“While you . . . ?”
“While I’m in the Bunker talking to El Jefe on the SIGABA. When I’m finished, then I’ll come.”
“You got it.”
Cronley saw Ginger Moriarty being escorted with her infant to one of the vehicles that had just pulled up. He motioned his parents toward the second from the front of the line.
Cronley was glad to be able to get away from Ginger. The last time he had seen her, she had called him—with more, he believed, than a little justification—a bastard and a miserable son of a bitch, and told him to get the hell out of her house.
[FOUR]
4730 Avenida del Libertador General San Martín
Buenos Aires, Argentina
1355 10 April 1946
The master bedroom, what Cletus Frade called Uncle Willy’s bedroom, had been built by his grand-uncle Guillermo at the turn of the century. It had a mirrored ceiling and life-size marble statuary showing two couples, and one trio, engaged in the reproductive act.
Jim Cronley had just started shaving when he heard a familiar female voice outside the bathroom door.
“What is this place, a brothel?” Ginger Moriarty asked.
“Noticed the statues, have you?”
“Well, I’m glad I asked Father McGrath to give me a minute alone with you before he came in. I wouldn’t want it getting around that I led a priest into your private whorehouse.”
Cronley, using a thick cotton towel, wiped the soap from his face and went into the bedroom, where he grandly swept his hand around the room.
“This is all Clete’s grand-uncle’s doings. Personally, I am as pure as the driven snow.”
She grunted.
“So, what’s on your mind, Ginger?”
“Actually, I came up here to apologize. I’m just not sure if I came to Argentina only to do that. I think there may be another reason, besides me getting away from my parents.”
“Then what the hell are you doing in Argentina?”
“It’s sort of complicated.”
“Give it a shot.”
“I don’t know . . . Well, okay, what the hell. I was having supper with your folks and Clete’s at your spread in Midland when Admiral Souers called and told Clete to pick you and the others up down here and take you all to Germany. Immediately. Which meant the next morning.”
“And . . . ?”
“And Clete told everybody. Then your mother said she hadn’t seen you since you left for Germany and asked Clete if there was any reason why she and your dad couldn’t ride down here with him to see you. He couldn’t think of any reason, and then Clete’s folks said they thought they’d ride along, too, so they could see their grandchildren. And then they could all go back to Texas together. So I got in on the act and asked him if there was any reason I couldn’t go, not only down here but to Germany as well—”
“Why the hell do you want to go back to Germany for?” Cronley interrupted.
“Because after what happened to . . . my husband . . . all of our stuff, including our car, was put in storage by the Army when they sent me back to the States. There’s a lot of stuff of Bruce’s I want Little Bruce to have when he’s grown, and a lot of stuff I never want to see again, so I’m going to Munich to sort through everything. Understood?”
“I suppose.”
“And then I wanted to apologize to you.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Listen. Pay attention. I apologize for what I said—screamed—at you in my house at the Compound. I was out of my mind—”
“You don’t owe me any kind of an apology,” Cronley put in. “You were justified.”
“—and I’m really sorry for screaming at your parents at Bruce’s funeral,” she finished. “You heard about that?”
He nodded.
“So when I came to my senses and realized they had nothing to do with what happened, I went to them—actually, to your mother—and apologized. She was, no surprise, very gracious. She asked me how I was doing. I told her that before Bruce’s casket touched the bottom of his grave, my parents had started to search for a new husband for their widowed daughter and her fatherless child and that it was driving me bonkers.
“Your mother told me very kindly—again, no surprise—that they meant well. When I started to leave, I asked her if she ever saw you again to please tell you I was sorry. Shortly after that, when Clete announced he was headed here and then on to Germany, she caught my eye and nodded. So here I am. And I have just apologized.”
“Ginger, at least once a day I think that if I hadn’t had Bone . . . Bruce . . . transferred to DCI, he’d still be alive. You really don’t owe me an apology.”
“Well, you’ve got one. Mission accomplished.”
She turned and walked out of the bedroom.
Cronley, watching the door close behind her, thought, She never got to whatever reason it was besides the apology.
If there ever was anything other than the apology . . .
* * *
—
Finished with his shave, Cronley began drying his face with a thick towel. He heard a tap on the outer door, then saw in the mirror that a tall, muscular, gray-haired man in his fifties, wearing a clerical collar, had entered Uncle Willy’s bedroom.
Has to be that Catholic priest, Cronley thought.
What’s this all about?
Cronley, watching the priest take more than an idle interest in the life-size marble statuary, said in a raised voice, “What can I do for you, Father?”
The priest moved to the bathroom door, stopped, and announced, “I’m very happy to meet you, Super Spook, for reasons I’ll explain in a bit. I thought you might be a little uncomfortable downstairs with a priest in the room you don’t know, so I came up to put your mind at rest.”
“I don’t like being called Super Spook—let’s start with that.”
“Really? When I heard that, it was applied to you in a manner suggesting admiration. Let me start this interesting, and somewhat amusing, tale from the beginning. Admiral Souers was fascinated with something you’d been working on—Himmler’s new religion—and wanted an outside opinion of heretical religions.
“His people came up with the name of a professor at the University of the South who had written several books on the subject and who was regarded by some people as an expert on the subject.
“Admiral Souers told Oscar Schultz . . .” He paused and raised his eyebrows in question.
“I’m familiar with El Jefe,” Cronley said.
“. . . to go talk to this man and see if he would come to Washington to talk to the admiral. Your friend Cletus was in town in connection with your difficulties in Vienna and was free pending decisions being made in connection with that. So, El Jefe prevailed upon the Air Force to loan the DCI a P-51, which had been fitted with a second seat, telling them the DCI had a fully qualified pilot to fly it.
“This was not entirely true. But as with many, perhaps most, Marine Corps fighter pilots, Cletus shares the belief that he can fly anything. With El Jefe in the backseat, Cletus made his first flight in a P-51, to Tennessee, to talk to the professor. En route, El Jefe told Cletus they had lucked out, that he had checked further and learned the professor held a commission as a commander in the Naval Reserve.
“At the university, they were directed to the professor’s office door. Above which was a little sign reading FATHER McGRATH.
“This caused an outburst of profanity on Cletus’s part, one loud enough for the professor to hear it all on the far side of the closed door. If memory serves, he said, ‘I’ll be damned! If this priest is my Father McGrath, we’ve hit the fucking payload!’
“At that point, I opened the door, whereupon Cletus wrapped his arms around me and, after kissing me on the forehead, inquired, ‘How the hell are you?’”
Cronley grinned. “I take it, Father, that you two were previously acquainted.”
“You could say that, and that would be somewhat of an understatement. Cletus’s announcements caused some consternation on the part of my secretary, even after I told her the last time the colonel and I had seen each other was on Guadalcanal, where I had been chaplain to VMF 226 and he had been a lieutenant flying F4F Wildcats.”
“Jesus Christ!” Cronley said, quickly adding, “Sorry, Father.”
“Watch your mouth or I’ll think you’re a heathen.”
“I’m not a heathen, I’m Episcopalian. And now that I think about it, so is the University of the South. And isn’t McGrath . . . ?”
“‘Grath’ is a translation of ‘craith,’” the priest said, nodding, “which means ‘grace,’ while ‘mac’ means ‘son of’—”
“I’ll be damned,” Cronley interrupted. “The literal translation becomes ‘son of divine grace.’”
“Keep keeping company with the likes of Cletus, my son, and you may well be damned,” the priest said, smiling broadly and offering his hand. “J-for-Jack McGrath. Pleasure to finally meet you, Super Spook.”
Cronley took the hand. “And you, Father. Any friend of Cletus, et cetera, et cetera . . .”
“It’s Jack, please.”
“How about Father Jack?”
“Deal. You must be wondering what is an Irish priest named McGrath doing there on Guadalcanal.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“It is Episcopalian, as am I. The Pope doesn’t have a copyright on ‘Father.’”
“And you’re a commander in the Chaplain Corps of the Naval Reserve?”
“Deduced that, did you? No wonder they call you Super Spook.”
“Very funny.”
“So eventually, over dinner, we got to the purpose of El Jefe’s visit. And to anticipate your next question, ‘Why couldn’t El Jefe deduce from my books on religious heresy that I was a priest?’ In other words, why did they say ‘By J. R. McGrath, Ph.D.’ rather than ‘By Reverend J. R. McGrath, D.D.’?”
“I have the feeling you’re going to tell me.”
“I am. Because I learned with my early books that maybe five or six thousand devout people will buy a book by a priest so that they can advertise their own piety by displaying them, usually without having read them, on their coffee tables. When I published my first book on religious heresy, I dropped the ‘Reverend’ and the ‘D.D.’ and substituted ‘Ph.D.’ for the latter. That book sold thirty-five thousand copies, and subsequent books have done even better.
“At that point, I introduced into the conversation that my present interest was looking into rumors I had heard that the late, unlamented Heinrich Himmler had been trying to launch a Nazi-based religion and asked if, perchance, either of them, as intelligence officers, had heard anything about it.
“Cletus chuckled, and said, ‘Oh, boy, have we ever!’ and El Jefe added, ‘And one of our guys, Super Spook, is an expert on that subject.’
“So naturally I asked, ‘Super Spook?’ And Cletus told me all about your lifelong relationship. He said you had been dubbed Super Spook because you were very good at finding and arresting some really evil Nazis. And that your ‘ass was in a deep crack at the moment’ because your latest exploit resulted in the Austrian government calling for your scalp. As were the Air Force and most of the European intelligence establishment.
“I said, ‘Nevertheless, I’d really like to meet him.’
“He gave me a strange look and asked if I was open to a wild offer, presuming I could get away from the university for a couple of months, maybe longer.
“I told him not only was I a tenured professor, meaning I couldn’t be fired, but that I was anxious to escape the world of academia for a while. So what was the wild offer? I asked. He told me and here I am.”
“That’s a helluva story.”
“Which I thought I should tell you. Now that I have, may I suggest we go downstairs for our lunch?”
“You may. But please tell them I said to start without me, Father Jack. I’ll join you after I gather some things for the trip.”
“Will do.”
[FIVE]
4730 Avenida del Libertador General San Martín
Buenos Aires, Argentina
2030 10 April 1946
Cronley drained the last of the bottle of ’41 Estancia Don Guillermo Cabernet Sauvignon into the crystal stem that sat on the massive marble sink of Uncle Willy’s bathroom. He both felt and heard his stomach growl. Not only had they started lunch without him, it had ended in his absence, too. All he managed to scrounge after the table had been cleared was the makings for a small lomo sandwich—sliced rare filet mignon with horseradish on a hard-crusted baguette.
The blame for his having missed the meal rested with Cletus Frade.
Frade had called while Cronley was packing his suitcase, announcing that the Dorotea would be wheels-up for Germany at first light and that Cronley was being summoned to the Bunker to answer, over the SIGABA, El Jefe’s questions—which Frade said meant DCI Souers’s questions—concerning Wallace’s last communiqué.
That had consumed, it turned out, the remainder of the afternoon and into the early evening.
When Cronley had finally returned to Uncle Willy’s bedroom to finish packing and get dressed for dinner, it had been with a bottle of the fine Cab they had flown in by the caseload in the Lodestar from Frade’s estancia in Mendoza.
* * *
—
Cronley came out of the bathroom, showered and smelling of the eau de cologne he had found in a cardboard box in one of the closets. He had helped himself to one of the remaining half dozen liter bottles. He suspected the cologne had been in the closet since Uncle Willy had lived there himself a generation or two before.
Cronley had a bath towel tucked around his waist. On his way out of the bathroom, the towel slipped off and he stumbled over it, nearly falling to the marble floor.
“Shit!”
He looked down at the towel on the floor, then kicked it. It flew into the bedroom, coming to rest on the lamp shade of a wall fixture. The wet cotton touched the hot lightbulb, causing it to explode.
If I go over there, I’ll cut my feet on the glass.
So, fuck it, I’ll get it later.
Stark naked, he walked over to the bed, where he had left his clothes.
He felt the damp towel being draped over his shoulder.
A female voice said, “You dropped something. Don’t turn around until you put it on.”
Ginger!
What the hell is she doing up here again?
When, towel in place, he turned around, she was standing there, arms crossed over her ample bosom. She was dressed for dinner in a fancy black dress that, he could not help but notice, not only did little to conceal her curves, it very nicely accentuated them.
What the hell do they call those?
Cocktail dresses.
Jesus, she is one attractive broad, especially in that tiny outfit.
It was cut so low in front that he could see where the bottom of the double string of pearls around her neck disappeared between her breasts.
“You were missed at lunch,” she said.
“It was not my decision, Ginger . . . What the hell are you doing up here again?”
“I had to come up to check on the baby. On the way, I realized that I have some more things to say to you. And I decided they couldn’t wait.”
“Your timing is lousy. And what if somebody comes through that door looking for me?”
“This won’t take long, Jimmy. I’ll take my chances.”
Jesus Christ, her eyes are blue—a beautiful blue.
“Okay, then, spit it out.”
“I heard what was said in the library.”
“Hear
d what?”
“That we’re off to Germany first thing in the morning, and that as soon as we land, you’re back in your Super Spook role, and that means that once again you are about to disappear from my life.”
“You know what I do for a living. It’s what got Bonehead—”
“Shut up!” she snapped. “Let me finish what I didn’t finish before!”
So there actually was something else, he thought.
He shrugged. “So, finish.”
“I was pissed at you because you were stupid—”
“I’m often accused of that.”
“Goddamn you, please shut up!”
There’s tears glistening . . . She’s about to start crying.
What the hell is going on?
“And it was your stupidity, and mine, that had suddenly turned me into the widow of Bruce Moriarty, with a child to raise all by myself.”
“Ginger, I’ve been kicking myself, just about daily, for taking Bone—Bruce—out of the Constabulary and into the DCI.”
“You did that to be a nice guy. More than that, you did it because you loved him and were taking care of him, as you always did. And because he loved you, you made him as happy as a pig in mud to be in the DCI with you.”
“I don’t understand where you’re going with this.”
“That’s what I mean about you being stupid.”
He threw both hands up in frustration. “Tell me!”
“You ever wonder why I married Bruce in the first place?”
I know why Bonehead married you. He told me.
Do I tell her he did?
What the hell . . .
“He . . . uh . . . told me you were in the family way.”
“I was. The way that happened was that Bruce asked me if it was all right if he brought you along with him to the Kappa Delta Sigma New Year’s Eve party. I was surprised, mostly because Jimmy Cronley made no secret of the fact that he thought sororities and their social events were bullshit.
“I also was excited. I told him sure. And I gussied myself up real nice. New dress, new shoes, hours in the beauty parlor, and plenty of Chanel No. 5 behind my ears and between my boobs. Tonight was the night I would snare Jimmy Cronley in my web.”
The Enemy of My Enemy Page 3