JC2 The Raiders (20 page)

"And that's that," he said, his voice
rising to a testy sneer. He got up and walked across the room.
"That's the way it's gonna be, huh?
You've
decided."

"There is nothing we can't discuss," said Toni.

"Except that our marriage would be
subordinate to your
'career',"
he scoffed.

"Oh? Well ... hasn't your father's marriage — and his
affairs — always been subordinate to his?"

"No. I'm not that contemptible
norteamericano
asshole!"

"Really? Tell me how you're going to be different."

"My ... 'father' — That man whose
biology is in me, and nothing else? All right. From what I know of
him, all his life he has subordinated everything to his career —
his love for my mother, his love for his wife, his home, his
friendships ... everything.
Time
says he has a daughter who
never saw him until she was fourteen years old. He has a son who
hasn't seen him yet. He wouldn't marry my mother. He married another
woman, then walked away from her, and she divorced him ... and then
he married her again. I love you, and —"

"I love you, Bat," she interrupted. "But I'm a person
too. If we are going to marry, we'll have to work out something that
recognizes that."

"I
do
recognize it."

"Then don't ask me to move into a house or
apartment in Massachusetts and be there waiting for you every evening
when you come home, with a roast in the oven. I'm going to
Washington. I
am
going to Washington."

He sighed. "I guess we'd better put off marrying. For a while.
Till I graduate from Harvard Law. Till you ... do whatever it is you
think you have to do."

"If I didn't love you so goddamned much, I'd tell you to go to
hell," she muttered. "I ought to. If I didn't love you, I
would."

"I love you, too," he said.

Toni nodded. "So maybe it will work out some way. Listen, I have
to be in Washington on June sixteenth. I'm going to be down there all
alone, missing you so much. Come down that weekend. Promise me you'll
come down that weekend."

"Sure. I'll try," he said.

She understood that meant he wouldn't. And he didn't.

BAT? WHY BAT? BECAUSE YOU'VE USED THE NAME Batista?"

Jonas and Bat were together in Bat's Porsche 356. Bat had told him
that moving into a hotel floor in Acapulco was foolish, that he could
live in a comfortable house in a good neighborhood here in Mexico
City, for a fifth of the cost. Besides, privacy and security and
communications would be easier from the city than from Acapulco.

Jonas had accepted the idea. It seemed to him that his chances of
establishing a good relationship with his newfound son would be
improved if he accepted the boy's suggestion about something
important.

Using his contacts in the local real estate industry, Bat had found a
place he thought suitable. He was driving Jonas out to have a look at
it.

"I didn't make a choice of names," said Bat. "Here in
Mexico I am thought of as Cord. In the States, where they don't
understand the Spanish tradition of using both parents' names, I am
thought of as Batista because it's the last name in the string."

Jonas sat as far as he could to the right in the somewhat cramped
little car, so he could study this son of his. He found the boy
bland. No, that was not right. He found him enigmatic. His life
seemed to have left no mark whatever on him, and he stared at the
road and the traffic ahead of them with the innocence of a young man
who'd had no experiences in this world at all. Jonas looked for the
mark of a soldier who had been grievously wounded, and he didn't see
it. He looked for the curiosity, or maybe the resentment, an
illegitimate son might feel toward the father who had abandoned his
mother — and he didn't see that, either.

"You understand, I didn't know your mother was pregnant."

Bat glanced at him. "Would it have made any difference?" he
asked.

"Yes — Yes,
goddammit
, it would
have. It sure as hell would have made a difference."

"I'm glad to hear it," said Bat dryly. Neither the hard
raised voice or the "goddammit" had penetrated his calm. He
whipped the little car in and out in the heavy traffic.

Jonas changed the subject. "You know why I'm in Mexico, of
course."

"Yes. I read the newspapers."

"I'm not a fugitive from justice," said Jonas.

"Maybe from injustice," said Bat.

"It's political."

"That's how I read it," said Bat.

Jonas nodded. "You understand about it, then?"

"I'm sure I don't have all the information. From what I know —"

"I'm probably pretty much what my reputation says I am,"
Jonas interrupted. "But I'm not a goddamn crook. I really am
not."

"You don't have to convince me," said Bat dryly.

For a minute or so Jonas stared at the road. Then he said, "I
treated your mother ill. I'm glad to see she's happy. She would not
have been with me. You know? You know enough about me to understand
that. Don't you?"

"Don't try to justify yourself," said Bat without taking
his eyes off the traffic. "You don't need to. And if you did
need to, you couldn't. She made up her mind about you a long time
ago. Even now, you contacted her only because you think she might
have some influence you can use, with her uncle."

"You've got your mind pretty well made up," said Jonas. "I
couldn't justify myself with you, either. The fact I didn't know you
existed makes no difference."

Bat glanced at his father. "Exactly," he said.

Jonas leaned against the right-hand door of the car and scowled at
his son. The boy was more of a Cord than he had suspected.

"Changing the subject, I do have to ... hide."

"Why?" asked Bat. "Officially, the Mexican government
doesn't know you're here. Unofficially, it won't acknowledge it. That
can be arranged for very little money. Besides, I sense the American
government has become bored with the chase. There have been
editorials saying the government surely has something better to do
than hound you. What did those editorials cost you, incidentally?"

"Jonas ... Bat. You know too fuckin' much."

Bat smiled at last. "A man can get along in this world knowing
nothing. Or he can get along — maybe no better — trying
to know everything."

Jonas stared at his son and nodded. "Like I said, you know too
much. I didn't buy any editorials. I just fed those papers
information."

"It would have been more direct to buy them," said Bat.

"So you're cynical, too."

"Cynical is another word for realistic."

Jonas grinned. "You inherited something from me — and from
your grandfather. You — you wouldn't mind using the name Cord?"

"Here in Mexico, I am Cord. It is only in the States that they
have that confused."

"And everyone knows you're my son?"

"Everyone."

Jonas closed his eyes for a moment. "Everyone but me. I didn't
know I had a son. Are ... are you married?"

"No."

"Have a girl? A prospect?"

"Maybe. Not really, I guess. I thought I did, but she's a career
woman."

"Meaning what?"

"I asked her to marry me, and she accepted. Then she was
appointed an aide to a United States senator and went to Washington.
Three years ago. I've seen her a couple of times since."

"I'm glad to hear there's
some
way in
which you're a damned fool."

"Meaning what?"

"Either you were a fool to ask her to marry you in the first
place, or you were a fool to resent her wanting a career of her own.
Which was it?"

"It's personal," said Bat glumly.

"Fathers and sons tend to discuss personal things with each
other," said Jonas.

"I wouldn't know about that."

"Neither would I," said Jonas. "My father never talked
about anything personal with me, except to raise hell with me about
something or other. It was only after he died that somebody told me
he once said he loved me."

Bat took his eyes off the road and looked at Jonas. He frowned and
shook his head.

"If I'd known I had a son —"

"You didn't ask."

"I didn't guess."

"It may be just as well," said Bat. "I'm not sure I
could have coped with you."

"But you can now, hmm?" Jonas asked.

Bat smiled. "Well ... We'll see."

"Are you going to handle this business with the Mexican
government for me? I mean, letting me stay in the country and so on."

"I'm a very new lawyer. My firm can handle it."

"All right. You've brought in a client. I'll
have a variety of legal problems for your firm. But understand
something. Anything that's personal and confidential, I want
you
to handle it. You have a stake in it, you know."

"What's that mean?"

"You're my
heir
, you damned fool. What
did you think?"

"Heir?" Bat asked, tossing up his chin. "I learned in
law school that you can't refuse a legacy, so that you have to pay
inheritance taxes even if you don't want the inheritance. You have to
accept the inheritance and pay the taxes out of it, before you can
get rid of it. But don't do me any favors until I decide if I want
them."

Mexico City was a city of startling contrasts. Downtown, high-rise
office buildings rose above broad avenues. Out a little, people lived
in what had to be the world's most squalid slums. The villa Bat had
found was located in as pleasant a suburban neighborhood as Jonas had
ever seen.

The house had a red tile roof above ocher stucco walls. In the
Mediterranean style, it faced the street and its neighbors with
windowless walls. All the windows opened on its central courtyard,
affording views of a green pool inhabited by large goldfish that swam
placidly among lily pads. The goldfish were so tame you could reach
down in the water and pick one up. Chameleons scampered among the
shrubs, wary of the sharp-eyed birds that watched them from branches
and occasionally swooped down and caught one. The rooms were all
large, with dark wood floors and white plaster walls. The furniture
was heavy, most of it upholstered with leather of various colors,
from black to coffee-with-cream tan. The villa suited Jonas very
well.

A man and wife worked as household staff: the woman as cook, maid,
and laundress, her husband as gardener and houseman. They lived in a
suite of rooms at the rear of the house.

Bill Shaw stayed with him and occupied a room on the south side. He
had brought Jonas's telephone scrambler, and they attached it to the
house line, Jonas called for Angie, and she came down.

Bat came to see him nearly every day, so often that Jonas began to
wonder if he came to see him or to see Angie. The young man was not
subtle about his admiration for his father's woman. He stared at her
legs. It amused her, and she would allow her skirt to creep up. When
she noticed him staring at her breasts, she would shrug and thrust
them forward. Their little game amused Jonas at first, then ceased to
amuse him.

Bat suggested they go to a bullfight on Sunday afternoon. "It's
not one of my favorite spectacles, but everybody should see it once."

He bought them good seats in the shade, where they were surrounded by
happy aficionados. A noisier and more exuberant crowd sat in the sun
on the opposite side. The spectacle was, as Bat had said, something
everyone should see once, for the color and the horses and the brassy
music, if not for the killing of bulls.

Angie sat between Jonas and Bat, drawing honest
stares. She wore a white dress and a white picture hat. She sat with
her legs crossed at the ankles, the way finishing schools taught; and
no one, especially not Bat, guessed that
her
finishing school
had been a women's reformatory. She studied her program for some
time, then turned to Bat and said, "I hope the score is matadors
seven, bulls one. I think the bulls should be entitled to win
occasionally."

After the first fight, a group of American tourists got up and left.
One of the women had fainted — or pretended to — when the
bull's blood gushed from its neck. One of the men, wearing a panama
hat, a light-blue suit, and white shoes, proclaimed indignantly that
bullfighting was no sport and was brutality practiced to entertain
brutes.

"
¿Que quiere usted decir?
"
Bat asked innocently: What do you mean? He judged his group looked
norteamericano
, too, and he wanted the angry Mexicans seated
around them to think they weren't. The tourist in the panama hat shot
him a hard look as he bustled by. Bat turned to the Mexicans sitting
around them, turned up his palms, turned down the corners of his
mouth, and shrugged. The people laughed.

In the second fight, Angie got her wish. The matador was gored and
thrown. The bulls did win occasionally.

"It's no secret that I'm in Mexico City," Jonas said to Bat
as they waited for the third fight. "Someone knew how to find
me."

"Who?" Bat asked.

"A man by the name of Luis Basurto. Ever hear of him?"

"I've heard of him," said Bat. "What's he want?"

Their conversation was interrupted by the cry of a
boy selling chewing gum and candy. "
¡Chicle!
¡Chocolate!
" — Cheek-leh, Choco-lawt-eh.

"He wants to interest me in investing in a Mexican hotel deal."

Bat shook his head. "Basurto is a crook."

"That simple?"

"That simple. Are you interested in investing in a Mexican
hotel?"

"Well, I bought The Seven Voyages," said Jonas. "I'm
going to make it pay, too. I'm looking for at least one more."

"There's no legal gambling in Mexico."

"Well, that's what —"

"
¡Chicle! ¡Chocolate!
"

"— that's what Basurto says he can take
care of."