A Quiet Flame

“Yes, Señora Perón, I can feel it,” I said, trying to keep the erection out of my voice.

She let go of my hand and, to my relief, she seemed to relax a little. Then she smiled and said, “Whenever you are ready, you can take your hand off my bosom, German.”

For a split second, I let it stay there. Long enough to meet her eye and let her know I liked my hand being just where it was. And then I took it away. I considered kissing my fingers, or maybe just smelling the perfume that was on them now, only that would have made me as melodramatic as she. So I put the hand in my pocket, saving it for later, like a choice cigar or a dirty postcard.

She adjusted her dress and then opened a drawer, from which she took out a photograph and handed it to me. It was the same photograph Kurt von Bader had given me. The reward he had mentioned was the same amount. I wondered whether, if I did manage to find Fabienne, each would pay or just one. Or neither. Neither seemed more likely. Usually when you found a missing child, the parents got angry, first with the child and then with you. Not that any of this seemed particularly relevant. They were asking me to look for her because they’d tried everything else. Since that had already failed, I figured I had next to no chance of turning up a lead on the kid. To succeed, I would have to think of something that hadn’t been thought of, which wasn’t a good bet on anyone’s quinella. Probably the kid was in Uruguay, or dead, and if she wasn’t, then there had to be an adult who was helping her stay below the radar.

“Do you think you can find her?” asked Evita.

“I was kind of wondering that myself,” I said. “Perhaps I might, if I had all the facts.”

“Forgive me, but isn’t that a detective’s job? To work without all the facts. I mean, if we had all the facts, then we could probably find her ourselves. We wouldn’t need you, German. And we certainly wouldn’t be offering a reward of fifty thousand dollars.”

She had a point, of course. Melodramatic she might have been. Stupid she wasn’t.

“What makes you think she’s still in the country?” I asked. “Could be she just got on the riverboat to Montevideo. Twenty-nine dollars. End of story.”

“For one thing,” said Evita, “I’m married to the president of Argentina. So, I know that she doesn’t have a passport. And even if she did have a passport, she doesn’t have a visa. We know because my husband asked Luis Berres. He’s the president of Uruguay. And before you ask, he also asked Presidents Videla, Chaves, and Odría.”

“Perhaps if I spoke to her parents again,” I said. Correcting myself, I added, “I mean to her father and her stepmother.”

“If you think it would do any good,” said Montalbán.

I didn’t. But I hardly knew what else to suggest. All of it was a dead end. I’d known that the first time I’d met von Bader. From everything I’d heard, his daughter and whomever she was with didn’t want to be found. For a detective, when people don’t want to be found, it’s like looking for the meaning of life. You’re not even sure that it exists. I hated taking on a job that promised so little chance of success. And normally, I might have turned it down. But normal didn’t even get to peek through the spy hole of this particular situation. Eva Perón wasn’t the kind of president’s wife you refused. Especially not soon after my trip to Caseros.

“Well?” she asked. “How will you go about it?”

I put a cigarette in my face and lit it. I didn’t want a cigarette, but it gave me time to think of something to say. Colonel Montalbán cleared his throat. It sounded like a lifebelt hitting the water above my head.

“As soon as we have something to report, we’ll be in touch, ma’am.”

When we were on the stairs outside the antechamber, I thanked him.

“For what?”

“For coming to my aid back there. That question she asked.”

“ ‘How will you go about it?’ ”

“That’s right.”

“And how will you go about it?” He grinned amiably and took a light off my cigarette.

“Oh, I don’t know. I’ll go and look for inspiration, probably. Stick a gun in its face. Slap it around a bit. See what happens. The forensic, judicial approach. On the other hand, I might just have to hope that I get lucky. That usually works for me. I may not look like it, Colonel, but I’m quite a lucky guy. This morning I was in prison. Five minutes ago, I had my hand inside the cleavage of the wife of the president of Argentina. Believe me, for a German that’s as lucky as luck can buy you these days.”

“I don’t doubt it.”

“Evita didn’t seem ill.”

“Nor do you.”

“Not now, maybe. But I was.”

“Pack’s a good doctor,” said the colonel. “The best there is. You were both lucky to have someone like him treating you.”

“I expect so.”

“I’ll call the von Baders and say that you want to speak to them again. Perhaps there was something we missed before.”

“There’s always something that gets missed. On account of the fact that detectives are human and humans make mistakes.”

“Shall we say at midday tomorrow?”

I nodded.

“Come on,” he said. “I’ll drive you back to your hotel.”