Lady From Argentina

by James Pattinson

  ‘Oh, my poor girl!’ Marquez said. ‘How could he do this to you? I came here to see him and I find this. It is unbelievable. I took him to be an honourable man.’

  ‘So he deceived you too?’

  Marquez came and put an arm round her shoulders, and she made no attempt to repulse him. She drew comfort from the gesture; and she needed someone to comfort her.

  ‘What will you do?’

  ‘I don’t know. He took my money and my passport.’

  ‘That too?’

  ‘Yes, that too.’

  She released herself from his arm and moved away from him. She brushed the tears away with an angry sweep of the hand.

  He said: ‘We must talk this over. We must try to work something out.’

  ‘But it’s my problem. It’s no concern of yours.’

  ‘It is if I choose to make it mine. I have a suggestion. Let us go to my house. There we can better discuss the situation than in this hotel room. We will think of something. What do you say?’

  There was much attraction in the suggestion. It would relieve her of the immediate necessity of making a decision regarding what she was to do. And she felt that a man like Marquez would be able to give her good advice. He was a native of the country and would know his way around. He was mature and experienced. He was also, from all appearances, wealthy. Wealth could be a great help in difficult situations.

  Yet she hesitated. After all, she had met him for the first time only yesterday. And it had been Pierre who had introduced her to him. So was he any more to be trusted than the man who had treated her so shabbily?

  She could not answer that suggestion. She could only look at the alternative to trusting him and see how unattractive it was. So she had to choose the easier way.

  *

  The Jaguar was waiting outside the hotel, and the man named Fernando was with it. He glanced at her without surprise; it was as though he had been expecting her. He piled her luggage into the boot and got in behind the wheel. Marquez and she rode in the back.

  Marquez’s place was quite a distance away. It was out towards Palermo Park and the Zoological Gardens; a fine large house standing in its own grounds. Its appearance strengthened that impression she already had that the man was rich; and this was further borne out by the sumptuously furnished interior.

  They went into a drawing-room, and having discovered that his guest had had no breakfast, Marquez gave orders for coffee and cakes to be brought. They were carried in by a dark-skinned maid who said nothing and went quietly away after setting down the tray. Marquez informed Adelaide that the house was run for him by a middle-aged widow named Señora Cepeda, who also did the cooking. The señora had the assistance of two maids, one of whom she had seen.

  Pierre had told her that Marquez was not married. It seemed a large house for a man to live in on his own. She knew that he had one male employee, the man named Fernando who had driven the Jaguar. She was to learn later that his surname was Villa, and that another man named Luis Gomez also worked for Marquez. These two men did not live in the house but in quarters above the garage, where there was accommodation for three or four cars. Marquez owned a Mercedes and a BMW as well as the Jaguar.

  ‘So,’ he said, while they drank the coffee and she appeased her hunger with the cakes, ‘what are we to do about you?’

  ‘You don’t have to do anything,’ she told him. ‘As I said before, it’s my problem.’

  ‘And have you thought of any way of tackling it?’

  ‘It has occurred to me that the sensible thing would be to go to the French Consulate and ask there for advice and assistance.’

  He gave a little shake of the head. ‘I am not at all sure that would be a good plan.’

  ‘Don’t you think they would help me? I thought they had a duty to look after their own citizens who were in trouble.’

  ‘Maybe so. But there would be a lot of formalities to go through. You’d have to give them all the details about yourself; how you came to be in your present predicament and so on. You know what these bureaucrats are. Do you want to get involved with all that red tape?’

  She thought about it and had to admit that she did not.

  ‘But what alternative is there?’

  ‘Well, as I see it, the best thing is not to do anything in a hurry. Give yourself time to think things over. If nothing better comes up in the next week or so, you would still have the French Consulate as a last resort. Isn’t that so?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose it is. But there is a drawback to that idea, you know.’

  ‘A drawback? I see none. Tell me what it is.’

  ‘I have no money. How do I live for that week? Even for a day or two.’

  He gave a snap of the fingers, dismissing the objection with a gesture. ‘Oh, that! It is no drawback at all. You will stay here of course. There is no lack of room, I assure you.’

  In that respect she had no doubt that he was telling the truth. But she had doubts concerning his motive in coming to her aid in this way. She could not help feeling that things were working out just a little too smoothly; as if in a way everything had been planned in advance, and that maybe he was the one who had made the plan. In concert with Pierre, perhaps?

  And then the idea suddenly came into her head that maybe Pierre had merely been using her; had intended to do so all along. Had she simply been a pawn in his game, whatever that game might be? Or was that too far-fetched a theory?

  Marquez was watching her closely. ‘You are thinking about it. You are asking yourself why I should be offering to help you like this. Can it be, you are wondering, for purely altruistic reasons? Well, I will be honest with you: it is not. If you were old, if you were unattractive, fat and plain, I doubt very much whether I should be so interested in helping you. Yes, I admit it. I admit that it is only because you are so charming that I wish to come to your aid. It is because you are as you are that it gives me so much pleasure to do this for you. So there you are; that is my confession. I am acting entirely to please myself.’

  She could not help laughing. He was so open about it; brazen might have been the word. And of course this openness was carefully calculated; he used it as a ploy to win her confidence, realising that she would have reservations concerning him and purposing to remove them.

  Moreover, he was succeeding. In spite of recognising the ploy, she was allowing herself to be gulled by it nevertheless. Perhaps it was his personality that did it. She felt drawn to him half against her will, and was beguiled by the thought that she would be relieved of all her immediate cares if only she did as he was proposing.

  He might have been reading her thoughts. ‘You don’t really want all that bother with consulate officials, do you? You will be very comfortable here. Nothing to worry about. What more could you ask for?’

  She was sitting on a sofa. He crossed over from his chair and sat down beside her. She did not move. He put an arm round her waist and drew her to him and kissed her on the mouth. She made no resistance and said nothing.

  ‘So,’ he said, ‘it’s settled? You will stay?’

  ‘I will stay.’

  *

  They slept together that night. It was so evident that this would happen eventually that there seemed to be no sense in waiting. As a lover she would have given him a higher rating than Pierre, who had been unexciting at best. One could not have said that about Ricardo. She had once seen an old film in which Rudolph Valentino had played the hero. Ricardo put her in mind of that much loved star of the silent screen. He had the dark handsome features, the magnetism, the irresistible charm. She was captivated by him in those early days and had no regrets about the move she had made.

  After a time he admitted to her that the whole affair had been arranged between him and Roussel. It did not surprise her, since she had already suspected that this was the case.

  ‘And where did he go? Back to France?’

  ‘Not immediately. After completing his business with me he planned to visit Paraguay and then
go on to Colombia, where he has other contacts.’

  ‘What exactly is his business?’ she asked.

  ‘He didn’t tell you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then I think perhaps I had better not tell you either.’

  She guessed that it was the kind of business that was not altogether above board. Otherwise, why would there have been this need for secrecy? Much later she was to learn that Marquez himself had a finger in a number of activities that were not strictly legal: illicit drug dealing was but one of them. But for the present she was unaware of this, unaware of the true character of this charming man with whom she was living.

  She wondered about Pierre. That day when he had spoken to her outside the cathedral of Notre Dame, had he been looking for someone like her: young and attractive and footloose? Had it already been in his mind to use her as a sweetener in his dealings with Ricardo? Or had that merely been an afterthought? Had he tired of her himself and seen an opportunity to be rid of her and please the South American in one operation?

  She could have asked Ricardo; but perhaps he did not know the answer himself, or would not tell her if he did. So she decided not to ask. For what difference did it make? In the end it came to the same thing.

  Chapter Eleven – In Trouble

  She lived with Marquez for six months in perfect harmony, or at least something approaching it. Long before the end of this time she knew what he was — a racketeer. To all outward appearances he was a solid citizen, successful but law-abiding; and he did have one or two legitimate businesses which served as a front for the more clandestine activities that provided the greater part of his income – the part on which no tax was paid.

  He did not tell her all this himself. She learned about it from Gomez, who would sometimes reveal more perhaps than he really intended to. It might have been because he had a desire for her himself and was secretly jealous of his employer. Perhaps he thought that by blackening Marquez’s image he might advance his own standing with her. If so, he was fooling himself; for the fact was that she detested the man; and though she believed that what he said could well be true, it did not turn her against Ricardo. She did not much care where his money came from as long as he treated her well.

  And he did. He bought presents for her, took her around with him to entertainments of various kinds; and when he was otherwise engaged he raised no objection to her going around on her own. He gave her some money but never any great quantity; it was just petty cash for taxi fares and cinema tickets and so on; not enough to open a bank account of her own or put aside for a rainy day. It was obvious that he intended that she should remain dependent on him.

  ‘Make the most of it while it lasts,’ Gomez once said to her. ‘It won’t be like this for ever, you know. Don’t kid yourself that you’re the first. They come and they go. He’ll get tired of you. Then you may need a friend.’

  ‘Meaning you?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I’ll tell you why not,’ she said. ‘Because you turn my stomach, that’s why.’

  He did not like it. His face darkened and his eyes glittered. ‘The time may come, my lady, when you’ll sing a different tune.’

  He and Villa were no ordinary employees hired to do work around the place and look after the cars. They were Marquez’s personal bodyguards, strong-arm men who carried guns. She not only disliked them but feared them too. She believed they could be violent if the occasion arose. She could see no reason why she should ever be the recipient of that violence herself, but you could never tell what might happen. The future was unexplored territory, and who knew what undreamed-of horrors might be lurking there?

  But she did not allow herself to dwell on such possibilities. You had to live in the present and take things as they came. If you were for ever worrying about tomorrow you would soon be a nervous wreck. So she dismissed from her mind the gloomy prognostications of Luis Gomez, which no doubt were just made out of spite because of the way she had treated him. He had offered himself as a friend and she had rejected the offer with scorn. Had she thus made of him an enemy? Perhaps. And perhaps it had been unwise to do so. But the thing was done and could not be altered now. And after all, what could he do? When it came to the point it was Ricardo who was the boss, and she was under his protective wing. Nothing bad could happen to her.

  One day she was looking for Marquez, and having glanced into all the other rooms, had come to the conclusion that he was most likely in the one he referred to as his office. It was at the back of the house, and she had seldom been inside it. The fact was that this room was always kept locked when Marquez himself was not in it and he held the key. The reason was obvious: he did not wish to have anyone else looking around in there during his absence.

  On this particular day she tried the office door and found that it was not locked. Without knocking she pushed it open and looked in. Marquez was there sure enough, but he did not appear at all pleased to see her. He had been standing with his back to the door and when he heard it open he glanced round and saw her. He frowned and spoke quite angrily.

  ‘What the devil do you want?’

  ‘I was looking for you, Ricardo.’

  ‘And now you’ve found me.’

  She saw he was standing in front of a safe which was let into the wall on the opposite side of the door. It was open and he had some papers in his hand.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘Am I bothering you?’

  She thought for a moment he was going to tell her to get to hell out of it. But then the frown vanished and he grinned.

  ‘Oh, come on in now you are here. Shut the door.’

  She did so. He put the papers back in the safe but left it open.

  ‘I’ve something to show you. Come over here.’

  She walked across the room and stood beside him. She could see that inside the safe were some bundles of paper money, some in australes but most in American dollars. They appeared to be of high denomination — one hundred dollar bills chiefly. The bundles were quite thick, although the bills were new.

  He saw her looking at them.

  ‘There’s a stack of money to feast your eyes on. It’s all genuine, and none of it’s hot. Wouldn’t you like to get your sweet little hands on it? How much would you say there is there?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. Quite a lot.’

  ‘Yes, quite a lot. In dollars alone, fifty thousand.’

  ‘As much as that?’

  She would not have imagined there was so much, but the bills were packed closely.

  ‘But if you think that’s a lot, think again. It’s peanuts. Now I’ll show you something that’s really valuable.’ There was a gloating note in his voice. Suddenly he had become like a young boy who could not resist the urge to display his treasures. He pulled out a drawer in the safe and took from it a diamond necklace. He held it up to the light, displaying it before her dazzled eyes. ‘There!’

  She gasped. The precious stones glittered as though on fire. They were of various sizes, some very large, others much smaller, but all beautifully cut and set.

  ‘How would you like to wear it?’

  ‘May I?’

  ‘Why not? It was designed to be worn by beautiful women. That was the purpose for which it was made.’

  He fastened it about her neck and stood back to admire the effect. She could feel the stones cool on her skin.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘these jewels should be worn occasionally.’ He took a bracelet from the drawer and put it on her wrist. ‘Now look at yourself. It is a sight worth seeing.’

  There was a mirror on one wall. She saw her reflection in it, and it was apparent that he had spoken no more than the truth. This necklace could have been made for me, she thought.

  ‘Such a necklace,’ Marquez said, ‘should be worn only by the most lovely of women. It would be wasted on anyone else.’

  Suddenly she felt a great desire to keep the necklace, a reluctance ever to take it off. And she thought for one glorious moment that h
e was going to tell her that it was hers; a gift from him simply because it was so obviously made for her.

  But of course he did not, for this had never for an instant been in his mind. What he did say was:

  ‘You are at this moment in time worth upwards of a million dollars on the hoof. Now you had better take the bauble off and revert to your normal value.’

  She did so with regret. For a few intoxicating minutes she had been a queen; her head had been in the clouds. Now she had been brought back to earth and it was a hard landing.

  Marquez replaced the necklace and the bracelet in the drawer. There were some rings and earrings in there also, but the necklace was the prize. She wondered how he had come by it, but she was quite sure that he would not tell her. And maybe it was better that she should not know.

  He closed and locked the safe.

  ‘What was it you wished to see me about?’

  ‘I’ve forgotten now,’ she said. And she had; the jewels had driven it from her mind and she could think of nothing else. ‘It was probably not anything of importance.’

  *

  Things began to go wrong gradually. She hardly noticed at first that Ricardo seemed to be cooling towards her. And the fact was that she was becoming rather tired of her present way of life. It had seemed delightful at first, but now the gilt had worn off. It was too humdrum; nothing exciting was happening. Yet when things did begin to happen they were of a kind which caused her to reflect that perhaps boredom had been preferable.

  Marquez was in the habit of giving occasional dinner parties at the house. The guests were mostly male; people with whom he did business. Some of them were distinctly rough-looking characters; she could imagine that they had clawed their way up in the world from pretty mean beginnings, though it was apparent that they all had money now, and plenty of it. Some of them brought women with them, chiefly the flashy type; sexy but not notable for the quality of their conversation. Others came alone.