“When de Montoya feels it would be safe for you to leave the hospital, you will come to the estancia, until I can arrange to send you safely out of the country.”
“I’m not leaving the country,” Clete said.
His father met his eyes.
“You have no choice in the matter.”
“I’m not finished here. I killed the men who killed Señora Pellano,” Clete said. “Now I want to get at the people who hired them. The Germans.”
“You don’t know for a fact that the Germans were behind this.”
“Of course it was the Germans,” Clete said, less angrily than sadly. “Don’t tell me you closed your eyes to that too.”
As if he had not heard a word, el Coronel Frade went on: “I have arranged for the release of Señora Pellano’s body. I will accompany it to the estancia, where she will be buried. De Montoya has agreed to release you from here in time to attend Señora Pellano’s funeral. That will provide a satisfactory reason for you to move to the estancia. You will stay there until I can make arrangements for you to leave the country. In the meantime, Enrico will stay with you.”
“What? What for?”
“If one attempt to kill you was made, there will probably be another.”
“But there are guards in the corridor.”
“I know where Enrico’s loyalties lie,” Frade said simply. “Enrico will stay with you.
“You have disappointed me, Cletus,” Frade went on carefully. “A good woman is dead on account of you. And you have lied to me. The estancia is large. You and I will only have to see a little of one another.”
“I want very much to go to Señora Pellano’s funeral, Dad,” Clete said. “But I don’t think it would be a good idea for me to stay at the estancia.”
El Coronel Jorge Guillermo Frade met his son’s eyes, then turned on his heel and walked out of the room. After he passed through the door, Enrico locked it.
Enrico turned, met Clete’s eyes for a moment, and then went to the bed, where he unzipped the suitcase and took from it what seemed to be a Browning twelve-bore self-loading shotgun. He assembled it, then loaded it with five Winchester 00-buck cartridges.
“Browning?” Clete heard himself asking. “A Browning, or an Argentine copy?”
Enrico didn’t reply for a moment, then held the shotgun out to Clete.
“A Remington Model Eleven, mi Teniente,” he said.
Clete examined it and handed it back.
“Marianna was very fond of you, mi Teniente,” Enrico said. “She was always talking to me about you, like you were her son.”
Marianna? Oh. He means Señora Pellano. I never knew her first name. And now she’s dead, because of my stupidity.
“I was very fond of her. I am ashamed she is dead.”
Enrico met his eyes again.
“I have asked the Blessed Virgin to let Marianna know that you avenged her death, so that she may find eternal peace in the company of the angels, knowing you are alive and they are dead.”
“Until just now, I didn’t know you and Señora Pellano were close,” Clete said.
“She was my sister,” Enrico said simply. “I will now protect your life, mi Teniente, with my own. But I would also very much like to kill some Germans myself. Do you perhaps have a name? Or names?”
Jesus, he means all of that. If anyone tries to kill me in here, it would have to be over his dead body. And if I gave him the German ambassador’s name, he’d kill him. Or die trying.
Clete shook his head no.
“I’ll work on this,” Enrico said. “Honor demands that I also avenge her death, even if that is against mi Coronel’s wishes. I will help you in any way I can, especially if it means I can kill Germans.”
And he means that too.
“Thank you, Enrico,” Clete said.
I wonder if that means he would let me go, let me escape from my father’s protection.
Having said his piece, Enrico went on to immediate, practical matters.
“Mi Teniente, where is the telephone?”
“They took it out,” Clete said. And then, curiously: “Who did you want to call?”
“I thought we would have coffee, and perhaps the newspaper, mi Teniente. We will be here a long time.”
“I could use something to eat.”
“Bueno, I will take care of everything,” Enrico said. He walked to Clete and held out the shotgun. “Mi Teniente is familiar with this shotgun?”
“Yes. I’ve got a Browning. They’re about identical.”
“It is loaded, and the safety is off, mi Teniente,” Enrico said, and handed the Remington to Clete.
He walked to the door, pounded on it, and left the room.
Five minutes later, he was back.
“Coffee and some pastry is on the way,” he announced. He walked to the window.
“It’s locked,” Clete said.
Enrico looked at him and winked.
“The clowns in the corridor asked where I was going. I told them for breakfast, a telephone, and the key to the window. They told me I could have neither the key to the window lock,” he held up a small key, “or a telephone.”
He removed the padlock, opened the vertical blind three feet, and then opened the window. He whistled. Moments later, a telephone appeared outside the window; it was hanging on a cord. Enrico hauled it in, untied the cord, then closed the window and the vertical blind.
He plugged the telephone in, picked up the handset, listened for a moment, nodded his head in satisfaction, then unplugged the telephone and put it in the cabinet beside the bed.
“We will keep it there until we need it, mi Teniente,” he said. “In case the clowns in the corridor become curious.”
“How did you do that, Enrico?”
“The Suboficial Mayor of the hospital was in the Husares de Pueyrredón when el Coronel and I were with the regiment. He was injured in a bad fall, and is on limited duty.”
“He gave you the telephone?”
“Sí, mi Teniente, and he will see that we eat well, from the Sargento’s mess.”
“When they hear what happened on Avenida Libertador and cannot find me, my two friends will be worried about me. Can I call them, Enrico?”
Enrico met his eyes for a long moment.
He is not going to let me use the phone. All that talk about going against my father’s wishes sounded great, but when push comes to shove…
“The clowns cannot listen to that line,” Enrico said, pointing to the telephone wall plug. “I thought of that. But I think the clowns will be listening to the line of your friends.”
“You’re probably right.”
Probably, shit! Of course he’s right.
“It would be better to have them come here. Do you need both of them, or just one?”
“Just one. Could you do that? How would you bring him past the clowns?”
“You do not have suboficiales mayores in your army, mi Teniente?”
“I am a Marine, Sergeant Major, not a soldier. But yes, we have men like you in the Corps. They call them ‘gunnys.’ It means gunnery sergeant.”
“And when your officers have a problem they cannot solve, do they turn to the ‘gunnys’?”
“Yes, we do.”
“It is the same here. This problem may take some time, but it can be solved. I suggest, mi Teniente, that you write a short note to your friend, telling him to accompany the man who gives him the note. And tell me the address.”
XVIII
[ONE]
Room 305
Dr. Cosme Argerich Military Hospital
Calle Luis María Campos
Buenos Aires
1745 20 December 1942
Wearing a somewhat soiled, loose-fitting white cotton uniform of the type issued by the Argerich Military Hospital to its maintenance personnel, Second Lieutenant Anthony J. Pelosi, CE, USAR, moved slowly down the third-floor corridor of the hospital. He was holding a large coil of black electric wire, and following a
man moving a floor polisher in a slow sweeping motion from side to side.
The man with the floor polisher stopped in front of Room 305 and put a key to the locked door. The door was opened by a large man; he was holding a shotgun in one hand. The muzzle was eighteen inches from Tony’s belly. The man motioned for him to enter.
First Lieutenant Cletus H. Frade, USMCR, wearing a light-blue hospital gown, was seated at a small table. Tony could see a pot of coffee on it and the remnants of sandwiches and pastry.
“Jesus, what’s that purple shit all over you, Lieutenant?”
“Some kind of antiseptic,” Clete said, walking to Tony and shaking his hand. “How did you get past the clowns?”
“I’m holding the cord for the guy with the floor polisher,” Tony said. “He said we have ten minutes, and the less time I’m in here, the better.”
“That’ll be enough. Tony, this is Suboficial Mayor—Sergeant Major—Rodríguez. Enrico, el Teniente Pelosi.”
“A sus órdenes, mi Teniente.”
Tony shook Enrico’s hand.
“What the hell happened at your house? When I went by there, the place was surrounded by cops; I couldn’t even get near. And when I tried to telephone, I got some guy on the line who was obviously a cop, and he wouldn’t tell me shit.”
“The Germans sent a couple of guys to kill me; the local mafiosi.”
“No shit?”
“They killed Señora Pellano,” Clete said.
“And then you killed them? With your grandfather’s six-shooter?” Tony asked in a combination of admiration and incredulity.
“I thought you didn’t know what happened.”
Pelosi hoisted the hem of his white jacket and came out with a copy of the Buenos Aires Herald.
“You’re on the front page,” he said, handing it to him. “I suppose most of the story is bullshit.”
* * *
ROBBERY ATTEMPT IN BELGRANO
LEAVES HOUSEKEEPER AND
TWO CRIMINALS DEAD
By C. Edward Whaley
Herald Staff Writer
Buenos Aires 20 Dec—An attempted robbery of the residence at 4730 Avenida Libertador just after midnight this morning left the housekeeper, Señora Marianna Pellano, 52, and two as yet unidentified criminals dead, according to Colonel Ricardo Savia-Gonzalez, Chief of the Policía Federal.
“These criminals,” Colonel Savia-Gonzalez told the Herald, “apparently in the belief the residence was not occupied, broke into the house from the rear. Surprised by Señora Pellano, they cruelly took her life, then proceeded upstairs.
“There they encountered Señor Cletus Frade, son of el Coronel Jorge Guillermo Frade, and attempted to murder him with a pistol it has been determined was stolen from the Argentine Navy.
“Señor Frade, luckily, was in the process of cleaning an historic military firearm, a Colt revolver once carried by his grandfather, El Coronel Guillermo Alejandro Frade, who carried it while commanding the Husares de Pueyrredón. Although wounded, he courageously managed to load the revolver and with it dispatched both criminals, killing both instantly.
“He then summoned the police, who upon arrival, dispatched Señor Frade to a hospital for treatment of his wounds, and began an investigation into the identity of the criminals.”
The Herald has been unable to obtain any details concerning Mr. Frade’s condition, but a police official who did not wish to be identified said that the scene of the shooting was bathed with blood, that “many shots were exchanged,” and that Mr. Frade was “extremely lucky to have survived the encounter.” The same official said that Mr. Frade, who has been living in the United States, recently returned to Argentina as General Manager of Howell Petroleum, Venezuela, and has been living in the residence temporarily.
“These were obviously brutal, hardened criminals,” this official stated. “And it was only God’s mercy and Señor Frade’s great personal courage that saved his life. Clearly, if he had been unarmed, he would have suffered the same tragic fate as Señora Pellano.”
* * *
“Everything is bullshit, except that they murdered Señora Pellano.”
“The guy that came to get me said they cut her throat, practically cut her head off,” Tony interrupted.
Clete saw Enrico’s face darken.
“Señora Pellano was Sergeant Major Rodríguez’s sister, Tony,” Clete said evenly.
“Jesus! Sorry, Sergeant,” Tony said. “I didn’t know.”
Enrico nodded: It doesn’t matter. No offense.
“So who were these guys? I didn’t think they were burglars. Real mafiosi? Italians?”
Clete nodded. “I don’t know if they were Italians. But local gangsters. They were sent to kill me. Almost certainly by the Germans. So they knew about me. And if they know about me, they probably know about you. And maybe about David, too.”
Tony accepted that without much surprise.
“How do you think they found out?”
“My father was here. He let it out that the BIS know we work for the OSS. There must be somebody in the BIS talking to the Germans.”
“And you just got lucky when they came after you?”
“I was warned they were coming. And just in time.”
That got Tony’s attention.
“By who?”
“Tony, I just can’t tell you that.”
“Why not?”
“I just can’t.”
Tony considered that a moment, and drew his own conclusion, which obviously pleased him.
“We’ve got somebody in with the Germans?”
“I didn’t say that.”
Tony shrugged, signifying Clete didn’t have to put it in words, that’s what it had to be.
“So what happens now?”
“I don’t know,” Clete said. “My father’s going to have me expelled from Argentina. And the destroyer will be here in a couple of days. I’m going to have to leave…unless, of course, I can get to use the destroyer’s radios and get in touch with Colonel Graham. The best I can hope for is that my father can’t have me expelled before the destroyer gets here.”
“So what happens to Ettinger and me? What do you want us to do?”
“Nothing. I brought you in here to tell you what happened at the Guest House. And to tell you to watch out for yourselves. But nothing’s changed about the orders I gave you. Just sit tight.”
“If you say so, Lieutenant,” Tony said, not liking it at all.
“Consider it an order, Lieutenant,” Clete said, and then had another thought. “And speaking of orders: I told you to stay away from me. So what were you doing at the Guest House?”
Tony looked very embarrassed.
“It was a personal matter, forget it.”
“I don’t want to forget it, Tony. I want to know what was so important you went to the Guest House after I told you to stay away.”
Tony looked even more uncomfortable. He looked at Enrico.
“Does he speak English?”
“No.”
“I got a girl in trouble,” Tony blurted.
Jesus Christ, is he serious?
“You did what?”
“I got a girl in trouble.”
You certainly didn’t waste any time, did you?
And you’re really upset about it.
For the girl. This is not “Oh, shit, I knocked up a girl and her father wants me to marry her.”
“Do you mean what I think you mean, Tony?”
Tony looked confused for a moment, then his expression changed to outraged innocence.
“It’s nothing like that. Jesus, Clete, she’s not that kind of a girl! Christ, I’ve never even tried to cop a feel.”
“Then how is she in trouble?”
“Her boyfriend saw us in El Tigre. Or, really, some sonofabitch saw us in El Tigre, took our picture, and showed it to her boyfriend, and he’s a real prick.”
“Tony, I don’t understand what the hell the problem is. Is the boyfriend coming after
you?”
“He’s not exactly her boyfriend,” Tony said uncomfortably.
What the hell is he talking about?
“What exactly is he?”
“I mean, I don’t think she even really likes him. He’s sort of, like, supporting her.”
Oh, Tony. You poor bastard. You’ve got yourself hooked by a clever whore who saw what a wholly decent and damned naive kid you are!
“This man is supporting her? Then she’s not your girlfriend? You’re not in love with her?”
“Of course not. I mean, no, I’m not in love with her…”
Like hell, you aren’t. You just don’t want to admit it to me. Or maybe even to yourself.
“…and yeah, her boyfriend is, was, supporting her.”
“I don’t understand, Tony.”
“I talked her into going to El Tigre. It’s my fault.”
“And somebody took a picture of you and showed it to her boyfriend,” Clete said. “And he got sore. And dumped this girl, the one you’re not in love with, and now she’s telling you you’re going to have to support her?”
“No,” Tony said firmly. “She didn’t say anything like that at all. I know what you’re thinking, Clete. But she’s not playing me for a sucker, Clete! Absolutely not!”
Sorry, but that’s exactly what it looks like to me.
“Then what’s the problem, Tony?”
“This guy guaranteed a loan for her father—her father owns a restaurant—and now he’s going to the bank and telling them to cancel the guarantee. And her father’ll have to pay off the loan, and he doesn’t have the dough, so they’ll take the restaurant. And the house upstairs.”
He probably still believes in the tooth fairy!
“How much, Tony?”
“Thirteen grand. Maybe a little more.”
Does he really expect me to come up with thirteen thousand dollars?
Yes, he does. He believes in both the tooth fairy and in the universal goodness of man.
“Tony,” Clete said, as gently as he could. “Have you thought how this looks to mè? I know, you say she’s not that kind of a girl, and that you’re not in love with her, but it looks to me like she’s playing you like a violin.”
“Forget I asked,” Tony replied, with both anger and hurt in his eyes.
Honor Bound Page 51
