Angels in Heaven

and her awful
serape,” Doris said. “That’s how. I don’t care what you say.”
    “It was a shawl, Doris, not a
serape,” I said. “And let me give you this to ponder, my sweeting, my shorn
angel.” I perched on the corner of her desk as she was so wont to do on mine
back home. “What kind of front do you think the CIA and the FBI habitually use
as covers for their covert operations? Legitimate companies is what they use;
no doubt they stole the idea from the Mafia. Travel agencies, language schools,
charter airlines, innocuous friendship clubs, and dare I say it? cultural
associations. It’s no secret, it’s no more secret than the fact that anyone
attached to an embassy with the title second secretary or cultural attaché is
automatically assumed to be in intelligence.”
    “You don’t mean Ethel!” Doris said. “That windbag?”
    “Maybe not her,” I said, “but what
goes on in her back room? It’s the easiest thing in the world to set up some
phony trust to bankroll an operation. Mrs. Moberg, of the Austin Mobergs.
Really. That is why I didn’t go near dear garrulous Ethel. All we needed was
for me to ask the real FBI to pass on phone calls to a false FBI office right
above them. That would be brilliant, that would. Anyway. The fact that we had
established ourselves as the real Cul. Ass. is surely beyond any reasonable or
unreasonable doubt, will you allow me that?”
    “I will,” said Benny.
    “I will, too, if Benny tells me what ' ay,
que linda’ means,” Doris said.
    “ ‘What a beauty,’ ” said Benny.
    “Really?” she smirked.
    “As for the FBI side of it, surely we
established that as well, beyond all possible doubt—the pictures, the ID I
showed him, the shoulder holster I flashed, the Washington phone calls, the
files, the papers with FBI heading, the secrecy, the locked doors, our skillful
acting ability, even the Department of the Interior calling cards. I mean,
what’s to doubt?
    “What’s to doubt is what if he knows
the FBI doesn’t operate outside the U.S.?” she said. “Why didn’t you make us
the CIA or something like that?”
    “Who’s the head of the CIA?” I asked
her. “Or for that matter, who ever was?”
    She shrugged. “Who knows. Who cares.”
    “Exactly,” I said. “Even if I did
have a picture of him, who’d recognize him? Also, since everyone knows the CIA
has been doing things inside the U.S. it wasn’t supposed to, as it’s only
supposed to operate outside, what’s so impossible about the FBI doing the
reverse?”
    She shrugged again. “OK, OK, get on
with it.”
    “While we were in there having fun,
as you put it,” I said, “Benjamin and I, with razor-sharp cunning, managed to
achieve several extra bonuses. We planted the fact we have a private plane
nearby at our disposal, so maybe they won’t come looking for us in leaky Titanics. We hid the fact there is a back way out by having you pretend to make coffee in
a nonexistent Mexican kitchenette, so it didn’t even dawn on the lieutenant he
might have to bring an extra guard along or have his driver cover the back
door, which would give us one more problem we don’t need. We also have Billy
coming in normal clothes, which saves us time and trouble. Also unhandcuffed, ditto.
Also in a normal-looking car, not a paddy wagon that might attract the interest
of every city cop who passed by. And presuming the driver stays downstairs like
he did today, that leaves us with only the lieutenant and one other guard to
deal with up here, and we should be able to deal with them quietly and with
ruthless efficiency.”
    “Like beat ’em to death with one of
these,” Doris said, picking up one of our sample hammocks and swinging it over
her head like a war club. Benny immediately picked up another one, and they
began to playfully whack each other with them. I smiled tolerantly at their
high spirits.
    “The part I like,” I said, deftly
dodging a flailing no. 10 close-weave that the twerp directed my way, “is that
either way we win. If by some enormous chance Ethel is up to monkey business,
she is not going to so admit to Joaquín unless he produced enormous official
pressure, by which time we will be long gone. And if she does finally so admit,
what can she do but plead total ignorance, likewise any superiors she might
have, because that is what they are—totally ignorant? And if she is really just
plain old Ethel from Des Moines putting on shows of macramé plant hangers no
one