Later in the living room, Margaret made two rum drinks. She had changed her tennis dress for a dark suit, and her fingers now carried three elaborate rings. "Now I'm dressed for town again," she laughed. "Without my rings I'd feel naked." One of them was a wedding ring; Hall asked no questions about it.
"Are you still interested in San Hermano politics?" Margaret asked.
"Sort of."
"What do you want to know?"
"Everything. Fernandez and his friends had one set of ideas. I guess you know what they are. The Tabio crowd speaks differently. What's the lowdown?"
Margaret went to the wide window of the room. "Look," she said, "see all that land between the fence and the top of that hill? I've got some of it in soy and the rest is just lying fallow. What do you think it's worth?"
"I couldn't say."
"Neither can anyone else. That all depends on the politics down here."
"That's true back home too, isn't it?"
"In a way, yes." She poured another drink for herself and sat down on the settee. "I'll let you in on a secret, Matt. I'll tell you how I came to buy this place. Sit down. It's a long story. And it leads right into the thing you're interested in."