“To get my watch fixed, you idiot!” I said, roughly pushing him aside.
Marlene got into the car and I followed. We pulled away from the curb and Fat Cat looked back at me from his seat beside the driver. “I have a cable for you.”
I took the blue envelope from his hand and opened it. I had no trouble reading it. El Presidente hadn’t even bothered to put it into our simple code.
WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN EUROPE STOP GET BACK TO NEW YORK STOP THIS IS NO TIME FOR UNA PARRANDA STOP.
Una parranda. It had a peculiar meaning in our country. A wild party, an orgy. Angrily I crumpled the cablegram.
Marlene looked at me with wide eyes. “Bad news?”
“No,” I answered tersely. “It’s just that el Presidente is as bad as everybody else. He thinks I’ve been having a ball.”
A faint hint of humor came into her eyes. “Well, I hope it hasn’t exactly been dull.”
I looked at her and I had to smile. “No, much of it wasn’t bad at all.”
“I thought so myself.” Marlene laughed. “I doubt that I’ll be able to walk for a week.”
***
Robert sounded surprised at my voice on the telephone. “I thought you were in Switzerland.”
He read the newspapers, too, it seemed. “I was,” I replied. “I’d like to see you as soon as possible.”
Robert hesitated a moment. “I’m very tied up today.”
“It’s important.” I had to see him today. It was Friday, and tomorrow the Swiss banks would be closed.
He was silent for a moment. “I’m meeting my father for lunch at the Crillon. Would you like to join us? I know he would be delighted to see you.”
“I’ll be there.”
***
“You’re looking very well, sir.”
The baron looked at me shrewdly, the old realist. “It’s kind of you to say so, but the truth is I’m getting old.”
A peculiar look passed between him and his son. I glanced at Robert. He seemed disturbed, peculiarly upset. “Father’s been having a few aches and pains,” he said. “I’ve been trying to convince him it’s only the normal hazards of age.”
The baron laughed. “How would you know? I’m the one with the years.”
The waiter brought coffee, and the baron lifted his cup delicately. “I’ve just had a letter from Caroline. She mentioned seeing you a few weeks ago in New York.”
“We had a drink together in El Morocco.”
“Ah, El Morocco.” The baron smiled. “It is like a club, you meet everyone there. But if you two have business to discuss go right ahead. Though I’m no longer active I’m still most interested.”
“Thank you.”
I meant it. Lunch was almost over and it seemed that Robert was never going to give me a chance. He didn’t look particularly happy as he said, “If it’s about the same subject I’m afraid my answer will still have to be no. You must be aware of our position.”
“I didn’t push it before, Robert,” I replied, “and I won’t now. But can’t you reconsider your position?”
Robert was silent, a stubborn look on his face.
The baron studied us curiously. He took out a thin cigar and slowly lit it as the tension built between us. “I have no knowledge of this problem between you.”
It certainly wasn’t my place to tell him.
Robert looked at his father. “Dax has asked access to certain confidential and restricted information concerning our Swiss bank. I have refused it.”
The baron nodded slowly. He looked down at his cigar. “Robert is quite correct,” he said in a quiet voice. “Not only are the laws specific but also there is the matter of ethics.”
“I understand, sir. But this is information vital to me.”
“Important enough to ask a friend to breach his trust?”
“Not only that,” I answered, “important enough to breach the friendship as well if necessary.”
The baron was silent for a moment, then he turned to Robert. “How long have you known Dax?”
Robert looked at his father with surprise. “You know as well as I how long.”
“Has Dax ever come to you before with such a request?”
Robert shook his head.
“Any request?”
“No.”
“Have you ever gone to him for help?”
The baron’s voice was mild but Robert was beginning to look uncomfortable. “You know that I have.”
“I remember many things. How during the war Dax came to the aid of both you and your sister without even being asked. And I also recall how he came to our aid when we were in difficulties with our cousin. He didn’t hesitate then either.”
“That was different,” Robert replied stubbornly. “We didn’t ask him to betray a trust.”
“We didn’t?” The baron’s voice was ironic. “If I remember correctly we asked him to lie for us. And whenever one man lies to another, no matter the provocation, I consider that betraying a trust. Don’t you?”
“No!” Robert answered vehemently. “That was in a business deal. Under the circumstances we acted normally.”
“Normally, perhaps, but morally?”
“Morality has nothing to do with it!” Robert replied, looking at his father angrily. “And you’re a fine one to be preaching about morals.”
The baron smiled. “I’m not; I’d be the first to admit that not everything I’ve ever done was moral. Also perhaps the first to admit that I might do so again. But at least I acted with a full realization of what I was doing. I did not try to delude myself as you are doing.”
Robert was silent, staring at his father.
The baron turned to me. “I’m sorry, Dax, that I cannot be of assistance to you. I think you know me well enough to believe me when I say that if I still had the authority I would give you whatever information you desired.”
“I believe you would, sir.”
The baron got to his feet. “And now I must go. No, don’t get up. Good-bye, Dax.”
“Good-bye, sir.”
The baron turned and looked at Robert. “My son,” he said in a low voice, “the one thing worse than an old fool is a young fool who believes that there is nothing more to learn. You must learn to listen.”
“I’ve listened,” Robert replied tersely, “and my answer remains the same!”
“Then you haven’t heard everything to which you listened. I distinctly heard Dax say that he wouldn’t push if you reconsidered. And knowing Dax as well as I do I can only assume that this means he has the means to force this information out of you whether or not you wish to give it.”
Robert glanced quickly at me and then, his face reddening, looked up at his father.
The baron placed a hand gently on his shoulder. “My son, in view of what you—we—owe Dax, wouldn’t it have been easier to bend your so-called ethics a little? By giving a friend what he needed you would not have forced Dax to become an adversary.”
In silence the two of us watched the baron thread his way through the tables to the door, then we looked at one another.
“Since his retirement my father has grown soft and sentimental,” Robert said with a forced laugh. “It’s an occupational disease for the aged.”
Suddenly I was angry, and what Robert said about his father triggered it. How could a man know so much and yet have learned so little? “You’re going to age a little in the next few minutes,” I said grimly.
“Come off it, Dax!” He laughed. “You may fool my father with that act, but not me. I know better.”
“You do?” I asked savagely. “Do you also know everything about a company called De Coyne Freight Forwarding?”
“Of course; it was formed for the purpose of expediting shipments to Corteguay. It was part of our original investment agreement, but you know that as well as I. Your own father signed the papers on behalf of Corteguay.”
“The bank still owns the company?”
“No.”
“Who does?
”
A tight smile came back to Robert’s lips. “I can’t tell you that. When we had no further use for the company, after it had been inactive for a number of years, we sold it, agreeing to act as nominees and trustees of record for the new owners. It is perfectly legal under Swiss law, and is done all the time.”
“Then so far as the public is concerned you’re still the owners, responsible for the company’s activities?”
“Yes.” But a worried crease had appeared in Robert’s face. “That’s standard practice too; everyone knows it’s just a subterfuge.”
I looked at Robert, and let the worry deepen. After a few moments I said, “I assume you also know the present nature of the company’s activities?”
“I have some idea,” Robert answered warily.
I took the papers that Braunschweiger had furnished me and dropped them onto the table between us. I was about as subtle as a kick in the balls. “Then I take it the De Coyne Bank has no objections to acting as shipping agent for arms and weapons manufactured by the former Von Kuppen Fabrik in East Germany?”
The color abruptly drained out of Robert’s face. “What—what do you mean?”
“Read the papers.”
Robert picked up the summary of the contract between the East German government and the De Coyne Freight Forwarding Company, a Swiss corporation. When he looked up beads of sweat were standing out on his forehead. His mouth was slightly open, and he looked positively sick.
I didn’t feel in the least sorry for him. Robert deserved this one, if only for his stupidity. The baron had been right, it would have been better if we had been able to achieve this as friends. Such a revelation could break the De Coyne Bank where nothing else had been able to. We were both aware that no one would believe the bank’s protestations of innocence.
“You weren’t as smart as you thought, Robert,” I said quietly, “you’ve been had.”
By that evening the records had been flown down from Switzerland, and Robert and I spent half the night in his office going over them. When I finally left, my attaché case stuffed with papers, I had the whole rotten story, and it wasn’t pretty. For Marcel lay at the center of it like an octopus, his obscene tentacles reaching out in every direction.
***
In the morning I called Marlene to say good-bye.
“You’re leaving?”
“I’m at the airport now.”
“I’m sorry about the newspaper stories, Dax. I hope she doesn’t believe them.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said, and I meant it. Too much had already gone wrong between Beatriz and me. “Anyway, it wasn’t your fault, Marlene.”
“Dax, it was good, wasn’t it?” she asked hesitantly. “Between us, I mean.”
“Yes, Marlene.”
She was silent for a moment and when she spoke again her voice was so low I could scarcely hear. “Auf wiedersehen, Dax. Take care of yourself.”
“Good-bye, Marlene.”
23
As I walked through the outer office of the consulate I came upon Lieutenant Giraldo. I stopped, and he jumped to his feet, standing at attention. “Your excellency!”
“Lieutenant Giraldo.” I held out my hand. “It is a surprise to see you in New York.”
He took my hand and shook it formally. “To me too,” he said. “During the Korean War I was given pilot training by the American Air Force. Now suddenly I find myself sent here for a refresher course.”
“Refresher course?” I smiled. “But we have no airplanes.”
“I know,” Giraldo replied. “That’s why they sent me back here.”
“Come into my office.” Giraldo followed me in, and I closed the door. “So you’re a pilot.”
“Yes, but only on single-engine prop aircraft. I am here to receive jet training.”
“Jets?” El Presidente had great expectations. How he was going to fulfill them I didn’t know. I sat down behind my desk. “How are things at home?”
“The same.” Giraldo looked at me hesitantly. “Not good; the bandoleros grow bolder. There have been several more villages attacked, though this has not been reported in the newspapers. I think that is why I have been sent here. There is talk that we are somehow to get jets to use against them.”
“And the guns?”
“I don’t know. Hoyos is in charge of the port, so we hear nothing. There has been no further report of shipments being intercepted.”
I was silent. If my hunch was correct the guns were still coming in, and it would take more than a Hoyos to stop them.
“Curatu has become like an armed camp,” Giraldo added. “There are soldiers everywhere. The populace is silent and tense, as if they are waiting for something to happen. After eight each night no one appears on the streets. It is like a city of ghosts.”
“Perhaps soon things will improve,” I said.
“I hope so,” Giraldo replied earnestly, “it is terrible to exist like that. We are beginning to feel as if we are living in one tremendous prison.”
***
Sergei’s face was flushed and angry. “I’ll kill the son of a bitch!”
I looked out the windows of his office. The late-afternoon sun was dazzling against the white towering buildings. My eyes smarted and felt heavy. The need for sleep was catching up with me. Somehow you never really rested on those long night flights.
“I should have known better!” Sergei was still reproaching himself. “Any time that bastard offers you something for nothing, watch out. I should have realized there’d be a catch in it.”
I turned back to the room wearily. “You were greedy, Sergei. He had you before he even approached you.”
“What’s so wrong about trying to make a few dollars you can keep?” Sergei asked defensively. “The taxes here eat you alive. So you divert a little to Switzerland; everybody does it.”
I let my eyes wander around his opulent office. I thought about his duplex apartment on Fifth Avenue and his magnificent home in Connecticut. I remembered the black and gold Rolls-Royce with his crest on the door. “When you had nothing you had no taxes to pay.”
Sergei must have realized what I was thinking, for his eyes narrowed.
“You’re a fool,” I added. “To risk so much for so little, to put yourself in the hands of a thief for a few lousy dollars.”
I was not telling Sergei anything he did not already know, but he was still defensive. “At least I wasn’t the only one.”
If Sergei wanted to console himself with that it was his privilege. Unfortunately he was right. Robert’s greed had led him into the same trap, and only God and Marcel knew how many others.
After a few moments Sergei asked, “What do I do now?”
“You do nothing. I do it.”
Sergei was only too glad to cooperate.
I went over the whole thing again in my mind. Marcel bought the company from Robert in Sergei’s name, explaining that it was to be used for the shipment of Sergei’s products from France to the United States. And Robert, knowing of Sergei’s success and envisioning the tremendous volume of material to be moved, went for the deal without hesitation.
Then Marcel turned around and told Sergei that there was a small piece of the De Coyne Freight Forwarding Company available, and sold him five percent for practically nothing. The name De Coyne was synonymous with security in Sergei’s mind, and when Marcel told him that he had spoken to Robert, who agreed that Sergei should become president, he was flattered. Nothing could have kept him out. The dividends that he received and the commissions that the De Coyne Bank earned kept both satisfied and restrained their curiosity.
Actually, I blamed only myself for not discovering sooner what was going on. A suspicion had been lurking in the back of my mind ever since I first heard about the guns. Perhaps subconsciously I remembered the stories I had heard about Marcel buying his first few ships by selling arms in the Orient. He would not be unfamiliar with the inordinately high profits involved in gun-running. But in my ow
n way I had been as stupid as the others.
I looked across the desk at Sergei. “As president of the company you signed papers?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have them?”
Sergei shook his head. “No, Marcel kept all the records. He claimed it would be safer.”
“What do you have then?”
“Only my stock certificates.”
“Get them.”
Sergei picked up the telephone on his desk. “Would you bring in the small red folder in my personal file, please?”
A moment later his secretary came in. “Is this what you wanted, your highness?”
I glanced up to see if she was serious. She was.
“Yes, thank you.”
She turned and left the office. I couldn’t help smiling. “Oh, brother,” I said. “You finally made it, your royal-assed highness.”
Sergei had the decency to blush. “It’s been good business.” He found the certificates and pushed them toward me. “Here.”
I studied them carefully. They were the usual printed forms, green with golden-orange curlicues. The name of the company was printed at the top, and the number of shares each certificate represented was typed in. Down on the bottom, one in each corner, were the two authorized signatures. One, of course, was Sergei’s, as president of the company. I looked at the other, expecting to find Marcel’s, but I should have known better. With his instinct for self-preservation he wouldn’t put his name to anything.
But the name I did find was even more illuminating, for it tied the guns, the bandoleros, and Dr. Guayanos’ group into one neat little package. The other signature was that of Alberto Mendoza, as secretary of the company.
***
The ringing of the telephone seemed to come from a long way off. Sluggishly I fought my way out of sleep and picked up the phone. “Yes?”
It was one of the clerks in the consulate downstairs. “I have the information your excellency requested.”
I sat on the edge of the bed in a fog, trying to remember what I had asked for. The clerk must have sensed the way I felt for in a moment he added, “About Alberto Mendoza, your excellency.”
“Oh, yes,” I said, awake now. “Would you bring it up to my apartment, please?”
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