"Hola?"
Every time he heard her soft, somehow hesitant voice, his heart jumped.
"How are you?"
"How do you think I am? Where are you?"
"In the roof garden of the Alvear."
"I mean, really?"
"I mean, really."
"I thought you said you had to go to work."
"I am working. I am carrying the luggage of a distinguished personage. Later, I'm part of the official party which will go to the Edificio Libertador to pay our respects to el Coronel Frade. . . ."
"Oh, Peter!"
"I should be free after that. About ten, I think."
"Well, I can't leave here, obviously, and you can't come here."
"The Duartes have told me I am always welcome," he teased.
"Cletus is here," Alicia said.
"Cletus is there?"
I've got to see him. How the hell am I going to arrange that?
That was the last thing in the world he expected to hear.
"Not here. Right now, no one seems to know where he is. But he's in Buenos Aires. He'll probably, certainly, come here sooner or later. In addition to everything else, Mother is frantic."
"How do you know he's in Buenos Aires?"
"Someone called Beatrice Duarte and said that she saw him at the casket... at Edificio Libertador. He was with General Ramirez."
Well, if he's with Ramirez, everybody in Buenos Aires will know he's back.
"If you see him before I do, would you tell him to get in touch with me, please?"
"Of course," Alicia said, then: "Carino,( *Porteiio: Sweetheart, darling, or equivalent.) he's not in danger, is he?"
"I don't think so."
Not as long as he's with Ramirez, anyway. And maybe not for a day or two, until Gr?ner has time to set up another assassination.
"Peter, I'm worried for him."
You and me both, Schatzie.(Berlinerische: Sweetheart, darling, or equivalent.)
"He'll be all right," von Wachtstein said.
"I'll see you tomorrow," she said.
"I love you."
"Yes, of course, I feel the same way."
"Somebody's there?"
"Yes, certainly."
"Isabela?"
"Yes."
Isabela was the elder of the two daughters of Se?ora Claudia Carzino-Cormano. Clete referred to her as "El Bitcho," Peter remembered with a smile. The feeling was mutual. Isabela loathed Clete, and she was not very fond of Peter either, which he suspected was because he had shown no interest in her from the moment he had laid eyes on Alicia.
"Stick your finger in her eye," Peter said.
"That's a very good idea, if somewhat impractical. Thank you for calling. Goodbye."
He hung up and looked up and saw the maitre d' examining his extended index finger. Then he mimed sticking it in his eye.
"Mother or sister?" the maitre d' inquired.
"The sister."
"I will pray for you. Sisters are more dangerous than mothers."
"Thank you," Peter said. He slipped the maitre d'hotel a bill and got back on the elevator. He rode to the main floor, took a seat in the lobby bar, ordered a beer, and waited for either the maid or a bellman to bring him Standartenf?hrer Goltz's luggage.
[FOUR]
1420 Avenida Alvear
Buenos Aires, Argentina
2105 9 April 1943
The Mercedes pulled up to the heavy gate in the twelve-foot-tall wrought-iron fence. As it did so, a police sergeant, one of three policemen standing on the sidewalk before the mansion, put out his hand and ordered it to stop.
An officer in the uniform of the Husares de Pueyrred?n was not an ordinary citizen, but the sergeant's orders had been explicit. He was to ensure that no one intruded on the privacy of the mourning Duarte family.
"Are you expected, mi Capitan?" he asked politely when Lauffer rolled down the window.
"We are expected," Lauffer replied, and added: "This is Se?or Frade."
"Thank you, Sir," the sergeant said, saluted, and signaled for one of his men to open the gate.
The door to the mansion was opened by a maid; but a butler, a black mourning band on his arm, appeared the next moment.
"Se?or Frade," Lauffer announced. "To see Se?or Duarte."
"I will announce you," the butler said. "May I show you into the reception ( The day-to-day Spanish of middle- and upper-class Argentines is heavily laden with British terms. Living rooms are called "the living"; dining rooms, "the dining"; reception rooms, "the reception," et cetera.) ?" He met Clete's eyes. "You have my most sincere condolences on the loss of your father, Se?or Frade."
"Thank you," Clete said.
Clete and Lauffer followed the butler across the foyer to a double door. He opened the door and bowed them through it, then closed the door after them and began to climb the stairs to the second floor.
"Cletus!" a svelte woman in her fifties cried, rising out of one of the armchairs and walking quickly to him. She was dressed in a black dress with a rope of pearls its only ornamentation. Her luxuriant black, gray-flecked hair was parted in the middle and done up in a bun at the neck.
Se?ora Claudia de Carzino-Cormano kissed Clete on the cheek.
"I'm not entirely sure I'm glad to see you," she said, and then changed her mind. "Yes, I am. Oh, Cletus!"
She wrapped her arms around him and rested her face on his chest.
His hand on her back could feel her stifling a sob, then she got control of herself.
"What are we going to do without him, Cletus?" she asked.
He shrugged and made a helpless gesture with his hands.
Claudia then acknowledged the presence of Capitan Lauffer.
"Good evening," she said. "Despite the circumstances, it is good to see you."
"It is always a pleasure to see you, Se?ora," Lauffer said.
When Claudia stepped away from Clete, she was replaced by Alicia, who was dressed and made up almost identically to her mother. The only difference Clete could see was that instead of pearls she wore a golden cross on a chain around her neck.
"Oh, Clete, I'm so sorry," she said.
She kissed Clete somewhat wetly on the cheek and then, while hugging him, whispered, "Peter wants you to call him."
"OK," he said very softly, so that her sister, Isabela, who was approaching, could not hear him.
Isabela, two years older than Alicia, wore her black hair piled on top of her head. A diamond-and-emerald brooch was pinned to her black dress. She was tall, lithe, and finely featured. Isabela was even better looking than Alicia, Clete often thought, but unfortunately knew it.
She did not embrace Clete, and her kiss, he thought, was the sort of kiss a bitch like Isabela would give to an alligator when good manners required her to go through the motion.
"Cletus," she said.
"Isabela," he replied.
"Would you like something to eat? Drink?" Claudia asked.
"Yes, I would," he said. "To drink."
"I'll ring," Alicia said.
"There's whiskey here," Claudia said. "In that cabinet. Whiskey, Clete? Capitan?"
"Please," Clete said.
Claudia went to a huge cabinet, which opened to reveal a complete bar.
"You'll have to ring," Claudia said. "There's no ice."