"Where are you?" Dorotea Mallin demanded, by way of greeting, the moment she came on the line.
"Don't ask," Clete said.
"What does that mean, 'don't ask'?"
"I can't tell you, is what it means."
"What am I supposed to tell Father Matthew?"
"What?" Clete asked as his memory kicked in half a second later and iden-tified Father Matthew as the Very Reverend Matthew Cashley-Price of the An-glican Cathedral. Provided Clete and Dorotea underwent premarital counseling under his direction, Father Matthew was going to unite them in holy matrimony.
"Cletus, damn you, you heard what Father Matthew said. We have to have premarital counseling. He's called twice a day since you... since you disap-peared. Where have you been? Where are you?"
"Honey, you just have to stall him for a couple of days."
"That's simply out of the question," Dorotea announced with feminine im-perialism. "I don't care where you are or what you're doing, you have to call Fa-ther Matthew, right now, apologize, and set up an appointment."
"I can't, Princess," Clete said.
Her entire tone of voice changed.
"My God, you're in some sort of trouble."
"No."
That's not the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but. But at the moment, 1 'm not actually in trouble.
"Yes, you are. I can tell by your voice."
"Honey, I'm not," Clete said. "Really, I'm not. But I'm... tied up..."
"Tied up how?"
"... for the next couple of days."
"Tied up how?"
"With rope. To the bed."
"You don't really think you're funny?"
"Princess, you're just going to have to trust me."
"Why should I?"
Clete replied with the truth without thinking much about the possible ram-ifications of that.
"You don't have any choice, honey," he said.
Dorotea hung up on him.
He was standing with the handset in his hand, his finger holding down the switch, wondering whether it would be better to call her back or not, when he heard the door creak open.
Teniente Colonel Bernardo Mart¡n and Capitan Roberto Lauffer came into the room. Mart¡n was in mufti and carrying a well-worn leather briefcase, while Lauffer was not only in uniform but wearing a Sam Browne belt with a saber hanging from one side of it, an Argentine.45 automatic in a glistening molded leather holster riding high on the other side.
Enrico, who had been sitting on the windowsill, stood up and came to at-tention.