“They will have to send for troops,” I heard someone say nervously in the hotel lobby. “Why do they not send for the troops?”

“What could even troops do to quell this?” answered someone else.

And then nature took a hand.

All morning a damp wind off the ocean had been piling up gray thunderhead clouds against the inland mountains; now, just as the riot was starting to flare, the storm crashed down on the city. Their grievances dying in the downpour, soaked, cold, and uncomfortable, supporters of both sides dispersed to shelter while the police, sighing with relief, escorted ambulance men into the plaza to pick up the injured.

But this was merely a respite. The tensions that had so nearly exploded would be fulminating beneath the surface for at least the rest of the day, and if it turned hot again so that tempers frayed…

And this because an old man had dined too well last night! I cast around in my mind for someone whom I could approach for information as to whether anything was being done to put right this thoughtless and potentially disastrous act. It occurred to me that Luis Arrio ought to know; if the chairman of the Citizens of Vados didn’t, who would?

I told a waiter to get Arrio on the phone for me, hardly expecting success at the moment, but he was reached for me in minutes — on the strength of my name, it appeared. Getting notorious in Vados had compensations.

“Señor Arrio,” I said, “I’ve just been watching what might have been a full-scale riot in the Plaza del Sur. Can you tell me what’s being done about this suppression of Tiempo ?”

“Oh, that has gone ahead very satisfactorily,” came back the dismaying answer. “The editor has been jailed until he purges his contempt, and the staff have been forbidden to engage in further journalism until he does so. He’ll be out of the way for some time, probably, and by then the situation should be calmer—”

“You mean they’re going to let Romero get away with it?”

A pause, as though wondering if he had heard me correctly. Then: “Why not, señor? It is the law!”

“The people in the square outside this hotel are paying damned little attention to the law!” I said harshly. “They think — and I agree — that this is a piece of criminal idiocy!”

“It is the law, señor,” he said frigidly, and put down his phone.

I felt as nervous, frustrated, and eager to do something as though the disaster that impended hung over myself personally; whom else could I get in touch with who might understand the danger of the situation?

The only idea that came to me was Miguel Dominguez. He’d been a friend of Fats Brown’s, of course, and because of that he wouldn’t particularly care for me personally. Not if he believed what he saw on television. On the other hand, he had this hold over Judge Romero — he was trying to get Romero disqualified for his disgraceful handling of that case against Guerrero and his chauffeur. Maybe if he had succeeded or was near success, Romero’s orders of today could be set aside.

The rain was still pelting down. I drove over to the Courts of Justice, wondering if I would find him. As it happened, he was in court today dealing with some minor case; an usher told me it would be adjourned in a few minutes, and I waited in the passage till then.

I had expected a colder reception from Dominguez than the one I actually got — not that that was any too warm. But I was spared the need to deny what had been publicized about my part in Fats Brown’s death.

“I was told by Jose Dalban what you said to Mayor in his office,” Dominguez informed me. “I am glad to hear that. We were much afraid you cared more for your contract than you did for the rights of the situation.”

“I don’t,” I said shortly.

“I accept that. What can I do for you?”

“Well, as I understand it, Señor Dominguez,” I said, “you were going to try to get an impeachment of Romero, or something of the sort. Is there any hope of hurrying it up? Because closing down Tiempo seems bound to cause disaffection — there was practically a riot in the Plaza del Sur today — and surely, if Romero was removed for incompetence, there’d be a chance of salvaging the situation.”

He gave me a shrewd, searching stare. “Continue, Señor Hakluyt,” he said in a voice that had suddenly acquired a purr. “I think you are about to speak good sense.”

“This is the way I see it,” I said. “If the Nationals are deprived of their paper, they’re going to riot. Only the storm saved Vados from a minor civil war today. The government has lost its television station — who did that, we don’t know, but what the hell, anyway? They’ve got twenty years’ advantage! I should have thought that even if Vados himself wasn’t prepared to crack down on Romero, Diaz would have done so by now, or Gonzales. Luis Arrio was trying to tell me a little while ago that ‘it’s the law’ — but law or not, damn it, it’s bad politics and bad psychology!”

He was actually smiling now — not broadly, but smiling. “Good, Señor Hakluyt. Very good. Yes, it is true that we have taken action to secure a new trial of Guerrero’s chauffeur. And we have put in motion the procedure for impeaching Judge Romero for his behavior on that occasion — at which, now I come to think of it, I believe you were present, no? Unfortunately,” and here he frowned, “owing to the tension created by Guerrero’s death, it was judged advisable not to progress too rapidly in the matter, and it will still be a few days before anything definite is done. In the meantime, God knows what may happen. You may, though, accept that Judge Romero, who has been too long in his place already, is, as you say in English, ‘washing up.’ ” I was too relieved to correct him. “Then what?”

“Then all his subsequent judgments will be null and void and all cases at which he has since presided will have to be retried. Of course, this implies that his injunctions against Tiempo will fall, and no one else on the judicial bench will be so stupid as to ban the paper completely.” He spread his hands. “But between now and then other things may happen.… I agree with you, señor. We must not delay longer. We must take steps now, at once, and I will see to it.”

Only a little less worried than when I arrived, I left him on that note.

The main story in the next morning’s edition of Liberdad — this was Saturday — was about Dominguez demanding an impeachment of Romero. Diaz had formally given orders for an investigation into the matter. The paper’s hackles had risen in righteous anger: a polemical and furious article by Andres Lucas on an inside page, bearing the signs of hurried writing, profiled Romero and his career. Lucas declared that this was the crowning insult to a man who despite being reviled by his enemies had served his country faithfully during a long and distinguished career — the sort of defense I could imagine him putting forward in court when he was convinced his client was guilty.

In any case, Romero was out of the reckoning after this; as Dominguez had put it, he was “washing up.” And, reading between the lines of Lucas’s article, I got the strong impression that he was suddenly afraid of Dominguez — perhaps seeing in him that rival who might usurp Lucas’s position of supremacy in the legal world in Aguazul. How real, I wondered, was that threat? Not very, if Lucas had the might of the Citizens’ Party on his side.

Coincidentally, I saw Lucas that evening. He was eating in the restaurant in the Plaza del Norte, for although the weather was still cool, it had not rained today, and the tables had been set out again under the palms.

The look on Lucas’s face made me suddenly think back to the expression Juan Tezol had worn the day I saw him trudging toward his home under the monorail station, wondering where he could find a thousand dolaros to meet the fine Judge Romero had imposed on him. In the end the powerful backers who had used him as the figurehead of the party had discarded him — made him a martyr. I imagined, realizing it was imagination, Lucas picturing himself in the same situation and perhaps for the first time feeling in his bones what a dirty game politics can be.