moneyfrom the government to pay for the land."
Hall turned the Cross and Sword emblem over in his fingers. "That's whathappened 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, Fieldingextracted a map of the nation's coastline.
"Here," he said, "is the coast. Now note these islands. I have numberedsome of them in red ink. Now take this island, Number Three. Looks likean ink blot, doesn't it, now? Not much of a place for anything. Just abunch of volcanic caves and some quite useless land. Good for grazing afew head of sheep, but not too good even for that. Belongs to a chapnamed Segundo Vardenio. Been in his family for years, over three hundredyears. Own the island, own thousands of acres on the shore facing thebloody island. I know the whole family. More Spanish than the Duke ofAlba, that family.
"Well, sir, they were all in the Falange. Segundo Vardenio was one ofthe big leaders of the Falange in the country. Used to wear his blueshirt and his boots and give his damned stiff-arm salute all over theplace. 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 shoreare in sugar. They have a narrow-gauge Diesel railway of their own onthe estates. Understand, Hall, a _Diesel railway_? The locomotives andthe submarines burn the same type of oil."
"German subs?"
"Hun subs and only Hun subs, Hall. Look here. Look at this report. Isent it to the chief of Naval Intelligence at our Embassy. On the 29thof September, 1940, a Hun sub anchored off Vardenio's island. A smalllaunch belonging to the Vardenio family towed the sub into the largestof 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'tknow what was in that portfolio. Three days later, the British freighter_Mandalay_, carrying beef and copper from San Hermano, was torpedoed andsunk by a Nazi submarine at approximately this point." Fielding held aruler between an X mark in the ocean and the island.
He continued to read the report aloud, running a bony finger under thewords as he read them, pausing now and then to sneer at his detractorsin the British Embassy or to chuckle at some particular sarcasm writteninto the report.
The facts in the report were set forth in great detail. They dealt withother submarine anchorages, with the role of the Cross and the Sword onthe waterfront, and with the beginnings of an organized ring ofsabotage. The report ended with the account of the events which followedthe visit of the _Ciudad de Sevilla_, a Spanish liner, to the port ofSan Hermano.
"Look here, Hall," Fielding said. "Listen to this. On the twentieth ofSeptember, '41, the _Ciudad de Sevilla_ docked in San Hermano atfour-ten in the afternoon. At approximately five o'clock, the radiooperator of the Spanish liner, one Eduardo Jimenez, left the ship andproceeded to a bar on the Paseo de Flores, the bar known as LaPerrichola. There he met with two unidentified men, one of whom waslater identified as a provincial leader of the Cross and the Sword. Thethree men went to a brothel near the waterfront, and at exactly teno'clock left the brothel and got into a waiting sedan which, by aroundabout route, took them to Calle Galleano 4857, a quiet villa in thewest suburb.
"The villa belongs to Jorge Davila, a lawyer for some of the greatlandowning families of the south. Davila's record as one of the leadersof the now illegal Falange and an organizer of the Cross and the Swordhas been covered in my previous report, dated July 7th of this year."Fielding poured some fresh coffee for Hall and himself. "Tomorrow or thenext day I can show you the report in question, Hall. But to proceedwith this report.
"At Davila's home, a group of Cross and Sword leaders were waiting forthe three men in the sedan. They had a long meeting, lasting over fivehours. Then eight men, including the Spanish ship's officer, left thehouse and entered two fast cars of American make. The cars proceeded tothe town of Alcala, in the sugar lands some seventy miles from SanHermano.
"In the morning, there was no trace of the eight men in Alcala. Thatnight, the sugar fields of the English planter, Basil Greenleaf, wereset on fire by incendiary flames started in over twenty different partsof his acreage at the same time. Two of Greenleaf's employees who wereattempting to fight the blaze in the east field were killed by riflefire. One of them lived long enough to stagger to the road where he toldhis story to the Greenleaf foreman, a man named Esteban Anesi.
"I must call your attention, sir, to the fact that Greenleaf was theonly planter in the Alcala region who had contracted to sell his crop toGreat Britain, and that the fire took place exactly two weeks before theharvest time.
"Eduardo Jimenez was next seen in San Hermano the day after the fire,when he appeared in the Municipal Police Headquarters in what wasevidently a state of extreme intoxication. He complained that on leavinghis ship on the twentieth, he had gone to a bar for a drink, met up withtwo pimps, and had then been taken to a brothel where, after two days ofdrunken revelry, he had been cleaned out of his life's savings and thenbeen 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 word _sleep_. "Hah," he roared. "Damnclever, the bastards! Now then, where was my place? Oh, yes, goodnight's sleep. Yes."
"In the morning, Jimenez awoke, vomited, and started to yell for thejailer. He wanted to know what he was doing in a cell, and when shownhis complaint, he expressed innocent amazement. He could not recall athing. The warden gave him a hearty breakfast and sent him on his way.Jimenez joined his ship, which sailed for Spain that afternoon with acargo of beef."
The case of Eduardo Jimenez was the last in the report. Fielding put thecopy 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 Ican't put up with Yank impertinence in this late stage, I deserve nosympathy."
"Well then, and don't answer if you think me too brash, Fielding, it'ssimply ..."
"Hold on!" Fielding held up a restraining hand. "Let me write yourquestion out on this slip of paper and after you ask it, I'll show youwhat I've written." He scribbled a few words on the paper, covered themwith 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 andwatched it burn to ashes in the bronze tray. "As a matt
er of fact," hesaid, soberly, "I am not in very good repute at the British Embassy. Iorganized a dinner of the more sensible people in the British colonyhere in '38 and, after I'd made a blistering speech against Munich andnon-intervention in Spain we all signed a row of a cable to NellieChamberlain. 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 Tabioor 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 ofcoffee and look through some more reports. Can you stay awake for anhour 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 finishthe 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 SanSebastian he would awake at night dreaming that he was smelling thesweet 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 someday."
"There's nothing like it," Fielding agreed. "Now let me see, here's aphotostat of a letter from the Embassy acknowledging the receipt of thereport I just read, and here ... Ah...." He started to turn the nextletter over, but Hall, reading the letter-head, laid a hand on thesheet.
"May I?" he asked.
Fielding handed him the letter. It was on the stationery of theInternational Brigade Association in London, dated January, 1938.
"The action on the Jarama front ... bitter ... your son Sergeant HaroldFielding leading squad of volunteer sappers ... missing in action ...thorough check on records of hospitals and field stations on thatfront ... no record of Sergeant Fielding ... we therefore regret ... mustbe presumed dead...."
The father of Sergeant Fielding held the picture of the boy in front ofHall. "This photograph," he said, heavily. "It was taken a year beforehe went to Spain. You didn't, by any chance, happen to know the lad, didyou, Hall? He was my only child. Completing work on his Master's inbiochemistry at Cambridge when the Spanish show started. You didn'thappen 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 InternationalRed 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 howmy boy died."
Hall returned the red-leather frame. "I wish from the bottom of my heartI could help you. But I just can't. I'm afraid I never did meet theboy."
Roger Fielding read the letter from London for perhaps the thousandthtime, sighed, and placed it face down on top of the pile to the left ofthe letters and reports in the folder. "Ah, well," he said. "Now for theliving. Now here's a report I made three weeks ago. Some day those youngstuffed 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 toread aloud.
"It is no secret, or it should be no secret to our vigilant intelligenceservices, that President Anibal Tabio is a warm friend of the cause forwhich the United Nations are fighting. It is no secret that Tabio,before being stricken with his present tragic illness, was planning togo before the Havana Conference himself to lead the continental campaignto declare war on the Axis powers.
"However, the views of Vice-President Gamburdo, who now has assumed thecontrol of the government, are less well known. Gamburdo's views,however, are not among the best kept secrets of this war." Fieldingchuckled, waved his pipe in the direction of the Presidencia, and addedthe comment, "I should say not! They are far from secret.
"Gamburdo's ties to the Cross and the Sword are very discreet. I havereason to believe that Gamburdo believes his link with the ATN is notknown by anyone except a few chosen fascist leaders."
Fielding looked up at Hall. "Oho," he laughed. "That must have been hardto 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. Thefools!
"Well, now, to continue. Ah--chosen fascist leaders. Oh, yes. But twicewithin the past two weeks, for three hours on the twelfth and for a fullday on the fourteenth, Gamburdo was at the ranch of his brother Salvadorin Bocas del Sur conferring with Cross and Sword leaders Jorge Davila,Segundo Vardenio, Carlos Antonio Montes, and Jose Ignacio del Llano. Thesecond meeting was also attended by Ramos, the Spanish Consul General inSan Hermano."
"Ramos," Hall commented. "I know something about him. Two years agoBatista gave him twelve hours to get the hell out of Cuba before thediplomatic courtesies were forgotten and a cot reserved for Ramos in theconcentration camp for Axis nationals on the Isle of Pines."
"He did come to San Hermano from Havana," Fielding said. "So I'm not socrazy 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 whyCommander New has invited me to have dinner at the Embassy tomorrow." Hetook a deep breath, straightened his tie with elaborate mock ceremony."Mr. Hall," he said, speaking like an announcer at a royal court, "Ihave the pleasure of informing you that Roger Fielding, Esquire, isabout to be released from the insane asylum to which His Majesty'sAmbassador consigned him in September, 1938."
Hall laughed and helped himself to another pipeful of Fielding'stobacco. "Let's finish this report," he said. "I can't tell you howimportant it is to me."
"Here you are, old man." Fielding handed the report to Hall. "I wasreading them aloud to keep you from falling asleep. But I think you'rewide awake now."
Hall smiled warmly at the old man and read the rest of the report. Itwas very brief. It described how Gamburdo had shifted nearly the entirecustoms staff at San Hermano to other ports or to desk jobs on land, andreplaced them with new customs men who were in many cases proven membersof the Falange or the ATN or both. This move, the report stated, openedthe gates to Axis arsonists assigned to cross the seas on Spanishliners.
"Cross and Sword members," the report concluded, "are in certainexclusive bars openly boasting that when Tabio passes away, Gamburdowill declare the nation a neutral in this war. His family has beensending copper, hides, beef, coffee, and sugar only to Spanish firmssince 1940. It is an open secret in the Lonja de Comercio that theseshipments do not remain in Spain but are immediately trans-shipped toGermany. None of the Spanish firms with which the Gamburdo family doesbusiness were in existence before July 18, 1936, the day the Spanish Warstarted. They are all known in shipping and export circles as Germanenterprises. Gamburdo's brother has twice been heard to boast, while inhis cups, that the Nazis are protecting his vast holdings in France.
"The Cross and Sword members in San Hermano business circles speakhighly of Gamburdo and to a man they assert that if Tabio dies, Gamburdowill impose a foreign policy which in the name of neutrality will bringprosperity 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 linkto the Falange during the Spanish War. He remembered that picture ofGamburdo at the Falange dinner held in San Hermano in 1936, the picturehe had seen in the files of the secret police in Havana. "How much doyou have on Gamburdo?" he asked.
"Gamburdo?" Fielding yawned twice, stretched his arms. "Not as much as Iwould like to have, Hall."
"Oh." Hall told him about the picture.
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"I'm not surprised," Fielding said. "But it's really news to me. What doyou know that I should know?"
"Nothing much, I'm afraid. How about this doctor who arrived on myplane, Varela Ansaldo?"
"He's never been in San Hermano before."
"Who sent for him?"
"I don't know. _El Imparcial_ has been giving Gamburdo the credit."
"What do you think of that?"
"I don't know, Hall. I think they might be trying to give Gamburdocredit for something he doesn't deserve. _El Imparcial_ is very muchpro-Gamburdo, you know."
"Don't I know it! I used to see Fernandez in his Falange uniform in SanSebastian."
"He's no good."
"Do you think his paper can be right about Ansaldo? I mean about hisbeing 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 whatit is. You think _El Imparcial_ might for once be telling the truth."
"Not the whole truth. I saw _El Imparcial_, too. It also said thatVarela Ansaldo was brought to San Hermano to _cure_ Tabio."
Fielding cocked his head, looked at Hall out of one eye. "And you thinkAnsaldo was brought in to kill Professor Tabio?"
"I don't know. I just don't know."
"But you mean to find out?"
"_Quien 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, oldman--well, damn it all, you could be wrong. But I'd never say youwere--_nuts_ I believe is the word you used."
"Thanks."
"Well, sir, it's been a busy day." Fielding put the letters back in thefolder, 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 isadjourned."
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 Ihave my dinner with Commander New at the Embassy tomorrow night. He'sour new Intelligence man. Understand he took quite a beating from theHun at Dunkirk."
"Swell. Same place?"
"I don't know yet, old man. Suppose I give you a ring." The Englishmansuddenly lapsed into a lisping, Castillian Spanish. "Senor Hall? Eh,Senor Hall? This is Father Arupe. Bless you, my son. Would you care tocome to confession tonight?"
"Then it will be Father Arupe on the phone?"
"Yes, Senor. If I ask you to confession, it means this office in anhour. If I suggest you attend mass in the morning, drive out to myhouse. I'll write the address for you."
"Good."
"Oh, just another word about tonight's reports. If you could help mebring the facts about the waterfront to your government, I think itwould 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, andintelligent."
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 sayshe is very reliable."
"Oh, he is, old man. He is. You know, since they turned the bloodylights down, it's worth your life to cross the streets at night. Awfullot of traffic accidents and all that, you know. Nothing like a reliabledriver."
"How about you, Fielding?"
"Oh, I'll phone for my own reliable driver. Or better yet, tell Pepe tocome back for me, will you, old man?"
Hall rubbed the right side of his face. "Why don't you ride back withme, 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 reachedinto 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 thishour 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. Butunderneath 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'reall in."
"Good night, Fielding. And thanks. You're swell."
Hall left the office, rode the elevator to the main floor. Outside, thereliable driver was asleep at the wheel, his right hand under the whitechauffeur's cap which rested on his lap. Hall stood near the openwindow, smiling sardonically at Big Pepe. O.K., pal, he thought, we'llfind out about you right now. He cleared his throat, suddenly barked,"Arriba Espana!"
Big Pepe awoke with a startled growl. The hand under the cap swung uptoward 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 healso laughed. "Get in," he said. "Get in and thank your stars you'restill alive."
Hall joined him in the front seat.
"Arriba Espana," Pepe muttered, starting the car. "That is no joke inthe heart of any Delgado from the Asturias. That is an abomination."
"You're an Asturiano?"
"Look at me, _companero_. Do I have the face of a Gallego? Do I have thehead of a Catalan? Do I have the eyes of a Madrileno or the soul of a_puta_?"
"You fought in the war against the fascists?"
"Mother of God, he's asking me if I fought! Always until eternity theywill ask, Delgado, did you fight? And what will I say?"
"Watch out!" Hall screamed. "You'll hit that pole!" He grabbed for thewheel. Big Pepe's steel arm stopped him.
"_De nada_," the driver laughed. "Didn't Fernando tell you I am areliable driver?" The car missed the pole by inches, whirled around acorner on two wheels, and then rolled casually down the Avenida de laLiberacion. Another mad turn, and they were at the Bolivar.
"The Englishman, Fielding," Hall said. "He wants you to pick him up atthe office and take him home."
"_Bueno._" Big Pepe put the car in gear.
"How much do I owe you?" Hall shouted.
"_Manana, companero, manana._" Big Pepe had to stick his head out of thewindow and look back, while the car moved ahead, to answer Hall. Onemore _manana_, the American thought, and the reliable driver would drivehis car through a wall. He watched the car turn the corner on twowheels.
Souza was still on duty. He handed Hall the key to his room. "You lookvery tired, Senor Hall," he said. "I hope you sleep well."
"Thank you. Good night, _amigo_." When he got to his room, he phoneddown to the desk.
"I forgot," he said. "But if that _cabron_ of a waiter is still on duty,could you send up a bottle of mineral water with the elevator operator?"
"Of course. The operator is no _cabron_."
"Thanks. And by the way, didn't I meet you the last time I was in SanHermano?"
"No, Senor. But if you will pardon me for presuming, I feel in a senseas if we are old friends, in a sense."
"Old friends?"
"Yes, Senor. You see, I have read your book."
"My book?"
"_Si, su libro. Buenas noches, companero._"
This time there was no confusion in Hall's mind. He knew which bookFernando Souza meant. He went to sleep feeling less lonely than he hadin a long time.
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