"But Argentina is not producing enough oil for its own needs," Clete said. "Isn't that why Howell is shipping them both crude and products?"
"I'm not talking about now, Cletus, I'm talking ten, twenty years down the pike, long after I have gone to my reward. You've got to start thinking about that now. With Jim gone to his reward, you're going to have to take over Howell for me when I go."
"No," Clete said. "Not necessarily. Odds are that Marjorie or Beth will latch on to some oil type. Or both of them will. Houston's full of them."
"No, Clete," Martha said. "He's right, for once."
"Of course I'm right," the Old Man said.
"Jim and I talked about it," Martha said. "The way his will was written and minethe girls get the preferred stock, and that income, but you'll get Jim's and my voting stock, and control of the company."
"He never said anything about anything like that to me," Clete said. The conversation was making him uncomfortable.
"He thought there would be time, we both did, when you came home after the war."
There was a moment's silence, and then Clete decided to change the subject. "You're talking as if you think Germany might win the war, Germany and Japan."
"Will German tanks roll down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington? Or will Jap soldiers bayonet people and rape women in Beverly Hills like they did in Nanking? That's highly improbable. But I'll tell you what is possiblean armistice. The First World War ended with an armistice, why not this one?"
"I never even thought about an armistice," Clete thought aloud.
"You know what happened at Stalingrad?"
"I don't know what you mean."
"The Germans lost a whole army there. Six hundred thousand men and all their equipment."
"That many? I never thought about that, either. I don't think we had forty thousand Marines on Guadalcanal."
"Can you imagine what would have happened here if you had had to surrender on Guadalcanal? If forty thousand Americans had been killed? Roosevelt would have been impeachedwhich might not be such a bad idea, come to think of it. And we're a hundred and eighty million people. There are about seventy million Germans. Six hundred thousand is almost one percent of seventy million."
"What's your point? You've lost me."
"My point is this," the Old Man said. "Somewhere, right now in Germany, there are peopleimportant people, and whatever you want to say about the Germans, they aren't stupidwho are facing the facts. If they are losing one percent of the total population in just one battle, and the war is nowhere near over, then it's time to get out of the war."
"I don't think Hitler is in any danger of getting himself impeached," Clete said. "He's a dictator, remember?"
"You've read The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. A lot of big-time dictators suddenly found themselves out of a job when their people had had enough." The Old Man drew his meat knife across his throat. "Remember that?"
"I think the word for that is 'regicide,'" Clete said softly. "Killing the king."
"Well, I'm impressed. Maybe you did learn something at Tulane after all."
I didn't learn that word at Tulane. I learned it in Buenos Aires, when Peter von Wachtstein translated the letter from his father, in which Generalmajor von Wachtstein announced that his officer's honor required that he commit the act of regicide.
You 're right, Grandfather. We 're not talking in the abstract here. We 're talking about real people actually committingregicide.
"Always stand pat on sixteen, you mean?"
"I was trying to be complimentary," the Old Man said. "Sooner or later, and I think sooner, Hitler will be deposed. As soon as that happens, the Germans will seek an armistice, and we'll give it to them."
"President Roosevelt called for unconditional surrender at the Casablanca Conference."
"If the Germans offer an armistice, we'll take it," the Old Man said, dismissing Roosevelt's pronouncement. "And once that happens, and the Japanese realize that they're all alone, they'll ask for one too."
"I don't agree with that at all. Japs don't surrender. We learned that on the 'Canal."
"If the Emperor tells them he's decided there should be an armistice, there'll be an armistice," the Old Man said flatly. "Anyway, for the sake of argument, indulge me. The war is over. Germany wants to barter manufactured goods for Argentine crude. I would be happier if they were bartering with us, but that looks unlikely."
"Wait a minute, you're losing me."
"I would like to barter our crude to Argentina, our Venezuela crudepreserving our own oil reservesfor American manufactured products, but that's not about to happen."
"Why not?"
"Germany will make them a better deal. They really will need crude. And so will the Japs. They'll sell them an equivalent washing machine, or automobile, for less than we will."
"So where does that leave us?"
"Out in the cold, unless we get in on the ground floor when the Argentines start developing their oil fields. If we get in on exploration and production first, we can take a percentage of whatever they produce. So we're back to where this conversation started. It will behoove you, Cletus, to pay attention to Henry Mallin. He could be very important to us."
"I'm going down there as a Marine, as the Assistant Naval Attach?, not to cut an oil deal."
"Funny, you always struck me as being smart enough to walk and chew gum at the same time. All I'm asking you to do is be nice to Henry Mallin for our own selfish purposes."
"I give you my word as an officer and gentleman by act of Congress that I will be the essence of charm and goodwill toward Enrico Mallin."
If not for the reasons you want me to.
The Old Man looked at him for a long moment, then nodded.
"This boiled cat isn't as bad as it smells, is it?"
"Not if you wash it down with enough of the vinegar."
"You go easy on the vino when you get down there, Cletus. And I don't want you earning any more medals. You've done your fair share in this war, and then some. Let somebody else do their share. You just go outwhat did you say?on the canap?-and-idle-conversation circuit and sit out the rest of the war. I want you back in one piece. I want a male great-grandchild."
"Well, I could start to work on that the minute I get down there. I have seen"
"I'm not so foolish as to try to tell you to keep your pecker in your pocket. But carry on with somebody you won't have to marry if you get her in the family way. One Argentine in-law in my lifetime has been more than enough."
"If it wasn't for my father, I wouldn't be sitting here with you."
"Possibly not, but your mother, may she rest in peace, would be. She could have had her pick of any one of"
"Strange," Clete interrupted the Old Man, "but I seem to recall hearing all this before."
"All right," the Old Man said. "Just don't write me a letter and tell me you've found some female down there you want to marry."