Good. I can send him to the radio station and have him tell Tony I need to see him. Maybe he knows more about David Ettinger than Mart?n did. And in any event, I should radio Graham that the airplane is here, and, for that matter, that the new President of Argentina is General Rawson.
Come to think of it, I don't know how much attention Rawson will pay to anything I have to say, but I don't think there's much doubt that he'll listen to me. We became buddies in the Piper Cub.
"Buenos tardes, Patron," Rudolpho said. "Se?orita."
Clete shook Rudolpho's hand.
"Could you go out to the radio station and tell Teniente Pelosi I have to see him?"
"El Teniente is in the house, Patron."
Great. And that explains what he's doing here carrying the carbine, doesn't it?
"Honey, do you want something to eat?" Clete asked.
Dorotea smiled sweetly at him.
"It's been a long day," she said. "Why don't we just turn in?"
One of the maids came down to the car.
Thank God, nobody's here but Tony. We don't have to go through that nonsense of pretending we 're not sleeping together.
"Put the Se?orita's luggage in my room, please, and draw a bath for her."
"Cletus!" Dorotea protested.
"Nobody's here, why not?"
Dorotea shook her head but did not protest any further.
"I need a minute or two with Tony, and then I'll be right along."
"You'd better be," Dorotea said. "I'm going to hold you to the promise you made in the car."
"What promise?"
"You've forgotten already?" she asked.
He finally took her meaning, and his face reddened.
"Where's el Teniente?" Clete asked.
"In the library, Patron."
"I'll just say hello to him," Dorotea said, and followed Clete to the library. He held the door open for her and she walked in ahead of him.
"Ah, Se?orita Mallin," a familiar male voice. "What an unexpected pleasure! How nice to see you again."
Jesus, who the hell is that? Whoever it is, he sounds just like Colonel Graham.
"And Major Frade himself!" Colonel A. F. Graham, USMCR, said. "What a coincidence! We were just talking about you."
"I told the Colonel you'd probably show up here sooner or later, Tex," Mr. Milton Leibermann said. "And tell us all about the revolution."
"What's going on?" Clete said.
"You'll have to excuse my bad manners, Se?orita Mallin," Graham said, ignoring the question. "You've met Lieutenant Pelosi, I know. But not these other gentlemen, I believe. May I present Commander Delojo, our Naval Attach? here, and Mr. Milton Leibermann, who is the Legal Attach? of the American Embassy in Buenos Aires?"
What the hell is all this about?
Commander Delojo and Milton Leibermann shook Dorotea's hand. Leibermann told her that she was even more beautiful than Pelosi had told him she was.
". . . and Mr. Ralph Stevenson, who is the Cultural Attach? of our Embassy in Montevideo, and Captain Maxwell Ashton III. Gentlemen, Se?orita Dorotea Mallin, Major Frade's fianc?e." He paused and looked at Clete. "When Tony told us that wonderful news, Clete, frankly I was a little hurt that you hadn't let me know. I would have sent a present, or something."
Clete didn't reply.
Enrico came into the room, looked around, and then at Clete.
"And this gentleman," Graham said, "is Suboficial Mayor Enrico Rodriguez, Argentine Army, Retired, sometimes introduced as Colonel Rodriguez."
Graham has obviously heard from that Air Corps Colonel at Porto Alegre,Clete thought.
Or maybe he's been there ?
And obviously, behind that little mask of perfect manners he's wearing, he's pissed at me.
Why?
What the hell have I done wrong, except getting one of my men killed?
Well, if that's what's pissing him off, he's entitled.
"I realize this is an imposition, Se?orita Mallin," Graham said, "but I'm afraid that we have to speak to Cletus now, and alone."
She looked at Clete, then at Graham, then turned and left the library without a word.
Clete looked at Graham.
"I accept full responsibility for the death of Sergeant Ettinger," Clete said. "I should have made sure that he would not leave the estancia."
"I'm not surprised that you would say that, Clete," Graham said, "but I am surprised that you know. Who gave you that information?"
"It's not important."
"I decide what's important."
"I decide what I tell you."
"That's not the way it works."
"Yes, it is," Clete said.
Commander Delojo looked at Graham, anticipating a satisfactory reaction to Clete's insubordination.
"If you tell me what you know, about Ettinger, I mean," Graham replied, the reply disappointing Delojo, "Ior Stevensonwill fill in any blanks from what we know."
"In front of Milton Leibermann?" Clete asked.
"In front of Milt," Graham said.
"Including why Ettinger felt he had to go to Montevideo?"
"Yes," Graham said simply. "Milt knows what Ettinger was up to; I told him."
Maybe, if the OSS had been talking to the FBI all along, David would still be alive,Clete thought angrily.
He looked at Leibermann.
"I was told that Ettinger was found dead of stab wounds in the sand dunes on the River Plate beach north of Carrasco. The murder was probably done for hire, by Uruguayan gangsters, and the murder was paid for by Standartenf?hrer Goltz, or somebody working for him. But at Goltz's orders. Goltz is also the guy who gave the orders to have my father killed."
"You must have a pretty good source of information," Graham said. "That's about all we have. Except why the Uruguayan police believe the murderers were Uruguayan criminals. Do you want to hear that?"
"Please."
Graham looked at Stevenson and gestured for him to furnish the information.
"They severed Sergeant Ettinger's penis and placed it in his mouth," Stevenson said. "In the ... How do I put this? This is what the gangsters down here do to stool pigeons. The idea, apparently, was to send a message to people."
"What kind of message? To who?"
"To the German Jewish community in Montevideo and here," Stevenson went on. "That Ettingerin his role as a German Jew, not an OSS agenthad talked too much, which means at all, about the ransoming operation the Germans are running. The message is that anyone who talks about it will be killed, and in that manner."
"I think we ought to send the Germans a message," Clete said. "That anybody who orders the killing of one of us gets a rifle bullet between the eyes."
"Shoot Standartenf?hrer Goltz, you mean?" Graham asked.
"Or blow his brains out," Tony Pelosi said. "If Clete had let me do that when I wanted to, maybe Dave would still be alive."
"Tell me about that," Graham said evenly.
There was something in his voice Clete didn't like, and he tried to signal Tony to button his mouth, but Tony had his attention focused on Graham and didn't see him.
And probably wouldn't have understood me anyhow.
"I came up with a way, Colonel," Tony said, not at all reluctant to show off his expertise, "to blow the bastard's brains out his ear. I even tested it on a cow's head Enrico got me from the slaughterhouse. All you need is a piece of plastic explosive about as big as the first joint on your thumb. You put it in the earpiece of a telephone. I can rig it to blow five seconds, whatever, after you pick the phone up, or on command, sending house current down the existing telephone wire pair. Two-twenty-volt current fucks up the whole phone system, but who cares?"