PETER ROSS AWOKE IN THE morning feeling damp, stiff, and unrested. He looked up and saw a guard unlocking his door. His first thought was that they were bringing him breakfast, and then Capitán Gonzales walked in.
Ross was not really surprised to see him.
“Get up,” Gonzales said.
Ross got up slowly.
“You are very lucky,” Gonzales said. “We had scheduled interrogation to begin this morning. Before breakfast. That is so you would not be sick.”
“Thoughtful of you.”
“But there will be no interrogation.”
“I know,” Ross said.
“I suspected you did,” Gonzales said. “Those with powerful friends always know.”
“That’s me,” Ross said. “A man with powerful friends.”
“You are lucky,” Gonzales repeated. “If it had been the consulate, they could have done nothing.”
“But it wasn’t the consulate,” Ross said.
“No.”
“Tell me,” Ross said. “Which of my many powerful friends was it?”
Gonzales shook his head.
“But I have to send a thank-you note.”
Gonzales spat on the floor. “The judge was paid. The charges are dismissed. That is all you need to know.”
He led Ross down a corridor, toward the exit.
“The government,” he said, “is processing the necessary papers to declare you persona non grata. In less than forty-eight hours, you will be forced to leave Spain. I suggest you avoid unpleasantness and leave first.”
“Believe me,” Ross said, “I will.”
“Forgive me,” Gonzales said, “for doubting you.”
He opened the door, and Ross stepped out into the sunlight. Gonzales gave him a final, strange look, and closed the door.
Ross was alone, and free.
He took a taxi to his hotel, where the concierge greeted him like a man returned from the dead. “Ah, Señor, she will be very glad to see you.”
“She is still here?”
“Yes, Señor.”
“That’s interesting,” Ross said. He was not surprised. He took the elevator to the top floor and unlocked the door to the room. Angela was sitting on the bed, reading a paperback and munching an apple. She threw them down when she saw him.
“Pete! Thank God.”
She ran up and threw her arms around him, hugging him, but he did not respond. After a moment, she stepped back.
“Something wrong?”
“You tell me.”
“Pete, I’m so glad to see you. What’s the matter?”
“I don’t know,” he said. He went to the closet and opened it; their suitcases were there, still packed. “Why did you stay here?”
“What a foolish question. I was worried about you, and I—”
“Knew I would be getting out soon?”
“No,” she said, in a soft voice. “How would I know that?”
“You tell me.”
She came up to him, very gently, and touched his face. “Pete, please—”
He turned away from her. “You know,” he said, “I’ve been thinking. About a lot of things.”
“So have I, and—”
“And the more I thought, the more peculiar everything seems.”
She stared at him and said nothing. He walked to the window and looked out
“Because,” he said, “somebody has kept track of me from the minute I entered Spain. Somebody has told people where I am, what I’m doing, and where I’m going.”
“Pete, if you think—”
“So,” he said, “I began to work on it. To try to decide who it was, and why. Especially why.”
“I don’t understand what you’re saying.”
“Sure you do. You understand just fine.”
“If you mean that I’ve been spying on you—”
“That’s right,” he said, sitting down.
They said nothing for a long time. Then she sat on the bed, fumbled in her purse, and lit a cigarette.
“Yes,” she said. “It’s all true.”
“You’re working for the count?”
“Yes,” she said in a soft voice.
“How long?”
“A year. A little more.”
Ross turned away in disgust. “Christ,” he said. He frowned, looking out the window at the traffic. In the glass, he saw his features reflected—hard, angry, and a little sad.
“It’s too bad,” he said.
She did not reply.
“I suppose you know all about the autopsy?”
“Yes.”
“And what I did?”
“Yes.”
“Who told you?”
“The count. He had a spy in the group that arranged the autopsy. It’s a long story.”
“The count seems to know everything.”
She sighed. “Almost”
He turned back and looked at her. She was huddled on the bed, her skirt pulled up, looking forlorn and tender. He fought an impulse and said, “The count sounds very remarkable. When do I meet him?”
“Whenever you want.” Her voice was flat and mechanical.
“That’s why you stayed, isn’t it? To take me to him? After he paid off the judge and got me free?”
“Yes.”
He looked at her face, tear-stained, pinched. “He must pay you well. Were you really a stewardess, or an actress?”
“I’m not acting.”
“Oh. That’s good.”
“Please, Pete—”
“You really are remarkable. You had me fooled.”
“I’m not acting.”
“Very good, for an amateur.”
“Pete, I love you. I swear it.”
“I’m sure,” he said, “that you would have cried buckets when I received my prison sentence. You would have cried for a week, even. Maybe two.”
“You’re not fair.”
“I’m scared. I don’t expect you to understand it. I’m scared.”
“So am I.”
“Swell. Just so you take me to the count.”
She got up wearily from the bed. “You don’t have to go,” she said. “I could tell him you never returned to the hotel. No one would know.”
She wiped her eyes with a handkerchief. The eyes, sad and red, still pleaded with him.
“Too late for that,” he said. “I’m in too deep.”
“You’re not.”
“I am, thanks to you. I am now an integral cog in the machinery. I have been primed and filled with information. I am a living set-up.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Take me to the count,” he said.
“Pete, it’s dangerous.”
“No kidding.”
“Pete, please, stop it. I can’t take much more.”
“That’s good to hear.”
She walked up to him then and slapped him as hard as she could. It was not very hard; he blinked. She kicked him in the shin.
“You’re a fool, a damned fool! Don’t you understand anything? Get out, get out, forget the whole thing!”
He stared at her and watched as she ran her fingers through her glossy black hair.
“Call the count,” he said. “Now.”
The speedometer on the red Mercedes limousine said one sixty, and it was calibrated in miles. The car tore across the mountainous dry land, raising a cloud of dust behind. The driver was a squat Spaniard with a heavy beard and wrap-around sunglasses. He said nothing, but drove with dogged, animal determination.
In the back seat, Ross sat with Angela, not speaking. They had been driving for three hours, crossing the same harshly monotonous landscape at the same breakneck speed. Occasionally, he looked at her, and she pretended not to notice and continued to stare out the window.
He wanted to talk to her, to trust her, but he knew he could not. Not now, and perhaps not ever. That was the way it was, and the way it had to be. He still did not understand what was happening, except that he had somehow become crucial in everything. The professor had talked to him, but the professor must have known that Angela was working for the count. Therefore, everything the professor said was calculated to be relayed to the count.
But Hamid—that was another thing altogether. Something quite different. Hamid was somebody’s mistake. Whose mistake Ross did not know. But a mistake.
Now Ross was letting himself in for it. A stupid maneuver. Angela was right, he was a damned fool. But he could not help himself. There had been a time when it was all very frightening. And then there was a time when it was all very macabre and confusing. Finally, it had become a roaring pain in the ass. Ross wanted to know how it all fitted together and why he had become involved.
So he was going to see the count.
He was a damned fool, no doubt about it. This was none of his business, it was too deep, too complex, too intricate, too violent. If he had any sense, he’d leave. He’d stop the car right now, and hitch a ride back to the next big city, and take the next plane back to New York. He’d quit and forget it all. After a month in New York, it would all seem like a bad dream, nothing more.
Angela said, “I’m sorry to get you involved.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Yes,” she said. “It does.”
He didn’t want to talk to her. When he heard her voice, his stomach twisted, and he felt odd. He wanted to trust her, yet he knew he could not. That was all past. It could not be recaptured.
He stared out the window. They passed a farmhouse, a simple shack surrounded by animals—a lazy burro, clucking chickens, a litter of pigs. The farmhouse stood alone in the desolate landscape. There was no sign of a living person anywhere. And then it was gone, lost in the swirling dust plume of the car.