Murder at the Watergate (25 page)

His hand was licked in response.

In bed, Smith’s thoughts were positive.

He’d been blessed with a fine first wife and son, then cursed when a drunk driver killed them in a head-on collision on the Beltway. He’d been one of Washington’s top criminal attorneys until he could no longer cope with the inimical system of criminal jurisprudence—and with the death of the two persons he loved most in the world. Now, he had Annabel, lovely, loving, and decent Annabel, who’d brought spark back into his life and gave him something to fervently nurture and protect.

Sometimes, it was when things were best that fears were worst, fears of things coming unraveled, calamity striking when not expected, losing the special reasons for things being so good.

Fortunately, sleep interrupted this increasingly morbid series of reflections. He slept soundly and awoke refreshed.

It had been an arduous trip to San Miguel.

The Mexican taxi driver who took Annabel on the hour-and-a-half ride from the León airport was no older than eighteen, she judged, and drove with the wild abandon of youth. His car was battered; it ran more on oil than gasoline and he stopped twice at gas stations to add quarts. Annabel asked in Spanish a few times that he slow down when taking hairpin curves full bore, but each request resulted only in a moment of sanity until his foot rammed the accelerator to the floor again.

More disconcerting was passing through small towns consisting of nothing but the road, and a string of ramshackle houses and restaurants. Even at that late hour, their passage was narrowed by milling crowds of men, women, and children. Some of the men openly carried weapons and glared at the taxi as the driver slowed to avoid hitting someone. After they’d passed through the first such town, Annabel leaned forward and mentioned
the armed men, tales of abduction in Mexico very much on her mind.

The driver laughed, reached across the seat, and held up a baseball bat. Somehow, his display of a Louisville Slugger did not ease her concerns.

The Casa de Sierra Nevada was aware she’d be arriving late and had staff waiting for her.

“¿
Como está usted
, Senora Smith?”

“Fine. Tired, and still shaking from the taxi ride.”

“You should have had our limousine pick you up.”

“I know, but in my haste leaving Washington I forgot to request it. I will need it late tomorrow afternoon into Mexico City. I’m just happy I’m here—and definitely ready for bed.”

“You’ll be in a suite at our building in the park, Senora Smith. I hope that is suitable.”

“Perfectly suitable,” Annabel said. “I saw those suites the last time I was here. It’s a lovely setting.”

“
Sí
, very quiet. Come, the car is waiting.”

The Sierra Nevada’s Hotel-in-the-Park, adjacent to Parque Benito Juárez, was only a minute’s drive from the main building at 35 Hospicio, in the center of town. On other visits, Annabel had stayed in one of five suites in that main building, which also housed the restaurant, bar, and reception desk. Ten separate buildings in all comprised the Casa de Sierra Nevada, a total of thirty-seven rooms and suites.

The staff laid out Annabel’s luggage, and gave her instructions on the suite’s amenities. When they left, Annabel drew a long sigh of contentment and took in her surroundings.

Mac and Annabel had enjoyed opulent hotel suites
before, and this rivaled the best of them. It was huge, the sitting room and sleeping areas larger than their living room in the Watergate. An open picture window at one end afforded a splendorous view of the formal gardens and park beyond. The twenty-foot-high ceilings were whitewashed brick with rough-hewn timber beams, the floors terra-cotta, the walls a delicate yellow. Large watercolors of parrots—parrot paintings were throughout the hotel—held prominent positions on the expanse of walls.

The king-size bed was covered in the same fuchsia fabric as the long sofa and stuffed chairs. Above the headboard was a massive black carving of the Mexican “Tree of Life,” with multiple tiny butterflies and flower cup candleholders woven into the pattern. A freestanding fireplace with a conical hood reaching up to the ceiling spanned the sitting and sleeping areas.

The bathroom was the size of a New York City studio apartment. Twin gold sinks were sunken in black marble vanities. A window offered an inviting view of a terrace. Logs in the fireplace had been ignited, casting a copper warmth over the room.

Annabel kicked off her shoes and plopped down on the couch. A heavy wooden table held a vase with two dozen crimson roses and a cut-glass bowl of fresh fruit. Two envelopes rested beside them.

Annabel opened the first.

She opened the second envelope.

Annabel tossed the note on the table, sat back, and laughed. She’d met a number of Washington’s omnipresent social hostesses, each a formidable presence in her own right, but none approaching Elfie Dorrance for sheer magnitude. What most impressed Annabel about Elfie was her ability to push people to the edge of animosity but then, operating from an innate sense of limits, know how to keep them from falling off that edge and loving every minute of their trip to the precipice.

Annabel had never been to Elfie’s San Miguel home. Her previous trips to the lovely village had been strictly on business; Elfie never even knew Annabel would be there. She seemed to remember Elfie mentioning it was on a park.
This
park? Annabel wondered.

She went to the window. By leaning out and looking to
her right, she could see lights on in a few homes even at that late hour. Was Elfie entertaining in one of them?

After a shower, and wrapped in one of the hotel’s thick terry-cloth robes, Annabel emptied her suitcase, placing selected items in a smaller, empty bag she’d brought along for the trip to Mexico City. She and her husband had made a study of effective packing for a trip, thinking everything out and listing items on their respective computer-generated lists, including an ample supply of plastic bags of varying sizes, the first thing packed by every savvy traveler. That chore completed, she sat on the broad windowsill and listened to the cries of nocturnal birds, the only violators of the night’s stillness.

“God, things are good,” she said aloud in a breathy voice. The minute she did, she silently reminded herself not to be cocky, not to assume that life was a continuing embarrassment of riches and fat times and glowing sunrises and sunsets. It was more like the stock market, she thought as she got into bed, sometimes climbing steadily until something, or someone, did something that caused it to fall; a bull or a bear life, optimistic one day, fearing the worst the next.

Annabel was not a religious person in the sense that she devoted much time or thought to it. But she did, on occasion, say a soundless prayer. This night, she thanked someone she didn’t know—wasn’t even sure existed although she preferred to think he or she did—for Mac and their life together, for Rufus, for the good preparation her parents had given her, for so many wonderful friends and … and for Mexico and its elections.

“Let it go smoothly,” she said aloud, her voice heavy with sleep. “Let it be good for Mexico.”

Mac Smith locked his suitcases and made a final inspection of the apartment, checking that timers on selected lights and a small radio were properly set, and adding a few items to a note he’d written to their housekeeper, who’d stayed with them after their move. He’d deposited Rufus at the Animal Inn that morning, guilty at condemning the large beast to confined quarters but taking solace from the love lavished on the Dane, and other four-legged wards, by the kennel’s owners.

He called the lobby desk. “This is Mac Smith. I need a cab to National.”

“Right away.”

Instead of waiting for a call that the cab had arrived, Smith decided to wait in the lobby. He placed his bags by the front door and glanced about. The rude young guy from the elevator, who’d sat at Annabel’s table in the Potomac Lounge, was in a chair reading a magazine. Mac went over to him. The young man looked up.

“Mac Smith. We met at the impromptu Stevie Wonder concert.”

“Right,” the young man said, running a hand, as usual, through his satin hair.

“We’ve never been properly introduced.” Smith extended his hand.

The young man took it, not getting up.

“Well, welcome to the building, although we’re new here, too.”

“So your wife said.”

“Have a pleasant day.”

Smith walked away, again dismayed at the young man’s lack of social grace. He hadn’t stood, nor had he given his name. “Slug,” Smith muttered under his breath.

“Cab is here, Mr. Smith.”

“Right. Thanks. See you in a week or so.”

As the taxi drove off, Mac looked back at the glass-walled lobby, where his new, disrespectful neighbor stood near the door, his face empty, eyes trained on the cab.

“Welcome to the Majestic, Senor Smith,” the desk clerk said.

“Gracias,”
Smith said, accepting a pen with which to fill out his registration card. “Have others from the election observer team arrived?” he asked.

“No, not yet. The elections are two days from now. They are due in tomorrow.”

“I thought I’d jump the gun a little,” Mac said, smiling and sliding the card across the desk. “Relax for a day before getting to work.”

“A good idea, but it is hard to relax with the elections, huh?”

The clerk spoke the truth.

The trip in from the airport was tortuous, the streets chockablock with vehicles and pedestrians. The taxi passed beneath thousands of large, colorful posters proclaiming the virtues of the PRI’s candidate for mayor of Mexico City, Alfredo del Mazo. Noticeably fewer and smaller banners for the PRD candidate, Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, and PAN’s Carlos Castillo, fluttered in a warm breeze from wires strung across the streets and wide avenues. Music from mariachi bands came from unseen places, melding with the pungent aroma of food stalls and the pervasive acidic smell of pollution.

Mac felt the excitement in the air as the taxi inched along. This nation of more than seventy-five million people was poised on the brink of its first taste of free and democratic elections since 1911. All the political parties had supported far-ranging judicial reform in the election process, and had agreed upon transparent and understandable rules covering campaign financing and media access.

Still, the reigning PRI remained the dominant force, a hegemonic political juggernaut that had ruled Mexico for seven decades, controlling every aspect of the nation’s daily life. Whether its public proclamations of support for an open election would translate into action remained to be seen. But if the forecasts were accurate, the PRI’s grip on power was in jeopardy, especially in Mexico City, where the winner of the mayoral race would emerge as the leading presidential candidate in the 2000 elections.

* * *

Although he hadn’t requested a room with a view of the Zócalo, the city’s vast main square, second largest in the world, trailing only Moscow’s Red Square, his suite looked out over this hub of Mexico City’s life since the Aztecs founded their capital there in 1325. He opened the windows and allowed the square’s sounds to reach him, took in the buildings surrounding it, anchored by Palacio Nacional, which housed the president’s official headquarters and contained some of Diego Rivera’s finest murals; myriad museums; other government buildings; and the Portal de los Evangelistas, where public scribes assisted the illiterate in writing their legal documents and love letters.

His suite contained a TV with a remote, a mini-bar, a radio, a king-size bed, a desk, and two comfortable armchairs. Not the most luxurious hotel room he’d ever been in but perfectly serviceable.

He placed a call to the Casa de Sierra Nevada in San Miguel de Allende.

“Senora Smith’s room, please.”

After a pause: “Senora Smith is not here. May I take a message?”

“This is her husband. Do you know if she’s left for Mexico City?”

“Un momento, por favor.”

Gabriela, the concierge, came on the line. “Senor Smith, this is Gabriela.”

“Oh, yes, Annabel often speaks of you.”

“That is nice to hear. She left an hour ago for Mexico City. By our limousine.”

Mac checked his watch. She’d be arriving in about
three hours. He was glad she was in the hands of the hotel’s limousine driver, not a suicidal Mexican cab driver.

“Gracias,”
he said.

“My pleasure. I look forward to seeing the two of you when you return to San Miguel.”

“Right after the elections. I’m looking forward to it, too.”

It was seven o’clock. He decided to wait until Annabel arrived before having dinner. But he was hungry. He pulled the room service menu from the desk and had started to look through its snack section when the phone rang.

“Hello.”

“Senor Smith?”

“Yes.”

“This is Raul Telo. I am associate director of the IFE, the Federal Election Institute. I was told you had come a day early and thought we might have an opportunity to meet informally, before the others arrive.”

“That would be fine. I’m expecting my wife in a few hours but was about to grab a snack.”