The Rhinemann Exchange (31 page)

“You’ve been employing a diversion,” laughed David, following the cryp out the door into another hallway.

“I had to. You’ve got a room in the back. So far back it’s been used for storage, I think.”

“Obviously I made points with Granville.”

“You sure did. He can’t figure you out.… Me? I don’t try.” Ballard turned left into still another intersecting hallway. “This is the south wing. Offices on the first and second floors; not many, three on each. Apartments on the third and fourth. The roof is great for sunbathing, if you like that sort of thing.”

“Depends on the company, I suppose.”

The two men approached a wide staircase, preparing to veer to the left beyond it, when a feminine voice called down from the second landing.

“Bobby, is that you?”

“It’s Jean,” said Ballard. “Yes,” he called out. “I’m with Spaulding. Come on down and meet the new recruit with enough influence to get his own apartment right off.”

“Wait’ll he sees the apartment!”

Jean Cameron came into sight from around the corner landing. She was a moderately tall woman, slender and dressed in a floor-length cocktail gown at once vivid with color yet simple in design. Her light brown hair was shoulder length, full and casual. Her face was a combination of striking features blended into a soft whole: wide, alive blue eyes; a thin, sharply etched nose; lips medium full and set as if in a half-smile. Her very clear skin was bronzed by the Argentine sun.

David saw that Ballard was watching him, anticipating his reaction to the girl’s loveliness. Ballard’s expression was humorously sardonic, and Spaulding read the message: Ballard had been to the font and found it empty—for those seeking other than a few drops of cool water. Ballard was now a friend to the lady; he knew better than to try being anything else.

Jean Cameron seemed embarrassed by her introduction on the staircase. She descended rapidly, her lips parted into one of the most genuine smiles David had seen in years. Genuine and totally devoid of innuendo.

“Welcome,” she said, extending her hand. “Thank heavens I have a chance to apologize before you walk into that place. You may change your mind and move right back here.”

“It’s that bad?” David saw that Jean wasn’t quite as young at close range as she seemed on the staircase. She was past thirty; comfortably past. And she seemed aware of his inspection, the approbation—or lack of it—unimportant to her.

“Oh, it’s all right for a limited stay. You can’t get anything else on that basis, not if you’re American. But it’s small.”

Her handshake was firm, almost masculine, thought Spaulding. “I appreciate your taking the trouble. I’m sorry to have caused it.”

“No one else here could have gotten you anything but a hotel,” said Ballard, touching the girl’s shoulder; was the contact protective? wondered David. “The
porteños
trust Mother Cameron. Not the rest of us.”

“
Porteños
,” said Jean in response to Spaulding’s questioning expression, “are the people who live in BA.…”

“And BA—don’t tell me—stands for Montevideo,” replied David.

“Aw, they sent us a
bright
one,” said Ballard.

“You’ll get used to it,” continued Jean. “Everyone in the American and English settlements calls it BA. Montevideo, of course,” she added, smiling. “I think we see it so often on reports, we just do it automatically.”

“Wrong,” interjected Ballard. “The vowel juxtaposition in ‘Buenos Aires’ is uncomfortable for British speech.”

“That’s something else you’ll learn during your stay, Mr. Spaulding,” said Jean Cameron, looking affectionately at Ballard. “Be careful offering opinions around Bobby. He has a penchant for disagreeing.”

“Never so,” answered the cryp. “I simply care enough for my fellow prisoners to want to enlighten them. Prepare them for the outside when they get paroled.”

“Well, I’ve got a temporary pass right now, and if I don’t get over to the ambassador’s office, he’ll start on that
damned address system.… Welcome again, Mr. Spaulding.”

“Please. The name’s David.”

“Mine’s Jean. Bye,” said the girl, dashing down the hallway, calling back to Ballard. “Bobby? You’ve got the address and the key? For … David’s place?”

“Yep. Go get irresponsibly drunk, I’ll handle everything.”

Jean Cameron disappeared through a door in the right wall.

“She’s very attractive,” said Spaulding, “and you two are good friends. I should apologize for …”

“No, you shouldn’t,” interrupted Ballard. “Nothing to apologize for. You formed a quick judgment on isolated facts. I’d’ve done the same, thought the same. Not that you’ve changed your mind; no reason to, really.”

“She’s right. You disagree … before you know what you’re disagreeing to; and then you debate your disagreement. And if you go on, you’ll probably challenge your last position.”

“You know what? I can follow that. Isn’t it frightening?”

“You guys are a separate breed,” said David, chuckling, following Ballard beyond the stairs into a smaller corridor.

“Let’s take a quick look at your Siberian cubicle and then head over to your other cell. It’s on Córdoba; we’re on Corrientes. It’s about ten minutes from here.”

David thanked Bobby Ballard once again and shut the apartment door. He had pleaded exhaustion from the trip, preceded by too much welcome home in New York—and God knew that was the truth—and would Ballard take a raincheck for dinner?

Alone now, he inspected the apartment; it wasn’t intolerable at all. It was small: a bedroom, a sitting room-kitchen, and a bath. But there was a dividend Jean Cameron hadn’t mentioned. The rooms were on the first floor, and at the rear was a tiny brick-leveled patio surrounded by a tall concrete wall, profuse with hanging vines and drooping flowers from immense pots on the ledge. In the center of the enclosure was a gnarled fruit-bearing tree he could not identify; around the trunk were three rope-webbed chairs that had seen better days but looked extremely
comfortable. As far as he was concerned, the dividend made the dwelling.

Ballard had pointed out that his section of the Avenida Córdoba was just over the borderline from the commercial area, the “downtown” complex of Buenos Aires. Quasi residential, yet near enough to stores and restaurants to be easy for a newcomer.

David picked up the telephone; the dial tone was delayed but eventually there. He replaced it and walked across the small room to the refrigerator, an American Sears Roebuck. He opened it and smiled. The Cameron girl had provided—or had somebody provide—several basic items: milk, butter, bread, eggs, coffee. Then happily he spotted two bottles of wine: an Orfila
tinto
and a Colón
blanco.
He closed the refrigerator and went back into the bedroom.

He unpacked his single suitcase, unwrapping a bottle of Scotch, and remembered that he’d have to buy additional clothes in the morning. Ballard had offered to go with him to a men’s shop in the Calle Florida—if his goddamned dials weren’t “humming.” He placed the books Eugene Lyons had given him on the bedside table. He had gone through two of them; he was beginning to gain confidence in the aerophysicists’ language. He would need comparable studies in German to be really secure. He would cruise around the bookshops in the German settlement tomorrow; he wasn’t looking for definitive texts, just enough to understand the terms. It was really a minor part of his assignment, he understood that.

Suddenly, David remembered Walter Kendall. Kendall was either in Buenos Aires by now or would be arriving within hours. The accountant had left the United States at approximately the same time he had, but Kendall’s flight from New York was more direct, with far fewer stopovers.

He wondered whether it would be feasible to go out to the airport and trace Kendall. If he hadn’t arrived, he could wait for him; if he had, it would be simple enough to check the hotels—according to Ballard there were only three or four good ones.

On the other hand, any additional time—more than absolutely essential—spent with the manipulating accountant was not a pleasant prospect. Kendall would be upset at finding him in Buenos Aires before he’d given the order to
Swanson. Kendall, no doubt, would demand explanations beyond those David wished to give; probably send angry cables to an already strung-out brigadier general.

There were no benefits in hunting down Walter Kendall until Kendall expected to find him. Only liabilities.

He had other things to do: the unfocused picture. He could begin that search far better alone.

David walked back into the living room-kitchen carrying the Scotch and took out a tray of ice from the refrigerator. He made himself a drink and looked over at the double doors leading to his miniature patio. He would spend a few quiet twilight moments in the January summertime breeze of Buenos Aires.

The sun was fighting its final descent beyond the city; the last orange rays were filtering through the thick foliage of the unidentified fruit tree. Underneath, David stretched his legs and leaned back in the rope-webbed chair. He realized that if he kept his eyes closed for any length of time, they would not reopen for a number of hours. He had to watch that; long experience in the field had taught him to eat something before sleeping.

Eating had long since lost its pleasure for him—it was merely a necessity directly related to his energy level. He wondered if the pleasure would ever come back; whether so much he had put aside would return. Lisbon had probably the best accommodations—food, shelter, comfort—of all the major cities, excepting New York, on both continents. And now he was on a third continent, in a city that boasted undiluted luxury.

But for him it was the field—as much as was the north country in Spain. As much as Basque and Navarre, and the freezing nights in the Galician hills or the sweat-prone silences in ravines, waiting for patrols—waiting to kill.

So much. So alien.

He brought his head forward, took a long drink from the glass and let his neck arch back into the frame of the chair. A small bird was chattering away in the midsection of the tree, annoyed at his intrusion. It reminded David of how he would listen for such birds in the north country. They telegraphed the approach of men unseen, often falling into different rhythms that he began to identify—or thought he identified—with the numbers of the unseen, approaching patrols.

Then David realized that the small chattering bird was not concerned with him. It hopped upward, still screeching its harsh little screech, only faster now, more strident.

There was someone else.

Through half-closed eyes, David focused above, beyond the foliage. He did so without moving any part of his body or head, as if the last moments were approaching before sleep took over.

The apartment house had four stories and a roof that appeared to have a gentle slope covered in a terra-cotta tile of sorts—brownish pink in color. The windows of the rooms above him were mostly open to the breezes off the Río de la Plata. He could hear snatches of subdued conversation, nothing threatening, no loud vibrations. It was the Buenos Aires siesta hour, according to Ballard; quite different from Rome’s afternoon or the Paris lunch. Dinner in BA was very late, by the rest of the world’s schedule. Ten, ten thirty, even midnight was not out of the question.

The screeching bird was not bothered by the inhabitants of the Córdoba apartment house; yet still he kept up his strident alarms.

And then David saw why.

On the roof, obscured but not hidden by the branches of the fruit tree, were the outlines of two men.

They were crouched, staring downward; staring, he was sure, at him.

Spaulding judged the position of the main intersecting tree limb and rolled his head slightly, as if the long-awaited sleep were upon him, his neck resting in exhaustion on his right shoulder, the drink barely held by a relaxed hand, millimeters from the brick pavement.

It helped; he could see better, not well. Enough, however, to make out the sharp, straight silhouette of a rifle barrel, the orange sun careening off its black steel. It was stationary, in an arrest position under the arm of the man on the right. No movement was made to raise it, to aim it; it remained immobile, cradled.

Somehow, it was more ominous that way, thought Spaulding. As though in the arms of a killer guard who was sure his prisoner could not possibly vault the stockade; there was plenty of time to shoulder and fire.

David carried through his charade. He raised his hand slightly and let his drink fall. The sound of the minor crash
“awakened” him; he shook the pretended sleep from his head and rubbed his eyes with his fingers. As he did so, he maneuvered his face casually upward. The figures on the roof had stepped back on the terra-cotta tiles. There would be no shots. Not directed at him.

He picked up a few pieces of the glass, rose from the chair and walked into the apartment as a tired man does when annoyed with his own carelessness. Slowly, with barely controlled irritation.

Once he crossed the saddle of the door, beneath the sightline of the roof, he threw the glass fragments into a wastebasket and walked rapidly into the bedroom. He opened the top drawer of the bureau, separated some handkerchiefs and withdrew his revolver.

He clamped it inside his belt and picked up his jacket from the chair into which he’d thrown it earlier. He put it on, satisfied that it concealed the weapon.

He crossed out into the living room, to the apartment door, and opened it silently.

The staircase was against the left wall and David swore to himself, cursing the architect of this particular Avenida Córdoba building—or the profuseness of lumber in Argentina. The stairs were made of wood, the brightly polished wax not concealing the obvious fact that they were ancient and probably squeaked like hell.

He closed his apartment door and approached the staircase, putting his feet on the first step.

It creaked the solid creak of antique shops.

He had four flights to go; the first three were unimportant. He took the steps two at a time, discovering that if he hugged the wall, the noise of his ascent was minimized.