else came up,’ his assistant told him gently.
‘Oh yes?’ O’Brien allowed his voice to show that his exasperation was almost at breaking-point. He’d begun to hope that his troubles were over for one morning.
‘That Britisher. The one John Curl’s office asked us to make sure was free and on his way south.’
O’Brien, chin propped on his hand, said nothing.
‘The one we hoped they would forget about,’ said his assistant. Actually O’Brien had screamed something about Brits not being his damn problem, screwed-up the fax and thrown it into his burn bag. ‘Curl’s office sent three follow-ups.’
‘Three?’ O’Brien looked at the clock on the wall. He’d only been out of his office for about an hour.
‘Yes, three,’ said his assistant. ‘I thought it was rather unusual. Sounds like Washington is getting into a flap. He’s got to be important. Did you see the priority code?’
‘Look Pablo. I know you say these dopey things just to set me up, but you know that code is no more than a priority. This guy might just be doing something we’re interested in. He might not even know we exist.’
‘Is that right?’
‘Sure. I’ve seen random selected tourists get higher ratings back in the bad old days when we put things into their baggage so it would get to East Berlin or Havana.’
‘I see.’
‘It doesn’t mean a thing,’ O’Brien said. That was the end of that. ‘So how is the Spanish coming along?’ It was a standard question and usually indicated that O’Brien was in a good mood.
‘What a language. In my dictionary it defines “político” as politician but it also means an in-law.’
O’Brien laughed. ‘You’re getting the idea, Pablo.’
His phone buzzed. It was his secretary. ‘Professor Cisneros is returning your call, Mr O’Brien.’
‘At last,’ said O’Brien while keeping the mouthpiece covered with his hand. He’d been trying to talk to the Minister of Home Affairs ever since early morning. ‘Pick up your extension. I want you to hear this guy wriggle.’
‘My dear Mike,’ said the Minister of Home Affairs. His English was perfect and fluent but he had the attractive foreign accent that certain Hollywood film stars of the Forties cultivated. Slang does not always go with such accents, so when Cisneros said, ‘We have one of your buddies here,’ it sounded arch.
‘Is that right?’
‘You don’t know, Mike?’
‘We don’t have anyone missing from roll-call,’ O’Brien said sarcastically.
‘Mike, my friend. I am talking about this delightful Englishman, Lucas.’
‘Englishman Lucas?’
‘Don’t prevaricate, Mike. You were talking with him last night. And this morning someone in your ambassador’s private office has sent him a delicious breakfast and an airmail copy of the New York Times.’
Mike O’Brien capped the phone. ‘Jesus suffering Christ.’ He’d gone red with anger. To his assistant he said, ‘How can Junk-bond do these things without checking first with me?’ He hit his desk with the flat of his hand to emphasize the last word. With a superhuman effort of will, O’Brien recovered his composure and uncapped the phone to talk. ‘You’re not making sense to me, Professor.’
‘Don’t hedge, Mike, we are both busy men. And I know you only call me Professor when you are put out. If he really is not one of yours, I’ll tell my boys to lose him in the Número Uno Presidio.’
He was talking about a primitive labour camp for political prisoners. The inmates worked at clearing jungle. The climate, the conditions, and the lack of medical services and hygiene ensured that not many prisoners returned from it. ‘Anything but that, Papá,’ O’Brien said in mock terror that was easily contrived.
‘One of yours then?’
‘One of ours, Papá.’
‘You’re not a good loser, Mike. Now you owe me one, remember that.’
‘Did he really have a breakfast sent over?’
Papá laughed and hung up the phone. That’s what he liked about dealing with the norteamericanos: who but a Yankee would take a joke like that seriously?
Everyone called Cisneros ‘Papá’, even the prison trusty who came into his office each day to polish his impeccable shoes. This sort of informality in the burocracia, like the computer filing system, legal aid and the shirt and tie uniforms that he’d given to the municipales, were pet ideas of Cisneros. He’d been talking about reform ever since he was one of the most vocal elements in the opposition.
Papá Cisneros was at heart an academic. He only went into the lawcourts when there was a subtle point of law to argue. The first signs of political ambition came when he made headlines as defence counsel at the treason trials. That was long before Benz came to power. In those far-off days Cisneros had been a real professor: a law professor at the university. Protected to some extent by the privilege of the courtroom, he’d denounced the use of the Federalistas against the coffee growers who wouldn’t – or couldn’t – pay taxes. He convinced everyone, except perhaps the Tax Department officials, that the farmers were hungry. He’d criticized the way that internment without trial had been used as a political device, and the fact that rightwing groups seemed to be immune to it. At the time Papá was the spokesman for middle-class liberals who wanted to believe that there could be an end to violence without the inconvenience of reform. Or reform without higher taxes.
Papá Cisneros had become the darling of the coffee farmers. He still was. But nowadays the coffee farmers were growing coca, and Papá was not doing much to stop them. Three years before, the Municipal and Federal police had been brought together with the Political Police and Tax Police, directly under Cisneros. The figures indicated that cocaine traffic had increased sharply in that three-year period. All the changes had been announced as necessary reform. Cynics had other theories, the least defamatory being that it was simply a way of using the nice new fifteen-storey building.
In any case the present situation seemed to be the worst of all worlds. The large conscript army was ‘exercising in the provinces’ but never mustered strength enough to tackle the MAMista communists in the south. Neither did the army move against the Pekinista communist forces who had established a state within a state in the fertile Valley of the Tears of Christ where the coca and the coffee bushes flourished. In the panelled gentlemen’s clubs of Tepilo’s business district, it was said that as long as Papá Cisneros – the farmer’s friend – had control of the police, the drug barons could sleep without troubled dreams. This was said with a smile, for there was no one in such Tepilo clubs who didn’t in some way benefit from the wealth that came from the export of coca paste.
‘Bring him in,’ called Cisneros.
Lucas came into the room that Cisneros used as an office. Papá extended a hand towards the chair. Papá was dressed in an expensive dark suit with stiff collar and silver-coloured silk tie. There were four inches of starched linen, with solid gold cufflinks, around the wrist of the extended arm. The stiffness of the low bow, the full chest and slim hips betrayed the tight corset that vanity demanded. Papá was an inappropriate name for a man who looked like an Italian film star or a fashionable gynaecologist.
Somewhere nearby a door banged. It was a resonant sound, as one would expect from a building composed of prefabricated pressed steel units with glass and plastic facings. The monolithic fortress that had occupied this site in the days of the monarchy had been replaced by this tin and glass box. Yet the oppressive atmosphere remained unchanged. Lucas recalled his father’s description of the premises the Gestapo had used in Rome. It was part of a pre-war apartment block. Some carpenter must have worked overtime to convert