"Clete, my boy," he said aloud, "I think you have just received Part One of a 'Dear John' communication, with Part Two to be delivered in person at zero nine hundred hours. Shit!"
Well, what the hell did I expect? She just turned nineteen years old, for Christ's sake. Before me, she was really the Virgin Princess. I was the first, quote, real man, unquote, in her life. Nineteen-year-old girls routinely fall in love with, quote, older men, unquote, and if the older man is a sonofabitch, as I certainly was, sometimes even let them into their pants.
"Cletus," she will say, "I will always love you. But I have met someone else. He is my age. I didn't want to fall in love with him. It just happened. I can only hope that you can understand. I never wanted to hurt you."
Whereupon, as a gentleman should in such circumstances, I will touch her shoulder in a brotherly way, sincerely announce that of course I understand, wish her and the boyfriend all possible happiness, and tell her I will never for-get her either.
Which is true. I'm in love with her-or think I am. I never felt this way about anybody else before-but that does not add up to us living happily ever after in a vine-covered cottage by the side of the road. What I should be is grate-ful that Juan or Pancho or whatever the fuck the sonofabitch's name is has come into her life, getting me out of it without causing her any pain. Or getting her killed, which would have been a genuine possibility. And if these bastards do succeed in killing me, which is also a genuine possibility, it will be easier on the Princess. I will have been just one in a long line of her ex-boyfriends, not her lover or, Jesus Christ, even worse, her fianc‚.
Shit!
He walked out the bath into his bedroom and looked at the bed.
I don't want to get in there. That's not my bed, it's my father's bed, and I don't care if they have gone to great pains to remove everything that was his from his apartment, it's still his apartment and his bed.
And for some reason, I'm not at all sleepy. Probably all the alcohol I didn't have, and all the coffee-strong enough to melt the teeth of a mule-I did.
Tony! I have to see him, and I have to see Ettinger. And Peter. I really want to see Peter. He knows who ordered the assassination of my father, and I think he 'II tell me.
He went to the dressing room and quickly pulled on khaki trousers, a polo shirt, and a tweed jacket. He hadn't gotten as far as taking off his boots, and get-ting dressed took less than a minute.
When he went through the sitting, his suit was already gone. He went down the wide stairs, then to a corridor under them. Just off that was the stairwell to the basement garage.
Half a dozen cars were in the garage, but none was in the place reserved for his father's beloved Horche.
I wonder where that is? Do the cops have it?
He went to a 1940 Ford station wagon, parked between an ancient, immac-ulately maintained Rolls Royce sedan and a small Mercedes sedan. The Ford was locked.
"Damn!"
"Se¤or?"
He turned to find a middle-aged man in his shirtsleeves.
"May I help you, Se¤or?"
"Can you get me the keys to this?" he said, pointing to the Ford. "I would be pleased to conduct the Se¤or anywhere he wishes to go," the man said, pointing at the Rolls Royce.
"Just get me the keys to this, please," Clete said.
[THREE]
Avenida Pueyrred¢n 1706
Capital Federal, Buenos Aires, Argentina
0005 10 April 1943
When Clete drove past Peter's apartment building looking for a place to park, he saw the doorman sitting behind his tiny desk in the lobby, his hands folded on his stomach, sound asleep.
He thought it very likely that the doorman got a wee
kly envelope from Teniente Coronel Mart¡n of the Bureau of Internal Security in exchange for a re-port on who rode up to Piso 10 and when and how long they stayed.
Or perhaps two envelopes, the second from the Polic¡a Federal. Or maybe even three. Peter told me that there are two obscure flunkies at the Embassy who really work for the Military Attach‚, who is really, in addition to his other du-ties, the counterintelligence officer. They're probably keeping an eye on Peter, too.
If I go up to see Peter-or just ask the doorman if he's at home-that means Martin-and probably the Polic¡a Federal and Colonel Whatsisname... Gr?ner... will hear about it. I can't risk that, so what the hell do I do?