Chapter Fourteen
‘Hotel Cochabamba. Yes, please?’
‘I’d like to speak to Miss Debonnair Delacroix, please.’
‘But certainly, Senor. If you will please hold the line.’
‘Thank you.’ Shaw reflected that he hadn’t even been asked for a room number; the voice knew Miss Delacroix right away. It wasn’t all that surprising, of course; the girl created a stir wherever she went — just by being herself. He doubted if they had ever seen a girl as lovely as Debonnair up in this Bolivian town of La Paz, though, being to some extent one of the playgrounds of the rich, it would obviously have its quota of female charm.
He shifted the phone to his other ear and dabbed at his face and neck with a linen handkerchief. He was sweating uncomfortably. The actual temperature wasn’t all that high, probably around sixty, he guessed, for La Paz was situated in one of the upland valleys of the Andes and they were way above sea-level; but the sudden contrast between La Paz this evening and the freezing, snow-bound morning temperature in New York had hit him like a bomb all the same. He had decided almost at the last minute to deviate into La Paz instead of flying straight south to Punta Arenas because he understood that Debonnair’s boy-friend, Carlos Villaroel, was an influential man, and he felt that just a touch of influential contact in South America wouldn’t come amiss. And he didn’t believe he’d been swayed in the very least by the undeniable fact that he wanted to see Debonnair again while he had the chance.…
There was a click in his ear and a voice he recognized instantly said ‘Yes?’
‘Deb…’
There was a pause, after a slightly startled and altogether incredulous sound. ‘Esmonde? Why — what—’
‘Can I come along and see you?’
‘Why, of course, darling!’ she sounded breathless, still unable to take it in. ‘Come along. I’ve only just got here, practically. Flew in this morning. But — Esmonde, I don’t get it. Only a couple of days ago you phoned me in London — or was it three days? What are you doing here, anyway?’
He said, ‘Come to see you. When?’
‘Any time you like.
‘Sure?’
‘Of course I’m sure.’ There was a touch of puzzlement in her tone and a little asperity. ‘Why do you ask that?’
‘Is Villaroel there?’
There was a pause. ‘Yes, he is.’
‘Good,’ he said. ‘I’d like a word with him, but I want you alone first. This is business and pleasure mixed. See you, Deb.’
He rang off.
A slick American-style cab took Shaw into La Paz from the airport. La Paz, seat of Bolivia’s government, was an old city, an age-old place of tiny clustered dwellings, of stark poverty and squalor and disease but also, in the modern sector, where the buildings were elegant and airy and expensive, a centre of wealth as well. A city indeed of almost incredible wealth concentrated into a very few hands, a city where, though you could starve to death in the sun-filled streets for lack of a couple of bolivianos, you could, if you happened to be one of those favoured few, spend the equivalent of fifty pounds sterling on dinner for two — and get your money’s worth. And the Hotel Cochabamba catered for that sort of wealth and had that sort of clientele. It was a glittering palace, super twentieth century, and to Shaw’s eyes garish and vulgar. It looked almost grotesquely intrusive in a place of the character of La Paz, which in fact it dominated by its very height, towering as it did above the little streets with the close-built, mean, but picturesque houses.
But perhaps, Shaw thought as he got out of the cab at the ornate entrance, it fitted with Carlos Villaroel. Then he told himself that he mustn’t be spiteful, mustn’t let his feelings cloud his judgement or prejudice him against the man whose help he was, in however small a way and however unwillingly, about to seek, Villaroel wasn’t all that bad, anyway — again he reminded himself that when he had met him that once, very briefly, he’d liked him.
When he walked up the broad steps into the foyer Debonnair was sitting waiting for him. He had spotted her before she became aware of him, and he felt a wave of nostalgia sweep over him like a flood as he watched her fair head bent over a travel brochure, and the nyloned knees peeping out seductively below the skirt rucked up just a little, carelessly, in exactly the way he had seen it so many times before.
As he approached, she looked up.
He couldn’t quite interpret the expression in her eyes, on her lips… it was cautious, somehow hesitant and shy — but pleased. She was, he felt, glad to see him and yet at the same time apprehensive about his visit, almost as though she feared that he and Villaroel might come to blows over her, as if Shaw had come in the old-fashioned rôle of the vengeful lover.
She smiled up at him. ‘Well, Esmonde! At least we can’t say it’s a long time since we met, can we?’
He murmured, ‘“Where have all the young girls gone… Long time ago…”’
‘Don’t, Esmonde.’ There was a flicker of pain in her eyes.
‘All right. It was a long ’way off, though,’ he answered shortly. ‘In more ways than one…’
‘Esmonde, please!’ She got to her feet and put a hand on his arm. ‘Anyway, it is nice to see you.’
‘Where’s Villaroel?’
‘In the bar.’
He looked at her quizzically, his mouth twisted. ‘With mum or sis?’
‘No,’ she answered quietly, looking somehow hurt. ‘No… they’re down at the hacienda, Concepción way.’
‘Oh, yes, you told me.’
‘We’re going on there the day after tomorrow.’
‘And in the meantime?’ His voice was a little hard. ‘I thought you were going to be well chaperoned… ah, but that was after La Paz, wasn’t it. I forgot again. I’m sorry.’
She flushed. ‘Esmonde, it’s not like you to be sarcastic, or to want to hurt people. Oh, I know all this is hurting you, darling, but… look, Esmonde, it’s not like that. Not what you seem to be suggesting. Truly, it isn’t!’
‘I know, Debbie dear,’ he said repentantly. ‘I’m sorry. Now listen. I haven’t got very long. I’m going to suggest we have a drink together, but not in the bar. In your room or Villaroel’s.’ He added, grinning, ‘By the way, I’m not collecting evidence against you!’
She caught his eye and smiled. ‘But you have got a reason for that, haven’t you?’
He nodded. ‘Yes, I have. I want to have a serious talk. Not about us.’ He smiled down into her eyes and tried to hide the hurt in his own. ‘Just business. One point first though: I take it Villaroel’s… all right?’
‘Absolutely,’ she said at once, though there was a curiously alert look in her eyes, a look almost of alarm. ‘He was in the Bolivian Diplomatic Service for a while, a few years ago. Nothing important, but they thought rather a lot of him. But you’re not to—’
‘Who said they thought a lot of him? Mum or sis?’
She exploded into a laugh; she couldn’t help it. ‘Neither,’ she said. ‘I haven’t met them yet, anyway. My old chief in the F.O said it, and he knows.’
‘Fine. That’s good enough for me, then. Not that I’m going to tell him anything that matters, needless to say, but he may be able to help. I gather he’s influential?’
She dimpled. ‘And who told you that?’
‘You. Or was it Latymer?’
‘Either of us could have done,’ she said. ‘The Villaroels are about the richest family in Bolivia — and I mean rich. They’re just about the most.’