He interrupted himself long enough to take another drink.

“Maybe it’s her own idea,” he resumed. “Maybe not. She don’t have enough brains to figure out a son’vabitch idea like this. Maybe somebody put her up to it. Coulda been Angers, ’cept he’s so righteous an’ limey an’ King’s English he prob’ly never heard of havin’ babies. I figure — know what I figure?”

I shook my head.

“I figure it’s Lucas, rot his soul! Mister, what’s this gonna do to me? It’s gonna finish me, know that? Have people laugh at me in the streets, know that?”

He jabbed a stubby finger at me. “Y’ don’ believe it, hey? Y’ don’ think one little thing like this could wreck me for good! Well, I’m tellin’ you. I’m on the wrong side! Me, I oughta be distinguished an’ respectable an’ expensive, like Lucas an’ his gang. I’m a foreign-born citizen; they think I oughta be like Angers, rot his tin-plated hide. They think I’m a disgrace ’cause I spend my time an’ effort tryin’a give these poor bastards who own the country a decent lawyer’s arguments. With me? Get me? ’Cause I don’ worry myself sick ’bout whether or not I collect the whole of a fee; ’cause I know law and say when it’s on the other side, they’d love — just love, pal! — one teeny hook to drag me down. An’ then they’d stamp on me.”

He put his head in his hands and fell silent. I felt embarrassed, watching the compassionate gaze his wife bestowed on him, and tried to avoid looking at her. But the only other place I found where my eyes would stay still was on her brother’s long lined fiddle face. There was no other description.

“Señora Brown,” I said at length, and she raised her eyes to mine. “Tengo un automovil — desean Vds. ir a casa.”

“Muchas gracias, señor,” she answered. “Pero no se si mi esposo desea irse.”

“Fats,” I said. I shook his shoulder gently. “Like a ride home?”

He lifted his head. “You got a car, pal? Me, I never had a car since I came here. Ten thousand she wants, the li’l bitch. Me, I don’ earn ten thousand in two years!”

“Like a ride home?” I insisted. He nodded, unseeing, and got awkwardly to his feet, like a hippopotamus coming from a wallow.

“I’d like to smack her behind for her — dammit, she’s a kid, pal, just a kid. It’s not even as if I liked ’em young an’ skinny. Ask m’ wife! Ah, maybe not. Useta run aroun’ a bit, true enough, but hell, that was twen’y years ago!”

We got him to my car. His wife gave me the address and sat in the back seat comforting him, while the brother-in-law sat beside me. I glanced at Fats in the mirror occasionally; he quieted down when we were on the move, and sat gazing into space. There was something almost pathetic about his attitude. He was holding his wife’s hand and stroking it like a shy teenager at a movie.

It was not a long trip. The Browns lived in a block of medium-priced apartments a mile or so away; I dropped them off there and made sure that between them his wife and brother-in-law could get him indoors. Señora Brown dropped me a sort of curtsy as I turned to go, and her half-whispered, “Muchas gracias, señor!” stayed in my ears all the way back to my beat.

About a quarter of an hour after I returned to the main traffic nexus, the bored-looking policeman in the booth overlooking it showed the first sign of activity I had noticed in all the time I had spent here. A little light began to shine in intermittent flashes beside his telephone handset. Hastily he snatched the microphone and punched buttons. Red lights shone from lamp posts; his voice boomed from the loudspeakers. The traffic came to a halt.

There was a wail of sirens, and two motorcycle cops and a squad car raced into sight, shot past, disappeared again. A few moments later there was an ambulance. The policeman in the booth, his job done, hung up the microphone and took his thumb off the button. The traffic moved on.

It was not until the papers came out the following morning that I learned the errand of these policemen and the ambulance. Apparently a girl called Estrelita Jaliscos had fallen to her death from a window in the apartment block where I had dropped the Browns last night, and Fats himself was nowhere to be found.

XVI

Sigueiras was literally in tears when his suit reopened on Monday morning. It was hardly surprising. Fats Brown’s place had been taken by a substitute lawyer with no interest in the argument, who tamely allowed things to go ahead when he could have secured a long enough adjournment to acquaint himself with Fats’s groundwork. Lucas, coldly triumphant, cut his own case short without calling me; the new lawyer made a hash of his concluding speech, and the judge ruled, as was inevitable on the facts presented to him, that the redevelopment plans were not motivated by malice, Sigueiras’s slum was a public nuisance, and citizens’ rights did not extend to cover public nuisances.

Sigueiras had to stand up and shout at his lawyer to get him to file notice of appeal; there were shouts and complaints from people in the public seats — it was great to leave the court and breathe fresh air outside.

This morning I had noticed a stranger sitting in court: as I left in company with Angers, he came up to us — a tall, black-haired man, faultlessly dressed, whom I had a vague idea I had seen somewhere but did not know.

“Good morning, Luis!” said Angers warmly. “And congratulations on your new appointment! Hakluyt,” he added, turning to me, “you must meet Señor Luis Arrio, the new chairman of the Citizens of Vados.”

Arrio smiled and shook my hand. “Delighted, Señor Hakluyt!” he exclaimed. “I have been hoping to make your acquaintance since your arrival. I saw you at Presidential House the other day but did not contrive an introduction.”

So that was where I’d seen him. And the name also rang a bell now. Multiple stores. I’d seen it in half a dozen places in Vados alone, over large and small branches.

“Well!” he continued. “So as it turned out there was no call for your assistance in this little matter that has been settled today. The judgment, of course, represents a further triumph for — might one not almost say civilization over barbarism? Like your own work, Señor Hakluyt, this will help to make our beautiful city yet more beautiful!”

“Thank you,” I said shortly. “But — being a foreigner, not a Vadeano — as far as I’m concerned, it’s just another job. One that I almost regret having taken on.”

He looked sympathetic immediately. “Yes, that I very well understand. So your esteemed colleague tells me” — he gestured at Angers — “that rascal Dalban and his associates have made threats to you. Well, I can personally assure you, señor, that you have nothing to fear from them. We, the Citizens of Vados, will see to that — and you may rely on our guarantee.” He looked forthright, like the statue of el Liberador in the Plaza del Norte, but there was something more than just a pose in that. As far as he was aware, he was speaking the absolute literal truth. I took the statement at its face value.

“Yes, Señor Lucas and I will ensure that you meet no further incidents of that kind,” he pursued. “I am convinced it is all a matter of correctly informing the people — once the citizens see what benefits these changes will bring, there will be no further hindrance. Señor, you must do me the honor of dining with me and my family one evening during your stay.”

“I’d be delighted,” I said. “Unfortunately, I can’t accept at once — I’m spending most of my evenings out on the streets studying the traffic flow.”

“Of course!” he exclaimed, as though chiding himself for stupidity. “Your work occupies you all day and night, does it not? Not the profession I would have chosen, señor. I admire your self-dedication. Then if it cannot be dinner, let it be luncheon, and let the time be now, here in the plaza.” He glanced at Angers. “You will join us?”