[SEVEN]
Edelweiss Hotel
San Martín 202
San Carlos de Bariloche
1505 16 October 1943
“It is a great honor to have you in our hotel, Coronel Perón,” the manager said, “and a pleasure to see you back so soon, Señor Schenck.”
“I’m here privately,” Perón said.
“We’re thinking very seriously of buying a small estancia here,” Evita said.
“Now, as I’m sure you can understand, we don’t want that getting out,” Perón said.
“I understand completely. You may trust my discretion and that of everybody in the Edelweiss.”
“Thank you.”
“How much trouble will it be to get my car from the garage?” Señor Schenck asked.
“I can have it at the door in five minutes,” the manager said.
“Oh, good!” Evita said. “I’m so anxious to see this place!”
“I’d like to clean up a little . . . ,” Perón said.
“Me too,” Evita said happily. “My back teeth are floating, as they say.”
Perón looked as if he wanted to choke her.
And she’s not talking in that stilted language anymore. I suppose she figures she doesn’t have to impress me with her culture now that we’re all such good friends.
When Señor and Señora Schenck got to their room, she beat him into the bathroom and he waited impatiently for her to come out.
“Teeth no longer floating?” he asked sarcastically as he brushed past her.
“What does he see in her?” Inge said, ignoring it.
“I don’t know, but I’m glad he sees whatever it is. With a little luck, I’ll have his signature on that deed this afternoon—because of her.”
When he came out of the bathroom, he went directly to the telephone and, consulting a business card, asked the hotel operator to get him a number.
“Señor Suarez, this is Jorge Schenck,” von Deitzberg said. “I managed to convince el Coronel Perón to have a look at the property. I have reason to believe he’ll like it. I’d like to strike, so to speak, when the iron is hot, by which I mean later today.
“What do you mean it’ll take longer than that?”
Señor Suarez took forever to explain the bothersome details of completing such a transaction, the Argentine bureaucracy being what it was.
“Bribe somebody,” von Deitzberg snapped. “Now, this is what I want done. I want you to be having a drink in the Edelweiss Hotel bar from five o’clock—make that half past four—until I get there.
“I will express surprise at seeing you, and I will tell you that I have been showing Perón Estancia Puesta de Sol, and one thing will lead to another and you will ultimately say something to the effect that there’s no reason the deed can’t be transferred right there in the bar if that’s what he wishes to do.”
Señor Suarez asked how sure could Señor Schenck be that Perón would want to do that.
“Trust me, he’ll want to do that,” von Deitzberg said. “You just be in the bar when we walk in.”