“Well, Pancho,” said the Saint judicially, “speaking purely on the spur of the moment, I should say you were just a horse’s ass.”
And then, as the fat man’s patronizing grin vanished, Simon moved with a speed that the other, for all his apparent professionalism, could never have allowed for. That fat man himself could never reconstruct exactly what happened; he only knew that a blow out of nowhere sapped all the strength from his fingers, and that the knife he dropped was caught in mid-air almost as he released it and presented point first at the tip of his own nose.
“Go back to the goat who sent you,” said the Saint, in fluent Spanish, “and tell him that it annoys me to be rushed. And when I am annoyed, I do things like this.”
The stout man flinched from the flash of metal across his eyes as the knife spun away into the night. And then a fist that felt no less metallic, although blunter, impinged crisply on his nose and sat him down suddenly in his tracks with a new constellation of lights zipping across his vision. Before he could clear his involuntarily streaming eyes, the Saint was no longer in sight.
In a taxi heading back towards town along the Rancho Boyeros highway, the driver said helpfully, “You no have a girl tonight, sir?”
“Not tonight,” said the Saint.
“You are smart guy, I think. Some women you find make much trouble... But if you like, if you are lonely, I have young cousin, very honest and beautiful girl—”
“Thank you,” Simon said. “But I think someone just got an option on me.”
2
“You see,” Beryl Carrington told him, “Ramón is one of the top men in the Underground.”
“Oh,” said the Saint, and now for the first time he did begin to see a little.
She jumped up restlessly, with a swirl of the clinging négligé that she had put on when he knocked.
“It’s exciting, and rather frightening — isn’t it? — to think that things like that still have to go on, and so close to the United States.”
“Sure,” he said. “But how does it happen to concern you?”
She stared at him, puzzled and almost hurt.
“If I hadn’t heard it, I wouldn’t have believed that the Saint asked that question. Isn’t the fight for freedom, anywhere, something that concerns all of us these days?”
“I know the oratory,” Simon said mildly. “I meant — why you, personally?”
“I got into it when I met Ramón.”
“Where did you meet him? Here?”
“Yes.”
“What part of Indiana are you from?”
“Why, is the accent so obvious?”
“No, but your car plates are. Excuse me if I sound like a district attorney, but I like to know just a few things about the people I’m supposed to help.”
“I understand.” She sat down, facing him. “Lewisburg, Indiana, is the place. Probably you’ve never heard of it, it’s a very small town. I was born and raised there, and I lived there all my life. This is the farthest away I’ve ever been. I married my high school sweetheart, who was also the heir to the biggest industry in town — an umbrella factory. You don’t look like a man who ever owned an umbrella, but if you had one it could easily be a Carrington. They’re very good umbrellas. My husband was a very good guy and a good husband — and just as dull as an umbrella. We had a good, comfortable, normal, and very dull life. Until he died of a good dull case of lobar pneumonia a couple of years ago. It wasn’t until I got over that that I realized how very ordinary and how very dull my entire life had been. I wasn’t left filthy rich — that wouldn’t have been ordinary, would it? — but I could afford to go anywhere within reason. So I decided to see a few places while I was still young enough to have fun. Does that tell you enough?”
Simon nodded, and poured himself another cup of coffee — she had been having breakfast in her room when he arrived, and had ordered a fresh pot of coffee for him.
“And here you just happened to meet Ramón.”
“It wasn’t exactly that kind of pick-up,” she said.
Beryl Carrington had been told by a travel agent that if she wanted to see more of Cuba than the city of Havana where all the tourists go, it would be cheaper to have her own car ferried over from Key West. She had faced the prospect of trying to find her way around in a foreign country with some trepidation, but had finally decided to let it be an adventure. By the time she reached her hotel after getting lost five times on her way from the dock she was wondering whether that kind of adventure could possibly be worth any economy it effected, and a call on the house phone that came to her room while she was still unpacking convinced her that she could only have fallen for the idea during a spell of mental incompetence.
“I am very sorry,” the caller said, “but I have had a little accident to your car.”
Ramón Venino, as he introduced himself with a card in the lobby, was very apologetic and very embarrassed. She was too upset at first to notice how very personable he also was.
“My hand slipped on the wheel — but that is no excuse. I was careless. I wish to take all responsibility.”
They went out together to the parking area to inspect the damage, which consisted of one moderately crumpled fender.
“It is only a little less bad because it is easy to fix,” Venino said. “Give me the key, and I will take it to a garage, and tonight I will bring it back like new.”
Very quickly and sharply she visualized herself waiting from then until doomsday to see either him or her car again. She was distinctly pleased with her own poise and perspicacity.
“Thanks,” she said. “I’d rather take it to a garage myself.”
He inclined his head.
“As you wish. The hotel manager will recommend a place. I only insist that I pay the bill.”
After she had been directed to a garage, and was faced only with the navigational problem of actually finding it, she found Venino waiting beside her car with a taxi.
“Tell the driver where you are going,” he said, “and he will lead the way. He speaks good English, and he will help you at the garage. Then he will drive you where you want to go for the rest of the day. Don’t pay him anything — it is all taken care of.”
He bowed, and left her before she could think of anything to say.
The next morning, however, she recognized his voice when it spoke on the house telephone again.
“Please don’t be annoyed that I have brought your car back myself,” he said. “I only wish to be sure that you are completely satisfied with the repair before I pay the garage.”
The fender had been so well smoothed out and repainted that it would have taken a magnifying glass to find fault with it. And the fact remained that Venino had apparently had little difficulty in persuading the garage to turn the car over to him. If he had been a car thief with a new angle, as her hypertrophied caution had at first suspected him, he could already have got away with his objective.
“It looks fine,” she said.
“I can only apologize again for the inconvenience,” he said. “I am sorry we could not have met in any other way, so that I could have hoped to see you again without you thinking bad things of me.”
It was her turn to feel awkward and embarrassed.
“I think you’ve been very charming,” she said. “If everyone who had an accident was like you, the insurance companies would be out of business.”
“You are very kind. But still I have made it impossible for me ever to ask you to dinner.”
His manner was studiously correct but disarmingly wistful, and his good looks were finally able to make their impression on her.