Len Deighton - Mexico Set

'I've only been here before in the morning. I had no idea what it was really like. It's fantastic,' said Henry Tiptree, as we walked past five musicians in scrapes and sombreros singing '… life is worth nothing in Guanajuato'. Tiptree halted for a moment to listen. 'It's not even spoiled by tourists; almost everyone here is Mexican.'

'It's right for what we want,' I said. 'It's ill-lit, noisy and crowded.' And smelly too. Trapped by the surrounding mountains, the still air was pressed down upon the city, trapping the petrol fumes and woodsmoke so that the air offended the nose and stung the eyes.

'I'm not working against you, Samson,' said Henry Tiptree suddenly.

'If you say so,' I said. Tiptree stopped to look around the square. There was music coming from every direction, and yet the effect was polyphony rather than discord. Or was I becoming inured to chaos?

Tiptree continued to look round the square. He fingered the moustache that never seemed to grow, and spoke with that sort of confidential manner that people use to assert their self-importance. 'You must understand,' he said, 'that the success of this operation will be measured according to whether we get our man to London; nothing else counts for much. That's why London Central is determined that we do everything right.'

'We all are,' I said. 'But who knows best what's right?'

'Very philosophical,' said Tiptree flatly.

'I am very philosophical,' I said. 'You get philosophical after London Central screws up for you a few times.'

'London Central have confirmed that I'm in charge,' said Tiptree.

'I want that understood before we go a step further. You will take Stinnes to London, but here in the city we're doing things my way.'

'You're in charge,' I agreed. London Central? Who'd put this idiot in charge? Dicky? Bret? Morgan, perhaps. Tiptree seemed to be on very good terms with Morgan, the D-G's factotum, who could have caught the D-G in a weak moment and got a signature from him.

Tiptree shot me a suspicious glance. He knew my glib pledge counted for little or nothing. I didn't risk my neck taking orders from learners. He stopped to watch another group of musicians. They were singing a song about a man who'd lost his heart to a girl from Veracruz. The men were illuminated by a hissing acetylene lamp placed at their feet. The lead singer – a very old man with a face like a walnut and a bandido moustache – had a fine bass voice that was racked with emotion. There is a passionate soul in every Mexican, so that love or revolution dominates his whole being; but only for a few minutes at a time.

'What have you arranged about his money?' I asked.

From the corner of my eye I could see that Tiptree was looking at me, trying to decide how to answer. 'Mrs Volkmann is meeting us at the bank,' he said finally. 'Stinnes wants the money paid to her.'

Only with a great effort did I prevent myself from jumping up and down and shrieking with rage. This idiot was keeping Zena better informed than me. But very calmly I said, 'What bank is open in Garibaldi Square at this hour?'

'So there are things that even you don't know, eh, Samson?'

He went along the pavement to find a pulqueria where even the barman looked drunk. The fermenting sap of the maguey plant smells like rancid nut-oil, but it's the cheapest way to oblivion, and like so many such bars this one was packed. After pushing his way between the customers right to the very back, Tiptree opened a door and held it open for me. I followed him into a narrow hallway, then he started to go up a steep flight of creaking stairs.

'Wait a minute,' I said. I stopped at the bottom of the stairs to look around. There was only a dim electric bulb to illuminate a passage that led out to the backyard and the urinals. 'Where are we going?' My voice echoed as I closed the door behind me. The customers in the bar were kicking up so much noise that I could only faintly hear the music from Garibaldi Square. There was a lot about this place that I didn't like.

'I'm meeting Stinnes in the square,' I protested.

'Don't be so nervous,' said Tiptree. 'The plan has been changed. Stinnes knows.' He smiled to reassure me, but it only made me see what a conceited fool he was. He knew how much I resented this change of plan and the way that Zena had already been made a party to it. 'It's all arranged.'

I touched the butt of the old pistol to be sure it was still there and then followed him up the narrow stairs. Rat-trap, fire-trap, mantrap; it was the sort of place I didn't like at any time. But I especially didn't like it for this sort of business. Narrow stairway with a wide well, so that a man with a Saturday-night special at the top of the house could plink an army one by one.

Tiptree stopped on the first-floor landing. There was just enough light to see that the door looked new. It was the only new-looking object anywhere in sight. He pressed the buzzer and waited for a small panel to open. It provided someone inside with a view of Tiptree's Eton tie. But he bent lower to see inside and whispered something that resulted in the sound of well-oiled bolts being slid back.

'I don't like surprises,' I told Tiptree. 'I arranged to meet Stinnes in the square.'

'I've sent a message to him,' said Tiptree. 'He'll meet us here. It's too damned public, that square.'

When the door was opened, by a slight Mexican boy who wore a straw hat, brim curled cowboy-style, I noticed there was a sheet of steel layered into the woodwork of the door. Another boy stood behind him, studying us warily. He recognized Tiptree and nodded.

'This is the bank,' announced Tiptree. It was a large room that overlooked the square, but the blinds had been pulled down. The room, with its ornate Victorian wallpaper and brass light-brackets, had the atmosphere of some Wild West saloon a century ago. Three almost identical men sat at three almost identical old tables. The men were dressed in white short-sleeved shirts with black trousers and black ties and black well-polished shoes: the uniform used throughout the world by men who wish to be entrusted with money. Each man was equipped with half a dozen ledgers, a small cash-box, a scribbling pad and a Japanese calculator. Through a half-open door I could see another room where girls were typing on the wide-platen typewriters that are required for account sheets.

'It's a money-change office,' I said.

'Three partners; brothers. They used to run a loan company… One that was always ready to change money too. But, when the government nationalized all the banks, larger horizons opened.'

'Is it a legal bank?' I asked.

'Strictly speaking it's not legal and it's not a bank,' said Tiptree. 'But it's right for what we want. I've spent a lot of time in Mexico, Samson. I know how things work here.'

I looked at the old man sitting inside the door with a shotgun across his knees. The teenage boys who'd let us in looked like blood relations. Perhaps it was a family business.

Tiptree greeted Zena. She was sitting on a wooden bench and nodded politely to both of us. Despite the heat, she was dressed in a linen suit with Paris labels, and her make-up and the low-heeled shoes made her look like someone who'd prepared for a journey. There was no sign of Werner.

'Is this where the money is supposed to be?' I asked.

Tiptree smiled at the doubt he heard in my voice. 'Don't be misguided by appearances. A quarter of a million dollars is a bagatelle to these people, Samson. They could have ten million, in any of the world's major currencies, laid out across the floor within an hour.'

'You've got it all worked out,' I said.

'You're the muscle; I'm the brains,' said Tiptree, without expending too much energy to persuade me it was a joke.

Tiptree exchanged polite, British-style greetings with one of the partners and formally introduced me. The senior partner was called Pepe, a soft-spoken man with white hair, a pock-marked face and a pocket full of pens. Tiptree told him that Zena was the one to whom the money was to be paid. I looked at Zena and she smiled.