Free Murder Is My Dish by Stephen Marlowe

into words. It’s still a beautiful country, even if Indalecio Grande does run it. The people are still good people. They haven’t changed. My father felt that way. He loved the country and the people. He died for them. I’m going home.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œDon’t sound so surprised. I do every Christmas, to see my mother.”
    â€œDon’t be a fool,” I said. “They’re still looking for Caballero’s manuscript. You probably know more about its contents than any living person. Don’t you think they know that?”
    â€œMy mother’s a sick old woman. She looks forward to Christmas. They give me a visa. I’m not a fugitive. Besides, I’m an American citizen.
    â€œSo was Caballero. You said so.”
    â€œStill.”
    It was no use arguing with her. She thanked me again and told me to be careful and asked me if she would see me again. I said I didn’t know and she said good by and waited. When I didn’t say anything else, she hung up.…
    I took a taxi back to the Commodore and dragged myself into the lobby. It was only a little after midnight but it felt like next year.
    The little gray man was waiting in a leather chair near the desk. I went over to him and said, “Hi there. I’m going upstairs to sleep now. I’d like to sleep late but I won’t be able to. In the morning I’m going to visit Primo Blas Lequerica, the Parana Republic’s permanent delegate to the United Nations. You can come along if you want. Then I’m probably going over to West Street to the Parana Lines building. You can come along. In fact, I wish you would. No more secrets. No more ducking out on you, cross my heart. Well, good night.”
    I left him sitting there with his mouth open. For all I know—and for all I care—he sat that way all night long.

Chapter Seven
    I PAID OFF the taxi across Fifth Avenue from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. A cold rain had fallen during the early morning, and was still falling. It was good weather for museums and indoor games and staying in bed all day, alone or with company.
    I walked through slush looking at the other side of the street. It was much nicer over there with the winter-bare trees as a backdrop for the museum and a busload of raincoated children storming up the wide stone steps with three grown women, probably their teachers. My side of Fifth Avenue was one continuous wall of concrete set back a little way from the street and expensive cars lined up contiguously at the curb as if they had been cemented there. A doorman with a visored cap poking out under the hood of his slicker came by with two disdainful-looking permanent-waved French poodles on a double leash. He appeared to be more miserable than I felt, so I smiled at him. He did not smile back.
    Primo Blas Lequerica had a terrace apartment in one of the buildings opposite the museum. I went in there and up in an elevator a little larger than an upright coffin. A city cop stopped me in the carpeted hallway near Lequerica’s door.
    â€œSorry, Mac,” he said. “You can’t go in there. Mr. Lequerica ain’t seeing the press today.”
    â€œI’m not the press,” I said, fishing a card from my wallet and giving it to the cop. “He’ll see me.”
    Grunting, the cop took my card inside. I had only a soft lump on the back of my head and a bruise on my jaw for company, and here it was Saturday morning. But I felt a little better when I thought of Grundy’s little gray man waiting outside in the rain for me. After a while the cop came out and jerked his thumb toward the door.
    â€œSorry, Mac,” he said. It seemed to be his way of beginning a conversation. “I thought you was a reporter.”
    I entered a living room not quite as big as the lower level at Grand Central. There was a fire blazing on the metal-hooded hearth on the far wall, enough ultra-modern furniture to overcrowd five