Angel Eyes Read Free Page A

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