The senator, Rudy Valladolid, had been slightly drunk when he showed up at eleven in the morning at the café at the Camino Real Hotel. The well known left-leaning senator ordered a drink immediately, despite the early hour. The senator smoked Marlboros incessantly, and looked as if he might keel over from a heart attack at any moment. He was sure that General Selva’s opponent would be assassinated, he told Russell matter-of-factly. “He’ll either be shot at his home, or killed with one of his mistresses in bed,” the senator said as he lit a cigarette. “But it won’t really matter how they do it.”

“Why kill him?” Russell asked. The senator smiled, put his cigarette in the ash tray, and took a swallow of his drink, studying him.

The old man’s eyes were jaundiced and the color of scotch whiskey. Russell couldn’t help feeling that Valladolid was a political dinosaur. Cuba and the rest of that socialist mess had already been thrown on the junk heap of history, as far as Russell was concerned. He was sorry that he’d made the appointment. He’d hoped that the Senator, who had a reputation for being the country’s most astute political observer despite his left wing leaning, could have helped him sort out the political players. But what could this old man possibly know about the new world that his generation represented? Russell suspected that he didn’t even have a computer. He asked him as much.

“I have a pen,” the senator said. “It’s worked fine for sixty years—no, longer. It’s was my great-grandfather’s fountain pen. He signed the constitution here. You know our constitution was patterned after yours. After America’s. Do you know why President Ubico had my father killed?” Ubico had been the military dictator during the 20’s—a little Napoleon, and really no more than the United Fruit Company’s representative in the country.

“No,” Russell said.

“My father had decided it was a good idea for the United Fruit company to pay some kind of tax here. They never did, you know. They never paid a dime of tax. They were here over a hundred years and never paid a cent. Now was that capitalism, or just old-fashioned imperialism? Don’t you see that Europe and America need us to be underdeveloped? Can’t you see that, young man? We buy their cars and their computers. That’s the way it’s always been. And they’ve made sure of it by hand-picking our leaders.”

Russell swallowed. He was tired of hearing about the “ugly Americans.” It may have been true in the past, but it seemed so beside the point now if you didn’t also admit that capitalism was the only way out for Latin America, or anywhere else. Most of the new industries in the country weren’t even American; they were Korean, he pointed out. The “United,” as she was known, had left the damn country before he’d been born. It was ridiculous to blame America for all Latin America’s problems.

“But surely you understand that there have been momentous changes in the world,” Russell said, trying to hide his disdain. He wanted to explain that he didn’t necessarily disagree about the way Americans had once abused their economic power, but that was then, during the cold war, and that was over. Capitalism had won. End of story.

“Capitalism is bigger even than the United States,” Russell said.

“Young man, you sound like a priest,” the senator said.

“Anyway, you haven’t answered me. Why would the military want to get rid of De La Madrid? He’s pro-business. He’s a capitalist.”

“The military is terrified of him. They’ve never faced a probusiness reformist party before. They’re used to left-wing types like me, but not neo-liberals. Christ, Madrid studied at the University of Chicago with Milton Friedman! He’s getting all kinds of good press in Europe. They’re afraid he might actually clean up all the corruption here. That’s the last thing the military wants.”

“So who are you supporting?” Russell asked him.

“Madrid,” he said. “Are you surprised?”

“Yes.”

“Carlos Selva, by the way, is my nephew. I’d say he’s too churlish to be president… And there’s his unfortunate reputation.”

“Human rights violations, you mean?” Russell said. Valladolid had a large swallow of his vodka and grapefruit juice.

“His mother, my sister, calls them ‘lapses of judgment.’ But yes… and his wife.”

“What about his wife?”

“Well . . . well . . . she isn’t perfect. She has a reputation,” the senator said. “Not that it will matter. Nothing matters here except that the Americans either like you, or they don’t. They love Selva, and that’s why I’m supporting Antonio.”

“She, you mean his wife, has a reputation?” Russell asked.

“Yes. But it has nothing to do with politics, and I wouldn’t mention it to anyone, or you might have an accident,” the senator said. “You understand here, the first rule is never, ever, write about a man’s wife. Especially my nephew’s.”

“Is there something that might come up in a campaign, then?” Russell asked.

“God, no. But she’s a bit of. . . .” The senator searched for the English word. He’d been speaking Spanish, and it was the first time Russell had heard him speak English. His English was perfect. Ironically, he sounded like an American. “She likes to enjoy herself,” the senator said. Russell doubted he would have said anything if he hadn’t been a little drunk. “She’s the same age as my granddaughter, and apparently they frequent the same nightclubs. I believe her favorite is the Q Bar. Zona 10,” he said. “You’ve met her then, I take it?”

“Yes,” Russell said. “I’ve met her.”

“God did a bad thing there, young man. He made someone who was too beautiful.”

Russell smiled. It was true, and he suddenly liked the old man. They were different in so many ways, too many years between them to really understand each other. But he liked his humanity, and his being drunk at eleven in the morning, and his clean blue shirt and his Yale ring and his manners and his having Fidel Castro’s cell phone number. Russell asked him if it was true what he’d heard, that Fidel Castro called him for advice on occasion.

“Only about women,” the senator said, joking. “You look familiar, young man,” he said as he stood up to leave. “Something about you is very very familiar.”

“All Americans look alike,” Russell said, trying to make a joke out of it, afraid Valladolid saw something of his mother in his face.

“Do you believe in God, young man?” Valladolid asked, not laughing at Russell’s joke.

“No. Of course not. Why? Is it important?”

“Here you have to understand God, to really understand— I mean, the notion of God. The Catholic God, and the Catholic church. If you understand that, you can understand Latin America.” The old man leaned forward, putting his big hands on the table. “You see, we aren’t really interested in money, not in the end. That’s what makes us Latins. We’re feudal, really, it’s all feudal here, the family structures, the business structures. It’s never been just about money,” he said. “You should explain that in your newspaper. We’re medieval.”

ELEVEN

It is very late,” Katherine said. “Yes, but it’s Thursday,” Russell said. “Thursday night you’re supposed to start the weekend in Guatemala; it says so on your visa. Haven’t you checked?”

“You’re awful,” she said.

They’d been having an affair. It amounted to afternoon screw sessions and political discussions. Katherine was trying to convince him that his neo-liberal agenda for the world was wrong, and he hadn’t been convinced. They disagreed about everything, but both of them were lonely and happy to have each other, even if it was called casual sex in the women’s magazines. They’d made a joke about it, saying that sex, if it was casual, had to be good for you.