The Five Arrows Part 16

"It's nice and sunny," Hall said. "Eating alone? Take a chair."

"Oh, thank you, Mr. Hall. d.a.m.n nice of you."

Hall wanted to shove the incongruous h.e.l.ls and d.a.m.ns down the pink face of the Hollander. "Not at all," he said. "I like company." But the beaming Dutchman brought goose pimples to his spine this morning.

"Excuse me," Hall said, rising. "I'll be back in a minute."

He went to the desk, picked up a pad of cable blanks and an indelible pencil. Then, at the table, he sat with pencil poised over the pad and smiled at Androtten. "Mine is a funny business," he said. "When you get to the capital of a country you can't go right to work, you know. Far from it, Androtten. First you smooch around the town like a prowler, talking to taxi drivers and bartenders and ..."

"Pardon my ignorance, Mr. Hall. But _smooch_? Is it a real word or journalists' slang?"

"I guess you'd call it slang. I mean you have to mingle with the little people to get an idea of the currents."

"And when you get this idea?"

"When you get the idea, you can go to work." Hall wrote the name and address of the editor of one of the big weeklies in the States on the blank. "Vice-President Gamburdo is man of hour here today," he wrote.

"Tomorrow may be man of hour in all Latin America. Arranging for interview. Can you use? Matthew Hall."

"And now you are working?"

Hall turned the blank around so that Androtten could read the text of his cable. "I'll let you in on my secret," he laughed.

The Dutchman read the text. "Interesting," he said. "d.a.m.n interesting."

"I'm afraid it's just routine."

"Oh, never that." The Dutchman sighed. "When such vital personalities as Senor Gamburdo are routine to you, Mr. Hall, I imagine that my story has only a small chance of ever being told. But I suppose that is merely as it should be."

"h.e.l.l, no, Mr. Androtten. I'll tell you what we'll do. As soon as I have my interview with Gamburdo, we'll sit down and have our chat and then I'll query the _Sat.u.r.day Evening Post_ or _Collier's_ and whatever they offer we'll split down the middle."

"You make me happy as h.e.l.l, Mr. Hall. But please, money is no object.

Please keep all of the money."

Hall shook his head. "We'll fight that out later," he said. "Cigar?"

Androtten demurred. His heart was not strong enough for cigars that early in the morning, he explained. "In Java I was healthier than an ox," he said. "But the d.a.m.n j.a.panese ..." He let the rest of the sentence remain unspoken.

Through the open window of the dining room, Hall saw Pepe's LaSalle drive up to the Bolivar.

He excused himself with an "I'll be seeing you," and walked out to the desk. He handed the cable blank to the day clerk. "Send it press rate collect," he said.

Pepe had a message for Hall from Souza. Ansaldo had returned to the Bolivar at 3:14 A.M., twenty-three minutes before Wilhelm Androtten.

They had both left calls to be awakened at eight in the morning.

"That all Souza said?"

"That is the complete message."

"Well, it's something, anyway." The papers said that Ansaldo was to spend the morning at the bedside of President Tabio.

"Where to?"

"Gobernacion Building. But not right away. Drive somewhere where we can have a coffee together. I'd like to talk to you first."

Pepe took him to a little workers' restaurant on the edges of the business section of New San Hermano. It was evident that he had had little sleep.

"Tired?" Hall asked.

The driver whistled, softly. "Like a corpse," he admitted.

An amused grimace distorted Hall's face. "What a corpse!" he said. "Why didn't you tell the boys who followed the teachers and me from the cafe last night to be better than the little dog?"

"You saw them?"

"I kept tripping over them all the way home."

Pepe thought it was very funny. "They pledged their lives to protect yours, the bunglers. Reliable, but clumsy."

"I am not angry," Hall said. "I am grateful."

"For nothing," Pepe protested.

"Pepe, do you know why I came to San Hermano?"

The big Asturian shrugged his shoulders. "You never told me, or Fernando. Miguelito and his friend said you have the mouth of a clam."

"Do you want to know why?"

"I never question friends. You are a friend."

Hall looked up at Pepe Delgado and wanted to tell him how much he reminded him of the best of the men he had met in Spain, the best of the officers and _milicianos_ who never, even in the heat of battle, forgot the feelings and the sacred _dignidad_ of their fellow men.

"Mother of G.o.d!" Pepe laughed. "Don't look at me as if I were that girl with the red hair."

"You are a good _companero_," Hall said. "In a few days, perhaps I can tell you."

"I never ask questions of friends," Pepe said.

"I know. Did Souza tell you what I told him last night?"

"No. Only about when Ansaldo and Androtten came back."

"Can you reach Souza today?"

"Of course."

"Then listen. Tonight, he must find some excuse for moving me into the room next to Ansaldo--if there is such a room. Do you think he can do it?"