“As always, you are far too gallant, Don Porfirio. Or I should call you el presidente now?”
“Not quite yet, but soon, very soon.” An expansive smile curved his mouth as he poured an excellent French wine into crystal glasses. Stocky, with intense dark eyes and the broad features of his Indian heritage, Díaz smiled at her over the gold-trimmed rim of the glass. “It has, at last, come to fruition. My years of work and planning, my time in exile—now is to be rewarded. I shall lead Mexico, champion liberal principles, more municipal democracy. Lerdo was too soft, and granted far too many concessions to the United States railway interests. It profited my country nothing, but I shall change that.”
“You intend to stop all foreign investments?”
“On the contrary, señora. I intend to make foreign investments more profitable for Mexico. First, we must have internal stability. Banditry is rampant, so much so that it frightens away foreign investors. Already I have started to scour the country of many of these bandits. Others, however, will be more useful to me.”
As he talked, Ginny took careful note of an unobtrusive cleric seated at an ornate desk in the far corner of the room. He scribbled constantly in a ledger, head down, seemingly absorbed in his work. In taking up the reins of power, Díaz would be assailed by many requests for favors; and now she must make her own pleas as well.
At a pause in his outline of proposals for Mexico’s future, Ginny asked, “And what of Lerdo de Tejada? Do you intend to imprison him?”
“Ah, now we get to the heart of the reason for your visit, I see. You are escorted by Rafael Luna, who is known to Lerdo as well. Do you come to ask a favor for yourself or for Lerdo?”
“Both.” Boldly meeting his shrewd gaze, she stood up and set her nearly untouched glass of wine on a table. “As a man of honor, I assured Lerdo that you would treat him with the respect due a man who has fought well for his country. A difference in politics may make men enemies, but should not make them dishonorable.”
Díaz regarded her thoughtfully. “What is it that Lerdo requires of me?”
“Safe passage from Mexico.”
“Ah, and that is all? Should I give him his freedom so that he may go and conspire against me, plot to retrieve the power he wielded so badly? I think not, señora.”
“He will be an exile, and no threat to you. He wishes to leave Mexico, to go and live with friends.”
“Such as an American senator, perhaps? You seem surprised, señora. Did you think I would not investigate, would not find out that your father has received many beneficial concessions from Lerdo? While I see the definite advantage to American investments, I do not approve of granting so much power to men who only a few years ago were our enemies.”
“That war is behind us. So is the revolution that has earned you the presidency, if I may be so bold as to remind you of that, el presidente. It is time to look to the future and let the past be forgotten.”
“A woman with brains as well as beauty—an anomaly that I admire, Señora Alvarado.” Díaz smiled slightly. “I do not agree that the past should be forgotten, for men who do not remember their own history often find they must suffer the same fates again. But I will grant Lerdo safe passage, upon my own terms, of course.”
He drained the last of his wine. “And as for you, what is it you wish to ask of me? I know there must be something, for you have the look of a desperate woman about you.”
“You are very perceptive, Your Excellency. Yes, I do have a request of my own.”
She told him about Steve, and how he had disappeared from the village the night Luna abducted her, and the men she had seen weighted down in chains and escorted by Lerdo’s soldiers.
“I fear he is in a prison somewhere,” she said, keeping the tremor out of her voice with an effort. “And I have not been allowed to get a message to his grandfather, for Luna treats me as if I am a prisoner as well!”
“I think General Luna will have his uses, but in this he has erred. We will make inquiry and find your husband if he has, indeed, been made a prisoner. But tell me, why would he be arrested? He is not one of the notorious bandits, is he? No?”
“I don’t know why…I only know that he has disappeared and I believe that Luna knows what happened to him.”
Rafael Luna, however, disavowed any knowledge with a shrug and deprecating denial. “No, Your Excellency, I do not recall an Esteban Alvarado, or a Steve Morgan the night we routed the cantina. It was only a routine raid, you understand, for we learned that there were men who smuggled many rifles across the border. Bandits, of course, seeking to sell them to whoever would pay. There was a trial, and the men were convicted of smuggling.”
Ginny’s heart dropped. Was that why Steve had been there? It must be true…all those heavy crates, the baggage that he’d sent ahead, with Butch Casey and the other men to guard it.
Oh, Steve! Oh, damn you, Steve Morgan, for being so reckless!
He had been caught smuggling rifles, and there would be nothing she could do to save him—unless Díaz granted him clemency.
25
When Ginny returned to Mexico City and the small apartment on the Calle Manzanares, a summons from Lerdo awaited her. Though exhausted, she went immediately to the palace, where she was given a telegram. It was from her father, a terse message that she must contact him at once.
Surprised that he knew where she was, Ginny wrote him, telling him about Steve, begging for his help in finding him. Now that Lerdo had
