Thirty-Five

Outside the bookstore Finn tried to hail a cab.

“Don’t you have a car?” Eduardo asked. “We could take my car if you tell me where we are going.”

“You’re really taking this well,” Hollis told him. “Shouldn’t you be trying to kill us, or at least making a run for it?”

“If Carlos wants me dead and I get away, he will kill Teresa.”

Hollis caught Finn’s eye. “It’s going to work out,” Finn said to Eduardo. “Where’s your car?”

Eduardo pointed toward a black BMW and the three got in. Eduardo sat in the driver’s seat, Finn next to him, and Hollis in the back.

“Hold the map.” Finn passed the package with the map and guidebook to her.

“Hold the gun,” she told him, handing over the weapon they’d gotten from Peter.

“La Boca,” Finn told Eduardo, who swallowed hard and moved the car into the street.

“We’re not killers,” Finn told him. “We’re college professors.”

“Yes, I know the story you told Silva.”

“It’s not a story. We’re going to La Boca because Teresa told us last night that we had to visit the neighborhood. We think it was some kind of clue.”

“You’re friends of Declan?” His voice lifted slightly, with cautious hope.

“Friends is an exaggeration.”

From the backseat, Hollis scolded, “Finn. We’re friendly,” she told Eduardo. “We’re helping him, and now we’ll help you. You’re not going to die today.”

Eduardo glanced in the rearview mirror. “Carlos is not a man to be crossed. You must have a plan and a lot of people backing you up.”

“You would think,” Finn said. “We have each other, a spy named Peter, and … what else do we have, Hollis?”

She shrugged. “Not a lot.” But maybe there was something in the guidebook. Peter had left it for her to find, so Hollis paged through looking for a note, but there wasn’t one. However, a small corner of one page was turned down. “This is an entry about San Telmo Market.”

“An antiques market,” Eduardo said. “Very popular. Teresa’s father, he goes there to find spoons. He loves spoons.” He laughed. “He’s a very nice man, though, as you know. He’s very happy for Teresa to be away from Carlos.”

“As we know?” Finn sounded confused. “Oh, the driver.” He looked back to Hollis. “Did you realize that?”

She shook her head. “But it makes sense why Declan made such a point of telling him last night that he and Teresa weren’t involved. And why the driver is helping us. Because we’re supposed to help Teresa.”

“Would have been nice if Declan just told us all of this instead of locking us in a crypt.”

“He did that to keep you safe from Bryan,” Eduardo said. “Bryan is the one who sent you the death threat at your hotel. He wishes to be a hitman and he is unhappy having you come in to do this job to kill Declan that he could do himself. He’s going to be very mad when he finds out you were the ones to kill me and not him.”

Eduardo pulled onto a small street and parked. “This is the start of the neighborhood. It was originally just shipyard workers who lived here. They built houses from corrugated sheet metal and painted it with the leftovers from the ships. That’s why it’s so colorful.”

“It certainly is.” Even from the window of the car, Hollis could see bright blue, green, orange, yellow, and red. And that was just one house. The streets were filled with people and what looked like tables of souvenirs for sale. Many of the houses filled their balconies with giant papier mache people. On one there was Eva Perón and, once again, Carlos Gardel.

“Where would Teresa want us to meet her?”

Eduardo shook his head. “This is not a place we come.”

“Maybe that’s the point,” Finn said. “Maybe she wanted to meet us somewhere that was completely out of character for her. Someplace Carlos wouldn’t think to look.”

“A milonga,” Eduardo said. “She hates the tango. She would never go to one and there is a famous one on the next street.”

“I thought she met Carlos at one.”

“She has known him her whole life, but he doesn’t like to admit he married a woman he knew as a baby, so this is the story he tells people. Teresa’s favorite place is not a milonga.”

“So where …” Finn asked.

Eduardo started to answer, then he thought better of it, jumped out of the car before either Finn or Hollis could react, and disappeared into a sea of tourists.

“What now?” Finn said.

“We run after him.”

“Why? We’re not going to kill him and it’s not our job to keep him safe.”

“But if he shows up somewhere, Carlos is going to know we didn’t kill him. And it’s our job to keep us safe.”

“I have a better idea.” He handed the gun back to Hollis, who put it in her purse. “Let’s go.”

“Beautiful souvenirs, miss,” a man called to Hollis as she bumped and struggled to get through the crowd.

“We can dance?” A street performer put a fedora on Hollis’s head. She turned to face him. “Do you tango?” he asked.

“She does not.” Finn took the fedora from Hollis and placed it, rather forcefully on the dancer’s head.

“If you are hungry, we have menus in English,” a woman told them as they walked passed.

“We’re never going to find him,” Hollis said. “I think her La Boca story was to send us on a wild goose chase.”

“Not Teresa. She wanted us to come to this neighborhood. She was sending us …” Finn looked around the square until he saw what he wanted. “There.”

It was a small white building, the least colorful of any she had seen so far. “A church?”

“She said that Declan had turned away from God, she found that very sad. It’s just a guess but …”

“It’s a good guess.”

They took two steps inside before they knew it was a great guess. Teresa and Eduardo were sitting in a pew, holding hands. Teresa was crying slightly. When she saw them walk in, she looked relieved.

“You’re both safe,” Hollis said. “We’ve got a friend we can call to get you out of the country.”

Instead of making her happy, Teresa cried harder. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I had no idea Bryan would …”

“Would what?” Hollis asked.

Eduardo blushed. “I was going to run away once I realized where Teresa was suggesting. She always finds the church in a new neighborhood. Most Argentinians aren’t as religious as they once were but Teresa …”

“What did Bryan do?” Finn asked.

“He doesn’t yet know that Carlos wants me dead,” Eduardo said, “so he just called to tell me that he is going to kill you to prove himself. He is going to your hotel.”

“But we’re here, so it’s fine.”

“You said that the room you brought us to was just one of your rooms,” he said. “You told me that you had given the other away. I don’t know …”

“The honeymooners,” Hollis practically shouted. Her words echoed around the small church.

Finn grabbed Eduardo and pulled him up from the pew. “Eduardo, you have to drive us to the hotel, now.”

“The plan is to kill Bryan?” Eduardo asked. “It may be the only way.”

Finn looked at Hollis and she knew what the exasperated, confused expression on his face meant. Bryan might be the one person they would actually need to kill.