"What they meant by minority women was anyone who didn't have blond hair, blue eyes, and creamy white skin," Margo Huerta said with a hoot of disdain.
Carter let her tell her own story, which she did directly enough. The child of a well-to-do family, Margo Huerta had been polite and mannered until her school experiences in the U.S. Her drawings, technically brilliant, were largely of flowers, seascapes, animals. "All the safe stuff, you know. But none of that was making me happy."
At length she'd begun doing larger works, commemorating events of Mexican history. "Would you believe it, Carter? All of a sudden that made me controversial. A lot of people don't want to see their own history. Suddenly I had a purpose, and I've been at it ever since. I get top prices for this stuff, Carter. Can you believe it?"
"No question about it," Carter said, pouring himself more coffee. "Your work is museum quality."
"Hah!" she said, spinning around, challenging him. "What do you know of museums? What was the last one you were in?"
"As a matter of fact, the Pompidou in Paris was the last one, earlier this week. And a short while before that, the Topkapi in Istanbul."
Margo Huerta was impressed. "Pretty good for a CIA man."
"I think that is what is meant as a backhanded compliment," Carter said, "but I'm not CIA. Nothing like that."
"State Department? You aren't one of those little Ivy League career pantywaists?"
Smiling, Carter shook his head.
"And Rachel has sent you to me. You must be something in the profession."
Carter lit one of his cigarettes. "Let's stop trying to qualify each other and see what you can tell me about Lex Talionis."
"If you know about that, Carter, you are no mere art lover." She laughed at her own irony, plunked the three brushes she'd been using into a pot of solvent, and approached Carter, reminding him of a stately flamenco dancer. "What did Rachel tell you about me?"
"She told me she was jealous of your beauty."
"So that's how you got where you are. You made her fall in love with you."
"Only for a day," Carter said. "We're all too grown up for the other."
Still circling him. Margo Huerta moved closer, watching him with renewed interest and challenge. She took the remains of Carter's cigarette from him and smoked it for a moment. "Tell me, Carter, do you think I will fall in love with you for a day?"
Carter smiled. "I think I would be very pleased if you did. But whether that happens or not, I still need to talk about Lex Talionis." He decided to risk telling her about Norman Sasner.
"He was a great fool," Margo said, leading Carter over to an antique horsehair sofa, a classic analyst's couch. "I am not an official member of the intelligence community. My interests are in causes and I know activist sorts, so when I tell you it was open knowledge that he passed information to the CIA. you will get my point. If I knew, imagine what the professionals know. No discretion."
"Apparently he was well regarded at one time, and had good connections," Carter ventured.
"But he became caught up in the game and lost all sense of discretion."
Nick Carter went on to fill her in on the background of Prentiss, then sketched in his knowledge of Hector Cardenas and the mission Rachel Porat was on, resolving that he would tell no more unless he got a significant lead from Margo.
She sensed his caution.
"I tell you, Carter, I'm beginning to respect the way you work." She sighed as if clearing away any last-minute doubts about him. "Even if I were foolish enough to ask you for some identification, you would probably produce something that would look official and convincing and be completely worthless."
Carter smiled, and reached for his wallet.
"All right," she said. "I'll go for the big casino. If you qualify, we proceed. If not, well, perhaps we have dinner and fall in love for a day, and I finish my mural and you go back to school."
She asked for and lit another of Carter's cigarettes. "Does it mean anything to you that Bezeidenhout is at this very moment in Mexico? Only this week, he was here in the city, hosting a group of associates."
Carter did a quick scan of the leads he had. "Circumstantially, at least, it appears that Piet Bezeidenhout has defected from the security police and he may have burned them for several million in diamonds. He is probably a key player in the Lex Talionis organization."
Even as he spoke, an additional connection came through to him. "It also seems that Piet Bezeidenhout was having the same kind of meetings here in Mexico City that Hector Cardenas was having in Covington, Kentucky. He was making presentations and trying to interest potential backers."
Margo Huerta's eyes lit with admiration. "You are, as they say, a heavy hitter, Carter. Okay. We go on from here. I think we are going to get you somewhere and once we get there, not have to stop and check in with Daddy every time you need to make a decision." She rose, looking triumphant, moved to a small closet, and disappeared into it. Carter could hear the sounds of clothes hangers moving over a rack. Moments later, Margo emerged, looking a bit more formal from the top up. The cut-off sweatshirt had been replaced by a bright red silk blouse, a matching scarf, and a well-worn denim jacket. Margo looked as if she were off to a gallery opening or an evening of pub crawling. Carter began to get a suspicious prickly feeling about her.
"Come on, Carter. We're off. I'll bet your people didn't give you anything about Chepe Munoz, eh? Well, he's someone your boy, Prentiss, was in contact with. Knows his way around the CIA and the Cubans."
Carter, of course, had been briefed on Munoz, but he saw no reason to tell Margo Huerta that, since his suspicions of her were beginning to mount.
"We'll take my car," she said.
Margo locked up carefully, made sure the dead bolt on the large door to her studio engaged, then pulled a small chain security door into position and locked it.
As they started down the steps toward the rear garage, Carter began to realize why he'd been suspicious. There were five of them, arranged in two groups so that on first look it would appear to be a group of garage mechanics talking or, even more innocently, a bunch of teenagers. They were all relatively short and wiry.
Carter assessed them quickly.
They were good with feet, hands, or weapons.
They were lethal and ready.
Six
Carter knew that in Mexico you get great clues about people by the shoes they wear. The affluent wore handmade shoes or high-fashion brands. A large number of Mexican youths wore running or sports shoes; in some cases, a pair of cheap soccer shoes was the only pair the individual owned.
All five of the crew that waited for them wore new, expensive Nikes. Their trousers, although khakis, had the unmistakable look of being professionally pressed.
They dispersed and moved with strategic expertise, like dancers in some deadly ballet.
Carter saw immediately that what he'd mistaken for youth in the attackers was more a case of good conditioning and probably eating well. He reached immediately for Wilhelmina, but another Luger smashed it from his hand and a short, hardwood baton, half the length and half the weight of a riot stick, hit him across the right bicep, a stinging blow from an expert toss.
Positioning himself to use his feet, Carter got off one well-placed kick to the shoulder of one of the five. Working on instinct, he chopped at another attacker with his still numb right. His target went down, but Carter felt the impact roar through his arm. Turning to take a flying kick from a third attacker, he caught a leg in both hands, yanked upward, and converted the kicker's momentum into a continued upward thrust. The kicker came down hard and vulnerable on his tail bone, letting out a yowl of pain, his eyes filled with the fury of frustration.