MAMista by Len Deighton Page B

handle statements for the MAMista command.’
    â€˜The MAMista is an illegal organization.’
    â€˜Yes, it is. But the Benz government officials tolerate me and others like me.’
    â€˜And you get invited to drink with the Americans and the CIA chief smiles at you. I don’t get it.’
    â€˜It is expedient. Channels of communication remain open between all parties. Sometimes we give warnings about … things we do.’ She didn’t want to say ‘bombs we plant’. Neither did she want to tell him of the hostages that were sometimes taken: government officials that they held forransom. Inez Cassidy had handled such matters. It was not a way to make yourself popular. She finished her wine, drinking it too quickly. She put the glass down.
    â€˜How do you know the secret police are not biding their time and collecting evidence against you?’
    â€˜Our secret police don’t bide their time. They send a murder squad to gun you down without witnesses.’
    â€˜But the Americans? Do they know what you do?’
    â€˜The American government is not wedded to the Benz regime,’ she said simply.
    â€˜That sort of expedience,’ said Lucas. He could see she did not want to say more.
    The music was switched off as five chairs were placed in position at the end of the room. Five musicians climbed up on to the chairs. They produced a chord or two on the electric guitar and a rattle of maracas. A sigh of disappointment went up from those guests who had been hoping that the Americans would produce a pop group or some American-style music.
    â€˜Mother of God,’ said Inez, regretfully noting it and adding it to her total of blasphemies that would have to be confessed. ‘I really can’t endure another evening of that.’
    â€˜Are you here with anyone?’ Lucas asked.
    â€˜Spare me a sip of wine,’ she said, taking his glass from him and drinking some. The gesture was enough to answer his question. She was not here with anyone she could not say goodbye to.
    â€˜Shall we have dinner?’
    â€˜Yes, I’m starved.’ It was the sort of archness she despised in other women. It ill suited a politically committed woman of thirty. She looked at the people dancing. The man who had brought her was dancing close with the editor’s daughter who’d just left college in California. It was a modern lambada: danced to the rhythm of the samba. She was a good dancer but she was pressing close and smiling too much. The man would be a good catch: a young andhandsome coffee broker. He’d inherit plantations too when his father died.
    â€˜Italian food?’ He’d noted the neon sign for the San Giorgio restaurant as he was arriving here, so he knew exactly where it was.
    â€˜Wonderful,’ said Inez. She looked again at the dancers. Inez had been in her twenties before the plumpness and spots of youth had disappeared. The sudden transformation had been intoxicating but she’d never completely adjusted to the idea of being a beautiful woman. It must be much easier for pretty young girls like that one; they grow up learning how to deal with men. For Inez the prospect of another relación was not only daunting but funny.
    â€˜What are you smiling at?’
    â€˜I’ll tell you later,’ she said. ‘You leave now. Don’t say goodbye to anyone. Drift out slowly. I will be downstairs in ten minutes’ time.’
    He nodded. It was better that they were not seen leaving together. The music changed to a habanera, a very old Cuban rhythm in which gringos often detected the very essence of Lat in American amor . Over the fast tempo, words were sung very slowly.
    Lucas knew that listening carefully to trite lyrics was one of the symptoms of falling in love, but the words – a tryst under a star-studded sky – seemed curiously apt. He avoided Angel Paz and Chori, who were drinking, eating and talking and seemed oblivious