“He owns Mexico City,” Evita said. “He’s been there twenty years or more. What do you think you can do against him?”
McGarvey just looked at her.
“What are you doing? You an ex-CIA officer and me a whore.”
“He knew I was coming. He knew that someone like me would be talking to you.”
“He knows everything.”
“How, Evita? How could he know? Nine months ago I didn’t even know.”
“He’s a magician.”
“He’s a Soviet spy, nothing more.”
“He has friends everywhere.”
“Like you?”
“I’m no friend of his!” she flared.
“But you worked for him.”
She passed a hand over her eyes. “You don’t understand, you can’t understand even after everything I told you.” She looked up. “But you will if you ever meet him face-to-face. Then you’ll see.”
“Does the name Basulto mean anything to you, Evita?” he asked. She stiffened. “Yes?” he prompted.
“It’s a cubano name,” she said. “Fairly common.” She wasn’t convincing.
“Francisco Artime Basulto. He was in Mexico City in the old days.”
She closed her eyes. “Maybe,” she said hesitantly. “Did he say he’d gone to the Ateneo Español? Was he ever there? Did he know the names and places?”
“Yes. Do you remember him?”
“He was young. A fancy dresser. Threw his money around.”
“That’s the one,” McGarvey said. “Did you know him?”
“He was around.”
“You saw him, at the Ateneo?”
“At some of the parties, too.”
“Was he ever with Baranov?”
She nodded. “And Darby. He was one of the regular crowd for a while.”
“Baranov knew him?”
“Yes.”
“Did he ever talk about Basulto with you? Did he ever mention his name? Say what kind of a person he was? Who he worked for?”
She was trying to remember. She shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know. Maybe. But he wasn’t much, or I would remember him better. There were so many of them.”
“Did he ever do any work for Baranov, that you know of? Or maybe for your husband?”
“I don’t know.”
“What happened to him?”
“He just left, I guess. I wasn’t paying much attention in those days, I’ve already told you. Most of them were leaving then anyway. It wasn’t the same any longer.”
“Would you recognize him if you saw him now?”
“I might,” she said.
“Did Baranov ever mention his name to you? In New York, perhaps, nine months ago?”
She was finally catching his drift. She looked a little closer at him. “No he didn’t. What does Basulto have to do with this?”
“He told me that he saw your husband and Baranov together in Mexico City, when the Ateneo was going strong. Before the Bay of Pigs.”
“So?”
“But he didn’t know who your husband was, only that he was an American.”
“That’s hard to believe. Everyone knew Darby in those days.”
“Basulto was arrested in Miami a few weeks ago. He told the FBI that your husband was working for the Russians. He said your husband was on the beach at the Bay of Pigs, where he murdered a CIA case officer who might have had certain suspicions.”
“He’s lying to you.”
“About what?”
“About not knowing Darby and probably about everything else. He was at our house. More than once.”
“He’s coming to Mexico City to help us.”
She laughed. “Then you are a bigger fool than I thought you were. If that Cuban is in on this, you’ve been led into a trap. All of us have.”
“That’s what we’re going to find out,” McGarvey said.
The night was very hot and still. A dense smog hung over the great city. Riding in from the airport in a beat up old taxi, McGarvey could taste the air and feel it at the back of his throat and in his eyes. Evita sat next to him, looking straight ahead, her slight body held rigidly erect. She had not said a thing since they landed except when the customs official asked if she had anything to declare. She did not, and she was passed through. Traffic was very heavy. The city was ablaze with lights. Much of the damage from the recent earthquake was still evident, and poverty was apparent everywhere from the side of the road. They came to the Hotel del Prado, across from La Alameda Park downtown, and McGarvey paid off the cabbie. Evita did not want to go upstairs immediately, so McGarvey gave their bags to an oddly reticent doorman and they walked across the street.
“It doesn’t feel like home and yet it does,” she said. “It’s all different now.”
“How?”
“I’m not a little girl anymore, and there’s no one left for me.”
“Harry didn’t think you’d leave if you came back here.”
“He’s probably right, because there is nothing for me in New York or Washington, either.”
“Your daughter …”
“Was lost to me the day Darby took over. And if she’s been with Valentin, she’s doubly lost.”
Some sort of demonstration was going on across the park along the Avenida Hidalgo. People were hurrying toward the noise from all over the park and the surrounding streets. McGarvey thought the crowd sounded angry, but Evita didn’t seem to notice at first.
“You’ll be safe once this is finished,” McGarvey said, trying to sound convincing. A bonfire was burning in the street. They could see the flames through the trees. “You’re her mother. Once her father and Baranov are exposed, she’ll come back to you.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Everything will be different …”
They suddenly came within sight of the large crowd choking the avenue. Evita pulled up short. Long banners had been hung in the trees and between the streetlights. A lot of people carried signs.
“I think we should go to the hotel,” she said.
“What do the banners say?”
“‘Glory to work,”’ she read. “‘The party and the people are united. Long live the Soviet people, builders of Communism.”’
McGarvey took her by the arm and they headed back toward the protective darkness of the park. A huge roar went up from the crowd. McGarvey turned around in time to see a straw-filled figure dressed in tails, red-striped trousers and a top hat, a white goatee on its chin, burst into flames over the bonfire.
“Libertad!” the crowd screamed. “Libertad!”
28
At ten that evening McGarvey called Hialeah. “Morgan here, who’s calling?”
“This is Kirk McGarvey. Let me talk to Artimé.”
“Oh, they said you’d be calling,” the FBI field man said. “When do we get rid of this scumbail?”
“In the morning. I want him on the first plane to Mexico City. But stay with him until the plane actually takes off.”
“We’ve babysat the bastard this long, another ten or twelve hours won’t hurt much. How much money do you want us to give him?”
“Fifty bucks. I don’t want him having enough to wander off on me.”
“Listen pal, once we get him aboard that plane in the morning and watch it take off, he’s no longer our responsibility. I just want to get that straight with you. Once he leaves, he’s your headache.”
“Has anyone else called or tried to come up there?”
“No one except Washington.”
“Trotter?”
“Yes.”
“Put Basulto on, would you?”
“Yeah,” the cop said. “It’s for you,” McGarvey heard the man say away from the phone.