The Squares of the City (21 page)

Dalban looked at me steadily for a long while before speaking again. “I apologize,” he said at last. “I had been of the impression that you did not know what you were doing. I realize you have given much thought to the matter. The only cause for regret is that you have come to a wrong conclusion.”

“If there’s going to be civil war in Aguazul, then it’s not going to be my fault,” I retorted. “The suggestion is ridiculous.”

“You must accept, señor, that your departure would materially improve our chances of escaping that civil war.” Dalban kept his voice level. “I fully realize that you did not choose the key position in which you now find yourself; however, it will be the act of an intelligent man to recognize the fact that you are of importance and that your least decision now affects many people beside yourself.”

He smiled. “Therefore I must say this. Either you change your mind voluntarily—or means will be found to compel you to do so. You will find me in the telephone directory if you want me: José Dalban. Good night.”

He went past me and opened and shut the door with a swift coordinated movement. The instant he was out of the room I went to the phone and rang the reception desk, demanding that Dalban be stopped before he left the hotel, demanding how he had got into my room in the first place.

The receptionist, bland-voiced, echoed the name. “Dalban, señor? Yes, I would recognize Señor Dalban. But he is not in the hotel.”

Infuriated, I realized that bribes must have passed somewhere. Large ones, which would stick. I demanded the manager and got no satisfaction out of him, either. Blank-faced, he poured out streams of denials in his own defense—adding assertions about the rectitude of Señor Dalban and the unlikelihood of his doing any such thing as I accused him of.

“Who is this bastard, anyway?” I demanded.

“Why, he is a businessman of great distinction and wealth, señor! Even if he were to desire to do such a thing, he would not come himself—he would send an agent!”

“Get me an agent,” I said. “Of police. And with speed!”

A blank-faced man who might have been the manager’s elder brother was brought; with an air of pandering to the whim of a mad foreigner, he took down particulars in a scrawling hand and promised to report it at the police station. I had a suspicion that report would never materialize; in a last burst of annoyance I called police headquarters and demanded to speak to
el Jefe
O’Rourke in person.

O’Rourke wasn’t there. A sour-voiced lieutenant took my name and promised to investigate. By the time I was through with him, apathy had dulled my anger.

It didn’t really matter, anyway. The city council was supposed to have been having me followed outside the hotel, for my own protection; I only hoped the protection worked. But whoever Dalban was, and whomever else he represented, they were thinking with their muscles. If threats and bribes were their chosen technique, then I wanted nothing to do with them. I was going ahead with my job come hell or high water.

Still, there were times, and this was one of them, when I felt I was a stubborn idiot and wished I wasn’t.

XIV

“Much the sort of thing I’d have expected the Nationals to try,” said Angers thoughtfully. “I’m glad you told Dalban to go to hell, Hakluyt—I always thought you were a pretty square sort of fellow, in spite of our differences.”

In his way, I supposed, he meant that as a compliment. I returned it by taking it as one. I said only, “Is Dalban tied up with the Nationals, then? If they can afford to buy me out, then why haven’t they paid this fine Tezol owes?”

Angers shrugged. “I wouldn’t put it past them to let him go hang. Peasants are two a penny, and the men behind the National Party—the ones you don’t hear about, but who really matter—are said to be pretty unscrupulous.”

“I hope that’s not gospel truth. If it is, I’m in for a thin time. The hotel staff were almost certainly bribed to deny admitting Dalban to my room—but I had hoped to get more action from the police than I did.”

Angers gave vent to a short coughing sound that might have been a cynical laugh. “I’m not surprised myself,” he said. “If there’s any truth in the rumors I’ve heard, Dalban ought long ago to have been run out of the country—would have been unless he had the police in his pocket. You’re muddying some pretty deep waters, Hakluyt.”

“So Dalban informed me.”

His wintry smile put in a brief appearance. “Don’t let it get you down. You’re a valuable piece of property, if I may say so. Despite what Dalban said, he isn’t really in a position to pull anything; he’s precariously balanced already, and the slightest error would bring him tumbling down. He can talk, but his threats are empty ones.” He frowned. “And yet I don’t know that the matter can be left there, because attempted bribery of a government employee is a serious offense.”

I was tempted to say something about the stories of corruption I’d heard since my arrival, but refrained. Angers looked at the wall clock and got to his feet.

“We’d better go down to the court,” he said. “Session begins at ten. I don’t expect you’ll be kept waiting today.”

In the corridors of the court building there was hustle and bustle—or the nearest approach to it that you get under a Latin American sun. Angers excused himself to go and have a word with Lucas, and left me standing alone, looking about me for people I knew. I caught sight of Fats Brown talking to Sigueiras in impassioned Spanish; aside from the color of their skins, the two were oddly alike—fat, untidy, given to loud talking and gesticulation.

“G-good morning, Mr. Hakluyt,” a voice murmured near me. I turned to find Caldwell, the young man from the city health department, together with an aggressive little man with hard eyes behind his horn-rimmed glasses and a shock of ruffled hair. I remembered Señora Cortés had pointed this man out to me at the presidential garden party, but could not recall his name or office.

“Good morning,” I said. “Are you involved in this?”

“Of c-course,” he said with dignity. “My d-department’s proof of nuisance is very important.”

His companion spoke up suddenly. “Forgive Nicky’s bad manners, Señor Hakluyt. Permit me to present myself. My name is Ruiz, Alonzo Ruiz, and it is a pleasure for me to meet you. I am a doctor,” he finished with a sudden lessening of his vehemence.

I remembered and shook his hand. “You’re the—uh—the director of health and hygiene, aren’t you? Glad to meet you. You’re giving evidence, too, I take it.”

“Assuredly, señor! Why, I have statistics to demonstrate that the presence of this slum of Sigueiras’s has raised the typhoid rate in Ciudad de Vados one hundred and twenty per cent in the past ten years—”

An usher walked down the corridor announcing that the court would be in session in five minutes; Angers hastened back as I was starting to look for the anteroom where I had spent yesterday afternoon and wishing that I’d brought a good book.

“It’s all right, Hakluyt,” Angers said breathlessly. “I arranged with Lucas to ask the judge to let witnesses sit in court today—something about special circumstances. He’ll fix it.”

He did. Three minutes after the judge had taken his seat, an usher escorted me into the courtroom. I was given a place near Angers and sat down under the glaring eyes of Fats Brown. Presumably he’d just had a fast one put over on him, and he wasn’t enjoying it.

I looked around the court—this was a room identical to the one where Dominguez had had his ears pinned back the other day—and stiffened as I recognized two of the people in the public seats. Side by side in the front row were Felipe Mendoza—and Maria Posador.

She looked at me expressionlessly, her red lips slightly parted, and at length shook her head once, as though I had failed in some important test. Annoyed, I turned my head away.

But that was interesting, finding those two here. Another case with political implications. It looked as though half the courts in the city were becoming battlegrounds for the rival factions.

Having recovered from his annoyance, Fats Brown got up with a bored air and asked leave to address the court.

“I should like to make it plain,” he said, “why in my view it makes no difference whether or not witnesses sit in court. Obviously it makes no difference. Failing perjury, nothing can hide the simple fact that the city traffic department, the city council, and that man Angers over there have conspired to deprive my client of his citizen’s rights and many hundreds of people of their homes.”

The bang of the judge’s gavel coincided with Lucas’s fierce, “Objection!”

“Sustained,” said the judge. “Struck from the record. Señor Brown, when appearing before a jury, interjections of that kind serve some purpose. I assure you I’m unimpressed by them.”

“Yes, your honor,” said Brown, unabashed. “It was purely for the benefit of the reporters.”

The judge—he was a distinguished-looking man of about fifty—half-smiled. Plainly he made allowances for Fats; equally plainly, the fact annoyed Andres Lucas. I glanced at what I presumed was the press table and saw five men and a girl exchanging amused whispers.

“So many reporters?” I said under my breath to Angers. He glanced in the direction I indicated and gave a nod.

“Liberdad, Tiempo,
a commentator from the radio, and I should think someone from the local papers in Cuatrovientos, Puerto Joaquin, and Astoria Negra.”

“This case must be attracting a lot of attention.”

“Haven’t you seen today’s papers? It is.”

The judge was frowning down at Angers; he sat back with a mutter of apology.

“Continue, Señor Brown,” the judge invited.

Having got his first thrust in, Brown seemed to have calmed down. He had obviously presented most of his case the previous day; he reviewed it now, referring to witnesses who had deposed that they had no alternative accommodation, that in their view Señor Sigueiras was a public benefactor rather than a nuisance, and that they could not have stayed in their villages because their water supply had been diverted to Ciudad de Vados.

Then he quoted the city’s charter of incorporation at some length and asked leave of the court to recall his witnesses if need be to rebut counter-allegations made by the defense. Then he rested his case.

Here Lucas took over, and I had to admit that the man was a master of legal expertise. With assured authority, he took Brown’s interpretation of the relevant clauses of the charter and tore it to shreds—Fats looked definitely unhappy while this was going on. But obviously the mere letter of the law was not in dispute in this case; the city definitely had a right to subordinate citizens’ rights to redevelopment plans. What Sigueiras was saying was that if it hadn’t been for the intention to dispossess him personally, there wouldn’t have been any redevelopment plans; Brown was attempting to show on his behalf that the city council, the traffic department, and Angers—named conjointly in the suit—were motivated by malice rather than by a desire to benefit the citizens.

So it ultimately came down to the question of nuisance. And Lucas, winding up his opening speech, announced that he proposed to get rid of the imputation of malice and prove the nuisance beyond doubt.

The judge, sitting with a smile of appreciation on his face, recollected that it was time for the noon recess and stepped down.

He resumed his seat for the afternoon session with an air of expectancy; so did all of us. Lucas proceeded to call Angers, and Angers stoutly denied the imputation of malice. He made a good impression, I thought, studying the judge. But when Fats Brown lumbered to his feet, he had a sleepy, dangerous twinkle in his eye.

“Angers, are you honestly stating before this court that it’s bothersome to you to have this ground under the monorail central lying idle, when there ought to be a main road across it?”

“Of course not.”

“Does its present employment interfere with access to the station? Or with the flow of passengers?”

Angers frowned. “It’s definitely a nuisance to passengers.”

“That’s not the point. Is it? What’s at issue is the motive of your department. Have you any specific proposal for redevelopment of this ground?”

Angers suddenly looked acutely uncomfortable, and stammered over his reply, with a glance at me. Lucas rose to intervene smoothly, saying that a later witness—me, presumably—would deal with that point. But Brown’s thrust had gone home, and he exploited it.

“In fact,” he wound up, his voice dripping sarcasm, “you decided that as cover for your attempt to evict Sigueiras you’d hire this outside expert and invent—yes, invent!—a new use for his ground so as to cheat him of his legal rights. Yes or no?”

“I—” began Angers, but Brown had thrown up his hands in disgust and sat down.

I began to see how Brown had acquired his reputation. All Lucas’s careful smoothing-over couldn’t hide the fact that a great hole had been knocked in Angers’ statements. I saw Señora Posador and Mendoza looking satisfied.

Lucas had less luck still with his next witness—Caldwell. The poor guy stammered more than ever. Trading on this, Lucas made a great show of sympathy and got the court’s leave to introduce affidavits covering some of the evidence about the menace to the health and well-being of the citizens at large caused by Sigueiras’s slum.