She was in a kind of cage some twelve or fifteen feet square, with a concrete floor which sloped down from all sides to a grated drain in the centre. The side in which the door was placed was made up entirely of iron bars; the wall opposite to it had a small barred window high enough up to be inaccessible to anyone wishing to see what lay on the outside. Light was provided by an electric lamp in the middle of the ceiling, protected by a wire mesh cover. The stench was almost overpowering.
There were possibly twenty women in the cage. Some were drunk, some appeared to be high on drugs, others in need of a fix and shivering uncontrollably, some were undoubtedly prostitutes, some might have been petty thieves or vagrants. One of the drunks had been sick; there was a patch of vomit on the floor. In the overall stink the sharp odour of urine was noticeable, and that of excrement too.
She did not realise at once that these were the creatures that the police patrols swept up off the streets at night. They made up only a small proportion of the human sediment that collected in the gutters of the city; if all had been brought in there would have been no space for them in the lock-ups. And she, the elegant Señorita Adelaide Lacoste, had been scooped up and thrown in with them.
That she was out of place in there was all too obvious. She just did not fit in. Even those fellow prisoners who were not too drunk or too far gone on drugs or depression to notice anything were aware of it. One of them, a wild-eyed creature in rags, skinny as a rake and with gaps in her teeth, came up close and leered in her face.
‘My, my! You’re a pretty one. What are you doing in here?’
Involuntarily, Adelaide shrank away from her. ‘There’s been a mistake. A terrible mistake.’
She wanted to tell her story to someone, but not to anyone in this cage. She had to talk to someone in authority, but how could she get to anyone of sufficient rank? How could she explain that a grave injustice had been done? She had imagined that she was being taken to the police station at her own request, but the policemen had in reality been arresting her. But for what reason? What offence had she committed? What possible charge could have been brought against her?
The skinny woman was fingering her skirt. ‘Good material, that is. Must’ve cost a bit. I was like you once, dear. You may not believe it to look at me now, but I was. Young and pretty enough to make the men turn their heads. But now –’ She cackled, revealing her gappy jaws. ‘This is what it comes to. Think about it, dearie, think about it. This is what it comes to in the end.’
It was a terrible night. There was nowhere to lie down except a wooden bench along one side, and that was already taken. Some of the women lay down on the floor and went to sleep. Adelaide had no inclination to follow their example, but she could not stand up all night. She sat down with her back to a wall, her knees drawn up and her hand clasped round them. She had never known the hours pass so slowly.
Early in the morning a police officer came and hosed down the floor, poking the nozzle through the bars. Some of the women were still asleep on the floor. One of them did not wake even when the water reached her. It was discovered that she was dead.
A meal was brought to them: coffee in mugs and a kind of bean stew in plastic bowls. Adelaide gave hers to the skinny woman, who seemed to have attached herself to her and looked as if she was in need of two breakfasts.
*
It was about ten o’clock when an officer unlocked the door and called her name. She had begun to think that she had simply been forgotten, and it was a relief just to know that she had not. The officer conducted her to the reception area where she had seen the fat sergeant behind the desk. He was not there now but Gomez was.
Gomez grinned at her. ‘Well, there you are. Had a good night? Sleep well?’
She ignored the question. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘What do you think? I’ve come to take you home.’
She was amazed by the simplicity of the operation. There were no formalities to be gone through, no bits of paper to be signed in duplicate and triplicate. They just walked out of the police station and no one lifted a finger to stop them. She made no attempt to find anyone to hear her complaint about false imprisonment or her accusation regarding Ricardo Marquez: she was only too glad to be leaving the place, and she never wanted to set foot inside another police station as long as she lived.
The Jaguar was parked outside. Gomez opened the door for her and she got into the front passenger seat. The luxury of sitting on the soft leather upholstery of the car after the wretched night she had spent in the cage was a delight to be savoured, no matter that she was going back to the house from which she had fled.
‘How did you know where I was?’ she asked.
Gomez seemed amused by the question. ‘Oh,’ he said, ’our lord and master has what you might call an understanding with the police; a kind of working arrangement, if you get my meaning.’
It came to her then. The whole thing had been set up. The trap had been laid for her and she had walked straight into it. How stupid she had been not to see it before. The omission to lock the door of the bedroom had been no oversight; it had been deliberate. The ease with which she had been able to leave the house and walk out of the grounds without detection had all been planned. And even the arrival of the patrol car so conveniently for her had had nothing fortuitous about it; the men in it had been acting on orders.
Gomez glanced at her and seemed to read her mind. ‘You’re beginning to understand now?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’m beginning to understand.’
Ricardo had decided to teach her a lesson for her resistance to his wishes. It had also been a demonstration of his power. And it had had the desired effect: she would not try again to bring in the police to aid her; for what policeman could she trust?
So Ricardo had won. He had got the better of her. For the present. But she would not forget the way he had treated her. That night in the cage would remain engraved on her memory, and some day, some day she would take her revenge. She might have to wait a while for that day to come along, but she would have patience, biding her time, and eventually it would come. She promised herself that.
Meanwhile, what she wanted above all else was a hot bath and a complete change of clothes.
Chapter Thirteen – Opportunity
It was Villa who took her to the house of Pedro Contreras. He was driving the BMW and he was to return for her the next morning. She had agreed to do what Ricardo asked of her, and she had refrained from berating him for the trick he had played on her. What good would it have done?
He for his part avoided any hint of crowing. When she told him she was now prepared to do as he wished, he merely nodded and said:
‘I think that is a wise decision. And it won’t be so bad, you know; not bad at all.’
In that respect he was not altogether wrong. Contreras turned out to be less of an ogre than she had feared. He treated her with great politeness, and indeed seemed to be somewhat overawed by her. She got the impression that he could hardly believe his luck in having the privilege of going to bed with her.
‘You are,’ he told her in his harsh croaking voice, ‘by far the most beautiful woman I have ever known. Me, I came up from nothing, from the dirt; but one can see that you are of a different class. I do not ask how you came to be living with Ricardo; it is not my business. I can only envy him his good fortune.’
She was rather touched by this speech. She saw him as a kind of Quasimodo or Caliban; but she was not repelled by him now, and she did not fear him. He was evidently rich. She did not know how he had come by his wealth and she did not wish to know. His house was furnished with surprisingly good taste, and he appeared to be something of an art collector. He showed her his pictures with the pride of a young boy exhibiting his prized possessions, eager for her approval and studying her face for her reaction.
She was not without some knowledge of art; she had learnt quite a lot during her association with Wilbur Manning, and she could tell that the painti
ngs hanging on the walls of Contreras’s house were good. Some were old, some modern: he was obviously eclectic in his taste, for there were various styles represented in the collection.
‘What do you think of them?’ he asked when they had completed the inspection.
She could tell that he was anxious for her opinion, and even more for her praise. If there had been any reason to find fault with what she had seen she would have hesitated to do so, but she had no need to dissemble.
‘I am impressed. Anyone could be proud of such a collection. You chose them all yourself?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Of course I had expert advice, but in the end it was my own judgement that I trusted.’
‘Then I can only say you appear to have excellent taste.’
It pleased him. She could see that. She doubted whether she could have said anything that would have done more to raise her in his estimation.
‘Señorita,’ he said, ‘you are an angel.’
No one knew better than she did how very far this was from the truth. But she accepted the compliment with a smile.
*
She had a suspicion that Ricardo would have liked to ask her how things had gone between her and Contreras when she returned next day, but he hesitated to do so and she volunteered no information. She refused to satisfy his curiosity. Why should she give him that satisfaction?
In the weeks that followed there were other houses that she visited, other men she slept with at Ricardo’s bidding. She did not like it; she was being used by him as a bargaining counter and she resented the fact. Moreover, not all of Ricardo’s business acquaintances were as polite or considerate as Contreras. One or two of them she would willingly have strangled in their sleep if she could have got away with it.
The one she liked best was Bartolomeo Granada. He was a jolly roly-poly man, full of good humour, who made her laugh. His face was like a pudding boiled in a cloth, plump and round, with a blob of a nose, a little hole for a mouth and eyes like blackcurrants pressed into the flesh. His head was as bald as an egg, and his ears stuck out like jug-handles.
He told her to call him Bart.
‘I am, as you see, a man of substance.’
He laughed, his whole body wobbling with amusement. It was a joke against himself, and it would have broken the ice between them, if indeed there had been any to break.
Granada, unlike Contreras and the others, was an educated man. He could no doubt have earned a good living by honest means, but he had chosen to use his undeniable talents in other ways. His speciality was forgery. He himself told her this, confiding in her as if he put complete trust in her discretion.
‘Should you require any document, certificate, permit, licence, identity card or similar item prepared for you, I am at your service and will be only too happy to oblige. And from you I would demand no fee. The pleasure you give me with your company puts me forever in your debt.’
She was to remember this promise later.
*
She continued to live with Ricardo, and on the surface they appeared to be on amicable terms. It would have served no useful purpose for her to have exhibited any antagonism towards him, and she believed that he was convinced that she had accepted the situation as it was and was content to allow it to remain so.
But in fact she had not accepted it. She still had every intention of taking her revenge on him for the way he had treated her and indeed was still treating her. She was merely waiting for the opportunity.
Marquez brought other women into the house, but none of them stayed for more than a night, and Adelaide saw little of them. She had her own bedroom, but she would still sleep with Ricardo occasionally at his request. She felt that she had become less a person than a thing, to be used by him as he thought fit; and she resented it. The resentment burned inside her like a dull fire, waiting for the time and the conditions to burst into a consuming flame.
It was June now. The weather was dull and cold and wet as the days progressed toward mid-winter. The trees along the Avenida Maipu and around the Plaza Mayo in front of Government House were bare of leaves. It had been summer when she had come to Buenos Aires, and much had happened since then. She promised herself that she would not remain there until another summer came round, and she had the outline of a plan forming in her mind.
She had a passport. Bart had made it for her. It was a British passport, because on a whim she had decided that that was what she wanted. When she left she would go to London.
But she would need money, a lot of money; that was essential. And she knew where the money was, if only she could get at it. She thought about that; she put her mind to the problem again and again, but could come up with no feasible method of gaining access to that pile of wealth which was lying in Ricardo’s office just waiting to be taken.
If only one could get at it!
*
Another month passed.
One afternoon Marquez said to her: ‘You are to go to Granada’s house. You are to spend the evening with him but not the night. Fernando will come to fetch you at midnight. Granada will give you a packet to bring to me. Is that clear?’
‘It is perfectly clear.’
She understood. Bart had been doing a job for Ricardo and part of the price for this work was a visit from her, an evening of bliss for the roly-poly man. She did not mind. She never minded going to see him; he was such fun. Looking back afterwards, she felt rather surprised that she had not seen at once that this was the opportunity she had been waiting for. And yet, how could she have guessed? It had not been apparent that things would turn out as they did.
Villa took her there in the BMW. He was his usual somewhat morose self. She had never seen him look really happy. Perhaps he lacked the capacity to enjoy life. But at least he never made any kind of a pass at her. In this he differed from Gomez, who would have insinuated himself into her bed if she had given him the slightest encouragement. She was not sure whether or not Ricardo knew this. Maybe it would not have bothered him if he had. After all, he let her go to other men; even instructed her to. But of course they all paid for the privilege, in cash or in kind.
Bart was pleased to see her, as always.
‘You give me a lift,’ he said. ‘Metaphorically speaking, of course. When you are with me I feel twice the man. And there again you must not take the words too literally; two of Bartolomeo Granada would be rather too much of a good thing.’
She smiled. ‘So you are a good thing?’
‘Well now, that’s a question, isn’t it? In your case on the other hand there can be no question about it, none at all. You are the best thing I have ever come across. If you ever feel like leaving Ricardo there would be a home for you here. Nothing would delight me more than to have you move in on a permanent basis.’
He had given her that invitation before; had urged her to accept it. But it was just not on. Even if she had been tempted, Ricardo would never have agreed; she would no longer have been of any use to him. But she did not tell Bart that. She just said:
‘I’ll have to think about it.’
*
It was five minutes to midnight when Villa came for her. The large brown envelope containing the material she had to take back to Marquez was already in her shoulder-bag. She gave Bart a parting kiss and left.
Villa seemed more morose than ever. Perhaps he wanted to get to bed and resented having to play the chauffeur to her at this time of night. The weather matched his mood: there was a light rain falling and the streets had a metallic gleam under the orange glow of the sodium lamps. It all looked very depressing.
He stopped the car outside the front door of the house and let her get out. Before she had reached the porch he had the car moving away towards the garage. She did not expect to see him or Gomez again that night.
Marquez was waiting for her in his office. No one else was stirring in the house. The housekeeper and the maids would already have gone to bed.
‘Ah!’ he said when she walked in. ‘So you
are back. You have what you went for?’
‘Yes.’
She opened the shoulder-bag, took out the envelope and handed it to him. In his eagerness he almost snatched it from her, and she guessed that it must be something of importance to him.
She had noticed immediately she entered the room that the safe was open. This fact registered on her mind like a flash of lightning. It was what she had been waiting for. The opportunity had come.
Marquez took the envelope to his desk, picked up a paper-knife and slit it open. He removed the contents and began to examine them. He seemed to have forgotten that she was there.
She needed an implement, a weapon. There was no time to waste; at any moment he might remember that she was still in the office, turn and dismiss her. She gazed all around her and could see nothing to suit her purpose. Was she after all to lose such a splendid opportunity? The chance might never come again.
In desperation she glanced at the desk, and there it was, just to the right of where Ricardo was standing. It was a large glass paperweight, a solid multi-coloured globe, flattened at the bottom.
She did not hesitate. She moved quickly. He became suddenly aware of her at his side, but it was too late; she had seized the paperweight in her right hand. As he turned she struck him on the temple.
He gave a cry, staggered back and collapsed on the floor. But he was still conscious. He was trying to get up. He had been dazed by the blow but that was all; and it was not enough. She stooped and struck him again — twice – with considerable force.
He did not move after that.
There was a roll of brown sticky tape on the desk; the kind used for sealing large packets and parcels. She bound his legs and arms with it, making many turns so that there would be no chance of his breaking free. She gagged him with his own handkerchief, fixing it in position with more of the tape. He was conscious and would live. She had no wish to kill him, but she had to give herself time.
Lady From Argentina Page 12