Page 7 of Vistaria Has Fallen
“Yeah, ‘kay. Duardo, it has been a blast.”
“Most certainly, Minnie.”His smile grew heated.
Calli yanked on her cousin’s arm, as Josh reached them.
“Minnie, when are you going to remember you can’t just wander off by yourself?” he said.
“Adios!” Minnie called to Duardo as he walked away. She looked at her father. “I was just talking! I didn’t wander. I’m ten feet from the door.”
He pushed his hand through his hair again. “Can we please leave?” He sounded exhausted.“The car is on a side street. No parking here tonight. Come on. I don’t know about you two, but I need a good, stiff belt of scotch.”
“Me, too,” Calli said, watching the tall, wide-shouldered soldier join his friends and move on. Their uniforms were not the only ones in the square. There were many others. Duardo’s group, like the others, was not dancing or drinking as freely as the men in civilianblack.
The situation in Vistaria right now is explosive.
The red-headed man’s voice rumbled in her mind, all the way to Josh’s apartment.
* * * * *
The scotch and soda slid down her throat, hissing all the way. Calli sighed. She put the heavy glass on the coffee table and looked around the room. Uncle Josh had rented an apartment in an ancient, well-maintained building in the hilly sectionto the south-west of the city center.
It had taken only ten minutes to reach the building despite slow navigation through narrow, winding streets. Josh ushered them inside, then checked on Calli’s aunt, who dozed in their bedroom while recovering from a bad migraine. Minnie headed for her room to find clothes and essentials for Calli.
When Josh reemerged from the bedroom, he went straight tothe silver tray and decanters on the sideboard and poured them both the promised stiff belt of scotch. He gave her a glass, then dropped onto the sofa opposite Calli’s with a heavy sigh. In the quiet room, she could still hear distant music from the streets.
The apartment had white adobe walls, hung with Vistarian art and interesting textiles in the same jewel colors the women had been wearingtonight. Bedrooms and utility rooms all connected with this central room, with no corridors. The big kitchen was part of the central room, separated only by a huge chopping-block island.
Terracotta tiles covered the floor throughout, including the big balcony beyond the sliding doors. The balcony featured carved wood curlicues at each corner, dark with age. Blue Wisteria-like flowers hung inbig clusters from the tangle of vines that climbed up the adobe walls arching over the balcony.
“Whatarethose flowers?” Calli asked as Josh gulped half his drink in two big swallows. “They look like Wisteria. I’ve seen them everywhere.”
“Yes, they’re Wisteria,” he said, without looking.
“They’re blue, though.”
He nodded. “It’s a tropical variant that grows wild here. It’s the national flowerof Vistaria, of course.”
That would be why so many women had been wearing it. “Why ‘of course’?” she asked.
He rubbed his eyes with a thumb and forefinger, then let his arm drop across the back of the sofa. “Vistariais Spanish for Wisteria. That’s what this country is called.La Vistaria de Escobedo. The Wisteria of Escobedo. Escobedo’s Wisteria. Escobedo’s country, for all the difference itmakes.”
Calli frowned and shook her head. “I thought it was just called Vistaria. What’s Escobedo?”
“Vistaria de la República de Escobedo,” Josh intoned. “The Republic of Escobedo’s Vistaria,” he added when Calli didn’t react. Then, “I have thrown you in the deep end, haven’t I? The Escobedo family has been the virtual royal family here since forever. José Escobedo y Castaños is the currentpresident and supreme commander of the Vistarian Army.”
“The military junta,” Calli murmured.
“A damn benign one, too. It’s thanks to Escobedo’s moderate policies that we—the mining company—are here.”
“Is that who you called to get me out of jail? Someone high in the government?”
“Nothing so impressive. I phoned the government liaison assigned to work with us while we open the silver mine.I asked him who I should call. He never got back. I must have sounded upset, though, because he did dosomething. I’m sorry we didn’t get to the airport to pick you up, Calli. We were on our way. I hadn’t planned on traffic grinding to a halt because of the fiesta. By the time we got there, you had disappeared. People remembered seeing you, though Customs wouldn’t tell me a damn thing. That’swhen I phoned the government liaison. What happened?”
“I waited for a while. I even tried phoning the apartment. When I got no answer, I figured something had happened to you. I thought I’d find a cab, point to your address on the email you sent me and get him to take me there. The information desk at the airport told me there were no taxis, although if I walked up the street I could hail one.So I walked and watched for a cab. That’s when the five men came around.”
She explained what had happened. The jostling and the grope that had caused her to react. “The man at the jail told me I broke at least one nose and handed out a few bruises. If the soldier police had been feeling less generous they might have charged me with assault. The man, though…heunderstood why I reacted that way.”
“What man?”
