“Yes, but he canceled our first meeting, dinner the evening before last. I have not heard from him since.”
“And the reason for his bad manners?”
“Bad manners?”
“Canceling dinner with a lovely foreign visitor whom you have invited to visit would not normally be considered good manners, would it, even in Canada?”
I ignored the gibe.
“What were you meeting him for? Perhaps to carry some stolen merchandise out of the country for him? I understand you have a fair knowledge of the import/export business.”
“I really do not know what he wanted to talk to me about. It really was just an excuse to get away from my studies and the Canadian winter,” I replied. My reply, though true, sounded questionable even to me. And no doubt I looked a little long in the tooth to be a student.
Another lengthy pause. Perhaps this is a technique I thought: wait long enough and the person will bleat something.
“May I see your passport, please?”
A new approach. I handed it to him, then watched in dismay as he slipped it into his jacket pocket and rose from his chair.
“You can’t take that!” I sputtered.
“Ah yes, but I can. Do not, as they say in your American movies, leave town, senora.”
Then he was gone, leaving me with the satisfaction, albeit minimal, of being right about the movies.
My first reaction was to try to reach my father to see what he and his diplomatic connections could do for me here. It’s amazing how no matter how old we get, we still turn to our parents in a pinch. However, now that my father was retired, my parents, their wanderlust still unsated, were always traipsing off somewhere, usually somewhere obscure. Currently, if I remembered correctly, they were on the slow train for Ulan Bator.
Instead, I went looking for Don Santiago. After expressing his outrage in decidedly undiplomatic language, he propelled himself over to a telephone and began phoning some old acquaintances in the diplomatic corps.
As I left the sitting room I passed Alejandro at the front desk.
“You and I need to talk, Alejandro,” I hissed on the way by.
He looked nonplussed for a brief moment, but then merely smiled and nodded. This was one composed young man.
“Meet me at the Cafe Escobar, in an hour,” I said, naming a small restaurant just a couple of blocks from the hotel.
Reasonably calmed by my brief conversation with Santiago Ortiz, and his promise to try to fix the mess with the passport, I went into the kitchen to get some coffee. Isa and her mother were sitting at the big oak table having a companionable cup of coffee together. Don Santiago soon joined us. I told them about my day so far, then inquired about Don Hernan.
“Still not back, and we haven’t heard from him either. We’re getting worried,” Francesca said.
“This would hardly be the first time he has disappeared on us,” Santiago observed.
“Yes, but he usually calls,” Francesca countered.
“I went to his office yesterday. It was locked up tight. I’d hoped he’d be there, or if not, I was hoping to get in to take a look around to see if there might be clues as to where he might be.”
The Ortizes exchanged a glance, and Francesca rose from her seat.
Santiago said, “We have a key—Don Hernan was always misplacing his, so he left a spare with us. Francesca will get it for you. I’m sure Don Hernan would not mind.”
As I was about to leave them a few minutes later, key in hand, a bell rang in the kitchen. The Casa de las Buganvillas still has the features of a gracious home of a bygone era, including a kind of upstairs/downstairs bell system where the aristocrat upstairs pulls a cord in the room and a bell rings down in the kitchen. This summons staff to receive commands, go back downstairs to act upon them, and then return upstairs with the task completed.
Most hotel guests, of course, simply telephoned the front desk when they wished something.
“I thought that system had been disconnected years ago,” I said.
“It has”—Isa sighed—“except for the Empress.”
Francesca rose from her chair to answer the bell in person.
“The Empress?” I asked.
“Senora Josefina Ramirez de Leon Tinoco,” Isa replied. “She treats my family as if they were her personal servants!”
I don’t pretend to understand the Mexican naming system, but I get the general idea that the longer your name, the higher your station in life. This name should put Dona Josefina pretty close to royalty, maybe just this side of God. Clearly she had never felt the need to learn to use the telephone.
“Does she wear a mantilla?” I asked.
“Always.” Isa smiled.
And with that I left them.
Shortly thereafter I made my way to the Cafe Escobar. I had no idea whether Alejandro would show up or not.
The cafe was far from fancy, lots of Formica and what my neighbor Alex likes to call “little junks”—dangling Day of the Dead skulls and the like. But the food was good and plentiful and one wall had a Diego Rivera-like mural that appealed very much to students and aging dissidents. I thought it would be a place where Alejandro would feel comfortable.
As I waited for him I tried to calm myself. I had had nothing to eat yet and it was already well past noon, which didn’t help any. I’d consumed several cups of very strong black coffee, and with this and the events of the day, I was almost dizzy with caffeine, adrenaline, and anxiety.
I ordered chicken chilaquiles, a casserole of tortillas, shredded chicken, tomatillos, chilis, cream, and cheese. To wash it down, a Dos XX beer. If he didn’t show up, at least I’d have had lunch. I sat in a small banquette against the wall, watching the door, mentally plotting my approach to the subject.
Show up he did. Bold as brass.
He slid into me booth opposite me and quickly ordered a beer for himself. He was obviously well known here: he didn’t have to tell them which brand.
“You wanted to talk to me about something?” He smiled.
This was a very self-possessed young man. I had to remind myself that he was only about half my age.
“Yes I do, Alejandro. About a robbery. In a bar. A robbery at which, as it turns out, I was present.”
His expression did not change.
“Not only present,” I continued, “but in which I am implicated.”
“Implicated?” He looked surprised.
“Yes. In more ways than one. The police believe I have information that would lead them to the perpetrator.”
Now I thought I was beginning to get through to him, judging by the way he kept nervously twirling the coaster on the table.
“I could, in fact, should I choose to, lead them to one of the perpetrators. Ironically, however, it is not the person they are looking for.”
“I’m not sure I follow you,” he said, but he looked a little uneasy now.
“Would it interest you to know that the police suspect Dr. Castillo of masterminding the whole event? And that he is now the object of search of that rather ruthless Major Martinez?”
A slight flicker of emotion, apprehension perhaps, crossed his face.
“I cannot imagine why they would do that,” was all he said. But I had struck a nerve.
“Tell me, just who are these Children of the Talking Cross?” I asked.
“I have no idea,” he said.
“Oh, I think you do, Alejandro. Why would these people, whoever they are, steal a statue of Itzamna and not the others?”
“Perhaps some political reasons you wouldn’t understand,” he said slowly.
“Or perhaps they are just a bunch of young hoodlums defying their parents, and making a nuisance of themselves, drawing innocent people in as they go!”