“Let’s get you out of there, señor,” Masterson said in fluent Spanish. “I think it would be better for you to lie down.”
He saw that the driver was an attractive young woman—probably Señor Macho’s wife; Argentine men don’t let their girlfriends drive their cars for fear it will make them look unmanly—who looked dazed but didn’t seem to be hurt. She was wearing her seat belt, and the airbag on the steering wheel had deployed.
“Alex,” Masterson called, “get this lady out of here.”
Then he pulled his cloth handkerchief from his pants pocket, pressed it to the man’s bleeding forehead, and placed the man’s right hand to hold it.
“Keep pressure on it,” Masterson said as he helped the man out of the Volkswagen and to the curb. He got him to sit, then asked, “Need to lie down?”
“I’m all right,” the man said. “Muchas gracias.”
“You’re sure? Nothing’s broken?”
The man moved his torso as if testing for broken bones, and then smiled wanly.
Alex Darby led the young woman to the curb. She saw the man and the bloody handkerchief, sucked in her breath audibly, and dropped to her knees to comfort him.
It was an intimate moment. Masterson looked away.
The big Ford truck that had crashed into them was disappearing into the Carrefour parking lot.
The sonofabitch is running away!
Masterson shouted at the policeman directing traffic, finally caught his attention, and, pointing at the pickup, shouted that he was running away.
The policeman gestured that he understood, but as he was occupied directing traffic, there wasn’t much that he could do.
Goddammit to hell!
Masterson took his cellular telephone from his inside pocket and punched an autodial number. When there was no response, he looked at the screen.
No bars! I am in the only fucking place in Buenos Aires where there’s no cellular signal!
Darby saw the cellular in Masterson’s hand and asked, “You’re calling the embassy?”
“No goddamn signal.”
Darby took his cellular out and confirmed that.
“I’ll call it in with the radio,” he said, and walked quickly to the BMW.
A minute later he came back.
“Lowery asked if we’re all right,” he said. “I told him yes. He’s sending an Automobile Club wrecker and a car. It’ll probably take a little while for the car. The demonstrators are still at it.”
“The sonofabitch who hit us took off,” Masterson said.
“Really? You’re sure?”
“Yes, goddammit, I’m sure.”
“Take it easy, Jack. These things happen. Nobody’s hurt.”
“He is,” Masterson said, nodding at Señor Macho.
“The cops and an ambulance will be here soon, I’m sure.”
“Betsy’s going to shit a brick when I’m late,” Masterson said. “And I can’t call her.”
“Get on the radio and have the guard at Post One call her at the Kansas.”
Masterson considered that.
“No,” he decided aloud. “She’ll just have to be pissed. I don’t want the guard calling her and telling her I’ve been in another wreck.”
[FOUR]
Restaurant Kansas Avenida Libertador San Isidro Buenos Aires Province, Argentina 1925 20 July 2005
Elizabeth “Betsy” Masterson, a tall, slim, well-groomed thirty-seven-year-old, with the sharp features and brownish black skin that made her think her ancestors had been of the Watusi tribe, was seated alone at the bar of Kansas—the only place smoking was permitted in the elegant steakhouse. She looked at her watch for the fifth time in the past ten minutes, exhaled audibly, had unkind thoughts about the opposite sex generally and Jack, her husband, specifically, and then signaled to the bartender for another Lagarde merlot, and lit another cigarette.
Goddamn him! He knows that I hate to sit at the bar alone, as if I’m looking for a man. And he said he’d be here between quarter to seven and seven!
Jack’s embassy car had been in a fender bender— another fender bender, the second this month—and was in the shop, and he had caught a ride to work, and was catching a ride home, with Alex Darby, the embassy’s commercial attaché. Jack had called her and asked if she could pick him up at Kansas, as for some reason it would be inconvenient for Alex to drop him at the house.
The Mastersons and the Darbys, both on their second tours in Buenos Aires, had opted for embassy houses in San Isidro, rather than for apartments in Palermo or Belgrano.
Their first tours had taught them there was a downside to the elegant apartments the embassy leased in the city. They were of course closer to the embassy, but they were noisy, sometimes the elevators and the air-conditioning didn’t work, and parking required negotiating a narrow access road to a crowded garage sometimes two floors