the injured organ.
“You are not going to Guatemala to please me.”
“I would.” The choirboy smile.
“Do you intend to tell me why?”
Ryan ticked off points on his fingers. “Uno: Olaf Nordstern was killed in Montreal shortly after arriving from Guatemala. Dos: Nordstern’s assassin carried a Guatemalan passport. Tres: Andre Specter, Canadian ambassador to Guatemala and citizen of our fair city, is currently the subject of discreet inquiry.”
“You volunteered to go to Guatemala?”
“I offered my services.”
“You’re being reassigned.”
“Guatemala seemed preferable to central booking.”
“And you speak Spanish.”
“You never told me that.”
“You never asked.”
“Were you able to dig up anything on Specter?”
“According to the wife, he’s Albert Schweitzer.”
“That’s not surprising.”
“According to External Affairs, he’s Nelson Mandela. And strictly off limits.”
“Galiano said you’d run into that. Did you talk to Chantale?”
“According to Chantale, her old man’s the Marquis de Sade.” Ryan shook his head. “That is one angry kid.”
“What did she say?”
“Plenty. None of it complimentary. Most notably, she claims Daddy’s chased skirt as far back as she can remember.”
“How could a child know that?”
“Says she overheard numerous arguments between her parents, once caught the ambassador having phone sex in the middle of the night.”
“Could he have been talking to his wife?”
“The missus was sacked out upstairs. The ambassador was doing the deed on the phone in his study. Chantale also claims that shortly before blowing town, she and Lucy stumbled on her father exiting the Ritz Continental with a chick on his arm.”
“Did Specter see them?”
“No, but Chantale recognized Daddy’s companion. Says the lucky lady graduated from her high school two years back.”
“Christ. Did she provide a name?”
“Aida Pera.”
“Do you believe her?”
Ryan shrugged. “I definitely plan to talk to Aida.”
“So the ambassador likes young girls.”
“If the daughter from hell is telling it straight.”
“Did you interview any of the Chez Clemence posse?”
“That pleasure was denied me. Seems the three stooges have all vanished.”
“You ordered those assholes not to leave town.”
“They’re probably off on a geology field trip. My colleagues will round them up.”
“In the meantime?”
He pulled Nordstern’s disc from his pocket.
“We get acquainted with SCELL.”
I slipped the disk from its envelope, inserted it into my computer, and clicked over to the D drive. One file name appeared: fullrptstem.
“It’s a monster PDF file. Over twenty thousand kilobytes.”
“Can you open it?” Ryan had squatted beside me.
“The contents will be gibberish without a reader.”
“Do you have one?”
