The Squares of the City (37 page)

The doctors found exactly what I’d seen—rickets, vitamin deficiency diseases, and a lot of skin complaints caused by the squalid conditions. But it wasn’t their findings that took the heat off Sigueiras in the end; it was a stern directive from Vados himself. Apparently one of the current items of publicity about Ciudad de Vados was that it had the lowest death rate of any city of its size in Latin America, and they were worried in case Ruiz’s assertions might affect the tourist trade.

Not that the recent rioting had helped any, of course.

Another directive came down about the same time. The university year had ended, and accordingly Professor Cortés was confirmed as acting Minister of Information and Communications. Having sampled his work while he was filling in, I wondered how Vados liked making do with Cortés instead of Alejandro Mayor; however, presumably he was the best available, and since there was no sign of
Tiempo
returning to life, after all, the government’s propaganda now had no competition.

Well, no effective competition. There were a series of inflammatory news sheets that had sprung up, which were constantly trespassing over the edge of the libel laws and being closed down in consequence—only to start up again the next day or the day after under another name. Most people were resigned to
Tiempo’s
fate and regarded the news sheets as the best stopgap they could expect.

But there were some others who were getting restive. They pointed out that even though Romero had been suspended from the judicial bench and looked likely to be declared incompetent, no action had been taken to reverse his committal of Cristoforo Mendoza for contempt or to release the impounded equipment belonging to his paper.

And that was not the only matter in which there had been a peculiar delay. As Manuel, the barman, had told me, at this crucial time of the chess championships television was sorely missed, and people were demanding that the arsonists be found forthwith.

It went without saying, of course, that the National Party view was expressed by every one of the succession of news sheets, and these two were the matters at which they hammered again and again: the banning of
Tiempo,
for obvious reasons, and the failure of O’Rourke to catch the arsonists, to stave off accusations that National Party supporters had been responsible.

It was something of a surprise to me to find out how these news sheets caught on. Surreptitiously printed and distributed, one day’s issue sometimes remained in circulation for nearly a week, being passed from hand to hand, and not only among people who had formerly read
Tiempo,
but also among people who merely wanted the television service back.

I had my own ideas as to who was responsible for keeping these news sheets going, of course. I’d seen no more of Maria Posador since the evening she dined with O’Rourke at the hotel, and nothing before that for some days. And she was the one who believed that an opposition press in Ciudad de Vados had to be maintained at all costs.

Maybe Vados had been premature to assume that Maria Posador was safer in Aguazul than out of it.

Manuel kept a supply of these miscellaneous news sheets under the bar for interested customers. I was going through one that I’d missed—I think it was calling itself
Verdad
in its current incarnation—when I found an interesting item which Cortés hadn’t seen fit to divulge on the radio or in
Liberdad.
I had no reason to doubt it, though. It was stated that
el Jefe
O’Rourke agreed with General Molinas on the question of clearing away the slums of Vados. It would be asking for worse trouble than they had already. And the much-vaunted plan of mine for redeveloping the ground below the monorail central was nothing more than a governmental pretext to kick out Sigueiras.

Well, that was perfectly true, of course. What shook me rigid was that O’Rourke had supposedly gone on, “And if they try to put this into effect, then we’ll throw Hakluyt out of the country and his plans after him.”

XXVI

There is a moment in the demolition of a tower, an old-fashioned factory chimney, or a high wall, when the falling structure—weighing perhaps a hundred tons—seems to float, leaning against the air.

It lasts perhaps a small fraction of a second, but feels much longer. And in that narrow space of time the whole visible world seems to hesitate, waiting for the inevitable crash.

I was waiting for a crash now. What was worse, I appeared to be directly in the path of what was falling.

I folded the news sheet so that O’Rourke’s alleged statement was uppermost, and signaled along the bar to Manuel. He was serving another customer; when he was through, he came down to stand opposite me, his eyes a little wary.

“Have you seen this, Manuel?” I asked him.

He sighed. “Yes, señor. I thought you would have seen it also before now.”

“No, I hadn’t. … What do you make of it, Manuel? What do you think yourself about my job here?”

At first, I could see, he was not going to reply. I said, hearing my voice harsh and dry, “Say what you think, Manuel. Go ahead, for God’s sake.”

“I have no views of my own, Señor Hakluyt,” he said reluctantly. “I have a good job. I have profited much by the making of this city. Before, I was in a little hotel in Puerto Joaquin; now here I am, as you see me. Yet it seems to me that there are also people who have suffered because of the coming of the city, and it is easy to understand why they feel differently.”

“Why should
el Jefe
be one of those who feel differently?”

“It is this way, señor.” Manuel leaned forward with both elbows on the bar and spoke in confidential tones. “There are some of us—like myself—who are used to the great world. I have served some very rich and famous people at my bars, both here and in Puerto Joaquin when I was called to help at great receptions. I have seen how today a man can be in Aguazul, tomorrow in San Francisco or in Tokyo. To me that is good. I am the friend of all people who come to my bar.

“Then there are others, who say, ‘This is ours, let it remain always ours.’ It is like the difference between
el Presidente,
whom I have also served at a bar, and Señor Diaz. And I think
el Jefe
—whom I have
also
served with his liquor!—is one of the same color as Diaz. That is what I think, señor. But I am only a man behind a bar.”

“And in this city—how many think like
el Jefe?”

“As we have seen in the streets and in the plazas—many, señor. Too many.”

I nodded and picked up the news sheet. “Do you mind if I take this?” I asked him.

“Please do, señor.” He glanced under the bar. “Yes, I think I have two examples of that.”

“Thanks. I don’t know whether I can do anything about this—but I’m sure as hell going to try.”

As it turned out, I didn’t get much of a chance even to try.

As usual, when I went down to the traffic department in the morning, I went first of all to see Angers. Caldwell was there a few minutes ahead of me, looking even more tired than he had been recently, his face very white, set and strained, his eyes circled with darkness.

I assumed he’d come to check progress on the clearance of the slum at the monorail central; the health department was, of course, very eager to get it moving. In a way, he had.

I caught a fleeting expression of worry on Angers’ face as I sat down, but Caldwell had begun to address me, and I was unable to ask what he was disturbed about.

“How about you, Hakluyt?” Caldwell said. “What do you th-think is the real reason b-behind the d-delay in clearing S-Sigueiras out?”

I shrugged. “From what I’ve heard, it’s due to General Molinas refusing to send in troops—and to O’Rourke predicting riots if they go ahead and evict. What’s more, I entirely agree, and I’ve been saying so all along.”

“Well, you’re wrong.” Caldwell spoke with a triumphant air. “It’s p-political. It’s the National P-Party again.”

Frowning, I shook my head. “I don’t see that,” I said. I didn’t. Things had been rather quiet on the political front for the past three or four days; the Citizens’ Party was like a snake without a head, having lost Guerrero, Lucas, and Arrio, all three—Guerrero dead, Lucas under arrest while the allegations of conspiracy against him were investigated, and Arrio awaiting trial for murder as a result of his duel with Mendoza. Likewise, the Nationals lacked any notable figure around whom they could rally, for Dominguez, though a supporter, was not an official of the party, and Murieta’s action against Arrio had apparently been dictated by his literary friendship with Felipe Mendoza, not by politics at all.

But this wasn’t Caldwell’s view. Smiling, he took some papers out of his pocket.

“I’ve b-been at the s-state c-custodian’s office this morning,” he said. “I’ve b-been looking th-through the account b-books th-they recovered from B-Brown’s office. And who do you th-think p-paid the fee for S-Sigueiras’s case against the city c
-
council?”

I shook my head.

“It appears to have been Pedro Murieta,” said Angers in a dry voice, and Caldwell shot him an annoyed glance, as though he had been deprived of springing a great surprise on me.

Nonetheless, it was a surprise. I said, “I thought Murieta’s only interest in the matter was because he financed the publication of Mendoza’s novels—wasn’t that right?”

“Th-that’s what we were
meant
to th-think,” said Caldwell significantly. “There’s more to th-this than meets the eye.”

He got to his feet. “Well, I’m g-going to tell P-Professor Cortés about th-this,” he said. “P-people ought to know what’s really g-going on.”

When he had left us, I stared at Angers. “Do you think this is as important as he wants to make out?” I asked.

Angers shrugged. “I honestly don’t know,” he said in a faintly puzzled voice. “Before you came in, he was dropping dark hints about the extent of Murieta’s complicity in some shady traffic that’s supposed to go on in the shantytowns, and especially in the station slum.”

“Oh, not again!” I said wearily. “You know how he took me on this guided tour of the vice spots of Vados, don’t you? All he could show me was one plot of ground where someone was supposed to be growing hemp for marijuana, and one hut occupied by a prostitute who wasn’t at home. Frankly, I take anything Caldwell says to me now with a sack of salt—I think he’s suffering from some kind of strain, and his imagination is playing tricks on him.”

“If it weren’t for Dr. Ruiz bearing out what he says,” Angers admitted after a pause, “I’d be inclined to agree with you.”

“Well, Ruiz isn’t in any too comfortable a position himself,” I pointed out. “There were some pretty nasty allegations being made against him when he was giving evidence in Sigueiras’s case, weren’t there?”

“If there’d been any substance to them,” said Angers with asperity, “you may be sure the National Party would have kept on with them. But that’s a standard part of their propaganda technique—planting nasty rumors and letting them grow unchecked till someone who’s actually been accused of some very small offense indeed is being described as a murderer or worse.”

Whether it was part of the National Party’s technique or not, that method worked extremely well for Caldwell over the weekend.

It happened this way.
Liberdad
—Cortés apparently having been impressed by Caldwell’s story—published the information about Murieta financing Sigueiras’s case, but took the precaution of checking with Murieta first. As it happened, Murieta was in New York for the weekend on a business trip, but his personal secretary suavely confirmed the tale. His employer, the secretary said, had been asked by Felipe Mendoza to aid Sigueiras, and owing to his well-known concern for the rights of the private citizen, had consented.

And Caldwell snapped back that apparently Murieta’s view of the rights of the private citizen included the right to take drugs and indulge in sexual perversions, because this was what Sigueiras specialized in providing.

There was a charge—uttered with the theoretical approval of the city health department—that really called for an answer. But Caldwell didn’t stop there. I never found out how anyone allowed him to get away with it, but he topped off his list of charges with a flat statement that Murieta was little better than a professional pimp.

In the twenty-four hours that preceded Murieta’s return from New York, rumors followed this story like weeds sprouting on burned ground. I heard them, even. I was told confidentially how, in the dim recesses of Sigueiras’s slum, children, virgin girls, and raddled old hags were made available at a stiff price to wealthy and debauched patrons; I was told how the air was never free of the stink of marijuana; I was even informed that the livestock in the shantytowns was kept for other purposes than feeding people.

Myself, I wondered how the putative “patrons” of Murieta’s supposed vice ring would have enjoyed indulging their tastes in the uncomfortable and insanitary condition below the monorail central. But only a very few Vadeanos who repeated the rumors had any idea of the real state of things down there, and doubtless assumed that the clients would appreciate a sordid setting for their sordid activities.

By Monday the whole matter had gone past a joke, and tempers were running high. Inoffensive peasants from the shantytowns had been stoned on the streets; police had twice had to be called to the monorail central to drive away indignant bands of demonstrators and enthusiastic would-be customers; and, much to the annoyance of business people and the city tourist bureau, a large party of statesiders had noisily canceled their visit to Vados because they got wind of what was being said about the city’s morals.