Murder at the Watergate by Margaret Truman

Author:Margaret Truman [Truman, Margaret]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-8041-5278-5
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2014-09-30T16:00:00+00:00

24

That Same Afternoon

The South Building—the Watergate

Mac and Annabel sat on their terrace overlooking the Potomac. She’d come home early that day, leaving the gallery in the hands of a young assistant, an art history major at GW. Mac had taught that morning, and the experience hadn’t done anything for his customary pleasant disposition.

“They’re bright,” he told her after she’d delivered a platter of cheeses and two nonalcoholic beers to the terrace. “They wouldn’t have been admitted if they weren’t bright. But they don’t seem to get it.”

“Get what?”

“What law is really all about. They seem to want the law to conform to their thinking, support their views of life and society. But law can’t be what they want it to be. It’s what it is.”

She cocked her head, smiled, and patted his arm. “Remember what Swift said.”

“Jonathan Swift?”

“I learned it in law school. He said, ‘Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through.’ ”

“I didn’t learn that in my law school.”

“Laws aren’t as black and white as you’d like them to be.”

“And they aren’t as subject to flimsy interpretation as my students would like them to be.”

“Cheese?”

“Please. The Camembert. On one of those wheat crackers.”

“So, Professor Smith, tell me more about this James Bond mission you’re about to go on for Joe.”

“Hardly that,” he said. “Joe wants me to—I always feel funny calling him Joe—”

“Call him Joseph.”

“Not what I meant. He wants me to go to Mexico a few days earlier than planned. I’m to meet with some unnamed fellow in Mexico City, who will tell me how to contact this Unzaga in San Miguel.”

“And this Unzaga is a revolutionary.”

“According to Chris Hedras.”

“And he’s to tell you things that are calculated to drive a stake in the PRI’s political heart.”

“A little too dramatic, but basically correct.”

“And what about your heart?”

“What about it? I passed my last EKG with high grades.”

“Certain people in the PRI might like to drive a stake into Unzaga’s heart—and those he confides in.”

“I’m sure he’s not the most popular fellow in Mexico, but let’s not overstate it.”

“Let’s talk fact, then. You do know, I assume, what happened to Villa and Zapata. You do know your history.”

“Killed.”

“Assassinated. Assassination’s long been a major sport there. Strange. The Mexican people—average Mexican people—are so gentle and loving, yet it’s always been such a violent country.”

“True. And how about us? But I’m not leading a rebel army against the government. All I’m doing is meeting with someone in a public place, hearing what he has to say, and reporting it back to—”

“Back to who?”

“Chris Hedras, I suppose.”

“For Joe Aprile’s ears.”

“Yes, which I find intriguing.”

“So do I. Why does Joseph Aprile, vice president of the United States, want this sort of information? He has other intelligence sources. It sounds as though he’s deliberately undercutting the president.”

“That’s not a surprise anymore, is it? Anybody you talk to who’s tapped in to Joe’s campaign expects at least a modest rift over Mexican policy to go public any day.

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