“You’re speaking of a confrontation as if it were a good thing.”
“It is a good thing. The present state of coexistence was born of the confrontation in Cuba. Conditions resulting from being on the brink of war provide the necessary shock that prolongs an armed peace for fifteen or twenty more years. A generation. The real danger is that the peace is weakened in the absence of the periodical crises that revitalize it. Then we enter the realm of chance, stupor, and accident. A well-prepared crisis is manageable, as Kissinger demonstrated at the beginning of the October War. On the other hand, an accident brought about by the simple material pressure of accumulated arms that are fast becoming obsolete is something that cannot be controlled.”
“You’re a perverted humanist, Trevor. And your imaginary scenarios appear every day in newspaper editorials.”
“But also in the councils of the nuclear powers. What is essential is that we take all eventualities into account. None must be excluded. Including, my dear friend, the nearby presence of Mexican oil. That’s more than a scenario, it appears to be the only solution at hand.”
“And is Mexico not to be consulted?”
“There are collaborationists in your country, just as there were in Czechoslovakia. Some are already in power. It would not be difficult to install a junta of Quislings in the National Palace, especially during a time of international emergency, and in a country without open political processes. Mexican political cabals are like amoebas: they fuse, divide, subdivide, and fuse again in the obscurity of the Palace, without the slightest awareness on the part of the public.”
“From time to time, we Mexicans awake.”
“Pancho Villa couldn’t have resisted a rain of napalm.”
“But Juárez could, as Ho Chi Minh did.”
“Save your patriotic exhortations, Maldonado. Mexico can’t sit forever on the most formidable oil reserves in the hemisphere, a veritable lake of black gold stretching from the Gulf of California to the Caribbean Sea. We simply want to be sure that Mexico profits from it. For the good, preferably. All this can be done without disturbing President Cárdenas’s sacred nationalization. Oil can be denationalized, by Jove! without changing appearances.”
“It won’t please Our Lady of Guadalupe that you’re using her name for this musical comedy.” Felix was only half joking.
“Don’t be difficult, Maldonado. What’s at stake here is much bigger than your poor corrupt country drowning in poverty, unemployment, inflation, and ineptitude. Look outside again, I beg you. This once belonged to you. You did nothing with it. Look what it’s become without you.”
“That’s the second time I’ve heard that song. It’s beginning to bore me.”
“Listen to me carefully, and repeat everything to your chiefs. The contingency plans of the Western world require precise information about the extent, the nature, and the location of the Mexican oil reserves. It is vital that we anticipate every possibility.”
“And that’s the information Bernstein was sending from Coatzacoalcos?”
Perhaps Trevor would have answered, perhaps not. In any case, he was denied the opportunity. Dolly burst into the office, her kitten face transformed, as if she were being chased by a pack of vicious bulldogs. “Oh, God, Mr. Mann, a terrible thing, Mr. Mann, a horrible accident. Look out the window…”
Felix couldn’t see the look exchanged between Trevor/ Mann and Rossetti. Dolly opened the window and the conditioned air flowed out, along with the momentarily frozen words of the double agent; the three men and the weeping woman leaned out into the sticky Houston air, and Dolly pointed with a poorly manicured finger.
In the street, a swarm of human flies was gathering around a body sprawled like a broken puppet. Several police cars were parked nearby, sirens howling, and an ambulance was threading through the traffic on the corner of San Jacinto.
Trevor/Mann slammed the window shut and told Dolly in a nasal Midwest accent: “Call the cops, stupid. I’m holding the dago for the premeditated murder of his wife.”
Mauricio Rossetti’s mouth dropped open, but no sound emerged. Trevor/Mann had an automatic in his hand and was pointing it straight at Rossetti’s heart, but it was an unnecessary gesture. Rossetti had crumpled on the sofa, and was weeping like a child. Trevor/Mann ignored him, but held on to the pistol. It was ugly in his scaly hand.
“Console yourself, Rossetti. The Mexican authorities will ask for your extradition, and it will be granted. There is no death penalty in Mexico, and the law is understandingly benign when a husband kills his own wife. And you won’t talk, Rossetti, because you’d rather be considered a murderer than a traitor. Think this over while you’re luxuriating in the Lecumberri prison. And consider, too, that you’re well rid of a terrible harpy.”
Trevor waved the pistol in Felix Maldonado’s direction. “You may leave, Señor Maldonado. Bear me no rancor. After all, you’ve won this round. You have the ring. I repeat: it is of no value to you. Go quietly, and ruminate on how Rossetti gathered facts little by little, partially from the offices of the Director General, partially from Minatitlán and other centers of the Pemex operation, and delivered the raw information to Bernstein. It was your professor who put everything in order and turned it into coherent cybernetic data. Don’t worry; Rossetti prefers the responsibility of a crime resulting from conjugal problems to one caused by political indiscretions. On the other hand, our unfortunate Angelica, now united with her homonyms, will not be enjoying her customary privilege of unbridled chatter.”
“And what about me, aren’t you afraid I’ll talk?” said Felix, with sinking spirits.
Trevor/Mann laughed, and again assumed a British accent. “By gad, sir, don’t push your luck too far. Talk is precisely what I want you to do. Tell everything. Transmit our warnings to whoever it is who employs you. Allow me to demonstrate my good faith. Do you want to know who killed Sara Klein?”
Felix could only nod, humiliated before the assurance of the man with the features of a Roman senator, the stubborn lock of hair, and the anachronistic interjections. Merely by mentioning her name, Trevor/Mann was verbally pawing Sara, the way Simon Ayub had physically pawed her in the mortuary.
“Look to the nun.” A veil like ashes masked his gray eyes.
“And another thing, Señor Maldonado. Don’t try to return here with bad intentions. Within a few hours, Wonderland Enterprises will have disappeared. There will be no trace either of this office or of Dolly or of myself, your servant, as you Mexicans say with such curious courtesy. Good afternoon, Señor Maldonado. Or, to quote your favorite author, remember when you think of the Rossettis that ambition should be made of sterner stuff, and when you think of me, remember that we are all honorable men. Pip, pip!”
He bowed slightly toward Felix Maldonado.
32
AGAIN he was driving toward Galveston, pursued now by a black angel of presentiment but also driven by the desire to put the greatest possible distance between him and Angelica’s horrible death. He had been assured in the offices of the Port Authority that the Emmita would dock punctually in Coatzacoalcos at five o’clock on the morning of August 19. Captain Harding’s schedule went like clockwork. Felix drove by the little gray house beside the exhausted, oily waters of the Gulf. The door was unlocked. He went in, and smelled tobacco and beer gone flat and scraps of ham sandwich in the garbage. He resisted his longing to spend the night there, far from Houston and Trevor/Mann and the Rossettis, one very dead, one a walking corpse. He was afraid his absence from the Hotel Warwick might cause suspicion, so a little after midnight he returned to Houston.