Show v CARIBBEAN h BRENDA til SO Anne THE of wealthy New rocs on nn rk Puerto UIlo where Pete to i a reporter on her father's as a U. S. Army on boat she meets a young iLo Miguel and an named Richard of whom although she does not m is that he Is actually a German agent to destroy Puerto Rico's water M At the hotel In San Juan Anne's is and she suspects nW Anne and Taussig have to dinner at the home of Russell Sue Porter and c 10 put tm h CHAPTER VII j k Miss Taussig said as came into the and Russell's car moved out d a the don't we have a night cap a thanks a Anne I've like to talk to Miss Taussig said Mr Taussig was looking at her she the Be waited for her to sit signalled the He might E making a he thought i may as well come to the point it Miss he said Anne's throat 5 she is I The waiter put their glasses down J oa the Mr Taussig raised our better understand- r I Anie raised She was aware ci at Barbara had called the 7 scrutiny behind his lK is interest in me that me Miss Hey- Ane looked at him I do you f interest Miss I don't mean I Knee interest in my shall we Last for ex- sat perfectly calm and controlled while the whole of a kind of lovely dream her dropped out in shattered Miguel had told imm was the c Mr she Her was calm and She she saw him but she be B I ask what you mean by n Miss he asked qui- went through my bags didn't staring at her in open and Anne What if she was What if it hadn't been he at didn't know she was only actually recovered his composure in an If she had he wouldn't makes ou think I did ph an incredible Taus- Anne If she'd been he could deny and she apologize bought His hands t moist from the heat He you've jumped to a very Miss Heywood have a bag just like one of p put yours in my 1 opened but I closed it of and had the room and bring You'll find there's a simple explanation for most Miss Heywood IThen j apologise Anne glad we about it pie got up and held out her See the indecision in the his eyes fastened T ers- He wasn't sure whether Was telling the truth or not-r he knew he had W lay in the luminous half-dark tent of cheesecloth trying to think with- trying to separate i 2 knew from the things 1 but did not actually coloring them with n. m 1 m nl wrong about she 1 loy- 1 saw it one 1 Ks 1 even w 1 W What il's aU were only two She when she P U- was that opened her bag and and nad not about il other Z t had him she f 11 was that danger-rk Z Une 01 and was what she had t bUli- Barbara what she called Veiled K shook her Jt didn't ot 50 over every de- two days the way glass pulled the thin T the foot of Ck iMo t g think to think about I She closed her Just as she did the telephone on the table beside her jangled It rang again before she could pull the mosquito netting out from under the mattress and free her she It was Pete's voice that came from the other was just wondering about you if you got home all I hope I didn't wake you she said at tell me it's part of your job to check up and see the tourists are all properly in bed every What are you doing up at this hour Captain just been to a meeting of the my Pete said called something else but it's the same old leopard with the same old Go back to I'm putting you on the Clipper mean you're taking me out to dinner tomorrow night I'll see you about six Good dear Anne put down the phone and wriggled back under the She sat crossed her legs under her and sat staring through her filmy gauze box at a lighted ship moving across the window in the silver ocean beyond the Of I never thought of A whole new pattern wove itself quietly in front of For the moment she forgot Miguel and Richard Taussig and Here was went through my bags yesterday didn't her It was what she'd come down to In the curious way that better newspaper people than she'd ever be stumbled into she had stumbled right into what she was hunting entirely without knowing Diego was Don Alvaro was Spanish in everything but the place of his The Falange was the conservative organization that had bound the old Spain and colonial Spaniards especially during the civil war that had changed the mother country from a republic to a totalitarian power It was through the Falange that the Axis dominated Spain and it was the most important sometimes sometimes only potential-Fifth Column in Latin and South She tried to remember all the things she'd read about It was made up of the wealthier conservative which down here would usually mean antl It was supposed to be the Stronghold of the idea of Spanish At one when there was still peace in the it hadn't meant much more than the various foreign associations in the States had Or people had thought it including most of its In times like the present it meant something very That was why in Puerto Rico it had been disbanded or officially it had Apparently there were still remnants of Anne lay down again and closed her Don Alvaro was old Diego who was Gra-ciela's had been killed in the Spanish civil Miguel's orders had been cancelled by the War Maybe it all added up to she couldn't Mabe what it added up to was Richard Except Miguel not It was all back again from where it had Richard Taussig gripped the open window ledge of the crowded station-wagon with one hand and hung on to his guide book and his yachting cap with the other He was in one of those new vehicles known locally that provide a vast as public cars network of cheap transportation for the Island and make taxi-drivers and chauffeurs a political bloc that no party dares to At the moment the car was careening ma- across the narrow perilous causeway out the Bayamon Road from San On the right the garbage dump smoked with evil-smelling Beyond in the shallow head of the dredges pumped softly and filling the murky oozing swamp that stretched on the left of the making firm new land for the U. S. It was dotted with a couple of thousand oranges just where a truck had gone off the and just behind it a station wagon like Taussig's had gone like a dive bomber motor-deep in the its rear wheels still going A constant stream of khaki-colored Army trucks and open field cars trundled noisily past and private cars darting in and trying to pass what seemed to Taussig to be an already solid line into An accident would be easy he thought up in the hills where there was no soft cushion of mud and He There were certain complications he expected and did not He was used to accidents when though he preferred to avoid them He was even used to the emotional equation that women sometimes brought in but not on the level that the I girl in across the hall had He was more used to the kind of thing he was headed for The public car stopped on the side of the crowded road under an almond tree The driver pointed to a low shed-like group of buildings just beyond I a rickety They looked more like subterranean mushroom sheds than the ruins of the villa of Ponce de the first who built his first capitol here four centuries before he abandoned it and Puerto Rico to go on his search for of and found instead Florida and Richard Taussig was only superficially interested in the blue and yellow tiles and in the story of the Indian Cacique and the great who is still and even clanking up the ghostly stairs in his battle He tipped the caretaker enough to make him remember him but not enough to make him and made his way along the shaded road under the Indian almonds and to a There he drank a bottle of cool pale ale in the garden and read bis guide That was for the record in case one was being So far as he no one had followed but devious-ness and plausibility were a habit as much as a and in the half-world that Taussig operated was more dangerous than wasted can get to Rio Piedras to the University out this He tipped the waiter and pointed to the left fork of the roud he had I come to the Tuberculosis Sanatorium on the J The man I walk along a public car will stop for Taussig set walking The road was less crowded than the other Nevertheless he walked past the blue stucco house set behind a great hedge of red and pink because a cart loaded with sugar cane was passing it just When the road was empty he turned went through the tall gate in the hedge and closed it securely behind Diego car stood in the drive Taussig glanced at his He had allowed himself forty-five minutes to compensate for the temperamental disregard of time that was another complication of the Latin scene that irritated his precise mind He had not wanted to arrive at the house of Diego mistress until was there He was disturbed about just as he was disturbed about In there were too many women in nil this altogether for his All except little Mrs So far as he could she was the one simple aspect of his His impulse had been to go see her that but he had rejected It was best to let the first move come from He went up the reached out to ring the bell beside the iron-grilled and From inside he could hear loud and hysterical It stopped and a woman's shrill voice cried out In rapid Why not let all of that Why endanger yourself and me and your What is there to gain that She stopped as suddenly as she had A heavy chair there were sharp steps on the tiled Taussig stepped came across the porch scraping his rubber-soled shoes on the and came from an inner room through the portiere made of colored glass beads and short lengths of fine bamboo He smiled cordially as he opened the Whether unaware that his caller had ne was heard the end of the or was simply Taussig could not tell he am happy to see that it is possible for you to be late my DE |