“Why?”
“Is she there with you?”
“Why is Claudia nearly out of her mind?”
“Alicia went out of the house last night a little before eleven. Without telling anyone. And she hasn’t come home.”
“Oh, shit.”
“You do know where she is?” Welner asked, but it was a statement rather than a question.
“I’ve got an idea,” Clete said.
“Where?”
“Where are you?”
“I’m in Recoleta, in my apartment. Where is she, Cletus?”
“There’s nothing really to worry about,” Clete said. “I think I know where she is. Let me see if I can find out for sure. Why don’t you come over here?”
“Why should I do that?”
“By the time you get here, I should be able to tell you where she is,” Clete said, and added, “And she’s probably going to need your pastoral services.”
Father Welner hung up without saying another word.
Clete went into the bedroom off the master suite and woke Enrico up. “Get on the phone and discreetly inquire if Alicia Carzino-Cormano is still in the apartment,” he ordered.
“She didn’t go home?”
Clete shook his head, “no.”
“The Germans would do nothing bad to her, Señor Clete.”
“I hadn’t even thought about that,” Clete thought aloud, then added, “I’m more worried about Señora Carzino-Cormano. Get on the phone, Enrico.”
It took ten minutes to learn that while one of the beds in the apartment in the Alvear Plaza showed signs of use, no one was in the apartment now, and—the shifts having changed—none of the staff was available to be questioned about when the persons in the apartment had left. Bellmen would be sent to the homes of the night-floor waiter and elevator operator to ask what they knew.
“She’s either at von Wachtstein’s apartment,” Clete said, “or maybe she went to the airport to see him off. Or maybe she jumped in the River Plate.”
“You really think she would do that, Señor Clete? That is a mortal sin.”
“Christ, I’m just kidding,” Clete said. “Bad joke, sorry.”
On the other hand, who knows? Her world has just flown off. Women in love have been known to do stupid things. See Anna Karina, or whatever the hell her name was, the Russian who jumped under the train.
Jesus Christ, what did I do?
Antonio appeared to inquire if Señor Frade was at home to Padre Welner, who was in the foyer.
“Of course,” Clete said.
The Reverend Kurt Welner, S. J., who had decided that under the circumstances he did not wish to wait in the foyer, came into the room.
“Where is she?” he demanded.
“Right now, I don’t know,” Clete said. “Enrico, is there anyway we can call El Palomar and find out if the Lufthansa flight has left?”
Enrico thought the question over. “I can send Rudolpho out in a car to see, Señor Clete.”
“It’s a big, four-engine airplane with a swastika on the tail,” Clete said. “If it’s still there, he can’t miss it. Send him.”
“Alicia is with her German?” Welner asked.
“She was. His plane was scheduled to leave very early this morning. She may have gone out there to see him leave, or she may still be in his apartment. I’ve got the number in my wallet. You can call.”
Well, if he didn’t know that Peter and I are more than enemies being polite to each other in a neutral country, he does now. Damn!
Welner followed Clete into his bedroom, waited until Clete found Peter’s apartment telephone number, and then called it.
The maid answered, and said that el Mayor von Wachtstein was out of town and she didn’t know when he would return.
“Now I have absolutely no idea where she could be,” Clete confessed.
Unless, of course, she did take a jump into the river.
“I think you had better tell me what has been happening,” Welner said.
Clete had just started when another visitor arrived who had decided that under the circumstances it was not necessary to wait in the foyer while Antonio determined if the master of the house was at home.
Claudia stood just inside the door, her hands on her hips, her eyes flashing.
What we have here is an outraged mother.
“Good morning, Claudia. What a pleasant surprise! Can I offer you a little breakfast?”
“You sonofabitch,” she repeated, and marched toward him.
“Have you heard from Alicia?” Father Welner asked.
“She came in just after you called,” Claudia said. “She’s in her room, crying her heart out, and she won’t unlock the door.”
Clete had a sudden, very clear memory of Marjorie pulling hysterical young female I hate you I locked the door crap on Martha, whose response had been a well-placed kick to open the door, followed by a rush into the room, a slapped Marjorie, and the announcement that the slap was nothing like what she was going to get the next time she locked the door.
That wouldn’t work in the Carzino-Cormano house, a slightly smaller version of the Museum, whose doors are like bank vaults. Claudia would have needed four men on a battering ram to do what Martha did with her boot.
“But she’s all right?” Welner asked.
“That depends on how you define ‘all right,’” Claudia said. She stood beside Clete and glowered down at him. Then she pulled up a chair and sat down.
Clete had another mental image, an unpleasant one, of Claudia, genuinely concerned, rather than angry, in the corridor outside Alicia’s closed door, being refused entrance.
He picked up the silver coffeepot and filled a cup.
“One lump or two?” he asked as he picked up the sugar tongs.
“Black, thank you,” she said, adding, “Goddamn you, you’re just like your father.”
“Why doesn’t that sound like a compliment?”
“It wasn’t intended as one. What in the world were you thinking of last night, Cletus? When you got her out of the house?”
“You heard about that, huh?”
“When the butler came in about the same time she did. If I had known that last night, I would have come here and—”
“Actually, she wasn’t here,” Clete said.
“Then where was she?”
“Peter’s going to Germany this morning,” Clete said. “He wanted to see her again before he left. He was having dinner at the Alvear with the ambassador and the SS guy, and couldn’t get away for more than a few minutes. So I picked her up and took her to the apartment in the Alvear.”
“What SS guy?” Welner asked.
Clete looked at him. “His name is von Deitzberg. They sent him from Germany to find out who was responsible for what happened on the beach on Samborombón Bay.”
“And what happened on the beach?”
“Enrico and Rudolpho shot the German military attaché and another SS guy who ordered the murder of my father. They were trying to smuggle something into Argentina.”
“You ordered this?” Welner asked.
“No. But I’m not sorry they shot those bastards, and don’t give me any of that ‘Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord’ crap.”
“Watch your mouth, Cletus, you’re talking to a priest,” Claudia said.
He didn’t reply.
“He wanted to see her for a few minutes?” Claudia went on. “She spent the night with him! And in the apartment in the Alvear!”
Well, that answers whether or not she knew about the apartment, doesn’t it?
“They’re in love, Claudia. He really loves her.”
She met his eyes. Hers were really sad. “And what if he put her in the family w
ay? Did you think about that?”
“What I thought was they deserved some time together. He thinks he may not come back. I had no idea they were going to spend the night together. I would have tried to talk them out of that.”
“And what does that mean?” Welner asked. “‘He thinks he may not come back’?”
“The Germans need somebody to blame for what happened on the beach. Peter thinks they may blame him.”
“Oh, God!” Claudia said, and then had a second thought: “Then why did he go?”
“If he didn’t go, it would be all the proof they needed that he was involved with what happened. They would have killed his father.”
“Oh, my God,” she said. “Oh, poor Peter.”
“As a general rule of thumb, Claudia, the Nazis are not very nice people.”
“How was Peter involved?” Welner asked.
“You don’t really expect me to answer that, do you?” Clete snapped.
“You should be ashamed of yourself, Cletus, speaking to Father Welner in that way. He’s a friend. My friend, your friend, and he was your father’s best friend.”
“It’s all right, Claudia,” Welner said. “I understand Cletus’s concerns.”
She looked between them for a moment, then asked, “Would they really have killed Peter’s father if he hadn’t gone?”
“Innocence doesn’t count as far as the Nazis are concerned, Claudia. They kill anybody who gets in their way. They killed my father, they killed one of my men, they killed Enrico’s sister, and they would have killed Peter’s father.”
“I’m afraid Cletus is right, Claudia,” Welner said.
Clete’s mouth ran away with him. “Why don’t you tell that to my godfather? El Coronel Perón thinks the Nazis are the salvation of the Christian world.”
“I don’t understand that,” Welner confessed.
“I’ve got a couple of theories I may tell you sometime,” Clete said. “But not in mixed company.”
“That’s enough about Juan Domingo, Cletus,” Claudia said.
“OK. Subject closed.”
“He’ll be at Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo for the wedding,” she said. “You are going to behave, right?”
“I will be so good, Claudia, as to be unbelievable.”
“I don’t like the sound of that,” she said. “My God, you’re like your father! I even know when you mean something else than what you say.”
“That sounded like a compliment, in which case, thank you. You’re no longer mad at me, I take it?”
“If she’s pregnant, I’ll kill you.”
“Changing the subject, do I own a radio station?”
“Three of them. Specifically, your father and I—you and I—own one in Córdoba, and another in Santa Fe together, and you own another here.”
“Radio Belgrano?”
“Yes, Radio Belgrano. Why do you ask?”
“Just taking inventory.”
“You mean you’re not going to tell why you asked?”
“You don’t want to know why I asked.”
“What am I going to do about Alicia?” she asked.
“I will speak with her, of course, Claudia,” Welner said.
“She’ll come out of her room when she feels like it, and she will tell you whatever she feels like telling you,” Clete said. “Moral indignation will get you nowhere. She did nothing she’s ashamed of, nothing she should be ashamed of.”
“What makes you think you’re an expert on women? Or on questions of morality?”
“I’m my father’s son, of course,” he said, and before she could protest, added, “I have two sisters, Claudia. Well, two cousins, who act like sisters.”
“And if one of your sisters was involved with someone like Peter, would you have done the same for her? Arrange for her to go to spend the night with him in the Alvear apartment?” she challenged.
He met her eyes. “Yeah, I would,” he said. “Under these circumstances, I would. You ever hear ‘it’s better to have loved and lost, et cetera’?”
“Oh, come on, Cletus,” Welner protested. “That’s poetry, bad poetry, not life.”
“And did you ever hear, Father, that those that can, do, and those that can’t, teach?”
“And what is that supposed to mean?” Welner asked.
“I find it hard to pay a lot of attention to advice about love—sex—from someone who’s not supposed to know anything about it firsthand,” Clete said.
“Cletus!” Claudia protested, but she could not restrain a smile.
“Touché, Cletus,” the priest said. “Your father often said much the same thing to me.”
“Father!” Claudia said, shocked, and then laughed. Then she went on: “Since this indelicate subject has come up, can I ask a personal question, to satisfy my feminine curiosity?”
“You can ask,” Clete said, smiling.
“What did your aunt Martha and your sisters say to you when they found out about Dorotéa?”
“Don’t you really mean, ‘when they found out Dorotéa’s pregnant’?”
“As a matter of fact, yes,” she said, and smiled.
“Beth was delighted, according to Mom, and Marge and Mom—before they met Dorotéa—were afraid I’d been seduced by some hot-blooded Argentine tango dancer.”
“They weren’t!”
“Yes, they were. Their sighs of relief when they saw her for the first time sounded like someone let the air out of a truck tire.”
Claudia laughed. “I’d like a little cognac for my coffee,” she said. “And don’t tell me it’s too early. After last night—thanks to you—I deserve it.”
“There’s a button around here someplace to call a maid,” Clete said.
“No need,” she said. “Or at least I don’t think so.”
She got up, walked into the bedroom, and returned a moment later clutching a bottle of Rémy Martin in one hand and three brandy snifters in the other.
“Your father always kept a bottle in the bedside table,” she said. “Against the chill.”
“You mean, when you were mad at him?” Clete asked innocently.
Claudia’s not at all embarrassed to display her intimate knowledge of my father’s bedroom before Welner. Good for her!
She didn’t answer. She poured brandy in the glasses, then emptied hers into her coffee cup.
“I think your father would like it that you and Dorotéa will be in there,” she said, indicating the bedroom. “Damn, I miss him.”
“Me, too,” Clete said.
“And I,” Welner said. “A little more every day.”
She raised her coffee cup. Clete picked up the snifter, raised it to her, and took a sip.
“You know, this is why we can’t lose the war,” Clete said.
“The cognac?” Welner asked, confused.
“It’s the first thing they hand Winston Churchill when he wakes up,” Clete said. “Before his coffee.”
“How do you know that?” Claudia challenged.
“I don’t know. I must have read it someplace.”
She shook her head and had another sip of coffee.
Antonio came through the door from the corridor. “Señor, are you at home to el Coronel Perón?”
“Hell, no…,” Clete responded immediately, and then changed his mind. “Of course I am,” he said, oozing synthetic enthusiasm. “What a wonderful way to begin the day.” He looked at Claudia. “What is this, Claudia? Speak of the devil?” he asked, and then got up.
“I don’t know what’s going on, but you behave!” she ordered.
“Señor Frade, mi Coronel,” Antonio said, and handed Clete the telephone.
“Good morning, mi Coronel,” Clete said.
The others could hear only his side of the conversation:
“No, Señor. It’s always a pleasure to hear from you.”
“Well, actually, Señor, I am sitting here over coffee discussing current events with Señora Carzino-Cormano and the good Father Welner.”
“Damn you, Cletus,” Claudia hissed.
“Yes, Señor. He is standing right beside me.”
“Of course, Señor. One moment, please.”
Clete extended the telephone to Welner. “Father,” he said, loud enough for his voice to carry over the telephone, “el Coronel Perón asks to speak to you.”
Welner took the telephone.
Now Clete and Claudia could hear only the priest’s side of the conversation:
“How are you, Juan Domingo?”
“I’m very well, thank you.”
“Is that so?”
“I am sure that I can convince the good lady to do that, Juan Domingo. But you are a busy man. Couldn’t it be done on the telephone?”
“I understand.”
“We will expect you shortly, then, Juan Domingo,” Welner finished, and hung up the telephone.
“Don’t tell me the bast…good Coronel’s coming here?” Clete asked.
“You can convince me to do what?” Claudia asked suspiciously.
“Juan Domingo says he has something quite important to say to Cletus, and he wants us to be here when he tells him.”
“What the hell is that all about?” Cletus asked.
Welner shrugged. “Whatever it is, he thinks it’s important,” Welner said.
“And he’s coming here now?” Claudia asked.
“He said he will leave the Edificio Libertador immediately,” Welner said.
El Coronel Juan Domingo Perón, Special Assistant to General Pedro Ramírez, Minister of Defense of the Republic of Argentina, arrived twenty minutes later.
Antonio, Clete noticed, had not asked Perón to wait in the foyer while he inquired if Señor Frade was at home.
He was my father’s best friend. Family, so to speak. Like Claudia; she wasn’t told to wait either. Then why did Antonio at least try to make Father Welner wait? Were there occasions when my father didn’t want to see Welner?
Perón was in uniform, with glistening boots and a Sam Browne belt, the brown tunic festooned with an array of decorations.
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