"Will you give it to me again, please? Slower?" [THREE] The Embassy of the United States of America Avenida Colombia 4300 Buenos Aires, Argentina 1410 5 February 2007 It was a ten-minute drive from the Plaza Hotel to the American embassy.
The taxicab meter showed that the ride had cost fifteen pesos. Roscoe dug out his wad of pesos, handed the driver a twenty-peso note, and waited for his change.
Five pesos is too much of a tip.
Two pesos ought to be more than enough.
The driver looked at the twenty and then up at Roscoe. When Roscoe didn't respond, the driver waved his fingers in a "give me more" gesture.
Roscoe pointed to the meter.
The cab driver said, "Argentine pesos."
He then pointed to the note Roscoe had given him, and said, "Uruguay pesos."
He then held up his index finger, and went on: "One Argentine peso is"-he held up all his fingers-"five Uruguay pesos. You pay with Uruguay pesos, is one hundred Uruguay pesos."
Roscoe looked at his stack of pesos. They were indeed Uruguayan pesos.
That miserable sonofabitch remise driver screwed me!
He counted the Uruguayan pesos he had left. He didn't have enough to make up the additional eighty pesos the cab driver was demanding.
He took a one-hundred-dollar bill from his wallet.
The cab driver examined it very, very carefully, and then first handed Roscoe his twenty-peso Uruguayan note, and then three one-hundred-peso Argentine notes. He stuck the American hundred in his pocket.
Roscoe was still examining the Argentine currency, trying to remember what that sonofabitch remise driver had told him was the exchange rate, when the cab driver took one of the Argentine hundred-peso bills back. He then pointed to the meter, and counted out eighty-five Argentine pesos and laid them in Roscoe's hand.
Roscoe then remembered the exchange rate. It was supposed to be 3.8 Argentine pesos to the dollar, not 3.0.
"Muchas gracias," the cab driver said, and drove off.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck," Roscoe said as he began walking toward the small building guarding access to the embassy grounds. "My name is Roscoe Danton," he said to the rent-a-cop behind a thick glass window. "I'd like to see Mr. Alexander B. Darby, the commercial counselor."
"You got passport? American passport?" the rent-a-cop asked in a thick accent suggesting that he was not a fellow American.
Roscoe slid his passport through a slot below the window.
The rent-a-cop examined it carefully and then announced, "No Mr. Darby here."
"Then I'd like to see Miss-" What the fuck was her name? "-Miss Rosenblum. The press officer."
"No Miss Rosenblum. We got Miss Grunblatt, public affairs officer."
"Then her, please?"
"What your business with Miss Grunblatt?"
"I'm a journalist, a senior writer of The Washington Times-Post."
"You got papers?"
Have I got papers?
You can bet your fat Argentine ass, Pedro, that I have papers.
One at a time, Roscoe took them from his wallet. First he slid through the opening below the window his Pentagon press pass, then his State Department press pass, and finally-the ne plus ultra of all press credentials-his White House press pass.
They failed to dazzle the rent-a-cop, even after he had studied each intently. But finally he picked up a telephone receiver, spoke briefly into it-Roscoe could not hear what he was saying-and then hung up.
He signaled for Roscoe to go through a sturdy translucent glass door.
Roscoe signaled for the return of his passport and press passes.
The rent-a-cop shook his head and announced, "When you come out, you get back."
Roscoe considered offering the observation that at the Pentagon, the State Department, and the White House they just looked at press passes and gave them back, but in the end decided it would probably be counterproductive.
He went through the translucent door, on the other side of which were two more rent-a-cops behind a counter, and another sturdy glass door, this one transparent, and through which he could see neatly trimmed grass around a pathway leading to the embassy building itself.
It's just as unbelievably ugly as the embassy in London, Roscoe decided.
Obviously designed by the same dropout from the University of Southern Arkansas School of Bunker and Warehouse Architecture.
The door would not open.
Roscoe looked back at the rent-a-cops.
One of them was pointing to the counter. The other was pointing to a sign on the walclass="underline"
NO ELECTRONIC OR INCENDIARY DEVICES BEYOND THIS POINT
Incendiary devices? Are they talking about cigar lighters?
"What in there?" one of the rent-a-cops demanded, pointing at Roscoe's laptop case.
"My laptop. I'm a journalist. I need it to take notes."
"Not past this point. You got cellular phone, organizer, butane lighter?"
"Guilty on all points."
"You got or not got?"
"I got," Roscoe said, and then put them on the counter.
"Keys set off wand," one of the rent-a-cops said. "You got keys, better you leave them, too."
Roscoe added his key chain to everything else.
One of the rent-a-cops came from behind the counter, waved the wand around Roscoe's body, and then gestured toward the glass door.
This time it opened. A U.S. Marine in dress trousers and a stiffly starched open-collared khaki shirt was waiting for him outside the main entrance to the embassy building. He had a large revolver in a holster suspended from what looked like a patent-leather Sam Browne harness.
"Mr. Danton?"
"Thank God, an American!"
"Mr. Danton?"
"Roscoe Danton, an alumnus of the Parris Island School for Boys, at your service, Sergeant."
"If you will come with me, Mr. Danton?" The sergeant led him into the building, through a magnetic detector, and down a corridor to the right.
He pointed to a wooden bench.
"If you will sit there, Mr. Danton, someone will attend to you shortly. Please do not leave this area."
Roscoe dutifully sat down. The Marine sergeant marched away.
There was a cork bulletin board on the opposing wall.
After perhaps thirty seconds, Roscoe, more from a desire to assert his journalist status than curiosity-he had been thinking, Fuck you, Sergeant. I ain't in the Crotch no more; you can't order me around-stood up and had a look at it.
Among the other items on display was the embassy Daily Bulletin. It contained the usual bullshit Roscoe expected to see, and at the end of it was: UNOFFICIAL: ITEMS FOR SALE.
His eyes flickered over it.
"Bingo!" he said aloud.
Immediately after an offer to sell a baby carriage "in like-new condition"- Like-new condition? What did they do, turn the baby back in?-was an absolutely fascinating offer of something for sale: 2005 BMW. Royal Blue. Excellent Shape. 54K miles. All papers in order for sale to US Diplomatic Personnel or Argentine Nationals. Priced for quick sale. Can be seen at 2330 O'Higgins. Ask doorman. Alex Darby. Phone 531-678-666.
Five seconds after Roscoe had read the offer, the paper on which it had been printed was off the wall and in his pocket.
He sat back down on the bench and trimmed his fingernails.
Maybe they have surveillance cameras.
Maybe they saw me tear that off.
If they did, so what? "Mr. Danton, Ms. Grunblatt will see you now."
Sylvia Grunblatt was sitting behind a large, cluttered desk. She was not svelte, but neither was she unpleasingly plump. She had very intelligent eyes.
"What can the embassy of the United States do for Roscoe J. Danton of The Washington Times-Post?" she greeted him. "How about a cup of coffee for openers?"
"I would be in your debt," Roscoe said.
She poured coffee into a mug and handed it to him.
"Sugar? Canned cow?"
He shook his head.
"What brings you to the Paris of South America?" Grunblatt asked.
"I'm writing a feature with the working title, 'Tacos and Tango.'"