“Which is an improvement on trying to kill you,” Paco pointed out. “Why do you think he attacked you?”
“I should have thought that was obvious from what he said before he went bananas. He’d decided I was part of the international Negro-Jewish conspiracy, and wasn’t translating what he said accurately.”
“And were you?”
The journalist laughed.
“Was I what? Part of the international Negro-Jewish conspiracy?”
“No,” Paco said, straight-faced. “Were you translating what he said accurately?”
Dolores shrugged.
“I guess so. I may have missed the odd nuance here and there, but I got the main points he made across accurately enough.” She glanced down the corridor at the room which had become the interrogation center. “You want to give it another shot?”
“Why not?” Paco replied, without much enthusiasm. “I suppose there’s always the chance he’ll be able to give us a useful piece of information.”
“You mean, like a confession or something?”
“Or something,” Paco agreed.
Felipe had tied Donaldson to the chair he’d been sitting in just before he’d gone crazy. The fat constable made a thorough job of it, and however much the big stevedore had twisted and strained, he would not have been able to break free. Not that the prisoner was making any attempt to escape. He hardly moved when Paco and Dolores entered the room. Only his eyes, burning with a blazing hatred as they fixed on the journalist, gave any hint of how he would behave if he were not restrained.
“Ask him who he thinks killed Sam Johnson,” Paco said to Dolores.
“Ask him what?”
“Who he thinks killed Johnson.”
“But we already know that he did it himself.”
“So give him a chance to lie.”
Dolores translated the question, but Donaldson made no response.
“Ask him again,” Paco said. “Tell him we’ll never find the real killer unless he decides to help us.”
Dolores repeated the question, and this time Donaldson answered.
“He says that this is all a waste of time,” Dolores said. “I probably won’t give you a fair translation of what he said, and even if I do, it won’t make any difference, because you’re just as bad as the rest of them. You want him dead, he knows that, so why don’t you stop playing games, and just get on with it?”
There was a sudden sound of pounding feet in the corridor outside, then the door handle rattled violently. Paco had locked the door when he entered the room, and whoever was outside must have realized it, and now began banging frantically with his fists.
Felipe looked at Paco for guidance. Paco drew his pistol, then gestured to his partner to open the door. Felipe stood well clear of the possible line of fire, and stretched over to pull back the bolt.
“You can come in now,” Paco called out. “But do it slowly.”
The door swung open, and he saw Luis Prieto standing in the corridor. The young peasant was red in the face, as if he’d been running as fast as he could.
“You must ... you must come quickly!” he gasped.
Paco felt his stomach churn. He could taste the bile in his mouth, and he wondered if he was about to throw up.
“Is it ... is it Cindy?” he forced himself to ask, though he was dreading the answer.
“Yes.”
“Is she... is she dead?”
The boy shook his head.
“No! Not dead! Far from it, señor. She’s just regained consciousness.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Paco sprinted down the cobbled streets. He was hardly aware of where he was – only of where he was going. Twice, he slipped on the ice and fell sprawling onto the ground. Twice, he was up again in an instant, oblivious to any damage he might have done himself.
Cindy’s going to live! Cindy’s going to live!
The words echoed round his head as the sound of his footfalls bounced off the cobbles and hit the walls.
He came to a panting halt at Asunción Muñoz's front door, and Luis Prieto drew level with him a second later.
“You move quickly for an old man,” the young peasant said.
Then he knocked on the door and called out, “Open up! It’s us.”
The bolt was drawn, the door swung open. Paco barged his way past Luis’s compañeros, and dashed across the room to the old iron bed.
To Cindy!
She looked very pale – almost as pale as death itself – but there was life enough in her beautiful green eyes.
“You took your time getting here, Ruiz,” she said, her lips forming into an exhausted smile. “Tied up in an important card game, were you?”
“You’ve guessed it,” Paco replied, returning her smile. “But even so, I’d have come right away if I hadn’t had such a good hand.”
He wanted to touch her – to hold her to him – but he didn’t dare without the doctor’s permission.
“How are you feeling?” he asked.
“How do you expect me to feel?” Cindy asked. “There’s a herd of horses running wild in my head, and I feel like shit.” She paused for a second, as if gathering her strength. “We need to talk. Now!”
“So let’s talk.”
“I mean we need to talk in private.” Cindy said, ges-turing with her eyes towards the corner of the room.
Paco turned to the three young men who had been guarding his novia since early that morning.
“I owe you more than I can tell you,” he said. “Tomorrow I’ll buy you as much drink as you can hold – and then some more – but I can handle things from now on.”
“Are you planning to stay here all night yourself, or do you want us to come back later?” Luis Prieto asked.
Was he planning to stay there all night? Paco asked himself, as his other world – the one which was not centered on Cindy – came flooding back to him.
How could he stay all night when another man’s life was hanging in the balance, and only he could save it?
“I have to go out again later,” he said. “Come back in half an hour. No, better make it closer to an hour.”
Luis Prieto nodded, and he and his friends headed for the door. As they closed it behind them Paco knelt down and – very carefully – took Cindy’s hand in his.
“Do you know what happened to you?” he asked.
“Sure, I know what happened to me. I was walking down the street, minding my own business, and some son-of-a-bitch hit me over the back of the head with what felt like the Statue of Liberty.” Paco grinned.
“And do you happen to know exactly which son-of-a-bitch that might have been?”
Cindy shook her head as much as was prudent.
“I didn’t even hear him sneaking up on me. One second I was walking along, the next I had a whole galaxy of stars exploding before my eyes.”
“The reason you were out there on the street was because you were looking for me, wasn’t it?”
“That’s right.”
“Because you had something to tell me?”
“Right again.”
“Was it about the brigade? Had you thought of something which might point us towards Samuel Johnson’s killer?”
Cindy looked puzzled.
“No, it wasn't about that at all.”
Paco felt a stab of disappointment, but it was instantly washed away by a sea of anger and self-loathing.
How could he let the murder intrude on this moment, when all that really mattered was that Cindy was going to recover? he wondered.
“So what were you coming to see me about?” he asked.
“I wanted to tell you all about me and Greg. I should have told you the night before, but I was so damn mad at you that I decided I’d just make you suffer a little bit longer.”
Like you’re making me suffer now, Paco thought.
And suddenly, he saw how wrong he’d been. How pig-headed. How selfish. If he really loved this woman as much as he told himself he
did, then his main concern should not be his own feelings, but her happiness.
“If you want to leave me and go back to him, I won’t stand in your way,” he promised. “But be very careful. Make sure he stays faithful to you.”
“Faithful to me!” Cindy repeated incredulously.
“I don’t know if you’ve slept with Cummings since we arrived in San Antonio – and I don’t want to know – but if you have, you’re not the only one. He’s been sleeping with Dolores McBride, too. He was in bed with her at the very moment you were attacked.”
Cindy made a gurgling sound, and for a moment he was terrified that what he had just told her had caused a relapse.
And then he realized that she was laughing – uncontrollably.
“What’s the matter, Cindy?” he asked worriedly. “Have I said something funny?”
“Oh Paco,” Cindy spluttered between her giggles. “Oh Paco, Paco, Paco – how could you possibly have got everything so completely wrong?”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Time could play strange tricks on the mind, Paco told himself. A night's passionate loving-making could appear to be over in a moment. An hour’s surveillance on a cold, deserted street could drag out for so long that it felt like a whole day. And so much had been going on inside his head since Cindy had made her astonishing revelation that though not more than ten minutes of real time could have ticked away, he seemed to have been absorbed in the problem for an eternity.
“You’ve gone very quiet, Ruiz,” Cindy said, as she watched her lover pace the room, not even stopping as he lit a new Celtas from the stub of his old one.
Paco flicked the remains of the old cigarette into the fireplace, and drew heavily on the fresh one. If he’d heard her words, he gave no sign of it.
“I said you’ve gone very quiet," Cindy repeated, much louder this time.
Paco stopped pacing, and turned towards her. “I’m sorry? What was that?”
“I’ve given you an idea, haven’t I?”
“No,” Paco corrected her. “You’ve given me a solution.”
“Are you saying that you know who killed Sam Johnson?”
“Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying.”
“And who attacked me?”
“Yes. That as well.”
“Was it the same person?”
“That doesn’t matter.”
“Well, thanks a lot! It’s good to know I don’t count for much round here,” Cindy said, only half-joking.
“That’s not what I meant,” Paco said hastily. “What I should have said was that it doesn’t matter who actually struck the blow, because it was part of a team effort – only one piece of a much bigger scheme.”
“So there’s more than one person involved?”
“At least two. Possibly more.”
“Do you know why they killed Johnson?”
“Not exactly, but from the picture I’ve built up of the poor bastard, I’ve got a pretty good idea.”
“My, but you have been a busy boy while I’ve been unconscious, haven’t you?” Cindy said admiringly.
No, he hadn't, Paco thought, angry with himself. Or if he had been busy, then so much of that ‘busyness’ had been a complete waste of effort.
Cindy had found it amusing that he had been so wrong about her present desires – and her hopes for the future. But it wasn’t entirely his fault. He’d been manipulated. He had been presented with a set piece – a theatrical staging performed entirely for his benefit – and he had fallen for it completely.
Should he have seen through it? he asked himself. Perhaps.
But in his own defense, it had to be said that his background had worked against him – as the players had probably known that it would. He was not a yanqui or a Northern European. He did not come from one of those countries which had thrown off its traditional restraints. He was a Spaniard, for God’s sake, and had been brought up in a society where young women were chaperoned even when they were only out for an innocent walk with their novios – a society in which the sexual act outside marriage was so taboo that no one would ever even dream of using it as a way of misleading the police.
He heard the front door softly click open behind him, and he turned around. It came as no surprise to him to see that Greg Cummings and Dolores McBride were standing in the doorway.
Cummings had a broad, relieved, smile spread across his craggily handsome face.
“Thank God you’ve regained consciousness,” he said to Cindy. “Don’t you ever dare go scaring us like that again, young lady.”
Cindy smiled back at him. “I’ll try not to,” she promised.
“Things have been real boring round here without you,” Dolores told her. “It’s kind of hard to go on being gorgeous when you’ve no one to compete against.”
Paco forced a smile to his own face, just as if he, too, were joining in the general good humor and the relief. But his mind was engaged in a cold – desperate – calculation.
As long as Cummings was still in the doorway, Cindy was safe. But Cummings would not stay in the doorway forever. Part of his plan had to be to walk across the room to the bed. And once he had accomplished that maneuver – once he was kneeling down beside Cindy, shielding her from the rest of the room, he would be in complete control of the situation.
He had to be prevented from ever reaching the bed, Paco told himself.
But how?
It wasn't possible to deal with Cummings and Dolores at the same time – and of the two, the woman was probably the more dangerous.
“Yeah, you sure enough scared the hell out of us for a while back there, Cindy,” Greg Cummings said, moving a step closer to the bed, as a concerned friend would.
Paco’s right hand reached up for his shoulder holster. “Don’t even think of it!” Dolores warned him.
Her pistol was pointing straight at his heart, and the hand which held it was as steady as a rock.
Paco let his arms fall down to his sides.
Cummings saw the pistol, too.
“What are you doing, Dolores?” he asked. “You don’t pull a gun out when you’re amongst friends.”
“But we’re not amongst friends,” the journalist countered. “And there’s no point in pretending any longer that we are, because our clever policeman from Madrid has worked it all out. You have worked it out, haven’t you, Paco?”
There seemed no point in denying it.
“Yes,” Paco agreed. “It took me long enough, but I’ve finally worked it out.”
“Would someone mind telling me what the hell is going on here?” Cindy demanded.
“You wanted to know who killed Sam Johnson. Well, they did,” Paco told her. He turned to Cummings. “Did James Clay play any part in this nasty little plot of yours?”
“Clay!” Cummings repeated contemptuously. “Our esteemed political commissar! Of course he didn’t! Even if he could be trusted, the man would have no stomach for such an undertaking. Appointing him was one of the biggest mistakes the Party Committee in New York ever made. He has no idea of the realities of power. He would just have sat there in his cozy little office and let everything around him fall apart.”
“But you weren’t prepared to let that happen, were you?” Paco asked.
“Far wiser heads than mine were not prepared to let it happen,” Cummings said. “I have been acting on the instructions of men who know what sacrifices need to be made to build a workers’ paradise. My orders come not from spineless jellyfish of the ilk of James Clay, but from Moscow.”
“From Joe Stalin himself?”
Cummings laughed.
“Do you seriously think that the General Secretary, burdened as he is with so many other responsibilities, has time to deal with a minor local matter like this? No, I work for the men whose job is to relieve Comrade Stalin of some of his burden, just as I relieve them of some of theirs.”
“Wait a minute!” Cindy protested. “You’re not a communist, Greg. You’re a liberal.”
/> “If you wish to conceal a tall, strong oak tree, do you put it on a treeless plain?” Cummings asked. “No! You plant it in a forest of lesser trees. I have been hiding my true self in a forest of weak, puny liberals for a long time. And it worked. You knew me well, but you never suspected that under my pink trappings beat a heart which was pure red.”
“But why...?” Cindy asked.
“I’ve been a secret weapon – a sleeper – held back until I could be used with maximum effectiveness. Until now!”
His little speech sounded as if it had been rehearsed, Paco thought – and it probably had! For long years, Greg Cummings must have yearned to tell the people he knew that he was playing a role which he secretly despised. He must have imagined this moment many times, and have polished and practiced the words he would use until he was as proficient as any actor.
It was a very bad sign that he felt free to deliver his long-anticipated speech now. It could only mean that it didn’t matter to him that this particular audience learned the truth – because this particular audience would not live long enough to pass it on to anyone else.
The only chance that he and Cindy had of surviving was to stall their would-be assassins until Luis Prieto and his friends returned, Paco told himself.
And when would that be?
Three-quarters of an hour! And then only if the young men were on time!
But he still had to try – had to hope that Cummings and Dolores liked having an audience so much that they would put off the executions until help had time to arrive.
“Why did you murder Samuel Johnson?” he asked, beginning the process. “Was it because he was black?”
The fact that such a question could even be posed seemed to take Greg Cummings completely by surprise.
“No, of course it wasn’t because he was a Negro,” he said, sounding genuinely offended. “I’m no racist! He had to die because he was a bad communist.”
“He took ammunition from the depot in Albacete without waiting for the proper authorization from the Party,” Dolores McBride said. “He gave his support to the collectivists in San Antonio, when Comrade Stalin had already clearly stated that they were not ready for collectivization, and that what we should be doing was to encourage a bourgeois revolution in Spain by throwing our weight behind the individualistas.”
The Fifth Column Page 24