[ONE]
1728 Avenida Coronel Díaz
Palermo, Buenos Aires
2245 6 May 1943
Clete had wasted the evening at a not entirely pleasant dinner at the home of his fiancée. Rather than spending time with Dorotéa, he had had to “get to know” Dorotéa’s paternal grandmother and some of her father’s brothers and sisters, none of whom he had previously met.
The grandmother in particular, as well as most of the uncles and aunts, had—through a haze of icy courtesy—managed to make it clear what they thought of norteamericanos and Protestants in general, and of a Protestant norteamericano who had despoiled the family virgin in particular.
At the time, he had resisted the temptation to drink, but as he walked through the door to the Museum, he told Antonio to bring American whiskey to his sitting.
He was halfway through his third Jack Daniel’s, and listening to the news from the British Broadcasting Corporation’s Foreign Service, when Antonio reappeared.
“Are you at home, Señor?” Antonio asked. “There is a Señor Freets on the telephone.”
“I’ll take it,” Clete said, and quickly got out of the chair, where—in addition to listening to the news—he had also been wincing mentally at the (richly deserved, he was forced to admit, hook, line, and sinker) tongue-lashing he’d gotten from Colonel Graham, and wondering how many Mallín family genes the baby would inherit.
He crossed the room to the telephone, then had to wait until Antonio said, “One moment, please, Señor Freets,” before he handed it to him.
“Fritz? What’s up?” Clete asked.
“I’m going to Germany tomorrow. I’m about to go to dinner in the Alvear with von Deitzberg, the Ambassador, and Gradny-Sawz. I’d like to see you for a few minutes. I can’t get away from here for more than twenty minutes. Any ideas?”
Clete had no ideas at all. It would take more than twenty minutes for Peter to travel back and forth from the Alvear Palace Hotel to the Museum; and if he himself went to the hotel, they would be seen together.
“Call me back when you get to the Alvear,” Clete said. “I’ll think of something.”
“Right,” Peter said, and the line went dead.
Clete looked around for Enrico and found him asleep in an armchair in the small foyer of the master suite. He touched his shoulder.
“Señor Clete?” Enrico asked, suddenly wide awake.
“Mayor von Wachtstein is going to be at the Alvear in maybe fifteen minutes. He can’t get free long enough—twenty minutes, no more—to come here. He wants to see me. Obviously, it’s important. Any ideas? Is there someplace near the Alvear where we could meet without being seen?”
“You have an apartment in the Alvear,” Enrico said.
“I do?” Clete asked. It was the first he’d heard about that.
Enrico reached into his pocket, came out with an enormous bunch of keys, found the one he was looking for, and held it up triumphantly.
“Why do I have an apartment in the Alvear?” Clete asked.
“El Coronel used it for entertaining,” Enrico said. “When discretion was necessary.”
“What does that mean? And I thought that’s what the house on Libertador is for? A guest house.”
“The house on Libertador is used to house guests,” Enrico said, smiling. “Normally, men who come to Buenos Aires from the country with their families.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“Some men, Señor Clete, if their wives do not accompany them to Buenos Aires, and sometimes even if they do, grow very lonely at night. And even sometimes in the afternoon.”
“What are you saying, Enrico? That my father kept an apartment in the Alvear so that his friends could—”
“El Coronel, Señor Clete, was famous for his hospitality.”
“I’ll be damned,” Clete said. “But I still don’t see why an apartment. Why not in the house on Libertador?”
“Señora Pellano, my beloved sister, Mariana Maria Delores Rodríguez de Pellano, Señor Clete, may she be resting in peace now for all eternity with all the saints in heaven, was a good Christian woman. El Coronel would never insult her by asking her to house inappropriate women in a house she thought of as her own.”
“Inappropriate women meaning whores, right?”
“No, Señor Clete. Your father would not insult his friends, his guests, by asking them to associate with whores.”
“Then with what?”
“A whore, Señor Clete—is this not true in the Estados Unidos as well?—will go to bed with any man who pays her—”
“That’s a prostitute, Enrico,” Clete interrupted. “A whore just likes men, all men.”
“She will sleep, a whore, with just about any man?”
“That sums it up neatly, Enrico. I guess you could say that Señora Pellano would regard both whores and prostitutes as inappropriate women. As would Señora Howell. And, of course, Señora Carzino-Cormano.”
“You understand, Señor Clete,” Enrico said approvingly.
“And did Señora Carzino-Cormano know about the apartment in the Alvear?”
“She did not want to know about the apartment, and therefore she did not know. You understand, Señor Clete?”
“Maybe,” Clete said. “What I don’t understand is who did my father get to entertain his friends who got lonely at night and sometimes in the afternoon, who we now understand were inappropriate women but neither whores nor prostitutes?”
“You are making fun of me, Señor Clete?”
“Absolutely not, Enrico,” Clete said. “I am asking you, as a friend, to explain these matters to me, so I will not do or say anything inappropriate. In case I should happen to bump into one of these inappropriate women, or if I should have to entertain some lonely friends of my father.”
“You are making fun of me, and I will say no more,” Enrico said, at once sad and indignant.
“Goddamn it, Enrico, I am not making fun of you. You’re my best friend in Argentina.”
Enrico met his eyes. “Except perhaps for the good Father Welner, I am,” he said.
“You’re my best friend, Enrico,” Clete said flatly.
Enrico considered that for a moment. “You have decided, Señor Clete, to use the Alvear apartment to meet el Mayor von Wachtstein?”
“If that makes sense to you,” Clete said.
“Then I will have to explain the inappropriate women to you,” Enrico said. “If you don’t understand, you are likely to say something inappropriate. I say that with all respect, as your friend.”
“Please do.”
“There are young women in Buenos Aires, whose families are poor, or who have no family, or whose family is in the country, and who in any event do not make enough money to support themselves as well as they would like to live. You understand?”
Yeah, I understand. Like Tony Pelosi’s Maria-Teresa. Who provided my father-in-law-to-be with a little afternoon bedroom gymnastics because he slipped her money and held the mortgage on her father’s restaurant.
And then when she met Tony, and told him no more, was going to call the goddamn mortgage.
And that hypocritical sonofabitch sat there tonight, wallowing in the sympathy he was getting from his family because I made Dorotéa pregnant.
My God, did my father have a Maria-Teresa stashed away someplace? In this apartment in the Alvear?
“Go on, Enrico.”
“They meet people,” Enrico went on. “There is an understanding that there will be a gift—”
“Money, you mean?”
“Money, or jewelry—that can easily be sold back to the jeweler—something like that. If they meet the same man regularly, sometimes there is an apartment. Or an account at Harrod’s. You understand?”
&nbs
p; “But they do go to bed with the man, right?”
“Sometimes yes, and sometimes no, it depends on whether they like the man.”
“Or the size of the present?”
“It is not like that, Señor Clete. You will make a gift to the Minas tonight—”
“Whoa! What tonight?”
“These girls are called Minas. You will give them a gift—”
“I don’t want any women tonight, for Christ’s sake. Jesus, I’m getting married on Saturday! What the hell is the matter with you?”
“You will be so kind as to permit me to finish, Señor?” Enrico asked, his tone eloquently indicating how deeply his feelings had been hurt.
“Go ahead,” Clete said, managing to restrain a smile.
“The Mina is an accepted custom in Argentina for people of your position, Señor. If you and el Mayor von Wachtstein spend fifteen or twenty minutes in the apartment with two Minas, the staff of the hotel will see nothing unusual. If, however, you and el Mayor spend time in the apartment alone…”
He put one hand on his hip, and with the other pretended to moisten his eyebrow.
“You’re kidding,” Clete said.
“You cannot afford to draw attention to el Mayor and yourself, Señor Clete. And the staff of the Alvear is worse than women when they think they have seen something scandalous. It would be all over Buenos Aires within hours.”
“OK,” Clete said.
“You understand, Señor?”
“I understand, Enrico. There will be Minas in the apartment.”
“And you will give them a gift, even though nothing will pass between you.”
“How much?”
“A man in your position, Señor Clete, is expected to be generous. El Coronel was. I think there are probably some emerald earrings in the safe. I will see. If not…”
“My father kept a stock of earrings on hand?”
“Of course. A gift of earrings is more delicate than money.”
“Of course,” Clete said.
Enrico opened the wall safe. There were no earrings. There was a .32-caliber Colt automatic pistol, two gold watches, and a stack of currency. Enrico held the currency in his hand for a moment and, after some thought, peeled off six bills. He folded three of them very carefully twice, handed them to Clete, then folded the other three and handed them to Clete.
“What you will say, Señor Clete, is, ‘Since you were so kind as to accept my invitation, please permit me to take care of the taxi for you.’”
“That’s enough money to take a taxi from here to Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo,” Clete said. “And back.”
“It is an appropriate gift for someone of your station, Señor,” Enrico said.
“What do I do now, wait for von Wachtstein to call and give him the room number?”
“I suggest, Señor, that we go to the Alvear now—”
“Wachtstein’s going to call here,” Clete interrupted.
“—and then when Mayor von Wachtstein calls here, Antonio will tell him that you will contact him at the Alvear.”
“How am I going to do that?”
“Jorge, the concierge, will send a bellman to el Mayor and tell him that he has a telephone call. When he goes to the telephone, the bellman will give him a key to the room, or take him there.”
Clete thought a moment, and then said. “That’ll work. Have the bellman tell him Señorita Carzino-Cormano is calling.”
“Yes,” Enrico agreed. “Are we agreed, Señor Clete?”
“We are agreed, Enrico. Thank you, my friend.”
Enrico nodded and picked up the telephone and dialed a number from memory. “I need to speak to Jorge,” he said. There was a pause and then Jorge-the-concierge came on the line. Enrico inquired into the state of his health, that of his family, assured him that he himself was in fine health, and then said that Señor Frade wished to have a little cocktail party in his apartment, starting immediately, and would be grateful if two suitable young women could be enticed to accept his invitation. Apparently they could, because Enrico told Jorge he would see him in a few minutes.
Enrico hung up the telephone. “It is arranged, Señor Clete,” he said. “I will have a word with Antonio, and then we will go.”
“But you said ‘suitable young women,’” Clete said. “I thought we had agreed on not suitable young women?”
“Suitable for the Alvear apartment, not for the house…You are making fun of me again, Señor Clete!”
“I wouldn’t do that to you, Enrico,” Clete said.
“You would and you are, Señor Clete,” Enrico said very sadly.
“I don’t know if I should tell you this or not. I’m afraid it will hurt your feelings,” Clete said to Enrico as they turned onto Avenida Alvear in the Buick convertible.
“Tell me what, Señor?”
“You forgot your shotgun.”
“Reach under the seat and see for yourself, Señor Clete.”
Clete put his hand under the seat and encountered the barrel of a shotgun.
“There is more than one shotgun,” Enrico said. “I leave one there, and another in the Horch. And I always have a pistol.”
“I apologize profusely, Enrico.”
“You are very much like your father, Señor Clete. He was always making fun of me too.”
Clete didn’t reply.
“When I was a very young soldier, and away from Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo for the first time—we were stationed in Entre Rios province with the 2nd Cavalry—it was very painful for me. When I told Mariana Maria Delores—may she be resting in peace with all the angels—who was then your grandmother’s—may she be resting in peace—personal maid, she told me that if your father didn’t love me, he would not tease me.”
“I’m sure that was true.”
“And is that why you make fun of me?”
“Yes, it is,” Clete said.
“I have come to love you as I loved your father, Señor Clete. It is good that you love me too.”
“I am honored to have your love, Enrico.”
“We will say no more,” Enrico said.
Clete pulled the Buick off Avenida Alvear into the small, curving driveway under the first floor of the hotel and stopped. He left the engine running, because he knew that a bellman would come quickly to take the car to the garage; there was space for only three cars in the drive.
Enrico reached over and snatched the keys from the ignition.
“How are they going to park the car if you have the keys?” Clete asked.
“We do not allow them to park our cars, Señor Clete,” Enrico said. “I will park it myself shortly.” He gestured toward the revolving door, where a silk-hatted doorman was prepared to turn it for them.
Jorge-the-concierge, who was fiftyish and bald, came from behind his desk as they entered the lobby. The symbol of his office, a large gold key on a gold chain, hung from around his neck and rested on his ample stomach. He offered his hand to Clete. “How nice to see you again, Señor Frade,” he said.
Clete, who could not remember ever seeing the man before, said: “And it’s nice to see you, Jorge.”
“We will go to the apartment, Jorge,” Enrico announced.
“Of course,” Jorge said. He snapped his fingers—it sounded like a pistol shot—and when he had the instant attention of one of the bellmen standing against the wall, motioned for him to take his position at the concierge’s desk. Then he bowed Clete ahead of him toward the bank of elevators.
They rode to the fifth floor.
“To the right, Señor Clete,” Enrico said softly, and then, a moment after Clete had started walking down the corridor, added: “There, Señor Clete.”
A waiter was rolling a cart out of an open door.
“Buenas noches, Señor Frade,” the waiter said as Clete waited for him to clear the door.
“Buenas noches,” Clete said, and went through the door.
Inside was a comfortably furnished sitting overlooking Avenida Alvear. Two enormous silver wine coolers had been set up, each holding two bottles of Champagne. A coffee table held an array of dishes covered with silver domes, and a table against one wall held an array of whiskey bottles.
“The German Ambassador is having dinner—” Enrico began.
“In the main dining room,” Jorge interrupted.
“With him is a young German caballero, el Mayor von Wachtstein,” Enrico went on.
“A tall blond gentleman,” Jorge said.
“Would it be possible to have a bellman tell him—loudly enough for the others to hear—that Señorita Carzino-Cormano wishes to speak to him on the telephone, and bring him here?”
“It will be done,” Jorge said.
“Do it, Jorge, please,” Enrico said, and shook his hand. This last was done in such a manner that Clete had no doubt that Jorge was suddenly much better off financially than when he entered the room.
“Your guests, Señor Frade,” Jorge said, “will be here momentarily. And if there is anything else you require…” He pointed at the telephone.
“Thank you very much, Jorge,” Clete said.
“I will now park our car,” Enrico announced. “And then I will be in the room off that room until you need me.” He pointed to one of the three doors opening off the sitting.
“Thank you, Enrico.”
Enrico followed Jorge out of the room.
Clete looked around the room, and then went to the door Enrico had pointed out. It was a bedroom with a double bed. It, too, had two doors opening off it. Behind the first door was a bathroom, and behind the second was a smaller room equipped with a small, single bed, an armchair, and a small table. An ashtray and a copy of La Prensa were on the table.
I wonder how often Enrico has waited there before? And who was with my father when he did?
Clete explored the other rooms—another bedroom and a small kitchen, complete with refrigerator. It held at least a case of wine and Champagne.
Secret Honor Page 33