"Right outside. Do you need him?"
"Very much. Tell him to pick me up near the back entrance of the Ritz. I'm too drunk to trust a strange driver."
Souza laughed. "You Americans," he said. "Pepe will be there in five minutes."
Hall went to the bar, had a short brandy. The little man was sitting behind a potted palm near the street doorway, his face buried in a magazine. Hall looked at his watch and walked to the elevator. "Sixth floor," he said.
He walked through the sixth-floor hall, took the back stairs to the fourth floor, and then looked out of the window at the landing. Big Pepe's LaSalle was parked near the servants' door. Hall listened for the sound of footsteps on the stairs above him. Quietly, he walked to the basement, nodded at a waiter relaxing on a bench near the door, and walked slowly to the LaSalle.
"Qué pasa?"
"Trouble. Drive a few blocks down and then come back slowly toward the front of the hotel."
"Sit with me," Pepe said. He tapped the pistol in his pocket.
"No." Hall got down on the floor of the back part of the car. "And take your white hat off."
The car shot down three streets, then Pepe turned the corner, rode a block, and started to crawl along the street on which the main entrance of the Ritz opened. "Souza said you were in trouble," Pepe said. "He says you are not a borracho."