Dalban looked at me steadily for a long while before speaking again. “I apologize,” he said at last. “I had been of the impression that you did not know what you were doing. I realize you have given much thought to the matter. The only cause for regret is that you have come to a wrong conclusion.”
“If there’s going to be civil war in Aguazul, then it’s not going to be my fault,” I retorted. “The suggestion is ridiculous.”
“You must accept, señor, that your departure would materially improve our chances of escaping that civil war.” Dalban kept his voice level. “I fully realize that you did not choose the key position in which you now find yourself; however, it will be the act of an intelligent man to recognize the fact that you are of importance and that your least decision now affects many people beside yourself.”
He smiled. “Therefore I must say this. Either you change your mind voluntarily — or means will be found to compel you to do so. You will find me in the telephone directory if you want me: Jose Dalban. Good night.”
He went past me and opened and shut the door with a swift coordinated movement. The instant he was out of the room I went to the phone and rang the reception desk, demanding that Dalban be stopped before he left the hotel, demanding how he had got into my room in the first place.
The receptionist, bland-voiced, echoed the name. “Dalban, señor? Yes, I would recognize Señor Dalban. But he is not in the hotel.”
Infuriated, I realized that bribes must have passed somewhere. Large ones, which would stick. I demanded the manager and got no satisfaction out of him, either. Blank-faced, he poured out streams of denials in his own defense — adding assertions about the rectitude of Señor Dalban and the unlikelihood of his doing any such thing as I accused him of.
“Who is this bastard, anyway?” I demanded.
“Why, he is a businessman of great distinction and wealth, señor! Even if he were to desire to do such a thing, he would not come himself — he would send an agent!”
“Get me an agent,” I said. “Of police. And with speed!”
A blank-faced man who might have been the manager’s elder brother was brought; with an air of pandering to the whim of a mad foreigner, he took down particulars in a scrawling hand and promised to report it at the police station. I had a suspicion that report would never materialize; in a last burst of annoyance I called police headquarters and demanded to speak to el Jefe O’Rourke in person.
O’Rourke wasn’t there. A sour-voiced lieutenant took my name and promised to investigate. By the time I was through with him, apathy had dulled my anger.
It didn’t really matter, anyway. The city council was supposed to have been having me followed outside the hotel, for my own protection; I only hoped the protection worked. But whoever Dalban was, and whomever else he represented, they were thinking with their muscles. If threats and bribes were their chosen technique, then I wanted nothing to do with them. I was going ahead with my job come hell or high water.
Still, there were times, and this was one of them, when I felt I was a stubborn idiot and wished I wasn’t.
XIV
“Much the sort of thing I’d have expected the Nationals to try,” said Angers thoughtfully. “I’m glad you told Dalban to go to hell, Hakluyt — I always thought you were a pretty square sort of fellow, in spite of our differences.”
In his way, I supposed, he meant that as a compliment. I returned it by taking it as one. I said only, “Is Dalban tied up with the Nationals, then? If they can afford to buy me out, then why haven’t they paid this fine Tezol owes?”
Angers shrugged. “I wouldn’t put it past them to let him go hang. Peasants are two a penny, and the men behind the National Party — the ones you don’t hear about, but who really matter — are said to be pretty unscrupulous.”
“I hope that’s not gospel truth. If it is, I’m in for a thin time. The hotel staff were almost certainly bribed to deny admitting Dalban to my room — but I had hoped to get more action from the police than I did.”
Angers gave vent to a short coughing sound that might have been a cynical laugh. “I’m not surprised myself,” he said. “If there’s any truth in the rumors I’ve heard, Dalban ought long ago to have been run out of the country — would have been unless he had the police in his pocket. You’re muddying some pretty deep waters, Hakluyt.”
“So Dalban informed me.”
His wintry smile put in a brief appearance. “Don’t let it get you down. You’re a valuable piece of property, if I may say so. Despite what Dalban said, he isn’t really in a position to pull anything; he’s precariously balanced already, and the slightest error would bring him tumbling down. He can talk, but his threats are empty ones.” He frowned. “And yet I don’t know that the matter can be left there, because attempted bribery of a government employee is a serious offense.”
I was tempted to say something about the stories of corruption I’d heard since my arrival, but refrained. Angers looked at the wall clock and got to his feet.
“We’d better go down to the court,” he said. “Session begins at ten. I don’t expect you’ll bekept waiting today.”
In the corridors of the court building there was hustle and bustle — or the nearest approach to it that you get under a Latin American sun. Angers excused himself to go and have a word with Lucas, and left me standing alone, looking about me for people I knew. I caught sight of Fats Brown talking to Sigueiras in impassioned Spanish; aside from the color of their skins, the two were oddly alike — fat, untidy, given to loud talking and gesticulation.
“G-good morning, Mr. Hakluyt,” a voice murmured near me. I turned to find Caldwell, the young man from the city health department, together with an aggressive little man with hard eyes behind his horn-rimmed glasses and a shock of ruffled hair. I remembered Señora Cortes had pointed this man out to me at the presidential garden party, but could not recall his name or office.
“Good morning,” I said. “Are you involved in this?”
“Of c-course,” he said with dignity. “My d-department’s proof of nuisance is very important.”
His companion spoke up suddenly. “Forgive Nicky’s bad manners, Señor Hakluyt. Permit me to present myself. My name is Ruiz, Alonzo Ruiz, and it is a pleasure for me to meet you. I am a doctor,” he finished with a sudden lessening of his vehemence.
I remembered and shook his hand… “You’re the — uh — the director of health and hygiene, aren’t you? Glad to meet you. You’re giving evidence, too, I take it.”
“Assuredly, señor! Why, I have statistics to demonstrate that the presence of this slum of Sigueiras’s has raised the typhoid rate in Ciudad de Vados one hundred and twenty per cent in the past ten years—”
An usher walked down the corridor announcing that the court would be in session in five minutes; Angers hastened back as I was starting to look for the anteroom where I had spent yesterday afternoon and wishing that I’d brought a good book.
“It’s all right, Hakluyt,” Angers said breathlessly. “I arranged with Lucas to ask the judge to let witnesses sit in court today — something about special circumstances. He’ll fix it.”
He did. Three minutes after the judge had taken his seat, an usher escorted me into the courtroom. I was given a place near Angers and sat down under the glaring eyes of Fats Brown. Presumably he’d just had a fast one put over on him, and he wasn’t enjoying it.
I looked around the court — this was a room identical to the one where Dominguez had had his ears pinned back the other day — and stiffened as I recognized two of the people in the public seats. Side by side in the front row were Felipe Mendoza — and Maria Posador.