Less than ten minutes after Hall started his vigil, the little man in the straw hat walked out of El Siglo and sat down behind the wheel of a Renault parked at the curb. He sat alone in the car, his face turned toward the Presidencia. Hall looked nervously up the street for a sign of Big Pepe. He jotted the license number of the Renault down on the margin of his newspaper.
There was still no sign of Big Pepe.
The man in the Renault pressed the squeaky rubber horn twice. Another man walked quickly out of El Siglo and got into the back seat of the Renault. Hall squirmed in his chair and looked vainly for Big Pepe. The passenger was Wilhelm Androtten.
Hall watched the Renault start to move up the Plaza. It rode around the entire Plaza, and, as it started to pass the cafés again, Hall saw that it was following a black limousine which had just left the Presidencia after picking up two passengers.
The black limousine was doing about thirty, picking its way out carefully in the half darkness of the old city. As it passed directly in front of Hall's table, one of the people sitting in the back seat lit a cigarette. In the light of the match, Hall could see that it was Varela Ansaldo.
He had to wait another ten minutes for Big Pepe, who returned with two young men. "We lost him, Pepe."
"Hijo de puta! I told you."
"Relax. I know who he works for. We can find them on our own terms now. I saw them."
"Who?"
Hall looked at the two young men sharing the front seat with Pepe. "Introduce me to your friends," he said.