"No need to, my boy," the Ambassador said. "Joe Fernandez is joining us at lunch."
Fernandez showed up with a former Senator, a dignified old dandy named Rios, who sported a silver-headed cane, a waxed, dyed mustache, and a Cross and Sword emblem in his lapel. They shared the table in the Ambassador's small private dining room with Hall, Orville Smith and the Ambassador.
The publisher fawned over Hall like a long-lost brother. "You are safe," he exclaimed. "Thanks be to the Virgin Mother! What happened? Was it very bad?"
"I got drunk," Hall said. "That's all that happened."
"Ridiculous, Señor Hall! You are a man who can take his drink. You were drugged. Mark my words, señor, you were drugged. You don't know these Reds."
Orville Smith winked broadly at Hall. "The main thing is," he said to Fernandez, "that Hall is safe now. I'm sure he appreciates your concern, Don José." In deference to the Ambassador's three-word Spanish vocabulary, Smith and the others spoke English. Rios, who spoke only Spanish, sat between Skidmore and Smith, who acted as their interpreter.
"What province did you represent in the Senate?" Hall asked the former Senator.
"San Martin, in the north."
"Don Joaquin is a great statesman," Fernandez interrupted. "But when El Tovarich prepared his gangsters for the elections two years ago, he armed the Red miners and they held their guns in the ribs of Don Joaquin's majority."
Hall listened to Smith translate this account of Rios' defeat at the polls before he spoke. "And do you plan to run again, Señor Rios?" he asked.