SANCTUARY BUENOS AIRES/SAN FRANCISCO Whenever Tori Nunn was bored, she went to Buenos Aires. Partly it was because Buenos Aires was a place she had never worked, so, essentially, no one knew her-what she had been. Partly, it was because in Buenos Aires, sitting beneath the natural awning of the jacarandas, their clattering shade striping her face, she could at last forget Greg. But perhaps more than anything else, she came to this incomplete city because here she could begin again to define herself, as if now even her own shadow had become unrecognizable. Here, in Buenos Aires, inhabited by the portenos - the port dwellers, as the city's natives were known-controlled by the alta sociedad, there was a mix of stupendously beautiful, sensual people who were exhaustingly proud even as they were consumed by shame at being South Americans. They were, like college dropouts, inevitably embarrassed by themselves and their place in the world. When they went to New York, they always said, "I am flying to North America." This is what made the portenos interesting to Tori: their inner hurt was protected by their cultural traits in the same way a tortoise is protected by its shell. The patrons of the Cafe la Biela and the nearby Cafe de la Paix proved this to her. They might smell of imported suntan oil, of perfumes by Calvin Klein and Jean Patou, just as their city might smell of auto fumes and mate, the local herb tea, but beneath it all, Tori knew, the portenos and their streets were redolent of cigar smoke and marzipan. This was their history, as Jorge Luis Borges wrote it, as then-forefathers had lived it, where illusion, like the rich smoke from rolled tobacco, had come to create the past even as it obscured the present. In the decade after the Second World War, the fathers of these exquisite portenos had amassed their wealth by selling their slaughtered cattle and the fruits of their Pampa to a starving Europe. But by the middle of the fifties the excesses of the Perons had bankrupted the country, throwing Buenos Aires and, indeed, all Argentina into chaos. Escalating terrorism from the far right and left began to tear the country apart. The result was the coming to power of a succession of repressive military juntas. But the country's frightening, two-year bout with hyperinflation-12,000 percent per year-riots, and civil unrest had toppled a succession of elected governments. Despair had gripped the nation until some months ago, when a coalition led by Las Dinamicas, the two most powerful women in Argentine politics, managed to win control of the government. Their party, the Union of the Democratic Center, had pledged to end Argentina's long history of authoritarianism by instituting reforhis granting extensive individual liberty and an end to the crippling control of the government in business. "The beginning of a free market economy," went their successful campaign slogan, "is an end to hyperinflation." The first priority had been to convert the official currency into American dollars, which had the effect of immediately stabilizing the runaway Argentine inflation. Through all this Moody history, the portenos survived and, perhaps, even flourished, for it is said that every Argentine heart beats most strongly for myth, and myth cannot exist save as a balm against pain and suffering. But myth was too often illusion. And the truth of illusion- me truth that no porteno can truly face-is that no matter how dazzling its exterior may be, there is nothing inside. Tori knew this, knew the portenos almost as well as they knew themselves. Thus she was comfortable here in their city, strolling down their wide boulevards, sunbathing amid cocoa flesh on their beaches, surrounded by their aura of failure and by then-very real sensuality and sense of style. These people carried their pain as she did-deep inside them- though often through the chic facade in which they had wrapped themselves she could discern the stench of their desperation. Tori lifted her arm, ordered another hot chocolate, the richest, thickest in the world. With it, she knew, would come a silver tray of small sweets, an array as heady, as opulent as the smoldering stares of the chantas who came to the cafes with their thistresses to while away an hour or two between bouts under the sheets. A small breeze, redolent of this city's peculiar perfume, stirred the long branches of the jacarandas, and Tori felt the caress of their tears patter across her shoulders, the excess water of these beautiful semi-succulent trees. The chantas-Buenos Aires' wheeler-dealers-interested Tori most of all. She had even allowed one or two to seduce her now and again, but in the end they had found her too much even for them, disconcerted by her habit of watching them intently during the most intimate throes of sexual congress. "What are you doing?" they would ask her at those moments. "This is a time for release, not concentration." They did not understand-and she would not tell them-that for her sex with them was to be observed, that by doing so she could pierce their chic shells, feel the texture of their shame and hurt, comparing it with her own. This concentration that so puzzled them was to her as sweet and richly flavored as was her hot chocolate at the Cafe la Biela. But this "strangeness," as the chantas called it, was hardly the only reason they held her in awe. They had heard stories that she had climbed barefoot the massive Iguazu Falls six hundred miles to the northeast, had, in fact, helped the male members of her party when their strength flagged or they were in trouble. They had heard she was courageous, indefatigable- which was, after all, why they sought to seduce her. In her strangeness-the enigma of such brute strength and stamina in a female-the chantas sought answers to the mysteries that obsessed them: who were they, where did they come from, why were they such failures? Tori sipped her chocolate, consumed a sweet in one voracious bite. Somewhere, along the Avenida Quintana, a man played a bandoneon, squeezing out a typical tango melody, infused with the bittersweet essences of Latin macho, unrequited love, and blood vengeance. The Avenida Quintana, filled with swaggering portenos and cliques of rabid Japanese tourists, was one of the main streets of the swank residential Recoleta district. The Recoleta had been born near the end of the last century due to a plague of yellow fever in the city's southern districts that caused the aristocracy to move north. Years ago, when me Recoleta was home to slaughterhouses, its streets ran red with the blood of cattle during the heavy winter rains. Now winter brought only melancholy, and a gathering sense of dissolution. Then, Buenos Aires was to be avoided. By the time she had finished her second cup of hot chocolate, Tori decided it was time to go. The sun was low in the sly, turning the Recoleta's blocky white high rises the color of blood oranges. Blue shadows lay in the street like the dead, or unwanted reminders of' 'the disappeared"-those people taken by the military in its zeal to ferret out a group of young radical terrorists. In those days-the seventies- to be a teacher, a union member, or merely to be known as an intellectual, was to risk being drawn into el proceso, a trial without either lawyer or jury; it was to risk being "disappeared." Her thoughts turning by moments more and more morbid, Tori gathered up her purse and small shopping bag. But before she could rise, she saw Estilo. He was a German-Argentine chanta, one of the few who had sought out her company but not her bed. He was different in other ways, as well. He was a square-jawed man in his early fifties with long steel-gray, slicked-back hair, a patrician mustache, and a sense of style no full-blooded German ever had. his manner was often brusque, but he told the truth more often than other chantas, and for this Tori forgave him everything. Estilo made his way toward her table. He was smiling, surprised and happy to see her. He had with him a younger man, slim-hipped, wide-shouldered. The man, handsome, with the rugged outdoorsy face of an estanciero-a rancher-was most likely in his mid-thirties, roughly the same age as Tori. He was dressed in a pair of baggy silk trousers and a washed silk shirt, open at the neck, under a trim linen sport coat. He had the thick black hair, the heavy-lidded eyes of the Latin porteno. Estilo caught her appraising look. "My darling Tori!" he exclaimed, clamping her in a fervent embrace.' 'Why didn't you tell me you were coming? I would have made preparations!" ' 'I didn't know myself until the last minute,'' Tori said.' 'You know how my life is." Estilo gave her a rueful look. "Too chaotic for someone in so early a retirement." He clucked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. "I keep telling you to find a line of work that interests you.'' He smiled, showing large, nicotine-stained teeth. "And if not, you have a permanent invitation to join my business." "Just what is your business?" Tori asked. Estilo threw his head back and laughed, then he grabbed at the sleeve of the younger man, pulled him down to a seat next to him at Tori's table. "Tori Nunn, I'd like you to meet a friend of mine, Ariel Solares. Ariel is a norteamericano who spends a majority of his time here. his most fervent desire is to become a porteno, no, Ariel?" "My friend exaggerates, as usual," Ariel Solares said. "Actually, I wish to understand the porteno. I come to Buenos Aires to soak up the air of the mythical yesterday." He took a deep breath, let it out. "Can you not smell it, perfuming the air like a rose?" He shrugged. "My own past-my whole life up until now-could not be more prosaic, so I visit Buenos Aires to let this city touch me, perhaps in some way to change me.'' "Nonsense," Estilo said. "You come here to do business." But Tori could see that he was impressed with what Ariel had said. Estilo, like all portenos, was drawn to myth and all its fascinating ramifications. For him, ancient gods dwelled in the rain forests and in the Pampa, and, because they had been written about, spirits inhabited his city, sitting like gargoyles upon the cornices of the modern buildings. This was the power of myth. "You speak of Buenos Aires as if it were Lourdes," Tori said, suddenly wanting to draw Ariel out. "As if it had mystical healing powers." It did for her, why not for him? Ariel Solares cocked his head. "Well, I never thought of it in just that way, but perhaps there is some truth in what you say. But 'healing,' I don't know whether that is quite the correct word. I am not sick, merely bored." "But, my friend, surely boredom is a form of sickness," Estilo said, his gaze swinging from Ariel to Tori. "A person-all people-need a purpose. Without one, life becomes meaningless, and further sickness-of a deeper, more serious nature-will surely follow." Now Tori knew that Estilo was speaking directly to her, and she averted her eyes. The tango music, drifting along the avenue, had turned bitter, introspective, a harbinger of the last burst of violence and fury that was, inevitably, to come. "I'm quite all right," Tori said softly, not looking at either man, but rather into the heart of the dark tango. "Of course you are, my darling," Estilo said, patting her hand affectionately. He had big hands, blunt and strong. "I did not mean to infer otherwise"-although Tori knew that was precisely what he had meant to do. "I merely assumed your boredom needed alleviating. In that event, I would be delighted if you joined me tonight at my home." his mustache arched as he smiled.' 'A very private party. If you aren't a friend of mine, you aren't coming." He paused a moment, then said, "Ariel will be there." Tori turned her head, looked again at the younger man, his skin burnished by the sun and the wind. She could imagine him riding the infinite pampas or, bending slightly, his hair swept back by the wind and the speed of his mount, swinging a polo mallet at Palermo Fields. But there was something different about him; he was not a typical porteno, or even trying to be, and these things intrigued her. "All right," Tori said. "Wonderful!" Estilo beamed at her as he rose. "Until tonight, then!" For a moment Ariel sat facing her, his coffee-colored eyes staring into hers. Then he took her hand, kissed it lightly, and was swept away by Estilo. After the men were gone, Tori sat and sipped a brandy. It was, to her mind, a melancholy drink, invoking intimations of broken promises, lost dreams, the ashes of desire. When at last she rose, the tango had finished its haunting tale, and only the unlovely noises of the restless city remained. Estilo's home was an apartment that took up the entire top floor of an anonymous-looking high rise in the Recoleta. It was just a few blocks from the cemetery, the ne plus ultra address in all of Buenos Aires, which perhaps told you as much about the portenos as you needed to know: the dead possessed a presence that made them in some subtle, mystical sense less dead than the dead of other cultures. The vast apartment which snaked from east to west was furnished in Italian high fashion, which was to say with equal amounts of chic and money. Each piece of furniture exhibited low, sleek lines and the distinctively patterned fabrics of Ungaro and Missoni. The place had been designed by Estilo's current thistress, Adona, a stunning black-haired Argentine woman from the alta sociedad- the cream of porteno society-who, in some ways, reminded Tori of herself. She had wanted more from her relationship with Estilo, and had insisted that he take her into me jungles of South America, where many of his dangerous business dealings took place. Adona was as good at dispelling distrust as she was at disarming Estilo's enemies. She was an unusual hostess in this snobbish city, for she genuinely loved people, and attended to their individual wants. She and Tori embraced warmly, in the manner of sisters too long kept apart. She drew Tori aside. In the kitchen uniformed servers were loading chased-silver platters, enormous chafing dishes, with food. Adona ignored these people. "You look tired. Tori." "Perhaps I am, a little. But if so, it's only the fatigue of inaction." ' 'Yes.'' Adona nodded.' 'I know you well. You need passion. Like with Estilo and me, there is a passion. But your passion is for what? This violence, living on the edge of the great abyss?'' Her eyes were sad. "I think this is not healthy." ' 'Estilo said much the same thing to me this afternoon.'' Adona smiled. "Estilo is very fond of you." She laughed, a beautiful musical sound. "Did you know that in the beginning I was quite jealous of you?'' "You had no reason to be," Tori said. "Why not? Estilo is no angel. But then who is? Me? Are you?" "No," Tori said, abruptly thinking of Greg, soaring like an angel above Earth's atmospheric envelope. And then, while crawling outside, along the skin of his vehicle, something had punctured his EVA suit, and all the oxygen had been sucked from his lungs. A matter of seconds, that's all it had taken. From heaven to hell, with only the brittle blue starlight for company. ' 'Death by hypoxia,'' his death certificate had read, but that was so cold, so clinical. It had not described his iced body, blistered and bruised beyond recognition by the cruel vacuum of space. "Tori." Adona was gripping her arm. "Here, take some brandy, you've gone white." "I'm all right." But just the same, Tori downed the liquor. Adona shook her head. "There was a time," she said, "when I longed for the life you lead: armed to the teeth, in the jungle, me enemy just ahead. It made me feel so ... I don't know, alive." She took the empty glass from Tori's hand. "But times change, I've changed. The truth is that the only time I felt safe was when I had a MAC-10 in my hands and a knife on my hip. Then I knew I was the equal of any man-not sexually, and certainly not emotionally. But still I felt equal. A man could kill, and so could I. I was respected, even at times deferred to. Then, at last, there was no difference between us. You understand." Tori looked at her. "What changed?" Adona shrugged. "The world turns on its axis, the seasons change, day into night. Who really can say with certainty? But I suspect that I have found that whatever I was reaching for is nonexistent or, at least, illusory. I feel as though in trying to measure up to men's standards, I've been sucked whole into their world. And I've discovered I don't like it." "What does Estilo say to all this? He met you in the jungle; that's where you fell in love." "Estilo doesn't know." "But you must tell him," Tori said. "Estilo loves you; he wants you to be happy." Adona's liquid brown eyes locked with Tori's. "Yes, he loves me. But happiness, now that's another matter entirely. Estilo is the consummate businessman-he lives for the deal, it doesn't matter what the deal is. Because each deal is well-defined, and Estilo's world is well-defined. I have spent so much time and effort to become a part of that world, and now, as far as he's concerned, everything meshes perfectly. He couldn't let me go. My role is too well-defined. If I were to leave, a black hole would appear, an undefined gap he could not tolerate.'' "But do you want to leave him?" Adona gave off a little smile, like the glow of a tiny candle as darkness falls. "I don't know." "Don't let him go," Tori said. "He's a good man." ' 'Well, at least he's a little good.'' Adona suddenly leaned forward, kissed Tori on both cheeks. "Go enjoy the party. Too much gloomy talk is bad for the soul.'' Tori squeezed Adona's hand, left her to monitor the coming food. The rooms were filled with people-Buenos Aires' most famous artists, models, chantas- and smoke, but somehow Estilo found Tori, pushed a Kir Royale into her hand, kissed her on the cheek, murmured an endearment in German. He used German infrequently, only when he was slightly drunk, and never in a place where he could be overheard. He was Argentine, after all, and had his own myth to foster. "It is times like this," he said, linking his aim in hers, "when I miss Munich most.'' Tori knew he traveled to Germany several times a year. "Have you ever eaten in Die Aubergine?" "I've never been to Munich," Tori said with a sense of deja vu. They'd had this conversation many times. "Ah, to look out on the Maximilianplatz and dine on such food!" Estilo shook his head. "Still, Buenos Aires is home. And, after all, Munich is not such a mysterious place. And the Germans-ach, the Germans never change. That is supposed to be their great strength. But I have never found much to admire in stone and concrete." He guided her outside, onto the terrace that overlooked Buenos Aires. It faced west, and one could see the boundary, the end of the city's lights, the darkness along the wind-whipped plain where the Pampa-Argentina's great prairie, filled with cowboys, ranchers, people used to a hard, dusty existence -- began. Estilo pointed to the darkness. "There is where I was born, schatzie. Not in Germany, like my father. He married the daughter of an estanciero, and I like to think I was born atop a horse.'' He laughed abruptly. "But that may be just another myth. My analyst says I rely too heavily on myth. But she doesn't understand. I am half German; I, more than most portenos, need the sanctuary of myth in order to live with myself. I don't know what my father did during the war and, God help me, I don't want to know. Do you think I can tell my analyst this?" He shrugged. "It doesn't matter, really. The truth is, I'd rather take her to bed than talk to her." Estilo looked at Tori suddenly. "And you, schatzie. What is the truth about you?" ' 'I thought we had an agreement,'' Tori said. "We do. Ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies, yes? We have helped each other out in the past without being told precisely what the other did." He shrugged. "That does not mean we don't know, eh?" Estilo was very grave. "But I must tell you that sometimes you worry me. I never had children; I never thought I wanted them; I am far too self-indulgent. But I confess that often I feel as if you are my daughter. I feel the urge to protect you even though I know that is the last thing you want from anyone." All at once. Tori understood that Estilo was afraid of offending her. She felt a corresponding rush of emotion that threatened to strangle her: thinking of Greg, who had only wanted to protect her. She went immediately into prana, deep, controlled breathing that sent oxygen through her entire body. "You're very kind," she said at last. The lights of the city shone through the night, illuminating the undersides of lowering clouds. The air had turned heavy; soon it would rain. "And you're very dear to me." She gave him a tiny smile that had about it an ironic edge. "But it is you portenos who are mad about analysts." "In my many years on this planet,'' Estilo said,' 'I have come to realize that everyone can, at one time or another, benefit from introspection. You are an extraordinary human being. Tori, but in this, I think, you are no exception." Tori smiled, kissed him on the cheek, embraced him briefly. "Thank you, Papa," she said in German. Estilo looked into her eyes, and she was reminded of Ariel, of how the younger man also had looked her in the eyes this afternoon at the Cafe la Biela, of the different emotions the two men stirred in her. "Ariel has been searching for you since he arrived," Estilo said. "I think he is smitten." "He is very handsome," Tori admitted. "I think he will be good for what ails you, schatzie," Estilo said. Tori laughed. "You sound like a soothsayer. What does he do?" "Oh, I think that depends," Estilo said. "his business is beef-very boring, as he said. It's perfectly legitimate. But I believe that he has another reason for being here: the disappeared. I think he is conducting a clandestine investigation into the atrocities committed here in the name of justice." "Interesting." "I was certain you'd think so," he said. Then he pushed her back into the milling throng of the party. "Go find him before he faints from anguish." Estilo was obliged to shout this last in order to be heard over the din of music and cacophonous conversation. Ariel was dressed in black. In that first instant when Tori spotted him through the crowd, he looked like an angel she had once dreamed about. He had no halo, however, and when he saw her, he broke out in a smile, his white even teeth shining, and the image dissolved. Angels-at least as Tori conceived of them-never smiled. "I thought you had changed your mind," Ariel said, coming up to her. "I was certain you weren't coming." "Didn't you consult an adivina" Tori's tone was deliberately sardonic. "I will tell you a secret," Ariel said, coming close to her. "I put no stock in fortune-tellers. But don't tell my porteno friends. They would never understand." He grinned at her. "Fortune-tellers and analysts are sacred here, like cows in India." Tori laughed, surprised at how comfortable she felt with this man. There was a danger in that, but only to her self-imposed exile from the human race. Perhaps, she thought, there was something to what Estilo had said. Perhaps she had come down with an illness for which there was as yet no name. She wondered if there was a cure. Ariel said something but, in the din, she could not hear what it was. She shrugged at him, pointing to her ear, and shook her head. He put his lips against her ear, said, "Let's go somewhere else." Ten minutes later they were entering the Recoleta cemetery where the esteemed ancestors of the alta sociedad lay interred beneath flower-strewn earth and ornately carved marble. This was a city of the dead, a baroque necropolis from which many of the myths of the portenos were born. From death to life: there was a certain poetry to the notion, at least from an Argentine point of view. The jacarandas dripped moisture, but rain was on the way. A low rumble filled the air, its echoes reluctant to fade away. Ariel led the way as if he were a frequent visitor here. The oppressive darkness of marble and stone ornately carved in the French and Italian Renaissance styles gave way to a soft glow, increasing as they went forward. Soon they had come upon a crypt. Around it were laid out wreaths woven of flowers, bouquets, bunches of wildflowers. Under the trees where the rain could not penetrate, the flames of perhaps a hundred candles flickered. Into the crypt's face was carved, simply, Eva duarte. "Here is myth," Ariel said, pointing to the last resting place of Eva Peron. "More has been written-quite erroneously- about her than anyone in this country. Was she saint or demon?'' "Perhaps she was neither," Tori said. "Perhaps she was just a woman." "Well, don't let the descamisados, the shiftless ones, hear you say that.'' He was speaking of the workers who had slavishly followed their hope, the Perons. "It would not be enough for them." Ariel turned to look at her. It had begun to rain, a fine pattering through the trees that made Tori think of airports and farewells. "You think it is not understandable? Everything else has been taken from them." "Even their children," Tori said. "Their future." "In a very real sense, yes. Those that disappeared in the night during Argentina's reign of terror will never be heard from again. The disappeared are now only mute witnesses to this country's savage history. Oppression stilled their voices forever." Ariel looked out across the sea of baroque headstones and crypts. "It's quite sad." Stone angels surrounded Tori and Ariel, their tiny carved wings encrusted with the soot of the city. Rain rolled down their cheeks like tears as they remembered the dead. The polished marble of the necropolis was milky, eerily luminous in the aqueous light from the massed candles. "Does this display mean that after all this time Peronism still lives?" "Only in a sense," Ariel said. "It is like a dream, you see. The descamisados continue to hope, but now the new leaders of Peronism veer from one political platform to another instead of facing the truth: that the true essence of Peronism is today an anachronism." Tori stared into the candles' flames. "Here the children paid for the sins of their fathers." She turned to look into his face. ''Where is the justice in that?'' "We are in Argentina," Ariel said. "A place where justice is, at best, misunderstood." The rain drowned the candles' flames, and darkness once again enwrapped the city of the dead. Tori had the abrupt feeling that she and Ariel both knew what the worst was: justice used as a weapon to destroy, and as a shield behind which to obscure culpability. Ariel shivered as if the night had suddenly turned cold or a spirit had touched the back of his neck. "Perhaps it was a mistake to come here tonight," he said. * 'Do you mean Estilo's party or the Recoleta cemetery?'' Tori asked. Ariel smiled, and Tori realized that she liked his face. In repose it was a formidable visage: stern, strong-willed, with an almost defiant edge-seemingly far from the bored businessman he claimed to be. But when Ariel laughed, the forbidding cast disintegrated into a kind of boyish charm she found irresistible. She felt this last odd and a bit discomfiting. It had been a long time since she had found anyone irresistible. Ariel looked at her. "I believe you have the most extraordinary eyes I've ever seen," he said. "This afternoon they were turquoise, green, I thought. Now they are the color of cobalt." Tori laughed. "My father used to call me Angel Eyes. My brother and I had the same eyes." "Had?" Ariel had caught a tone as well as a tense. Tori put her head down into darkness. "My brother's dead." "I'm sorry." Tori took a deep breath. "Well. He was a wonderful man. And he was blessed. Before he died, he flew like an angel. And like an angel, he saw the whole planet spread out before him." Ariel looked at her quizzically, and she smiled sadly. "My brother was an astronaut." Ariel snapped his fingers.''Nunn. Wait a minute. Greg Nunn? The American who died in that joint mission to Mars with the Russians? What was that, last year?" "Eighteen months." "Greg Nunn was your brother?" "Yes." It was just a whisper, but it told the discerning listener volumes. Ariel wisely decided to change the subject. "Estilo mentioned that you are retired," he said. "From what?" What to tell him? "Family business," Tori said. Not exactly a lie, but not the truth, either. He grunted. "Me, too. Only I'm still in it." They began to walk. ''It used to be fun when my father ran it. I could do pretty much what I wanted. I never realized how boring the meat business was until my father died and I was obliged to take it over. Responsibility seemed to drain all the fun out of the work.'' They were at the cemetery's gate, and passing through into me street. Tori had the feeling that an oppressive weight had lifted from her. In there, it had seemed as if the very air she had been breathing was humid with the spirits of the dead. She took one last look at the sad-faced stone angels, as though she could hear their wings rustling in the windswept night. "So running the business isn't enough," Tori said, giving him an opening to perhaps talk about why, as Estilo had said, he was really in Buenos Aires. "I don't believe I'm in the mood to go back to Estilo's," Ariel said, as if he hadn't heard her question. "It's raining, and the climate is not conducive to a party.'' Tori wondered whether by the climate he meant the weather or his state of mind. Either way, it was all right; she had no desire to wedge herself back into Estilo's ultratrendy crowd. He took her to Cafe Tortoni, a well-known jazz bar on the Avenida de Mayo. "Are you often up late at night?" "Only when I'm traveling," Ariel said. He shrugged. "I don't know what it is, but all my business associates seem to be aficionados of la vida nocturna- night life." Tori had been in love with the night life; twice. As an underage teenager she had used her beauty to hang out in Los Angeles' most dangerous night spots. Years later the clandestine late-night clubs of Tokyo, so far away from her native L.A., had held another form of danger. But by that time she was an entirely different person, wasn't she? They drank cane brandy while a black saxophonist made noises in concert with a West Indian snare drummer and a blond, slick-fingered bassist. It didn't sound much like music, but everyone seemed content to listen to it. When the set was through, Ariel looked at his watch. "It's after midnight. Are you tired?" Tori shook her head. "Good." He paid the check, then led her out of the restaurant. They picked up a taxi on the avenue, and Ariel told the driver, "La Manzana de las Luces." The driver shrugged, headed south into the downtown district. The Square of Enlightenment, between Peru and Bolivar at the intersection of the Avenida Julio Roca, was a treasure trove of historical landmarks. But the only one Tori could remember offhand was the offices of La Prensa, Argentina's most famous newspaper. The taxi let them off on Peru, and Ariel stopped in front of number 222. It had an Italian-designed facade typical of the mid-1880s, though Ariel informed her the building itself was more than a hundred years older than that. "This place has belonged variously to two newspapers and the University of Buenos Aires," Ariel said. "But by far its most interesting tenant was the General Attorney of the Jesuits, for whom, apparently, it was built. King Charles the Third of Spain kicked the order out in 1767. But before then some fascinating goings-on occurred here." "Like what?" "Come on," Ariel said. "I'll show you." He led her around to the side of the structure. Here the narrow alley was dimly lit. They went down a flight of ancient stone steps so worn they were concave in their centers. Tori saw that even in the gloom Ariel had no difficulty negotiating them. A moment later she heard what she suspected was the grate of an old key in an even older lock. A stained wood-plank door creaked inward on iron hinges. A musty darkness loomed. "Is this okay?" Tori asked. "Do you like to take chances?" She heard his voice as a disembodied whisper, and did not answer. "Watch your step," Ariel said, reaching back and taking her hand. He pulled her inside, closed the door behind them. He led her through absolute blackness. She heard the squeal of another door opening, Ariel's voice whispering, "Now duck your head." There were more steps, and the chill mineral dampness that bred mold and lichen wafted over her. The steps were very steep and quite narrow. The rich scents of limestone and earth enveloped her, Tori thought. It's like smelling one's own grave, and for an instant she felt the hairs stirring at the base of her neck. "These tunnels date back to the eighteenth century." Tori wondered why he was still whispering. After all, down in the bowels of the earth who could overhear their conversation? "These tunnels are something of a tourist attraction nowadays," Ariel continued, his lips brushing her ear. "The tourists are told that these tunnels were built to aid in the defense of the city during wartime. But the truth is the Jesuits built them in order to smuggle in contraband. The king had decreed that Buenos Aires, like the other Spanish colonies, could trade only with Spain. But at the behest of the clever Jesuits, ships of other nationalities moored in the port, pretending to work on repairs while the priests off-loaded their cargo into these secret tunnels." Ariel snapped on a flashlight, and Tori could see the arched ceilings, the branching corridors. Along the sides of the tunnels were modern lights within protective metal grills above the equally modern concrete walkway. He led her around a turning, into a small chamber, down another steep flight of stone steps. Here the tunnels seemed older, cruder, or perhaps merely in a state of disrepair. The air was closer, mustier, and there were no modern lights, no concrete walkway. Loose stones ground beneath their feet. Ariel stopped them abruptly. He squeezed her hand as he played the beam of the flash over a heap of pale bones. With a start, Tori saw that she was staring at a grisly jumble of human skeletons. "Here is all that's left of the disappeared," Ariel whispered. "At least some of them, poor bastards. Dumped here to rot beneath the city." "What-" Ariel's hand went over her mouth as he snapped off the flashlight's beam. Sounds-faint, indistinct-wafted toward them from some unknown direction. Ariel stood very still; he seemed scarcely to be breathing. The sounds came swiftly closer. Tori strained to hear what they were. As they neared, the sounds resolved themselves into male voices, then words, and Tori thought. My God, they're speaking Japanese. "Perhaps Rega could have been of some further use," one voice said. "his use was at an end," the other said. "Given half a reason, he would have betrayed us." A laugh. "Besides, it felt good to put the gun against the back of his neck, pull the trigger, and boom! Like snuffing out a candle in a church. In that instant, you know something significant has happened: the law has been transgressed." "I am a Shintoist," the first voice said. "God and the devil mean nothing to me, like the blink of an eye seen in a mirror. All illusion." "I am Catholic," me second voice said, "so I understand the meaning of punishment-and of sin." "I don't understand. How can you be a Catholic and a sinner?" That laugh again.' 'I cannot be redeemed if I haven't sinned, so these days I do my best to ignore the law. Also, as you must suspect, there is a measure of personal pleasure for me in violation." "Let's get on with it," the first voice said. It was impossible to say just how close the voices were. Perhaps they were around an unseen corner, perhaps much nearer than that-tunnel acoustics being treacherously unpredictable. Tori suspected that Ariel was thinking the same thing. She thought he wanted to get out of there but was afraid of being seen or heard. Suddenly a light snapped on, and Tori and Ariel were caught in its piercing beam. Tori could make out the blossom of two black figures, faceless, on me move. "Hey, look!" "Who the fuck --" The glint, dark and evil, of machine pistols. "Madre de Dios!" Ariel breathed. He grabbed her hand, pulled her out of the circle of light. They began to stumble their way back down the tunnel. The light flashed wildly, illuminating the tunnel in rhythmic bursts, casting their distorted shadows against me rough stone walls. They heard swift footfalls behind them. "They're coming after us!" Tori said. Ariel said nothing, pulling her after him down the twisting tunnel. They gained a flight of steps, raced down them. But they could hear the heavy footfalls, the panting breaths that told them their pursuers were gaining on them. Tori wondered what in God's name he had led her into. "Faster!" Ariel's voice barked from out of the darkness. "If they catch us, they'll kill us!" We'll never outrun them. Tori thought as they rushed past an open archway. Impulsively, she reached out, grabbed Ariel, brought him up short. "What-" ''In here!'' she whispered in his ear, and ducking down, they entered the pitch-blackness beyond the portal. It smelled musty, and Tori could hear the scrabbling of tiny nails against loose rock. Ariel used his hands like a blind man, feeling the wall, following its contours. Light flared behind them and they both froze, then it faded, and they continued on their way in the darkness, into another, smaller chamber, then a third, even smaller one. For the first time Tori failed to scent a flow of air, and she was suddenly afraid that they had worked themselves into a dead end. On the other hand, coming in here had thrown their pursuers off their trail. She began to relax somewhat. Light returned again to the outer corridor, and now she could hear voices