Murder at the Watergate Read Online Free PDF

one in the world better qualified to take him to new heights than yours truly.”
    “Jason, what I’ll do is go to San Miguel, buy up every last one of Salas’s works, and offer them to you for double what he’s asking. And you know I’ll strike aharder bargain than he will. Besides, your commissions have always been too high, absolutely obscene. I really must run. Nice hearing from you. We must stay in touch.”
    “You look lovely,” Sara said after her mistress had been dressed and had chosen jewelry for the evening. She meant it; she was as much in awe of Elfie as she had been of the Broadway stars she’d served.
    “Thank you.” Elfie looked at herself in the mirror, turning her head left and right to view her image from every angle, and said—was it to herself in the mirror, or to her assistant?—“Do I look ambassadorial?”
    When her assistant didn’t respond, she turned and faced her. “To be specific, do I look like the next ambassador to Mexico?”
    The assistant broke into a grin. “You look as though you could be ambassador to any nation in the world, Mrs. Dorrance.”
    “You’re such a dear, even though I know you don’t always mean what you say.”
    Sara was stung by the comment but the smile remained on her round face.
    “Thanks for the help,” Elfie said. “I’ll be back here late, provided I can round up some of the A-list once the party is over. I hope they aren’t all music lovers heading for the Domingo concert. Of course they aren’t. Money and the arts so seldom seem to go together. Nothing like a little personal massaging to get them to realize there’s more in their checking accounts than they claim. Order room service. Caviar, salmon. Some of those heavenly phyllo rolls with artichoke and goat cheese. Oh, and plenty of champagne. People are always more generous when they’re celebrating something.”

6
Dulles Airport, Washington, DC
    Morin Garza waited until the other passengers had deplaned, then slowly, wearily stood, collected his small carry-on bag from where he’d kept it beneath the seat in front of him, and headed for the 737’s exit.
    “Thank you for flying United,” the flight attendant said.
    “
Sí
. Yes. Thank you,” he said, avoiding her eyes.
    He stepped into the spacious terminal, stopped, and took in the hundreds of men and women going to and from flights. Had things been different, he would have gotten on the next plane back to Chicago, to Dallas, then the car to El Paso, retracing his steps of that day, possibly even crossing the border and going home.
    But home to what? To whom?
    It had been a month since he had left his wife and children in the middle of the night, looking back only once at his lovely Cecilia and the young son she held in her arms. They, too, would leave, in the early morning. But not to where he was going.
    Their house was located in a Mexico City suburb that had sprung up on the southern edge of the sprawling city,built around Perisur, one of dozens of American-style shopping malls offering Mexicans a feast of American goods without their having to cross to
el otro lado
, the other side of the border. The house, small by American standards, but modern and nicely equipped and furnished, represented a dream for Morin Garza and his family. He’d worked hard to achieve enough status and income to afford it, starting as an organizer for the union. The Shoe Shiners’ Union was one of many labor groups belonging to the state-controlled Federation of Organizations of Non-Salaried Workers. Getting the city’s six thousand
boleros
—shoe shiners—to join the union wasn’t difficult. You needed a union permit in order to shine shoes on the streets of the city, and the intersection to which you were assigned depended upon how much you kicked back to your union boss. That’s where the real money was for Garza and others in his position. That’s where the money came from to buy the new house in the clean, new suburb near the mall, where