The Honorary Consul Read Online Free PDF Page B

with an unhappy grin. "Please, I beg you, do all you can."
           "Of course."
           "We do not want him to die," Father Rivas said. "Our job is to save lives."
           They went into the only other room, in which a bed had been improvised out of a long wooden box—he couldn't see clearly what kind of a box—with a few blankets spread over it. Doctor Plarr heard the deep uneven breathing of the drugged man, like someone struggling awake from a nightmare. He said, "Bring the light closer." He bent down and looked closely at the flushed face. For a long moment he couldn't believe his eyes. Then he laughed from the shock of what he had seen. "Oh Léon," he said, "you have taken up the wrong profession."
           "What do you mean?"
           "You would do better to go back to the Church. You are not made to be a kidnapper."
           "I do not understand. Is he dying?"
           Doctor Plarr said, "You needn't worry, Léon, he's not going to die, but this isn't the American Ambassador."
           "Not..."
           "This is Charley Fortnum."
           "Who is Charley Fortnum?"
           "Our Honorary Consul," Doctor Plarr said in the same tone of mockery which Doctor Humphries had employed.
           "But that is impossible," Father Rivas exclaimed.
           "Charley Fortnum's veins run with alcohol, not blood. The morphine I gave you would have acted more gently on the Ambassador. The Ambassador is afraid of alcohol. They had to provide Coca-Cola for the dinner tonight. So Charley told me. He will be all right in a little while. Leave him to sleep it off," but before he had time to leave the room the man on the wooden box opened his eyes. He stared at Doctor Plarr and Doctor Plarr stared back at him. It was as well to know for certain whether he were recognized.
           "Take me home," Fortnum said, "home," and then his body lurched sideways into a deeper sleep.
           "Did he recognize you?" Father Rivas asked.
           "How would I know?"
           "If he recognized you it would complicate matters."
           Somebody lit a second candle in the outer room, but no one spoke; it was as though they all waited to catch a suggestion in another man's eyes as to what should be done now. At last Aquino said, "This will not please El Tigre."
           "It's really rather comic," Doctor Plarr said, "when you think of it. That must have been the Ambassador's plane I heard, and he was in it. On the way back to Buenos Aires. I wonder how the Governor's dinner went without an interpreter." He looked from one face to another, but no one smiled in return.
           There were two men in the room who were unknown to him, and for the first time he noticed a woman who lay asleep on the floor in a dark corner—he had mistaken her for a poncho which someone had dropped. One of them was a Negro with a pockmarked face, the other an Indian who spoke up now. He couldn't understand the words—they were not Spanish. "What is he saying, Léon?"
           "Miguel thinks we ought to put him into the river to drown."
           "And what did you say?"
           "I said the police would be interested in a body found three hundred kilometers away from the car."
           "The idea's absurd," Doctor Plarr said. "You can't murder Charley Fortnum."
           "I try not to think in those terms, Eduardo."
           "Is killing a matter of semantics to you now, Léon? I remember you were always good at semantics. You used to explain the Trinity to me in the old days, but your explanation was more complicated than the catechism."
           "We do not want to kill him," Father Rivas said, "but what can we do? He saw you."
           "He won't remember when he wakes. He always forgets things completely when he's drunk." Doctor Plarr added, "How on earth did you make such a mistake?"
           "That I must find out," Father Rivas