“Why?” said Felix, through blood and saliva.
“Hallelujah! In the beginning was the Word!” the Director General exclaimed with delight. “‘Why?’ Memorable first words from Licenciado Diego Velázquez, the new Chief of the Department of Cost Analysis of the Ministry of Economic Development.” The Director General licked his knife-thin lips as he pronounced the name and the accompanying titles.
“‘Why?’ asks the brand-new official. Because someone was spoiling our plans and we didn’t know who. Because someone unexpectedly transferred Felix Maldonado from Petróleos Mexicanos to Economic Development. Because, it turns out, this modest official, who cannot afford to have children until his salary and position are advanced, allows himself the luxury of a permanent room in one of the most expensive hotels in the city. Because all this awakens my legitimate doubts, and because, following a summary investigation, the information contained in the late Maldonado’s files in the Hilton turns out to be false, placed there purposely to make us suspect everything but learn nothing. But, as in any war, two can play at the war of nerves. Our opponents lose their agent Felix Maldonado, but as we are not niggardly, we counter with the gift of Diego Velázquez, who baptizes himself to save us the headache, n’est-ce pas? and who one fine night escapes from a clinic because we want him to escape.”
“Why?”
“Your curiosity is becoming monotonous, Licenciado. Because we needed an innocent carrier pigeon to lead us to a hidden nest. From that nest, a not-at-all-innocent vulture whom we both know intends to swoop down and thwart our plans. Ah, you smile roguishly, Licenciado. You say to yourself that your friend the Shakespearean buzzard has won the game and has the ring in his hands. It is for good reason you call him Timon of Athens. What is it the immortal Bard says in scene i, Act I of his drama about power and money — rather, about the power of money?”
The Director General, his arms still crossed, threw back his head, as if his reverie could illuminate the darkness behind his pince-nez. “See how all conditions, how all minds tender down their services to Lord Timon: his large fortune dues and properties to his love and tendance all sorts of hearts. Do I quote badly, Licenciado? Sorry. My training was not Anglo-Saxon like yours and your patron’s, but French, and as a result, I prefer the Alexandrine to blank verse.”
“You’ve confused your birds,” said Felix, spitting and licking his lips, testing his tongue against his teeth and lips. “Shakespeare compares Timon to the flight of the eagle, bold and forth on.”
“Do not be overly eloquent.” The Director General laughed. “I merely wish to indicate that if Timon is powerful and pays well, we are more powerful and pay better. I admit freely, yes, that your patron has the ring. But its loss is secondary. This little drama, you see, has two acts. First act: Felix Maldonado inadvertently foils our mission. Second act: Diego Velázquez, equally inadvertently, leads us to the den of an espionage ring that, in spite of all our efforts, we have been unable to locate or connect with any official branch of the Mexican government. With the result that all sins, yours and mine, will be pardoned in the end, because, thanks to you, we obtained something better than the ring: the thread that leads us to Timon of Athens.”
“You have good telephone taps, but nothing more,” said Felix, his face resigned and impassive. “Anyone can record a telephone conversation and play with proper names.”
“Do you want proof of my good faith, friend Velázquez?”
“Goddammit, stop calling me that!”
“Ah, that’s a proper name I don’t dare play with. It is too serious a matter. You will see that, my friend. But let me repeat. Ask for proof of my good faith, and I shall gladly give it to you.”
“Who is buried in my name?”
“Felix Maldonado.”
“How did he die?”
“I’ve already told you that, in the clinic. Why insist on replaying the first act? Consider the second. It is considerably more interesting, I assure you. Be more daring, my friend.”
“Why did he die?”
“I also told you that. He tried to assassinate the President.”
“Not a word came out about it in the newspapers.”
“Our press is the most easily controlled in the world.”
“Don’t be a fool. Too many people were there.”
“Be careful what you say. Your mouth is ugly enough. We can make it even less pretty, n’est-ce pas?”
“What really happened that morning in the Palace?”
“Nothing. Just as the President approached, Felix Maldonado fell into a faint. Everyone found it funny except the President.”
“What was your plan?”
“The one I outlined to Maldonado in my office, mmh? To borrow his name. Only his name. We need a crime, and a crime needs a man’s name. You, with your stupid swooning, were the obstacle. So there was no crime, even though there was a criminal.”
“What you mean is that you intended to kill the President and hang the death on me.”
“You will forgive me, n’est-ce pas? if I fail to answer such an irrelevant question?”
“You asked for difficult questions. I’m asking them.”
“Very well, but you won’t refuse me the elegance of an ellipsis, mmh? I showed the President the.44 Maldonado was carrying in his pocket. It’s an effective weapon, easy to conceal.”
“Which appeared like magic; Rossetti slipped it in Maldonado’s pocket after he had fainted and been carried from the room.” Felix hoped his logic was both unexpected and on the mark, but the effect was spoiled by the quaver in his voice as he referred to himself in the third person.
His apprehension did not escape the Director General’s attention. “If you say so. Something had to be rescued from the disaster, n’est-ce pas? We remarked to the President that Felix Maldonado was a converted Jew, and that converts feel a compulsion to demonstrate their zeal in order to be clasped to the bosom of the new family. I cited the reverse instance, recalling the conduct of the Spanish Jew Torquemada after his conversion to Catholicism.”
“What did you gain with that gambit?”
“You ask me that seriously?”
“Yes, because I doubt very much that the President would have swallowed that kind of crap.”
“It was not our primary intent. But Maldonado had wrecked Plan A.”
“To assassinate the President.”
“Passons. We immediately applied Plan B, which was to sow a simple suspicion in the President’s mind. Had Israel actually paid an agent to eliminate the President of Mexico?”
“Why would they? Generally, a tourist boycott by the North American Jews is sufficient when they want to tighten the screws.”
“You’re at liberty to imagine all probable scenarios.”
“But, in all of them, Felix Maldonado appeared to be the ideal sacrificial lamb.”