The QE2 Is Missing

The drawbacks were the smog. And the crowds. Mexico’s population had doubled in less than seventeen years and it was killing the country. He would never get used to the perpetual, grinding, inescapable poverty that squeezed in upon him. Beggars were on all sides; ragged and filthy children pressed forward with their palms outstretched. Diaz tried to ignore them. He would never have come to this slum street if the voice on the phone had not instructed him to do so. For a lot of reasons the meeting had to be arranged in a very roundabout and cautious way. He pushed through the crowds and finally saw his goal ahead, just as it had been described to him.

In the middle of the row of mean shops, pale green and garish pink, stood the Pulqueria La Providencia. Even from here he could smell the rank odor of the pulque. Fermented juice of the agave, the century plant, sweet and cloying, with a smell so sickening that he always wondered how people could drink it. But it was cheap and it contained alcohol, and if you mixed it with pineapple juice it was almost bearable.

Diaz pushed through the rickety screen door, which seemed to function only as a trap to keep the buzzing hordes of flies locked inside. There was one customer asleep, drunk, his head pillowed on his arms. Otherwise the bar was empty, with just the owner rinsing out glasses in an enamelled basin. He had a three-day growth of beard and a wall-eye and he watched coldly as Diaz approached.

“Good evening,” Diaz said. A slight movement of the man’s head was his only response. “I was told to come here. For a message.”

“You got a name?”

“Leandro Diaz.”

“That’ll be twenty pesos.”

Diaz knew that no payment was needed, that this was pure graft. But it was easier to pay than argue. It had been hard enough to set this meeting up in any case. He passed over the money. It vanished and the barman jerked his head towards the door.

“Outside turn left. Go three blocks straight then turn the corner and there is a restaurant called the Parador.”

“Do I turn right or left at the corner?”

A disgusted grunt was his only answer; he had had hi: twenty pesos worth. The restaurant should not be hard to find.

While he walked, there was a marked improvement in the neighborhood, with the slums giving way to a factory block, then a street with small shops. It was easy enough to locate the restaurant, a two-meter-wide neon-bordered sombrero hung over the doorway, emblazoned with the name. He went in, blinking in the near darkness after the full sunlight outside. It was too early for dinner and only an ancient pair of American tourists sat near the front window sharing a Turkey Mole. A waiter came towards him bearing a wide menu.

“Good evening, sir,” he said, pushing the sheet of cardboard forward hopefully. Diaz waved it away.

“I’m meeting someone here. Are there any messages?”

“No, none at all.”

“He may be late. Bring me a beer, a Moctezuma.”

Diaz seated himself at a table by the back wall where he could see the entrance clearly. He would just have to wait. Josep was a wanted man. The police of a number of countries — and particularly the CIA — would be happy to pay large sums to lay their hands on him. Therefore, this roundabout way of meeting, to make sure that Diaz was alone. He was pretty sure that he had been followed, positive of it in fact. It didn’t matter. He had to see Josep. They had met once, briefly, years earlier, and Josep would know all about his organization and the work he was doing. Yet this would be no assurance to him that Diaz had not turned police informer since then. Therefore, the precautions. He sipped at the chill beer — then jumped, startled, as someone sat down next to him.

“Back entrance. That’s why we meet here,” the man s*aid. “What do you want, Diaz?”

“To see you about something important to both of us. You got my message…. “

He broke off as the waiter approached. Josep ordered a beer as well. He had changed since Diaz had last seen him, lost weight, fined down. His nose was even more hawklike and the skin was stretched tight over his Drominent cheekbones. He no longer wore the familiar ^yepatch, that would have been too recognizable; but when you looked close it was obvious that his right eye was false. They sat in silence until the waiter had brought the beer and moved away out of earshot.

“Do you still have an organization we could work with?” Diaz asked.

Josep nodded. “Still in operation. We don’t have as many as we did before the murders in 1974, but the Tupamaros will fight on as long as there is one of us left.”