"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 cas-ket... 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 Pe-ter either, which he suspected was because he had shown no interest in her from the moment he had laid eyes on Alicia.