"I don"t know, _companeros_. It could be Hitler...."
"It could be Franco," Big Pepe said.
"He said that," Juan Antonio said. "He said Hitler, didn"t he, Miguelito?"
"Quiet," Miguelito said. "This is no joke. You said you saw him with his superior?"
Hall smiled at the boy. "Listen, _chico_," he said, "men with more pistols than you have tried to put words in my mouth before. All they got from my mouth was my spit."
"_Ole!_" Juan Antonio punched Miguelito"s shoulders with glee.
Souza was reading a fat book at his desk when Hall returned to the Bolivar. He greeted the boys with familiarity. "They are reliable," he said after they left.
"I know. I was sober when I called you before. But tonight your reliable boys nearly drank me under the table trying to find out who was with the little dog."
"The one who followed you to the Ritz?"
"The same one. They also told me that you are President of the Hotel Clerks Union."
"I am."
"Got a cigarette? Thanks. No, I"ve got matches." Hall looked around to see if he and Souza were alone. Quietly, he said, "Androtten was the man I saw with the little dog."
Souza"s face grew grimmer. "I don"t think I am surprised."
"Who is he?"
"I don"t know. But I don"t trust him."
"Maybe this will help you." Hall handed him the license number of the Renault. "It"s the number of the car they used."
"It will help," Souza said.
"What time did Ansaldo get in?"
"He did not get in, yet. Why?"
"Androtten was following his car, I think."
"Androtten is out, too."
"Maybe we have something."
"You have a message in your box." It was a note from Jerry. She was going to work all day and had to attend a party at the American Emba.s.sy in the evening. But she would call him in the morning.
"I am watching her," Hall explained.
The trace of a smile flitted across the long face of the night clerk. "I know," he said. "Pepe told me."
"I"ll kill him," Hall laughed. "I"m going to bed. Leave a note in my box about when they get in."
He went to his room. When he turned on the light, he saw that a note had been slipped under his door. It was from Jerry. "Thanks for a lovely day," it said. "I will call you before I leave for the lab."
_Chapter five_
He was dreaming of the crowds in the bull ring at Badajoz, but there were no bulls on the sand. It was the day of the ma.s.sacre, the day when the Portuguese troops herded the _milicianos_ and their families and handed them over to the waiting _franquistas_ on the Spanish side of the border. It was the day the _franquistas_ shoved the Republican families on to the sand of the bull ring at Badajoz and set up the heavy machine guns in the boxes and fired away until every human being on the field lay choking and dying in his own blood. In his dream Hall saw grand ladies in mantillas in the boxes that day tossing roses and perfumed kerchiefs to the animals at the machine guns, and in his dream he even knew that the perfume on the kerchiefs came from a certain shop in Barcelona.
Then Hall spotted a crowd of German and Spanish officers in another box and he leaped at them, his right hand gripping the ugly clasp knife in his pocket. There were nine officers in the box, four of them n.a.z.is and one a gaudy Italian colonel and the rest were Spanish fascists in capes and one of them wore a Requete beret, although his cape carried the golden embroidered five arrows of the Falange. They began to flee from their box in a panic, but Hall managed to get a quick look at one of the Spaniards and then flung his knife at the Spaniard"s retreating back.
Then the bells began to toll in the churches and carabineros left their machine guns and ran barehanded after Hall but the clang of the bells started to blot everything out and the church bells of Badajoz blended into the steady drone of a smaller bell in Hall"s ears and he awoke to the phone bell which had abruptly brought him back to San Hermano.
"Did I wake you up?" It was Jerry.
"Yeah. What time?"
"Stop groaning. Wash your face and I"ll call you back in five minutes."
Later, she asked him if he had been having a bad dream and he said it had been closer to a nightmare in technicolor. "About the war?" she asked, and he said it had been about the war.
"Darling," she said, "I wish you never have another nightmare as long as you live."
"Thanks," he said. "Do we have breakfast together?"
"No. I"m leaving with the doctors in a few minutes. Work all day."
"Dinner tonight?"
"That"s out, too. I have to go to a party with the doctors at the American Emba.s.sy."
"Good. I was invited, too. I"ll see you there." There was a long pause at the girl"s end of the wire, and Hall said, "Jerry? Are you still listening?"
"Sure," she said.
"What"s wrong?"
"Nothing. You"re a darling. I"ve got to hang up now. I"ve got to be out of here in ten minutes."
"O.K.," he said. "See you tonight."
He reached the lobby at half-past eight. There was no message in his box, and he could see that Jerry"s key was already in the cubicle. "I"ll be in the dining room if anyone phones," he told the day clerk. He bought a paper from a boy standing near the entrance of the Bolivar and went in to eat.
Hall was having his second cup of coffee when Androtten entered the dining room. The little Dutchman smiled happily when he spotted Hall.
"Good morning, good morning," he shouted. "h.e.l.l of a nice day, no?"