"I'll be all right," Hall said. "I won't explode tonight."
Duarte recalled an earlier occasion in a Madrid hospital, when a phone call from the Paris office of the AP had made Hall lose his head. "To my dying day," he told Hall, "I'll never forget those curses that shot out of your guts."
"Don't remind me," Hall said. "I get sick when I think of it again. That was the time they held up my story on Guadalajara because they weren't satisfied that I had definite proof that the troops captured by the Republic were Italian regulars."
The Mexican laughed. It was a laugh made bitter by the silver plate in his skull. It covered an injury he had suffered in fighting the Italian regulars at Guadalajara.
Hall understood. "There are too many bastards in this world," he said. "I wish curses alone could stop them. But we've got work to do. Pepe didn't bring me here. He was busy on something else. I'll have to use your driver. Have him drive me to some decent restaurant. I wish you'd come along too."
"Why didn't you tell me you're hungry?"
"I forgot. But there's one thing your driver can do for us. Do you know where the Compañía Transatlántica Española pier is located? Good. Just have him drive very slowly past the pier on the way. I want to look it over."
Chapter eight
Shortly after eight in the morning, Hall sat down at a table in a waterfront café and ordered coffee and rolls. It was a small place with a zinc bar in one corner, patronized largely by longshoremen and petty customs officials. Hall chose a table which gave him a good view of the Compañía Transatlántica Española dock diagonally across the street.