And Then I Found Out the Truth (21 page)

There was no time to wait for the light to change. Quinn grabbed my hand, and we dove into traffic.

The next thirty seconds were the longest of my life, since I fully expected each one would be my last. None of the surfing or snowboarding or anything I’d done with Ash had prepared me for sprinting across six lanes’ worth of speeding traffic, though it would have made a riveting new X Games event.

Taxis and motorcycles and trucks rushed at us in a dizzying assault of color and speed and noise as we darted from lane to lane, their horns blaring in protest. It was probably a good thing I didn’t know Spanish, because I had the feeling every single one of the words the drivers were throwing out at us would be bleeped if they ended up on TV.

I still don’t know how we reached the other side without becoming roadkill, but somehow we made it. And I could tell from the way the yelling and honking continued behind us that Thad was giving chase.

The restaurants and theaters and cafés along the Avenida Corrientes were a blur of stone and glass as we ran past, dodging the pedestrians on the sidewalk and dashing across another intersection just as the signal changed.

Of course, after crossing the enormous Avenida 9 de Julio against the light, a regular street wasn’t much of a challenge — it didn’t stop us and it didn’t stop Thad. When we looked back, he was still on our heels, weaving through oncoming traffic. Even the shriek of metal upon metal as a car swerved to avoid him and smashed into a parked van wasn’t enough to break his stride.

I was pretty fast for my size and the adrenaline pumping through me definitely helped, but I knew Quinn had slowed to match my pace, and Thad’s legs were a lot longer than mine. Thad also wasn’t wearing the Christian Louboutin ankle boots Charley had insisted were the only possible footwear for the jeans I had on, not that she’d been factoring in the potential for impromptu track meets.

We made the light again at the next intersection, and the next, but every time I stole a glance over my shoulder the gap between us and Thad seemed to narrow. It was like the most clichéd nightmare there was — being chased through the streets of an unfamiliar city, with the pounding footsteps drawing ever closer — but this was real and in broad daylight.

The fourth intersection we came to was the Avenida Florida, a pedestrian zone thronged with shoppers and tourists, all enjoying the spring afternoon. Quinn and I were thinking and moving like one person, and we automatically cut right and into the crowd. The lag between when we turned the corner and when Thad did might buy us just enough time out of his sight to lose him. Particularly if he didn’t see us race into one of the dozens of shops lining the street.

At the last possible moment, we cut right again and through a set of doors.

We found ourselves in a bookstore, its quiet calm in jarring contrast to the frenzy of the last five minutes. And if the customers inside thought two American teenagers bursting in and immediately crouching down behind a table stacked with paperbacks was odd, none of them showed it. Mostly they were too absorbed examining the books and magazines on display to pay any attention to us. Nor did they notice Thad moments later, hurtling past on the street outside. Quinn and I watched, peering over the stacked books and through the window, as he elbowed his way through the people milling about, pushing forward as if he thought we were still ahead of him.

Several doors down, though, he came to an abrupt halt. Panting, he put his hands on his hips and turned in a slow circle, surveying the crowd and the storefronts.

For once I was glad I was so short, pinhead and all. Thad knew how easy it would be for me to slip away, shielded by the height of others. And the brilliant sun reflecting off the glass turned the shop windows into mirrors, making it impossible to see who might be hiding within. We could have been anywhere, inside or out. But my heart was still beating incredibly fast, and not just from the running.

Thad turned in another slow circle, breathing hard, and then another, but on his next trip around something caught his attention and he did a double take. He was facing away from us, but I ducked down further behind our bookshelf anyway. And when I peeked over the books again, he was staring at a kiosk papered with flyers and ads. As I watched, he walked over, and with an angry tug he ripped off one of the flyers and tore it to pieces.

There was no way to see what was on the flyer, but at this point I could be pretty confident it was another part of Dieter’s cultural experiment. And if Thad’s familiarity with Samantha Arquero and how he’d just tried to chase me down hadn’t been enough to prove which side he was on, watching him tear my image to shreds was the clincher.

Either way, he’d apparently resigned himself to temporary defeat. He tossed the remnants of the flyer to the ground and trudged off, returning in the direction of Avenida Corrientes and disappearing from sight.

He’d lost us, but we knew exactly where we’d be able to find him.

And miraculously, Quinn was still holding my hand.

Thirty

We hung out in the bookstore a while longer, to catch our breath and make sure Thad was truly gone. The sales clerk pointed me to a pay phone in the back, and I left Quinn browsing guidebooks and went to check in with the switchboard at the Alvear again. I’d memorized the number by now, and when the operator answered, I asked for Lourdes, as Manolo had instructed.

Lourdes was expecting my call. “You are the new friend of Manolo,
sí
? He is
muy simpático,
Manolo, always with the new friends. He is studying to be a doctor, you know.” She was as proud as if he were her grandson.

Anyhow, after Lourdes and I talked some more about how much we liked Manolo, I asked if anyone had called for me.

“Yes, indeed,” she said happily, and my heart skipped a beat — in a nice way for once. “I have the message here, from a Señor Rafael Francisco Valenzuela Sáenz de Santamaría. He is your uncle?”

That seemed optimistic on Rafe’s part. He might be completely smitten with Charley, but it would be a stretch to construe their current relationship as even dating — the odds of him becoming my uncle anytime soon were low. But I went with it anyway. “Right, my uncle. What did he say?”

“He is very mysterious, your uncle. He says to tell you he has found the captain’s elected tail. Do you know what this means?”

Assuming Rafe had actually said electronic, not elected, and trail, not tail, I did know what it meant, and that was good news, because it would help us nail Samantha Arquero. “Did he mention where he was? Or where anyone else was?” Like T.K., for instance, though I didn’t really think Rafe would divulge her whereabouts over the phone to a total stranger, however grandmotherly she sounded.

“No, he only said to tell you he would be on a plane tonight, but you should return to the hotel. This is very important. He was very clear on this topic.”

“Okay,” I said, which wasn’t technically lying, since I’d have to return to the hotel eventually — my suitcase was there, after all. “If he calls back, would you mind telling him I’m with Quinn, everything’s fine, and he shouldn’t worry?” I asked.

“Certainly,” she said.

It was reassuring to have heard from Rafe, but it didn’t make me feel any better about the continued silence from Charley. So after I’d finished thanking Lourdes, I disconnected and tried her directly. The balance on my card was getting low, and I watched the pesos tick down on the phone’s screen as I dialed, hoping I had enough money for the call.

But it didn’t matter. Charley’s number went straight into voice mail again.

Not only had Quinn and I entirely escaped injury, we both still had our belongings with us — all except for my hat. And while I couldn’t say I’d miss that specific hat, I did need to find a replacement if I didn’t want to feel totally exposed out on the street. After what had happened with Thad, I preferred a tangible disguise to the intangible power of the masses.

Quinn’s new guidebook directed us to the Galerías Pacífico, a few blocks away on Avenida Florida. This was a fancy shopping arcade with a high, frescoed ceiling stretching above the tiers of stores. It made the mall in Palo Alto look as if it had been constructed from cardboard boxes, but I guessed the developer there was less concerned about charm than the guy who’d built this place.

In a small boutique, I found a fedora that just might be worthy of Charley’s approval, and Quinn picked one out, too. I appreciated the gesture of solidarity, but I was starting to think it was useless for him to try to disguise himself — he looked as much like a movie star in the fedora as he had in the knit cap. He also insisted on paying for everything, since in addition to his surveillance equipment, he’d brought a wad of cash, though I knew T.K. or Charley or whichever relative I saw next would be equally insistent about paying him back.

“Now what?” he said.

At this point, I’d already reconciled myself to the fact that I wasn’t going to see my mother until Rafe returned to Buenos Aires. We could try to track down Samantha Arquero, but that seemed like asking for trouble when we’d been handed such a golden opportunity to ambush her meeting with Thad the next morning instead. Meanwhile, Quinn had solved the Hunter mystery for himself, so it wasn’t like we needed to pursue it any further, at least not for the time being. “We’re sort of done for the day,” I said.

“Then let’s make the most of it,” said Quinn.

He didn’t add “while we can,” though the thought of what tomorrow might hold was there, hovering over us both.

So we played tourist for the rest of the afternoon, sightseeing our way to the Plaza de Mayo, a large square edged by the Casa Rosada, the pinkish building with the balcony where Madonna sang “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” in the
Evita
clip — apparently real politicians made speeches there, too — and the Cabildo, which had housed the government when Argentina was a Spanish colony, more than two hundred years ago. With its double row of white-painted arches and bell tower, it reminded me of mission-style buildings back in California, which made sense since the Spanish had been there, too, way back when. After that, we wandered through San Telmo, one of Buenos Aires’s oldest neighborhoods, with narrow cobblestoned streets and lots of little cafés and antique shops.

And maybe it was the very foreignness of the city — the centuries-old buildings and the exotic rhythm of the Spanish spoken around us and the slightly tropical feel to the air — but it was like we’d stepped out of our regular lives. I couldn’t forget completely why we were there, but it all felt very far away.

As the afternoon faded into evening, we found a
parrilla
for another authentically Argentinean meal.
Parrilla
means “grilled meat” in Spanish, so this was essentially a steak house. According to the guidebook, Argentina has the highest per capita meat consumption in the world, and it would probably be a really bad place to be a vegetarian. Fortunately, both Quinn and I were omnivores, because the steak we ordered was the best I’d ever had, and the little salads that came beforehand were delicious, too.

“That was incredible,” I said when I’d finished everything on my plate. I didn’t even have room for ice cream.

“It was,” Quinn agreed, checking his watch. “But we should get going.“

I hadn’t realized we had any after-dinner plans. “What did you have in mind?”

Quinn didn’t answer but just led me out of the restaurant and into a cab, giving the driver an address a short drive away. We pulled up near one of the corners we’d sprinted by that afternoon, only Thad was nowhere in sight this time around.

Out on the sidewalk, Quinn paused in front of a door set with panes of frosted glass. “Before we go inside, you have to promise me something.”

“Anything,” I said.

“I’m serious,” he said, though his tone was actually sort of joking.

“So am I.”

“What happens here, stays here.”

“Okay. What happens here?”

“You’ll see. But if anyone at school ever finds out, I’ll never hear the end of it. My image will be shot.”

“Even more than if they find out about your James Bond complex?”

He laughed. “That might have to stay here, too. So, you promise?”

“I promise,” I said.

He pulled the door open, and we stepped into a reception area with dark paneled walls and a marble staircase at the far end. There was a desk to one side, and Quinn went to speak to the attendant. I couldn’t understand what they said — it was all in Spanish — but Quinn handed over some pesos and we checked our hats and bags before heading upstairs.

The hum of voices grew louder as we climbed to the second floor. I thought maybe we were going to a nightclub, though I didn’t hear the thumping bass of house music, and the faded grandeur of our surroundings was nothing like any club I’d seen in the movies or on TV. Instead we passed through a set of French doors and into an old-fashioned ballroom.

The chandeliers and deep red of the walls lent a warm glow to the room, mellowing the features of everyone gathered around the dance floor. There must have been more than a hundred people, ranging from our age to a few who might have been in their eighties or even nineties, all chatting and laughing as a small orchestra tuned its instruments on a bandstand. Most of the men were dressed in suits and ties, and a lot of the women wore evening dresses and brightly colored flowers in their hair.

“What is this?” I asked Quinn.

“Milonga,”
he said.

And as if on cue, the orchestra’s conductor tapped his baton. The crowd stopped milling about and rearranged itself into ready pairs on the dance floor.

Then the music started to play, led by a dramatic, melancholy violin, and the room came alive with tango.

Thirty-one

I looked up at Quinn in wonder.

“Argentina’s famous for tango,” he said, trying, not very successfully, to sound like bringing me here wasn’t a big deal when it was actually the most romantic thing that had ever happened to anyone in the history of romance. “I asked the guy at the bookstore, while you were on the phone, and he suggested this place.”