The American Embassy was three blocks beyond the Presidencia. Hall wanted to walk to the party, but when he reached the street he became self-conscious about his palm-beach tuxedo jacket, and he hailed a strange cab.

The Embassy was housed in an old Spanish palace which a former Ambassador had left to the United States Government in his will. After the first World War, when the government had taken title to the palace, Washington sent an architect and an office efficiency man to San Hermano to redesign the structure. The outside remained more or less intact. But inside, many changes had been effected. The spacious street floor, designed as the slave quarters in the seventeenth century and later converted to storerooms and servants' quarters, was now a hive of offices and waiting rooms. The second floor was devoted largely to a tremendous ballroom, a state dining room, and the tapestried private offices of the Ambassador himself. The living quarters of the Ambassador took up the third floor, while the low-ceilinged fourth floor, originally designed for soldiers, was now given over to servants' rooms.

A secretary at the entrance checked Hall's name off against a list on a teak table. He took the carpeted stairs to the ballroom. Two butlers stood at a screen in the doorway to the big room. The first butler announced his name, but not loud enough to disturb any of the Ambassador's two hundred-odd guests. The second butler nodded to Hall, and led the way through a maze of dignitaries, diplomats' wives, and young people trying to dance to the music a rumba band was producing from a bandstand in a corner. Hall followed him patiently, looking for a sign of Jerry's red hair. The butler nodded gravely at a young girl dancing with a thin Latin in tails. She left her dancing partner and advanced on Hall with an outstretched hand.

"Mr. Matthew Hall, Miss Margaret," the butler whispered.

"I'm so glad you came, Mr. Hall. I'm Margaret Skidmore." Her hand, thin and remarkably strong, was covered with a white net glove that reached to her elbow.

"It's nice of you to have me," Hall said.

Margaret Skidmore took his arm. "We must get you a drink," she said, "and introduce you to some of the more interesting people here. And oh, yes, to my father. But I warn you, he's not in the first category." She was short; much smaller than Jerry, Hall thought, but a bird of a different color. As they crossed the room, a wisp of the black hair piled on top of her head dropped over her eye. Hall was amused by the way she blew the hair to one side twice before deciding to lift it with her gloved hand.

"This is my Dad's favorite punch," she said at the buffet table. "I forgot to tell you that the party is to celebrate the third anniversary of his mission."

Hall ladled out two cups. "Here's to the next three years," he toasted.

"The next three years are the ones that will count," Margaret Skidmore said. She was smiling at Hall and at some other guests when she said it, but it was not polite banter.

"The Press Secretary of the Embassy is sore at you," she said. "He's angry because you tried to get to Gamburdo without him."

"I'm sorry," Hall said. "If you'll introduce me to him, I'll try to make amends."

"Don't bother," she laughed. "Smitty's a stuffed shirt who needs to be taken down a peg or two. But I must say that you look a lot different than I thought you would, Mr. Hall."

"I know. I'm supposed to look like a hero and I have the face of a mugg. Or a gorilla." He was still looking for Jerry. "You're a surprise, too."

"Am I so different?" There was coquettish amusement in her hazel eyes. She tilted her fragile doll's nose, forced a haughty cast to her small-girl's face. "Is an Ambassador's daughter supposed to be a high-and-mighty lady like this?"

"No. I like you better the other way."

"Thanks. It's my only way."

Hall spotted Jerry on the dance floor with Varela Ansaldo. Jerry looked very happy, and Ansaldo had lost some of his undertaker's grimness. He tried in vain to catch her eye.

"Here comes my father."

Hall found himself shaking hands with a portly, middle-aged American who wore tails as if to the manor born. J. Burton Skidmore had the most imposing head of wavy gray hair in the entire hemisphere, and he knew it. His face, still ruddy and youngish, was pink and smelled of fine cologne.

"Con mucho gusto," the Ambassador said, holding Hall's hand and bowing slightly from the waist.

"I'm glad to meet you, sir," Hall said.

"Father, Mr. Hall is an American. He is Matthew Hall, the writer. You know. Matthew Hall." The childish, well-bred-daughter smile on Margaret Skidmore's face could not conceal the acid contempt in her voice. "Mr. Hall is an American, from New York."

"Oh, yes, oh, yes, indeed. Hall. Of course, Mr. Hall. Been in San Hermano long, Mr. Hall?"

"No, sir. Less than a week."

"Fine place, Mr. Hall. Fine people. Have you met Smitty yet? Dear, have you seen Smitty? I think he and Mr.—Mr. Hall could find much in common, Margaret."

"Tomorrow," Margaret Skidmore said, and the Ambassador helped himself to a cup of punch.

"Amigo Mateo!"

Without turning around, Hall said, in Spanish, "Only one man in all the world has a scratchy voice like that," and then he turned around and embraced Felipe Duarte.

"What brings you to San Hermano?" he asked Duarte.

"I am now a diplomat. First Counselor of the Mexican Embassy in San Hermano and guest professor of literature at the University."

Hall and Duarte had last met in Spain, where Duarte had served as a Lieutenant-Colonel with the regular Spanish People's Army. "Coronel Pancho Villa" was the name his men gave him, and the thin, gangling Mexican scholar had fought like a terror to live up to this name. Of Duarte, the General Staff officers said that he was as bad a strategist as he was brave a man, which would have made him one of the worst strategists in military history. But during the Ebro retreat, Duarte had taught the veteran professional officers a few things about the tactics of guerrilla warfare which raised his standing as a soldier.

Duarte took Margaret Skidmore's hand and raised it to his lips. "EnchantÉ," he sighed, and she knew at once that he was laughing at her.

"SeÑor Ambassador," Duarte said, speaking rapid Spanish, "this is one of the most magnificent parties I have ever attended. How do you manage to give such splendid parties with only your chit of a daughter to help you shove food down the ulcerous throats of these sons of whore mothers, dear SeÑor Ambassador? It is stupendous. It is colossal."

The Ambassador smiled, shook Duarte's hand, and bowing slightly, he murmured, "Con mucho gusto." Then, still smiling, he turned and walked away.

"Don't let this guy fool you," Hall said to the Ambassador's daughter. "He speaks English as well as we do."

"Better," Duarte said. "Ah learned mah English in Texas, Ah'll have yo'all know, suh. And Mateo, don't let Margaret's innocent smile fool you. She knows almost enough Spanish to know what I just told her distinguished papa."

"Some day I'm going to know enough," Margaret laughed. "And when I do, you're going to get your face slapped in front of everyone, I'm afraid. Tell me, Mateo, does hijos de la gran puta mean what I think it does?"

"That sounds like slang to me," Hall said. "I learned my Spanish on the Linguaphone."

"You're a fast boy, Matt," she said. "Call me Margaret, if you wish." She straightened Hall's tie with a perfumed glove. "I'll give you a little time with Felipe, and then I'll steal you back. There are many people here tonight who want to meet you."

"Hurry back," Duarte said. "He bores me stiff when I have him on my hands too long."

"You bastard," Hall said. "You're a diplomat now. Don't you ever stop clowning?"

"Sure. When I kill fascists I am very serious. You know that, Mateo. But here, if I did not clown, I would die of boredom. For example, when Skidmore gives a party, the politicos in my Embassy, they all find reasons for being out of town. I am not a politico. I am a professor of literature and a killer of fascists, by profession; a diplomat because someone wanted to do Lombardo a favor and at the same time remove my face from the domestic scene. Claro? So it is clown or die. And if I must die, I prefer to die having a second crack at Franco."

"Claro, amigo. But must you wear a suit like this one?"

Duarte's evening clothes were his cloak of independence. He wore a cheap tuxedo he had bought in New York for twenty dollars and a pair of worn patent-leather shoes that creaked as he walked. On state occasions, he wore the medals he had earned on the battlefields in Spain. For private parties, he simply wore an enameled gold Mexican flag on his lapel. Tonight, he wore only the flag.

All this he explained to Hall in his gay, rasping Spanish. "When the Falangist Embassy was still on good terms, I wore my Republican medals all the time. But just before Don Anibal took sick, he insulted the Caudillo in a speech before the University faculty, and when the Franco Ambassador called to ask for an apology Tabio told him that the truth called for no apologies. So the Caudillo got sore and he called his Ambassador home. The Embassy is still open, but a clerk is in charge, and there isn't a Spanish diplomat in San Hermano of high enough standing to be invited to any Embassy."

Jerry joined them, and when Hall presented her to Duarte, the Mexican kissed her hand and murmured, "EnchantÉ."

"Miss Olmstead is Dr. Ansaldo's nurse," Hall said.

"How very interesting," Duarte said. "May I have this dance with the nurse of Dr. Ansaldo?" and before she had a chance to say that her feet were killing her, the dexterous Duarte was guiding her through the steps of an intricate rumba he improvised at that moment.

Hall took another glass of punch. Duarte was his friend, but at the moment he wanted to break his neck. He wanted Jerry for himself, and he hated the idea of admitting or showing it. He watched them so intently that he failed to see Margaret return to the punch bowl.

"Deserted?" she asked. "Our friend Felipe would desert his mother for a redhead."

"He's quite a guy," Hall laughed.

"Come on," she said. "There's a crowd that's been dying to meet you. The country's biggest publisher and some of the more important business men."

"Fernandez?"

"That's right. He publishes El Imparcial. Confidentially, his paper is getting the Cabot Prize this year. Dad arranged it."

Fernandez was standing with a group of three Hermanitos and a blonde fortyish woman in a tight dress whom Hall recognized instantly as an American. "I'm Giselle Prescott," she said, her smile revealing flecks of lipstick on her yellow teeth.

"Take care of the amenities, will you, Gis?" Margaret Skidmore said. "Dad is flagging me over at the other end." She picked up her skirts, hurried to her father's rescue.

Giselle Prescott introduced Hall to JosÉ Fernandez, tall, handsome, in his early fifties. Fernandez presented him to Segundo Vardieno, Francisco Davila, and Alfonso Quinones. Davila was a man of one age and build with Fernandez, the other two were shorter and about ten years younger. Breathlessly, Giselle Prescott told Hall that Vardieno and Quinones were among the ten largest landowners in the nation, and Davila its leading attorney. They all made modest denials.

Quinones asked Giselle to dance, and she accepted gladly. Her myriad blonde ringlets neatly blocked her partner's forward view.

"Very accomplished writer," Hall said. "In the popular magazine field, Miss Prescott is supreme."

"She is very able," Davila said. Like Quinones and Vardieno, he wore the emblem of the Cross and the Sword in his lapel. Fernandez wore only the ribbon of the French Legion of Honor.

"My niece told me that you had some difficulties at the Press Bureau today," Vardieno said.

"Your niece?" Then he remembered the golden Cross and Sword dangling from the thin golden chain. "Oh, yes, the young lady who speaks English so well."

Vardieno explained to Fernandez that Hall had been unable to arrange for an interview with Gamburdo. "Don't you think you could help SeÑor Hall?" Davila asked, and Fernandez assured the three men that the matter would be taken care of in the morning. Of course, it might not be possible until after the Congress convened, but then politics in San Hermano being what they were, the illustrious colleague from North America would surely be understanding.

"What's the inside on the political picture?" Hall asked, and the three men, talking in unison and talking singly gave him one picture.

Their picture was very detailed. "El Tovarich—our Red President, you know," had lined up the unruly elements behind a dangerous program of confiscating the estates of their rightful owners and turning them over to communist gunmen. In addition to this land-piracy scheme, Tabio also intended to drive the Catholic Church underground and impose heavy penalty taxes on the parents who sent their children to Catholic parochial schools. To aid in this program, Tabio was throwing open the gates of the nation to Red agitators disguised as Jewish and Spanish refugees.

"So it's as bad as that," Hall said.

"Worse." Fernandez looked around him. "Come closer," he said. "There's something I must tell you about your own safety."

"My safety?"

"Yes, SeÑor." Fernandez had his right hand on Hall's shoulder. "Late this afternoon I received a confidential information that the Communist Party in San Hermano had privately denounced you to its members."

"Denounced me? But why?"

"Yes, SeÑor. And it was a most dangerous denunciation, too. A prominent communist leader telephoned the editor of the official Red paper and denounced you for being an enemy of Tovarich Tabio and a supporter of SeÑor Gamburdo."

Hall smiled. "But that couldn't be so bad," he demurred. "The Reds are always denouncing someone. Tomorrow the Communist Party paper will attack me as a fascist, and I guess that will be the end of the whole thing."

"No, that is not what will happen," Segundo Vardieno insisted. "Tell him the rest of the information, Don JosÉ."

Again JosÉ Fernandez looked around to make sure that he was not being overheard. "SeÑor Vardieno is right, my friend. You see," he said, "the Red who phoned the Mundo Obrero ordered the editor not to print a word about you—yet. Do you understand what that means?"

Davila, the lawyer, explained. "What Don JosÉ means," he said, "is that a secret denunciation generally precedes an assassination. You see, SeÑor Hall, if the Reds denounce you in their press, you would be marked before the world as an enemy of the Tovarich. Then, if anything happened to you—they are not only blameless, but even after killing you they can make great propaganda about how the alleged fascists killed you because you are a noted American patriot who stands for free enterprise."

"Pretty clever," Hall said.

"Jewish cleverness!" Segundo Vardieno was shaking with rage. "Give a Jew a hundred pesos and in a day he has a thousand and you'll never know how he did it. But will he apply his cleverness for the good of the country? No! Only for communism."

"Is Tabio a Jew?" Hall asked.

"Confidentially," Vardieno answered, "El Tovarich is a Sephardic Jew. But we're not making it public because we are gentlemen."

"And only because we are gentlemen," Fernandez added. "I don't think El Tovarich will be among us much longer."

"Is he really that sick?"

"Oh, yes," Davila said. "You know what happened to him, don't you? No? Well, it's almost like the Hand of Divine Retribution." He told Hall that Tabio had turned over to one of his henchman a vineyard confiscated from an old family, and that in gratitude the henchman had started to distill a special brandy for the Tovarich. "And now, the excess alcohol from too much of the stolen grape has taken its toll."

"Well, what do you know!" Hall said.

"It is the gospel truth," Fernandez said. "I have ways of confirming the story."

"Some mess, isn't it?" Hall said.

"It is filled with dangers," Vardieno said. "Your calmness is admirable, SeÑor Hall, but you had better watch out. The Reds are out to kill you."

Hall accepted a cigar from JosÉ Fernandez, took his time about lighting it before answering Vardieno. "Oh, I don't know," he said, casually. "Perhaps you might know that earlier in this war, I was on board a British warship which the Nazis sunk with aerial torpedoes. I not only survived, but I came through without a scratch. Since then I just can't get too excited about a threat." He looked at the three men to see if his braggart's act succeeded. Fernandez was obviously the most impressed of the three.

"Bueno! Muy caballero!" Fernandez said. "But you had better be careful. The Reds in San Hermano have none of the sporting codes of the Nazi airman."

"Well, now that you mention it," Hall said, "I did catch some bastard following me the other day."

In a small voice, Davila asked, "Did you get a good look at him?"

"I most certainly did. He was a big, clumsy brute in the white linen suit of a respectable business man and a panama hat. But I'll bet a good box of Havana cigars that he was a longshoreman or a miner. I know the type."

Davila looked at Vardieno and Fernandez. A slow grin crept over the lawyer's face, and then the other two Hermanitos were grinning too. "So they started, eh?" he said. "Well, don't let that big one worry you too much. Should he, Don JosÉ?"

The publisher grunted. "No. Don't worry about that one." Hall could sense that Fernandez was picking up his cue from the lawyer.

"As a matter of fact," Davila said, "I'll wager that you can find the picture of the man in the white suit in Don JosÉ's confidential file on the Reds. He keeps it in his office in the Imparcial building."

"I would be honored if you visited me in my office," JosÉ Fernandez said to Hall.

"Perhaps I can make it this week," Hall said.

"Sst," Davila warned. "Miss Prescott is coming back. Let's change the subject."

"Of course," Vardieno said. "There is no sense in involving her in this."

"This is quite a turnout," Hall was saying when Giselle Prescott and Quinones rejoined the group. "I think that every nation is represented by its Ambassador here."

"Every nation but Spain," Quinones said. "El Tovarich took care of that by insulting the Ambassador and the Chief of the Spanish State."

"It's true," Vardieno said. "Spain is a good customer for our nation, but El Tovarich is so angry at Generalissimo Franco for destroying communism in the Motherland that he is deliberately trying to destroy this trade in order to get even with Franco."

"He not only insulted Spain," Quinones said. "In his speech to the University, El Tovarich said that only the so-called fascists in San Hermano supported Franco."

"Sounds like our pinkos back home," Giselle Prescott said to Hall.

Fernandez exploded. "I am a good Catholic," he snapped. "I am pious. During the Civil War I supported Franco. I was proud to support him. I not only supported Franco, but I was delighted to hail Hitler and Mussolini as noble allies in the struggle against Jewish Bolshevism. But am I a fascist? I defy any man to call me a fascist or a Falangist to my face!"

Davila turned to both Hall and Giselle Prescott. "Now don't jump to any false conclusions about Don JosÉ," he smiled. "After all, you Americans are not Reds because you welcome the godless Russian armies of Stalin as your allies in this present war, are you?"

"Bull's-eye!" Giselle Prescott laughed. "I'm delighted to hear you both talk like this. Back home only the Reds and the pinkos were for the so-called Spanish Loyalists during the war." She opened her tiny purse and found a leather address book. "Gimme a pencil or a pen, will you, Hall?"

"Sure. What for?"

"I want to put down what SeÑor Fernandez and SeÑor Davila just said before I forget. I'm doing a piece for a mag and these quotes would just fit in. May I quote you, gentlemen?"

"I have nothing to conceal," Fernandez said proudly.

Davila was very gracious. "Of course you may use these remarks. But please don't use Don JosÉ's name in your article. It might be misunderstood. You see, Don JosÉ has many enemies in the Jewish and radical press in your country."

"On my honor as a Girl Scout," she said, "I'll use the quotes but not the names."

"You've got quite a story there," Hall said. He was looking into the mob on the dance floor for a sign of Jerry. Her red hair was not to be found, but Margaret Skidmore, dancing with a bemedaled diplomat, caught his eye and gestured that she would join him at the end of that dance. She took him away from the group in a few minutes and led him toward the American bar she had rigged up for the party.

"They sure were talking at you for a while," she said. "I could see them giving it to you with both barrels."

"That they were. What is the lowdown, anyway? Are those boys completely right about Tabio?"

Margaret was amused. "Oh, they're a gang of hotheads, I warn you. But nice. I suspect that our friend Giselle is going to find Don JosÉ particularly nice."

"Meow!"

"I'm not a cat. I just know Giselle."

"Let's talk about San Hermano politics. I think you know plenty in that little head of yours."

"Oh, I do. But tonight's a party. I've got to be Daddy's good little Hostess."

"Like it?"

"Bores me silly," Margaret said.

"Perhaps we can talk some other time?"

"Tomorrow would be swell. I have to go to my place in Juarez early in the morning. Why don't you come out for lunch? It's a two-hour ride by train from San Hermano. I think you can make a train at eleven."

"Tomorrow?" Hall hesitated.

"I wish you'd make it," the girl said with a sudden intensity.

"It's a date."

"I'll meet you at the station."

They joined her father and one of the Embassy secretaries at the bar. Hall had a Cuba Libre, and was introduced to a South American painter. He listened to the painter talk to the Ambassador about the beauties of Arizona, watched J. Burton Skidmore gravely shake hands with the painter and mutter, "Con mucho gusto." Then the painter asked Margaret to dance and, when she left, Hall wandered off to look for Jerry.

He found her at the punch bowl with Ansaldo. "May I ask Miss Olmstead for this dance?" he asked the doctor.

"Just this one dance," Jerry said, "I'll be right back."

She put her cheek against his, softly hummed the tune the band was playing.

"It's nice to have you in my arms," he said.

"It's nice to be in your arms."

He held her closer. They danced well together. So well that when Jerry said it would be better if they did not dance again that night, Hall made up his mind to leave at once. "I can't hang around and watch you dancing with Ansaldo all night," he said.

"Why, Massa Hall," she said, "Ah swain Ah do believe you-all are jealous!"

"Did Duarte give you English lessons in one rumba, too?"

"You're a goof," she laughed.

He took her back to Ansaldo, paid his respects to the Ambassador, and looked for Duarte. The Mexican was talking to the tall young wife of the Vichy Ambassador.

"Felipe," Hall tugged at Duarte's sleeve, "I am afraid that I must go now."

"I'll go with you, if you're alone. Madame, enchantÉ ..." He winked at Hall as he kissed Madame la Comtesse's hand. "Now we must pay our respects to our host."

"I already have."

"Come with me while I do. I never miss it. He has kept me from squandering my money. I bet with myself on him, and I always lose. So Felipe pays Duarte, and Duarte supports Felipe."

"What the hell are you babbling about now?"

"Your Ambassador. He is an original, Mateo. For three years he draws me to his parties as a lodestone draws baser metals. In three years, he has learned exactly three words of Spanish: 'Con mucho gusto.' Of course he still says them with a gringo accent, but anyone can recognize what he means.

"For three years I am waiting for him to learn a new word, any word. Si. No. Pan. Mantequilla. Right now, I'd settle for just one new word.

"In the beginning, when I was green in the business of diplomacy, I was younger and more optimistic. Then I would not have settled for a word. I wanted a whole new phrase. Nothing complicated, you understand. Any simple phrase would have satisfied me. Tiene usted un fÓsforo? Or even—DÓnde estÁ la sala de caballeros? But no. Tennyson's brook burbles forever, and unto eternity J. Burton Skidmore will not learn more than his three words, and damn it, he won't even learn how to speak them correctly."

"And you're still betting on him?" Hall asked.

"What can I do?" Duarte said. "We stupid Mexican peons have such a deep faith in mankind that we are always betrayed."

"Here comes the Ambassador now."

"Oiga!" Duarte stopped Skidmore, took his hand, and let loose a stream of Mexican obscenities, spoken in dulcet, smiling tones. When he paused for breath, Skidmore smiled genially, bowed slightly from the hips, and said, "Con mucho gusto."

Hall nearly collapsed with laughter when he and Duarte reached the street. "You bastard," he said, "you'll kill me before my time."

"Let's have a drink before you die."

"Sure. But let's run over to the Bolivar first. I want to see if there's a message. Besides, we could stand some fresh air."

Duarte agreed. "I saw Fernandez and Vardieno trying to gas you," he said. "You could use some air."

"You're not kidding, Felipe."

"How do you like the Falange in San Hermano?"

"You mean Fernandez and his friends?"

"Of course. That Pepito Fernandez, there is an hijo de la chingada for you, Mateo. Once, when he was keeping a woman in Paris ..." and Duarte was off on a long hilarious story about the publisher and his lady of the hour. He was still telling the story when they reached the darkened Plaza de la Republica and Hall suggested that they cut across the cobbles rather than walk two-thirds of the way around the square.

Hall stepped off the sidewalk and took three steps before he noticed the large Rolls-Royce bearing down on them with her throttle wide open and her lights off. "Jump!" he shouted, but Duarte, who saw it first, had already yanked Hall back to the sidewalk.

"Get behind this pillar, quick!" Duarte had a small pistol in his hand. He stood watching the Rolls roar across the Plaza and disappear into the alley leading to the Avenida de la Liberacion.

"It's almost like old times," Hall said.

"He tried to kill you, Mateo."

"Better put your gun away. And we'll have that drink first, I think."

"I'm going to phone for a car from the Mexican Embassy from the next phone, chico. Those bastards weren't playing."

"Put the gun away. It was a bluff."

"You mean you expected it?"

"Hell, no! I didn't think it would take so soon. But they had no intention of killing me tonight."

"The Arrows?"

"I think so."

Duarte put the gun in his pocket. "I don't understand. It seems a little too subtle for the Falange. Are you working for your government now?"

"No. They turned me down. They said I was pro-Loyalist during the war. Right now that makes you a Red in Washington. I'm traveling on my own."

"On your own?"

"I'm well-heeled. My last book sold like hell. So now I'm young Don Quixote."

"And your Sancho Panza?"

"I have none. Or rather, I have thousands of them. Exiles. Taxi drivers. Union leaders. Communists. First Secretaries of Mexican Embassies."

"What are you after?"

"The Falange."

"Good. I can help you, chico."

"You'll have to. Wait, I'm going into the hotel for a minute. Come on along. I'll only be a second."

Duarte took a seat in the lobby while Hall talked to Souza. There was still no letter from Havana, but Souza had some information about the Renault Androtten had used. "It is a for-hire car owned by the Phoenix Garage on Reyes Street."

"Can you find out who hired it the other night?"

"That will not be so easy, CompaÑero Hall. The mechanics in the Phoenix are not union members. But we are trying to reach someone there. Perhaps by tomorrow we will know."

"There's something else you can find out. Perhaps from the Mechanics Union. Find out how many Rolls-Royce roadsters there are in San Hermano. I know it will be hard, but it's important."

"I will try. Must you know soon?"

"Very soon, Fernando. A Rolls-Royce roadster, it was painted black or dark blue, I think, and just tried to run down Duarte and me in the Plaza."

Souza made some notes on a slip of paper. "Maybe we can find out tonight," he said.

"Good. I'll be back in an hour. Is Androtten in his room?"

"No. He's been out all evening."

Duarte knew a quiet little bar a few blocks from the Bolivar. "They call it a lover's retreat," he said when they got there. "You can see why." Most of the tables were surrounded with lattice walls, and those tables which were occupied were monopolized by couples who looked into one another's eyes and said little.

"There's Ansaldo's maricÓn," Duarte laughed. "In the table at the back. I know the boy who's with him, too. He's a blue blood from the Vichy Embassy."

Hall watched Marina and the French boy. They had pink drinks made with gin and grenadine and raw eggs. The French boy was giggling. "The bastards," Hall said.

"Sit here and order a Cuba Libre for me," Duarte said. "I'm going to phone for a car."

Now that the action had begun, Hall felt better. The tension had been broken. Hands were starting to be shown. Now the moves would come more quickly, he thought, and they would be more definite in form. Diverse facts would synthesize, and when the letter came from Havana, perhaps the whole thing would start to form one pattern.

"We can't talk here," Duarte said. "Let's have a drink and then, when my car comes, we'll go to my house. I rented a place on the beach."

"Sorry, boy. That's out tonight. Have to stick around the hotel."

"But we should talk, Mateo."

"I'll have breakfast with you at your house. Do you eat in?"

"Sometimes. We'll eat in tomorrow morning."

"Eight o'clock too early?"

"No. I'll get you out of bed, Felipe. Well, here's to Mexico!"