Clete raised his eyes from his still not fully and properly ignited cigar and saw a tall man in uniform. Not of the Husares. He didn't recognize anything about this one except the epaulets, which carried the insignia of a coronel.
Clete stood up.
"According to Enrico, you are quite a soldier yourself, Se?or Frade. Therefore, you should know that arguing with a determined Suboficial Mayor is a waste of time and breath. One has the choice of giving in or having him shot."
"I'm tempted to do the latter," Clete said. "Or at least to chain him to his bed."
The tall colonel walked to him and put out his hand. "Perhaps levity is out of place," he said. "But on the other hand, I've heard that laughter often occurs spontaneously when pain is at the point of being unbearable."
"You have the advantage of me, mi Coronel," Clete said.
"Forgive me. But I have heard so much of you over the years, and tonight, from Enrico, that I feel I know you. Your father was my best friend, from our first day at the military academy. My name is Per?n, Juan Domingo Per?n."
"How do you do?"
"I have just, with great embarrassment, realized that I find myself an uninvited guest in your home, Se?or Frade."
"My father's best friend will always be my honored guest," Clete heard himself say.
Where the hell is this flowery language coming from? It just pops into my mouth. And not, I don't think, because I'm speaking Spanish, and not English. I have never been a charmer in either language.
He turned to Enrico.
"Take off your jacket and sit down," he ordered, pointing to a chair.
"Se?or Clete?"
"You heard me," Clete said. He walked to the pull cord and jerked on it. When the housekeeper appeared a moment later, Enrico, with some difficulty, was still in the process of taking off his tunic.
She sucked in her breath when she saw Enrico's bloodstained undershirt.
"I'm going to need bandages, and tape, and cotton wool, and alcohol, or some other antiseptic," Clete said.
S?, Se?or," she said, and quickly left the room.
"What I should do, Enrico, is call for an ambulance and send you back to the hospital."
"I am all right, Se?or Clete."
Clete looked at him, felt a wave of emotion for Enrico's dedication to his father, and went to the whiskey bottles, poured an inch and a half in a glass, and handed it to him.
"With a little luck, you'll choke to death on this, and I won't have to worry about you anymore," he said.
"Gracias, Se?or Clete," Enrico said, and added: "I saw you outside Our Lady of Pilar."
"You're lucky I didn't see you," Clete said.
The housekeeper and one of the maids appeared with what Clete had asked for.
Clete unwrapped the bandage on Enrico's head. Dried blood had glued it to his skin. After some thought, Clete decided it would hurt him less to jerk it off than to pull it. He did so. Enrico winced but made no sound.
He winced again as Clete mopped at the blood with alcohol-soaked cotton wool. It wasn't as bad as he thought it might be. The stitches sewing the wound together had not pulled loose. The wound itself, as Enrico had told him in the hospital, was actually a half-inch-wide, two-inch-long canal gouged out of his flesh. He washed it carefully, then applied a fresh bandage.
"You have done that before," el Coronel Per?n said as Clete was applying the fresh bandage.
"Once or twice," Clete said. "This is one of those famous wounds'another half an inch, and that's all she wrote, Charley!'"
"Excuse me?" Per?n said.
"He's lucky he's alive," Clete said. "Another half an inch, another quarter of an inch . . ."
He bent over and looked for a fingerhold on one of the bandages on Enrico's upper chest. "On the other hand," he went on, "the head wound probably kept him alive. It knocked him out, and with all the blood, those murdering bastards thought he was already dead and not worth a round of 00-buck."
He jerked the bandage off. Enrico grunted.
"At least the banditos who did this soon paid for it," Per?n said. "Saving yourself and the rest of the family the pain of a trial, and the government the expense."
"Banditos,my ass," Clete flared, aware that he was now sounding more like himself. "Assassins is the word, mi Coronel. The fucking Krauts couldn't get me, so they went after my father and Enrico. And got my father."
There was no reply for a long moment, long enough for Clete to finish washing Enrico's wound and to turn to find a fresh bandage.
'"By "Krauts' I presume you mean Germans?" Per?n asked, somewhat stiffly.
"That's right."
"Enrico told me that was his belief," Per?n said. "But I am frankly surprised that you give credence to something like that."
"I believe it because it's true," Clete said evenly. "And the reason the bastards are dead, mi Coronel, is because dead people can't testify about who hired them."
"Argentina has long been plagued with banditos," Per?n said.
"These bastards may have been banditos, but they were working for the Germans."
"Your father was a friend of Germany, Se?or Frade. He had many German friends. He was a graduate of the Kriegsschule."
"Yeah, well, one of his German friends ordered his assassination. Another of themor maybe the same sonofabitchordered my assassination. That time they got Enrico's sister, Se?ora Pellano."
"In that tragic incident, as I understand it, you killed both of the burglars. Did you do that so they would not be able to testify in court?"
What the hell's the matter with you? You don't like hearing the truth? Well, fuck you, Colonel!
Watch your temper, Clete!
"I had to kill one of them," Clete said evenly. "The second, I am ashamed say, I shot because I lost control of myself when I saw what they had done to Se?ora Pellano. I now regret that very much. If I hadn't lost my temper, we could have made the sonofabitch tell us who paid him."
There was another long silence. Per?n said nothing at all until Clete had finished replacing all of Enrico's bandages.
"Obviously, Se?or Frade," he said finally, "you believe what you have said. I find it difficultimpossibleto accept. But I will look into the matter, and put the question to rest for all time."
Watch what you say, Clete! Not only was this guy your father's best friend, but pissing him off isn't going to accomplish anything.
"I would be grateful if you would, mi Coronel," Clete said. "And I have another service to ask of you."
"Anything within my power, Se?or Frade."
"Would you see that Suboficial Mayor Rodriguez gets to Our Lady of Pilar tomorrow? By automobile? I will see to it that there are seats with the family for my father's best friends."
"Of course."
"You go to bed, Enrico, and try not to do anything else stupid between now and tomorrow."
S?, mi Teniente. Gracias, mi Teniente."
"If I can't get you to call me by my name, at least get the rank right," Clete said. "I was discharged from the Marine Corps as a major."
Clete saw Per?n's eyes light up with that announcement.
Is that why I said that? So Per?n won't dismiss me as just one more young, and stupid, lieutenant?
"You're very young to have been a mayor," Per?n said.
"Yeah, well, we were in a war. Promotions come quickly when there's a war. Enrico, is my Buick drivable?"