There was a lot of mistrust in the air, Paco thought. And possibly, also, a certain degree of fear.
He turned to his interpreter.
“You can translate the argument for me now,” he said.
“What?” Cindy replied abstractly – almost as if she had forgotten that he was even standing there beside her.
“You can tell me what the argument between those two brigadistas was all about.”
“Do you want a full translation?”
“No. Just give me the rough outline.”
“You asked them if Samuel Johnson’s death might have had anything to do with his race,” Cindy said.
“Yes,” Paco agreed. “I remember.”
“The big man with the tattoos – his name is Ted Donaldson – said it sounded as if you suspected that one of them was the killer, and if that was what you were thinking, it showed that you have no real understanding of either the Communist Party or the International Brigade.”
Maybe Donaldson was right, Paco thought. Maybe he didn’t understand the brigade and the Party. But he did understand murder – and he knew that very few killers were complete strangers to their victims.
“Go on,” he told Cindy.
“Donaldson said that it couldn’t possibly be a racial killing, because within the Party all men and all women are comrades in arms and discrimination on the basis of color isn’t tolerated. As far as he and the other brigadistas were concerned, Comrade Samuel Johnson was their equal and as good as any man who was serving in the battalion.”
“And did the other, shorter man – the one who looks like he might be a Pole or Czech – disagree with that?”
“Not exactly.”
“Then what did he say?”
“Mannie Lowenstein – that’s the short man’s name – said that the situation Donaldson had outlined was how things should be, but since they’ve been in San Antonio, he personally has discovered that there’s a big gap between theory and practice. Donaldson might, or might not, treat Negroes as if they were his equals, but it was certainly true that he – and the people like him – didn’t extend the same courtesy to the Jews.”
“And how did Donaldson answer that?”
“He said that none of them should ever allow themselves to forget that Leon Trotsky is a Jew.”
And Trotsky, Paco thought, had committed the cardinal sin as far as the people who looked towards Moscow for guidance were concerned – he dared to contradict the beloved Comrade Stalin. And as a result of that disagreement, he was now living in exile, with the sentence of death – which Stalin had imposed on him – hanging over his head.
“What did your boyfriend have to say?” Paco asked, the words coming out harsher than he’d intended they should.
“My what?”
“The sandy-haired man who managed to quiet Donaldson and Lowenstein down.”
“He said that by arguing as they were, the two of them were playing right into the fascists’ hands. That by fighting among themselves, they were leaving the gates wide open for the enemy to enter. He said that every time they disagreed with each other, it was like giving the fascists a fresh consignment of bullets, and while he’d be a fool to deny that there were differences in the brigade, he was also absolutely convinced that the brigadistas had so many important things in common that those tiny differences didn’t matter a damn.”
“A very full translation,” Paco said. “You seem to have hung onto his every word.”
“And what – exactly – do you mean by making a snide little comment like that, Ruiz?” Cindy demanded, sounding suddenly angry – and possibly, he thought, a little guilty, too.
“I mean that he’s no stranger to you, is he?” Paco asked, dodging the question. “Where do you know him from?”
“Where do you think I know him from? We were introduced on my last trip to Venus!”
“I didn’t know space travel was one of your hobbies.”
Cindy sighed. “For God’s sake, Paco, isn’t it obvious that I knew him back in the States?”
It was only when Felipe coughed uncomfortably that Paco remembered he was still on the platform next to them.
“All this standing in one place has made me a bit stiff,” the constable said. “If you can spare me, jefe, I think I’d like to wander round the town for a while and stretch my legs.”
Paco nodded, grateful that Felipe was excusing himself – however unlikely that excuse itself seemed coming from the fat man – but at the same time, he hated the fact that there needed to be an excuse at all.
Felipe stepped down from the dais, and headed for the exit. Paco’s gaze followed his partner’s progress.
All the brigadistas had already left the council chamber, he noted. Except for one! The sandy-haired man was loitering by the door, almost as if he were waiting for someone.
Which, of course, he was!
Paco turned back to Cindy and saw that her eyes were once more fixed on the quiet spoken yanqui who seemed to have a power over his comrades that even their political commissar lacked.
“So you know him from back in the States,” he said. “How well do you know him?”
A warm smile came to Cindy’s lips – but he didn’t think that it was for him.
“I know him very well. We’re old friends,” she said. “Come on, I’ll introduce you to him.”
She stepped off the dais, and though she didn’t really seem to care whether he followed her or not, Paco thought that he probably should.
The sandy-haired man had had a serious expression on his face – as if he had been re-playing the earlier disagreements in his mind – but as he saw Cindy approaching, his frown disappeared and was replaced by a broad grin.
The yanqui had a good four or five centimeters over him, Paco estimated, and despite the deceptively soft quality of his voice, he had a broad, hard body. But the most significant thing about him, as far as the ex-policeman in Paco was concerned, was that until he had stood up to have his say, he had pretty much blended into the crowd – which was no mean trick for a man as physically imposing and craggily handsome as he was.
The two yanquis spread their arms open wide, and enveloped each other in a tight bear hug. After a short time – though it seemed far too long to Paco – Cindy disengaged herself from the sandy-haired man, and giggled in what could only be called a girlish way.
“I couldn’t believe it was really you when you first stood up,” she said – and though they were both yanquis, she spoke to him in Spanish.
“I couldn't believe it was you, either,” the man replied, also speaking in Spanish. “The last time I saw you, you were all dolled up in academic gown and mortar board, positively bursting with pride and self-congratulation, waiting to receive your degree. And now here you are in Spain, dressed like a soldier, playing your part in the most important struggle we’ve yet seen in the whole of the 20th Century.” He stepped back, to take a better look at her. “My, but you’ve grown up, Cindy. You were always a pretty girl, but now you’ve developed into a beautiful woman.”
“You haven’t changed at all,” Cindy said.
“I’ve got older.”
“It’s only improved you.”
Listening to the exchange, Paco felt a strong desire to either throw up or hit somebody very hard. Instead, he merely coughed embarrassedly, as Felipe had done earlier.
The sound was loud enough to remind Cindy that he was still there, and she turned her attention back to him.
“Paco, this Dr Gregory Cummings. He used to be my instructor back in my college days,” she said. “Greg, this is my friend, Francisco Ruiz. As you’ve probably already gathered, he used to be a policeman in Madrid.”
Friend! Paco repeated to himself.
They had made love in his tiny flat in the center of Madrid, and in the fresh, crisp, open air of the Guadarrama Mountains. They had shared incredible danger when they were in the hands of General Castro’s rebel army. When it had seemed more than likely that they would bo
th be executed, their only wish had been that they should be allowed to die together. And this was how she introduced him to this man from her past – as her friend.
The yanqui stretched out his arm towards the Spaniard.
“I’m very pleased to meet you, Señor Ruiz,” he said.
Reluctantly, Paco took the proffered hand. He would have gained some satisfaction from Cummings’ grip being limp or slimy, but instead it was as firm and confident as a real man’s grip should be.
“So what happens now?” the American asked. “Do you want to go for a drink or something?”
“That would be ni ...” Cindy began.
“Perhaps we could take you up on your kind offer at some other time,” Paco interrupted her. “At the moment, as you may have noticed, we have a murder investigation to conduct.”
He was sounding petulant, he thought – perhaps even childish. But he couldn’t help himself. Though he had never fully realized it before, he had been looking for Cindy Walker all his life. And now, for the first time since they’d confessed they loved each other, it occurred to him that just as it had been possible to find her, it was also possible to lose her.
“I don’t want to get in the way of your investigation, Señor Ruiz,” Greg Cummings said, his tone as measured and reasonable as it had been when he’d rebuked the other two brigadistas earlier.
“Good,” Paco said. “In that case, I’m sure you’ll understand that since we have a number of ...”
“On the other hand,” Cummings interrupted him, “as little as I know about police work, it does seem to me that part of your investigation really should involve wanting to talk to some of the guys.”
“It does involve talking to them,” Paco said, surprised at just how defensive he sounded to himself.
“When I say ‘talk’ to them, I mean really talk. And that’s never going to happen at a formal meeting like the one we’ve just had. It needs to be somewhere less structured – more relaxed – somewhere the guys will feel more inclined to open up to you.”
Stop telling me how to do my job, you bastard! Paco thought.
But aloud, all he said was, “Go on.”
“And correct me if I’m wrong here,” Cummings continued, “but wouldn’t the best place to have that kind of talk be in a bar?”
“Probably,” Paco admitted.
“Well, then, why don’t you let me take you to one of the places where the guys go to let off steam?”
Cummings grinned winningly. Despite his craggy features, it was an almost boyish grin, and Paco, who had never managed to appear boyish even when he was a boy, felt a stab of jealousy.
“Shall we go?” Cummings suggested, the grin still in place.
“Very well,” Paco said. “But let us get one thing clear between us from the very beginning.”
“And what might that be?”
“That I know how to conduct an investigation into a murder – and you don’t.”
The grin did not falter – even for a second. “That’s understood,” Greg Cummings agreed.
“If I want your help at any point, I will ask for it. But if I don’t ask for it – and I probably won’t – then keep out of my way.”
Cindy let out a deep breath which could almost have been a gasp of astonishment.
“Paco ...” she protested.
“Don’t go getting all het up about nothing, Cindy,” Cummings advised her. “You’ve been in my classes. You know I would never countenance any interfering in the way I do my teaching, and Señor Ruiz feels the same about his work. He’s quite right to clearly draw the boundaries from the start. It avoids all kinds of misunderstandings later on.”
He was being both reasonable and logical, Paco recognized, just as he had been when he was addressing his comrades. Furthermore, he was both a man who spoke excellent Spanish and one who knew the other brigadistas well. On any other case he’d investigated, the ex-inspector would have regarded Cummings presence as a gift from heaven – and if he were being honest with himself, he’d have to admit that the sandy-haired American was a gift on this case.
Paco took a deep breath. As a policeman, he had only one concern – to find out who had killed Samuel Johnson – and everything else was irrelevant. Cummings’ appearance on the scene might create complications in his personal life, but they could only be faced once the murder had been solved.
He felt himself slipping quickly back into his old, familiar role. He was once again becoming the dogged Madrid detective who was willing to sacrifice anything – even his own safety – if he thought it would bring him even a little bit closer to a solution.
“Take me to the bar, Señor Cummings,” he told the sandy-haired man. “But remember ...”
“I know,” the American interrupted. “If you want my help, you’ll ask for it. Otherwise I’m to mind my own beeswax.”
CHAPTER SIX
The house had once belonged to the biggest landowner in San Antonio de la Jara, and before the war its central hall had seen more than its share of dances and other entertainments. But such diversions were a thing of the past. The government had comman-deered the whole building as the Lincolns’ barracks, turning the upstairs rooms into dormitories and the elegant hall into the place where they ate their meals and played boisterous games of basketball.
It was to the hall that two or three score of the brigadistas had returned after the meeting in the ayuntamiento. Now, a few minutes later, they were spread around it, each group sitting at a table which it had taken care to ensure was not too close to any of the other tables. Some of the men were bent over the sheets of cheap blank paper they had been issued with, laboriously writing a few words, stopping to lick the tips of their pencils thoughtfully, then writing a few more. But most of the brigadistas seemed more inclined to talk than to write, and the sounds of a dozen muted conversations rose uncertainly and bounced off the carved ceiling.
“You hear what Ted Donaldson said?” one of the colored brigadistas asked his companions disbelievingly. “No way it was a racist killin’! That was what the man claimed. Any of you guys think of a time when a nigger got hisself kilt an’ it wasn’t racist?”
“You got to learn to put the past behind you, man,” protested one of the others. “This ain’t the Deep South we in. The men we’s with now are our sworn comrades.”
“You got that half-right,” the first man countered. “There’s some whiteys here I’d give my life for – an’ I knows they’d do the same for me. But there’s others that would slip on the hood an’ plant a flamin’ cross in front o’ my door without even thinkin’ twice about it.”
The men who Paco had thought of as Central Europeans – but who thought of themselves as American Jews – sat at a table closer to the door.
“You made a big mistake in that meeting tonight. Mannie,” one of them, an ex-tailor called Jake Mill-burg, said worriedly.
“And what big mistake was that?” Mannie Lowenstein asked.
“Taking on Donaldson in the way you did. You’ve made an enemy out of him now. You should have just kept quiet.”
Lowenstein sighed exasperatedly. “The Jews have kept quiet for far too long! For hundreds of years too long! Every other race is willing to stand up for what it believes in. And so were we – once. Remember what happened at Masada? Over nine hundred Jews held out against the might of Imperial Rome for five years. And when they were finally overwhelmed, did they surrender? No, they did not! Rather than fall victims to the Romans, they took their own lives – as men should.”
His companion groaned. “Ancient history!”
“Perhaps,” Lowenstein agreed. “But it’s our ancient history – the history of a time when we were prepared to stand up for ourselves. And what have we been since then? Sheep who have stood by and let the countries of Europe either expel us or massacre us.”
“This is not good talk for a communist,” warned a third member of the group. “Our identity is defined not by what we might once have been, but our memb
ership of the Party.”
Mannie Lowenstein bowed his head. “I forgot myself for a moment,” he agreed contritely.
“We must write our reports for the policeman from Madrid,” Jake Millburg said, taking advantage of Lowenstein’s unexpected surrender. “We must prepare them carefully, making sure that we all provide alibis for each other.”
“Even if we weren’t really together?” Mannie Lowenstein demanded, a dangerous edge creeping back into his voice.
“You were right when you said that even here there are those who are against the Jews,” Millburg replied. “You are right to believe that there are those who will always suspect a Jew just because he is a Jew. We know that we had nothing to do with Samuel Johnson’s death. What can be the harm in making sure that no one else suspects us?”
“So we are not Jews any longer – except when we are!” Lowenstein said angrily. “Would a goy ever have spoken as you just have, Jake? No! Never! He would not even have considered the possibility that just by being who he was, he would automatically fall under suspicion. And neither will I! I am as good as he is – and I refuse to lie. I was not with you when Johnson was killed, and nothing you can say will make me claim that I was.”
Lowenstein was wrong about what the Gentiles would, or would not, say. His companions knew it, and at a table at the far end of the room Ted Donaldson – well out of their earshot – was about to prove their point.
“Now lemme see, where exactly where we at midnight Friday?” he said, making a great show of thinking about it. “I guess we must have been at the end of the square closest to the town hall, mustn’t we?”
His friends, who were all – as he was himself – ex-longshoremen from the New Jersey docks, exchanged awkward glances.
“We were all at the other end of the square,” one of them, a bald man, said, after some seconds had passed. “But you weren’t with us.”
Donaldson laughed easily. “Hell, Curly, you were so drunk that if President Roosevelt an’ the Pope had been standin’ next to you – and givin’ each other hand-jobs – you’d prob’ly have forgot all about it by the mornin’.”
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