Five Quickies For Roger And Suzanne (Roger and Suzanne South American Mystery Series Book 7) Read online

  She stood up, reached out her hand for a firm handshake, and agreed to all of my conditions.

  “I’ll take care of all of our travel arrangements,” she said. “Do you have an up to date passport?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  She pulled a checkbook out of her purse and started writing amounts in the blank spaces of a check that had already been prepared. “Good. You just need a valid passport. Argentina doesn’t currently require visas for Americans to enter the country, just a fee to leave the country at the airport. Here’s the check for your retainer. You have a new client. And thank you very much for hearing me out and agreeing to help me.”

  “Thank you.”

  She handed me the check. “The soonest I can leave for Argentina is the day after tomorrow. I’ve already checked and there would be room for us on the flight to Miami and the connections to Buenos Aires and Salta. Would that day work for you?”

  The check disappeared into my wallet. I’d deposit it when I went out for lunch. “Yes, I can get everything I’m doing finished or on hold this afternoon or tomorrow.”

  Suzanne thought a moment before asking me, “Is it OK with you if I make all of the flight arrangements for both of us? I can do everything on-line when I get back to my office. All I’ll need is your passport number, date of birth, and the other stuff they need to identify you from your passport.”

  I wrote down my full name from the passport, the number, and my date and place of birth on a clean sheet of paper, tore it off, and handed it to her. “Sure, just call me when everything is arranged and let me know where I should meet you and what time.”

  Suzanne called later that afternoon to tell me our flight would leave from the American Airlines terminal at LAX, and the rest of our itinerary. She suggested we meet there at 7:30 in the morning. “I’m sure you already know that Argentina is on the other side of the world, as far south as you can go before you get to Antarctica in the Southern hemisphere. But just in case you’ve never been there, I should warn you that the seasons are reversed from the Northern hemisphere. It’s November here in Los Angeles, autumn, which means it’s spring in Argentina, the equivalent of May. In northwest Argentina, where we’re going, it’ll be sunny and warm during the days, a lot like Southern California in May.

  “I haven’t any idea what we’re going to find when we get to Salta. That’s why I hired you, to make sure I’m safe when we get there. You’ll make all the decisions about what we’re going to investigate while we’re there. I don’t want to tell you how to do your job, but I think we may want to pretend we’re a couple of innocent tourists visiting a foreign country halfway around the world. I’ll see you at the airport the day after tomorrow.”

  Chapter2.The Flight to BA

  We met as arranged at LAX, Los Angeles International Airport, at the American Airlines terminal. Suzanne was dressed casually in tight Levis 505 jeans and a T-shirt. The UCLA I.D. card she had been wearing around her neck when she visited me in my office wasn’t there this morning. She wasn’t wearing any make-up either, but still looked beautiful even though it was 7:30 in the morning. Her long blond hair was tied back in a ponytail so she looked like a college undergraduate. After checking in, showing the lady behind the airline counter we had our passports up to date, and clearing security, we went to our gate to sit and wait for the flight to board. Both of us had packed lightly enough that our suitcases were carry-on. None of our baggage needed to be checked. We mostly made small talk about things to see and do in Argentina.

  Suzanne looked all around the boarding area in front of our departure gate, “Did you notice a man about your age with light hair on the line behind us when we were checking in downstairs? He looks a lot like one of the two men who followed me during the last week or two.”

  She looked around the boarding area again, this time indicating with a nod of her head a guy walking towards our gate. The odds she was right that he really was following her got a whole lot better when the man in question sat down at the gate to wait for the same flight we were taking. The plane was on time, leaving on schedule for Miami, our first stop. We sat together in a two-seat row, Suzanne sitting by the window, about midway back in the coach cabin. Our light-haired friend was somewhere on the plane (we had seen him board), but nowhere near us. After the Captain announced we were in the air going to Miami, things quieted down. It was a perfect place to discuss just about anything without fear of being overheard.

  Suzanne relaxed and turned towards me in her seat. “Tell me a little bit about yourself.”

  “Well, I’m about 6 foot, two inches, 190 pounds, 35 years old, blue eyes, and a Gemini.”

  “I didn’t mean speed dating,” she replied. “I really want to get to know you a little better. We’re going to be spending a couple of weeks together and I’d rather spend that time pleasantly with a friend then in a formal client-investigator relationship. Now tell me all about you from childhood on. Then you can ask me the same question.”

  “OK. I’m a native Californian, born and raised in San Diego, with an older sister and a younger brother, both of whom stayed in San Diego. Mom was a full-time mother while I was growing up, while Dad was a career Navy officer based out of San Diego. He was actually a cop in the Navy, first as a Shore Patrol officer and later on in Naval Intelligence. My biggest concern growing up was when and where the surf was up so I could go boarding. I went to college at UC San Diego, majored in chemistry. After graduation I went to law school at UCLA in Los Angeles. After passing the bar, it became obvious I didn’t like either lawyers or crooks. I found out patent law is extremely boring, too, so the law was a bad career choice for me. I keep the law license paid up, so can always moonlight if there are no clients for me as a P.I. That hasn’t happened yet.

  “After my extremely brief career as a lawyer, I became a cop in Los Angeles and worked my way up the career ladder to detective. That lasted a few years, but I got tired of the bureaucracy and politics and switched to being a private detective. It’s a pretty good way to make a living and a good way to be my own boss. I stay in shape mostly doing martial arts, my favorite being Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. I’ve never been married but came pretty close once. At the moment there aren’t any significant relationships. I like movies and reading, especially mystery novels. That’s about it for my autobiography. It probably should be your turn now.”

  Suzanne seemed to be lost in thought for a moment or two before she started speaking. “I’m a native Californian too, born and raised as an only child in Northern California in a small town near Sacramento. I grew up as a well-loved kid who liked to play all kinds of sports, and had a great childhood. Mom died during my first year at college. Dad moved to Los Angeles and bought a nice house in Beverly Hills right after my mother died to be nearer to his business. My father and I stayed pretty close since then, but I haven’t lived at home since starting college at the University of California in Davis. We would meet for dinner in Davis or Los Angeles at least once a month while I was still in college, but we broke the habit after I graduated and went to Berkeley for graduate school.

  “You know what happened to my father; I suspect that after all of the legalities are completed I’ll be very wealthy. I already own his house outright. There are a few very high-powered lawyers who worry about family trusts and all that sort of thing, so I don’t really know, or care about, the details.

  “You’re looking at the real me now. I’m not a fan of high heels, dresses, or make-up, but would live 24/7 in jeans if I could. I like doing just about anything you can think of that people do outdoors and don’t mind getting dirty. As an undergraduate at UC Davis I majored in biochemistry and molecular biology. From there I got a Ph.D. in biochemistry from Berkeley, followed by three years on a post-doctoral fellowship at Stanford. I’m currently an assistant professor of biochemistry at the UCLA Medical School in Westwood.

  “I teach and do research on some very strange proteins we can isolate from tropical plants, so get to travel for my rese
arch work and can get away on short notice like now. I share your interest in martial arts and have a first-degree black belt in Tae Kwan Do karate. My work keeps me too busy to try to get better competitively, but I work out frequently enough to try to stay in shape. I also enjoy swimming, surfing, and sailing. I’ve never been married either. That’s probably because I’ve moved around so much until now and have been so busy that there hasn’t ever been enough time for a good long-term relationship to happen. Like you, I tend to pick up mystery novels for recreational reading, and especially like the classic P.I. books set in California by Chandler, MacDonald, and Hammett.”

  The rest of the flight was mostly small talk, which seemed to come easily to both of us. I found myself strongly attracted to Suzanne as a person, as well as a beautiful woman. It became apparent that we had quite a few things in common. I wondered if she might be available socially, but hesitated to ask her directly until we knew each other better. In the meantime she was very easy to look at, fun to talk to, and an almost perfect traveling companion, so the time went by quickly on the flight.

  The Miami to Buenos Aires plane left on time at 11-something PM that night with our light-haired follower and another darker haired guy Suzanne was pretty sure she also recognized aboard. Suzanne sat at the window while I was at the aisle of a pair of seats. We were fed a dinner (beef of course, mediocre of course), shown a movie, and encouraged to go to sleep (and not bother the flight crew) by having pillows and blankets distributed and all of the plane’s interior lights turned off. Suzanne pulled up her blanket to her neck and leaned against my shoulder.

  “Good night,” she whispered.

  She slept in that position during the long night flying south and east, until about 6 A.M. when sounds from the galley suggested that breakfast would be coming and the cabin lights went on. Despite having only a couple of hours of sleep and traveling more or less continuously for almost 21 hours thus far, Suzanne looked like she was ready for the new day.

  The Miami to Buenos Aires flight landed a few minutes after 8 AM local time, which was 4 hours later than California time, at Ezeiza International Airport. This large modern airport is located several miles east of downtown Buenos Aires, Argentina’s capital city, known to locals as BA. Domestic Argentine flights, like ours from BA to Salta, fly in and out of the BA domestic airport called El Aeroparque, situated in the Palermo neighborhood of downtown BA. So we had an expensive cab ride and almost five hours to kill before we could complete the final leg of our trip to Salta.

  We collected our bags from the overhead compartment, went through customs (nothing to declare), told La Migra that the reason for our trip was tourism, and exchanged dollars for pesos ($1 = about 4 pesos). The airport was huge and sprawled out over multiple terminals. Airlines whose logos we recognized shared space with planes whose country of origin was indicated in Cyrillic or Arabic script. Russian and Middle Eastern airlines shared terminal space with Asian airlines. The people flowing through the terminals and joining the long, slow moving, lines for Customs and Immigration were as mixed racially and linguistically as the airplanes that sat at the gates in the many terminal buildings. Arriving and departing passengers seemed to be in a hurry. Airline personnel and government employees didn’t.

  It was a gorgeous day, sunny, blue sky, warm but not hot, with a nice breeze blowing in from the Rio de la Plata to the north. We walked over to a waiting cab to escape the chaos of the airport. Suzanne, who turned out to speak excellent Spanish, told the driver that we needed to go to El Aeroparque, but that we were not in any hurry and would like to see some of the touristic things along the way. Our driver/tour guide was only too happy to oblige as we were going to be by far his best fare of the day. He volunteered to play tour guide as we drove through the city, and, wonder of wonders, he spoke good English so I’d be included in his audience.

  Chapter3.BA the City

  Ezeiza Airport is several miles from the tourist’s Buenos Aires. Our taxi drove us into BA on the national highway, which is a multi-lane limited access road that went towards the city center while passing through a variety of commercial and residential neighborhoods. Our driver, and occasional tour guide, Juan, pointed out San Telmo, a neighborhood of narrow streets, colonial patios, and a thriving population of artists of all kinds, as we got closer to the central city on the 25th of May Highway.

  Juan flashed a glance back at Suzanne and switched into his tour guide mode. “San Telmo is famous for its market, in a 104-year-old building designed by one of the most admired architects of 19th century Argentina.”

  Then he surprised us by switching to social and political observations. “You’ll notice the buildings look old and not particularly well maintained. The streets are cluttered and dirty. This is typical all over Argentina. Nobody takes pride in keeping things clean and well maintained like they did back in Europe. Maintenance by the city is all focused on downtown where the politicians are, not in the neighborhoods where real people live and work.”

  He snuck another quick look back at both of us and nodded as if he had just made a quick decision. “You won’t hear this type of comment from a typical porteno. They see only the big buildings and statues, not the dirt and poverty. I was born here in B.A, but my parents, who were educated people, emigrated here from Europe at the end of World War II. So I was raised partially as a European and partially as an Argentinian. I see things a little differently because of the strong influence of my parents on me when I was growing up and they were dreaming of going back home to Europe.

  “You should also note that everybody on the streets here in a typical residential neighborhood seems to just walk along in no apparent hurry. Keep that in mind. It will be very different downtown.”

  Suzanne thought a bit before she decided she could ask a personal question without being rude. “Your English is excellent, Juan. I didn’t expect that from our taxi driver. Is it typical here in BA?”

  Juan chuckled ruefully. “No, it isn’t. I’m a college graduate. Just in case you haven’t kept informed, our economy is not very strong these days so we take whatever jobs we can find to survive. I’d much rather be playing as a violinist in a concert orchestra, but I have a family to feed.”

  Despite the heavy traffic, we eventually came to the City Center, which presented the image of BA we expected from the tourist books and magazines.

  Juan started telling us about what we were seeing, and what we would be seeing as we continued driving north and west. “Buenos Aires was designed by architects to reflect the glory of Paris, Barcelona, and Rome. Much of the newer construction celebrated French neo-classicism and the Baroque elegance of earlier Italian architecture. High-rise buildings, super-wide avenues, elaborate churches, and far too many monuments give BA its unique feeling as the most elegant city of South America.”

  The transition from the narrow streets of the residential neighborhoods and the highway to the bustling boulevards and impressive buildings of downtown BA occurred abruptly. We were surrounded by broad avenues 8-10 lanes wide in each direction, huge government buildings with pillars and facings worthy of the Roman Empire, and large plazas with statues of former generals, usually on horses, or of former presidents, many of whom had previously been generals, in each of them.

  Juan was busy fighting his way through dense traffic with macho drivers competing for right of way at every opportunity. He still was able to comment about what we were passing. “That distinguished gentleman you are seeing over and over in the statues is General Jose de San Martin, the George Washington of Argentina. You’ll see him and his horse many times, especially in the Plaza San Martin. The park on our left we’re about to pass is the Plaza de Mayo, which hosts the National Museum of the Revolution of May. The museum commemorates the revolution when Argentina gained its independence from Spain. The building is on Hipolito Yrigoyen Avenue, named after the most popular president of the early 20th century. Do you see an obelisk with a statue on top? That’s the May Pyramid, which is featured
in this Plaza.”

  Juan shifted back into political commentary. It seemed clear that he was not a fan of the current political party in power, perhaps because of his economic circumstances. “All of this architectural and historical necrophilia is designed to impress. The chauvinism that permeates Argentina has its most blatant expression in the excessive display of monuments to war heroes and generals that greets the visitor to BA. Street names are further memorials to generals and battles, military victories, and former presidents. That’s OK in moderation, as is typical in most national capitals where there are numbered or lettered streets as well as named streets. BA is over the top in its reverence for Argentine military history. And, sadly, it takes the people’s minds off our economic problems when we have our elections.”

  “This is worth a smile, or maybe even a chuckle or two,” said Suzanne, reading from the tourist guide as we passed another tower in the middle of yet another plaza.

  I looked at her quizzically. “What are we being amused by here?”

  “That plaza used to be Plaza Britannia, and that tower used to be The British Tower, built and paid for by British residents in Buenos Aires in commemoration of the centennial of independence in May of 1916. There was a fairly large and wealthy British population in BA at the time. Immediately after Argentina lost the Falklands War to Great Britain in 1982, the names were changed to Plaza Aeronautica Argentina, Plaza of the Argentine Air Force, and The Monumental Tower.”