Body of Truth Read Online Free Page B

profile. As Fossler saw it, he was basically in the information business and you didn’t get information by attracting attention to yourself. He was very good.
    “I was hoping you’d call tonight,” Haydon said. “I hear you’ve had some luck down there.”
    “Then you’ve talked to Germaine Muller?”
    “This afternoon. A few hours ago.”
    “Good. I’ll tell you, I’m not at all sure what the hell’s going on down here,” Fossler said, his voice calm. He must have been calling from a pay telephone, because he seemed to be speaking close to the mouthpiece, and Haydon thought he heard traffic. “Long story about how I finally got to the girl, which we can get into some other time, but I can tell you this, nothing in this country is simple. I went from coast to coast and border to border before I found her right here where I’d started out. Which was a surprise.”
    But Fossler didn’t sound surprised. Not only did he have a personality that some would consider unexciting, he was also unexcitable. Day in and day out he could make you want to climb the walls, but in a fast-breaking situation, in a squeeze, he was steady on, the kind of man you prayed for.
    “Listen,” Fossler said, “before I even get started here I want you to take down a couple of names and addresses. I’ll get to why in a minute. You got something to write with?”
    “Yeah, I do. Go ahead.”
    “Okay. John Baine.” Haydon wrote down the address.
    “Janet Pittner.” He gave her address and telephone number. “She’s the woman Lena’s living with, been living with her almost the whole time she’s been gone. This woman’s older than the girl by ten or fifteen years, I’d guess. Wealthy American, socially connected. Everybody in the American community here—which is pretty big—knows her, and she knows everybody. Good looking, but kind of crazy, I think. High strung.
    “Dr. Aris Grajeda. He works in the slums here, no telephone, and no street address except somewhere in a shantytown called…I’ll spell it: M-e-z-q-u-i-t-a-l. I haven’t met this guy yet, but I’m going to try to see him tomorrow. I understand he worked with Lena, with some Indian tribe up in the western highlands. He’s maybe in his mid thirties. A Guatemalan. Got his medical degree from Johns Hopkins, for Christ’s sake. He’s been back in Guatemala three years now. I hear his personal life is pretty interesting, very dedicated to his work. Not popular with the police here, because he calls a spade a spade. Considered a leftist, probably going to get himself killed.
    “And before I forget…” Fossler gave Haydon his own address. “It’s an old boarding house kind of thing, an old hotel.”
    “What about a telephone number?”
    Fossler didn’t respond immediately, and Haydon could hear the roar of trucks. It sounded like Fossler was in some kind of depot, maybe a bus station.
    “No. You can’t get me that way,” Fossler said. “I mean there’s a telephone there, but it’s not good.” He paused. “None of the telephones are good down here, understand? I’m calling you from a pay telephone, but…, I’m still not sure it’s good.”
    Haydon sat down slowly at his desk. “What’s going on, Jim?”
    “I’ve talked with the Muller girl twice,” Fossler said. “The first time was Thursday afternoon. After I found out where she was living I just went there and asked for her.”
    “That was at Janet Pittner’s?”
    “Right. There was a kind of an awkward moment when Lena realized who I was. It seemed to me Janet Pittner didn’t know about the trouble back in Houston. So Lena asks the woman to leave us alone for a few minutes. We had a pretty good talk, as a matter of fact. I told her that after she’d first disappeared it was thought she had been murdered and Baine was the suspect. She couldn’t believe it, claimed she didn’t have any idea. She asked a lot about her mother, how she was, seemed to regret having put her through all