Murder at the Watergate by Margaret Truman Page B

just having fun together. Too, there was an awkward aspect to going out with him, enough so that she hadn’t told Ramon Kelly she was seeing him.
    The MATA, its stated purpose to foster trade between the two countries, had a less lofty mission in the eyes ofsome, including Ramon Kelly. Lobbying without license to change U.S. policy toward Mexico? A covert extension of the army’s “Second Section,” its intelligence service? The PRI’s eyes and ears on Washington?
    No matter. Laura Flores enjoyed her time with Chapas. And, there was something to learn. Although he was closed-mouthed about his job and the organization, he occasionally said something that Laura filed away and added to her expanding folders of research on all things having to do with Mexico’s relationship with the United States. She was, and had always been, an inveterate note maker.
    “Thank you,” she said when he handed her the wine. “This is a lovely apartment.”
    “My pleasure. We maintain it for out-of-town guests, to entertain, that sort of thing. I’m glad you could make it tonight.”
    “I looked forward to it. It’s the first time I’ve been at an Alliance party.”
    “And I hope it won’t be the last. Come, I’ll introduce you around.”
    “Ah-ha,” Venustiano Valle said to her, “I finally get to meet the reason my young friend here arrives at the office with tired eyes.”
    Laura laughed gently. “That is a reputation I do not wish to have.”
    “He jokes,” Chapas said. “He is always joking.”
    That comment prompted Valle to tell a long, convoluted joke in Spanish. He fumbled the punch line, but Jose and Laura laughed anyway.
    “That’s Manuel Zegreda,” Laura said to Jose afterthey’d moved on for further introductions, indicating a tall, impeccably dressed man in the opposite corner.
    “
Sí
. You haven’t met him?”
    “No.”
    “Well, now you shall.”
    “Mucho gusto,”
Zegreda said, taking her hand.
    “The pleasure is mine,” Laura said, aware that Zegreda was taking in every inch of her.
    “Tienes un rostro tan atractivo.”
    She answered his comment about how attractive she was in English. “That’s very kind, Senor Zegreda. Will you be going back to Mexico for the elections?”
    “Oh, yes. You?”
    “I’m planning to,” she said. “I haven’t seen my family in too long.”
    “And where does your family live?”
    “Mexico City.”
    “Flores? Your father, is he with Televisa?”
    That Zegreda knew her father would not be unusual. Both were successful businessmen. On the other hand, the mention of him caused Laura to stiffen, not because she’d been estranged from her father since coming to New York, but because it said politics to her, Mexican politics, with all its baseness and oppression, the PRI, to whom her father owed much of his business success. Zegreda, she knew, was a potent force in the ruling party, not a politician but a man whose wealth and behind-the-scenes manipulations were well known in both countries.
    “Yes, he is,” Laura said.
    “I know him well. A fine man. His expertise is of great benefit to the station.”
    “Thank you.” To Chapas:“Would you get me another wine, please?”
    “Of course. White again? Or red? Whiskey?”
    “No, wine. White.”
    She hadn’t wanted another glass of wine. She’d said it in order to divert the conversation. It hadn’t worked. Now, without Chapas at her side, she was alone with the multimillionaire, who continued to undress her with his eyes.
    “And what do you do here in Washington, Senorita Flores?”
    “I work for—for a private agency.”
    “Ah. Do I know it?”
    “I don’t know.”
    He waited a beat, then smiled. “And unless you tell me which agency it is, I shall never know.”
    “The Mexico Initiative.”
    “Yes, I know it. Very new.”
    “A year.”
    “And what do you do there?”
    “Research. I’m the research director.”
    “An important job. What sort of research do you do?”
    “Economic, mostly.