07.3 Mazzikin

She parked on Arenales, traffic moving on the broad street of Carlos Pellegrini from where they turned into the lane. Madeleine hit the bell on a gateway located right next to the corner building that was of Embajador Hotel. A man appeared after five minutes.

“Let me reach the window!” Madeleine demanded.

Madeleine ushered Marina through the narrow entrance, following the man, to a staircase that led to the first-floor balcony covered of a metal grill mesh apart from a portion in the middle. There were pot plants placed on the cantilever and a wrought iron balustrade with vertical bars facing the road. They tossed out holding to the handrail and proceeded to reach a projection of the next building elevated at the handrail level.

“Hold on, Mary!” said Madeleine, “I will open the window first.” Madeleine climbed the slab and opened the double hung window.

They stepped inside a cubicle and then crossed a bedroom in half-light. Someone was sleeping in the bed. “He’s a staffer,” whispered Madeleine. They crossed a corridor to the fire escape and climbed up to the sixth floor. “I go turn off the lights,” she directed, “whether the emergency lights turn on or not, it is not much light. Run to my room. I leave the door open.”

Madeleine reached a panel board in the service area and dropped a circuit to turn out the lights in order to obscure a surveillance camera pointed on the corridor. It could not take pictures in the dark or half-light.

When light went out, Marina ran into the corridor and saw the only light that fell out of the door left open of Madeleine’s room. She went straight in.

Finally, inside Room 606, Marina sat on the side bed and kicked a heel on a plate. To her surprise, there were tons of dinner plates under the bed.

“Those…” cried Madeleine, “Somebody will remove them in the morning. Do you like meatballs?” she grabbed a plate on the table and undid the foil wrapping.

Marina poked in her fingers and tasted, “Hmm! Good, bit cold though!”

“I left them yesterday,” said Madeleine removing the kit belt, “Every time I come with three or four plates from the restaurant. These guys know how much I eat. I can eat ten dishes like this in one go.”

“You eat a lot but you’re so thin.”

“I can’t help it,” said Madeleine getting rid of the black catsuit, “Something to do with my biological system. Food gets digested.” She slapped on her flat tummy. In white high-rise thong and sports bra, her legs skinnier than bones. Madeleine dropped on the floor beside the bed to eat.

“This is a nice room,” said Marina.

“I come here often, known these guys for ten years. I don’t shy asking for food from these guys.”

Shortly, they got dressed. Marina chose a white pair of cropped pants and a dark blue top. Surprisingly, anything seemed to fit now on her waist. She lost ten kilos.

Madeleine came to pick a purse, travel documents and a bag stuffed with the catsuit and weapons, more importantly to fetch a key to another vehicle.

Once again, Madeleine, in a fitted white shirt and desert brown pants, turned off the lights. Marina ran to the fire escape. Madeleine turned them on and joined her climbing down to the ground.

This time they passed the kitchen floor rattling for morning breakfast. Made way out through the side door into the lights of Carlos Pellegrini.

“Don’t look back!” cautioned Madeleine to avoid a face caught on cameras outside the main entrance of Embajador Hotel.

They ran around the block to reach the Fiat parked on Arenales and pushed off to a parking lot on Estados Unidos. Parked the Fiat and climbed a Toyota 4Runner with a metallic greenish-black coat.

“Do you feel comfortable?” probed the thin woman with copious black hair.

Marina nodded.

On the broadest of the broad roads, in seven lanes of traffic, she stopped under a red light. Two more streets flanked on each side and medians ran parallel making it moreover wider. Though, caught in traffic, that wideness could not be determined.

“That’s the Obelisk, Obelisco de Buenos Aires,” Madeleine pointed at the towering monument standing in the middle of the Plaza de la República. “This is where the Argentine Flag was raised for the first time in Buenos Aires,” a cigarette in her fingers.

Marina glanced over at large billboards on top of the high-rise blocks, ‘Jockey Club’, ‘La Nación’ and a huge logo of ‘Mercedes-Benz’ to her right. “I certainly missed all this!”

“No, you did not.”

“Where are we going?” asked Marina.

“Palermo. Forty minutes in this traffic. Now it’s seven in the morning.”

They arrived at a house on Thames and entered a backyard garden that led to a room Madeleine kept. A stone-paved walkway and a pebble-filled space with wrought iron chairs, a grass-grown lawn with a small swimming pool and trees around.

A small bedroom with white walls and fabric curtains, glass-fitted doors and a tiled floor. An elegant bathroom, a large wardrobe and several other built-in closets.

“Wow!” cried Marina, “It is beautiful! Is this your room?”

“My apartment,” replied Madeleine.

“What about the other place?”

“My hotel,” she said grabbing a camera, “First thing is to take a photograph of you. Wet your hair a little. I’ll be gone for few hours to replicate a passport. In the meantime, you can sleep and don’t go out.”