MARY CALLED HIM IN HER VERY PLEASANT VOICE; SHE WANTED him to go home.
“There is no use you being here—they want to fry me—well, at least the ones who throw shit in my face—the others are fairly nice—I keep giving them hand lotion—you know for when they carry shit around—o scathful harm, condition of poverte.”
“Shakespeare?”
“No, Chaucer.”
“Well, I am staying for a while. And by the way, they have done away with the death penalty here.”
“That’s nice of them—not just because of me, I hope.”
But she wanted him to go home, because he was being threatened and followed each day. Though the last thing she would do is tell him she knew. There was also something else—which she was frightened he might discover:
One of the things they had to fight was the fact that she had brought so much money with her.
John did find it out.
There was already all kinds of speculation in the papers about why she brought this money with her. John wanted to know how the papers got wind of this. But no one would tell him that.
When her lawyer Xavier came to see him again, John inquired about the money because he wasn’t sure how much she had on her.
“How much did she bring down—fifty thousand?”
“One point nine million.”
“One point nine,” John repeated, his face suddenly becoming ashen. “Dollars?”
“Sí, dollars.”
This changed everything—that is, it was in the prosecution’s favour, and something they did not tell the defence until after the papers had reported it. Now Xavier had to not only admit that she had brought this money but make excuses as to why she did.
Why had she brought so much money down on a private plane if she did not want to do something underhanded? Xavier asked. Not that he believed, ever, that she intended to, but the justice system would make certain that the public thought this. The prosecutor made it clear she believed Mary Cyr came down to bribe some mining official. Xavier said he knew she didn’t, but it made everything more complicated now.
“People have known it since the beginning,” he said. “They kept it from me until they could make something of it—they know the public is becoming more and more incensed. Whenever I try to counteract that, they have another tidbit—now it is the money, she brought, as a bribe from Tarsco. Your picture is also in the paper, as having been sent down by the family to try to get the charges dropped. It puts you in a dangerous position.”
“Well, I am more interested in the position she is in,” John said.
But the money allowed certain people at Amigo the opportunity to put this tragedy behind them and blame her.
“You and I both know that is insane. What happened at the mine was criminal—the search was suspended because something criminal was happening,” John said.
Xavier looked at him, with a peculiar gaze, as if to say: How did you hear that?
John then said:
“Why did she say she brought the money? Not to shop, I hope.”
“No—not to shop—but to start an orphanage. To help people.”
“I see,” John said. “Of course.”
“But the prosecution tells us that that is impossible to believe. She was here to bribe someone at Amigo, so they would not reveal things.”
“Except,” John said, “I believe her, and so do you, And I do not think Amigo wants anything revealed—because if anything has been criminal, we will find out that they are the ones at fault.”
“The fact is not that they are at fault but that this will now be used to establish her guilt,” Xavier said.
“You know and I know, and Señorita Tallagonga knows—she is innocent,” John said. “Everyone knows she is innocent—”
“¿Por qué no habló del dinero?” said Xavier.
Then he repeated it in English: “Why wasn’t I told about the money? It makes my job very difficult.”
He seemed hurt. His face had the look a person has after a certain kind of infidelity, one by a tradesman who broke a promise or took you for too much money.