"I see," von Ruppersdorf said. "Then this is a personal loss for you, too, isn't it?"
"Yes, it is," Per?n said simply.
"Would you like another glass of champagne, Colonel?" von Ruppersdorf asked. "Or shall we go into lunch?"
"Two glasses of champagne, except when I am in the company of a beautiful woman, gives me a headache," Per?n said.
"The same thing happens to me," Peter was astonished to hear himself blurt, "the morning after I have been with a beautiful woman."
Per?n looked at him, astonished. And just at the point where Peter had become convinced that he had really put his foot in his mouth, Colonel Per?n laughed. Heartily.
"Are you sure you have no Argentine blood, Captain von Wachtstein?" he asked.
"No, Sir," Peter said. "I am a pure-blooded Pomeranian, two-legged variety."
Per?n laughed again, delightedly, and touched Peter's arm.
"You will fit right in in Buenos Aires, Captain," Per?n said.
[TWO]
1420 Avenue Alvear
Buenos Aires, Argentina
1430 31 October 1942
The chauffeur of the 1941 Buick Roadmaster station wagon, a heavyset man in his forties, glanced at the man in the front seat beside him and saw that wherever his attention was, it was not on the Avenue Alvear.
"Mi Coronel," he said, "the gates are closed."
Jorge Guillermo Frade, who was wearing a gray linen suit and a soft straw snap-brim hat, looked out the window and saw that was indeed the case. The twenty-foot-high double cast iron gates in front of his sister's house were unquestionably closed. He also glanced around and realized that Enrico, on seeing that the gates were closed, had elected to stop right where he was, in the middle of the Avenue Alvear, to wait until the problem was solved for him. At least four cars behind him were blowing their horns.
"Make the turn, Enrico," Frade said softly. "Pull as far onto the sidewalk as you can, so as not to block traffic, and then leave the car, enter through the small gate, and either open the driveway gates or have someone open them for you."
"S?, mi Coronel."
Enrico is not stupid,Frade thought. It is simply that he has not masterednever will be able to masterBuenos Aires traffic. He can alone and without difficulty maneuver a troop, a squadron, the entire regiment of the Husare di Pueyrredon at the gallop in a thunderstorm, but a closed gate, one that he cannot leap over or go around, is simply beyond his understanding. As is the notion that it is not acceptable behavior to simply stop in the middle of a busy street because you don't know what to do next.
Enrico made the turn, sounded the horn to warn pedestrians on the sidewalk, and stopped the Buick with its nose no more than six inches from the massive gate. He applied the parking brake, turned off the engine, and stepped out of the car.
As soon as he was out, Frade slid across the seat, turned on the ignition, and started the engine. He saw Enrico enter the courtyard inside the fence and move immediately to the gate. There was an enormous brass padlock and a chain holding the gate closed. Enrico threw up his hands in disgust, then trotted toward the twenty-foot-high double doors of the mansion.
Maybe they're not here? Is it possible they would have gone off to their estancia without telling anyone? After Jorge was killed, anything is possible. So what will I do? It's three hundred kilometers out there!
He saw Enrico banging the cast iron clapper on the door.
If there is a clapper, use that. Doorbells sometimes do not work.
The door was opened by Alberto, Beatrice and Homer's butler. Enrico pointed indignantly toward the closed gates and the Buick sitting outside them. Alberto looked stricken, then disappeared into the house, leaving the door open.
A moment later, one of the other servants appeared, this one in an apron. He was armed with an enormous key for the enormous padlock.
His name is Roberto...Ricardo... and he is Alberto's nephew, Frade remembered. Or a second cousin, something like that.
Between the two of them, they got the gates open, and Frade drove inside.
When he left the car, Alberto was standing there.
"My apologies, mi Coronel," he said. "We did not know you were coming, and we are not receiving."
"It's all right," Frade said. "My sister is at home?"
"I have told the Se?ora you are here. You will be received in the library, mi Coronel."
Frade walked into the house. There was a huge foyer, furnished with heavy, leather-upholstered furniture, tables along the walls, and a fountain, not presently in use, in the center. The floor was marble.
He walked into the library, which was carpeted and quite dark. Alberto followed him in, turning on lights and opening the curtains on two windows which looked out onto the garden.
"May I take your hat, mi Coronel?" Alberto asked. "And may I bring you something?"
Frade handed him the hat.
"I would like a drink," he said. "I know where it is. Would you get me some ice? And some agua mineral con gas?"
While Alberto left to fetch ice and soda water, Frade went to what appeared to beand had once beenan ancient chest of drawers and tugged on one of the pulls. The entire front opened to him, after which he slid out a tray that held half a dozen bottles of spirits and as many large, squat crystal glasses. He took a bottle of Dewar's scotch and poured three fingers' worth in a glass.
He looked at it a moment, then took a healthy swallow, grimacing slightly as the whiskey passed down his throat. Then he refilled the glass to a depth of two fingers and waited for Alberto to bring the ice and soda.
When his sister and her husband walked into the library, he was sitting in a chair apparently taking his first sip of a drink. No one spoke. He rose as Beatrice came toward him, took two steps toward her, and kissed her on the cheek. A real kisshe could taste her face powder.
Beatrice is still a handsome woman,Frade thought. She looks ghastly right now, but even so, she seems much younger than Humberto... and they are what? Forty-six. Beatrice is actually six months older than Humberto, now that I think about it.
"People mean well," Humberto Valdez Duarte, his brother-in-law, a tall, slender man, said as he put out his hand. "But they we closed the gate, hoping they would think we were gone away, or take the suggestion that we are not receiving."
"I understand," Frade said.
"What is that you're drinking, Jorge?" Beatrice asked, then went on without giving him a chance to reply. "Will you have something to eat?"
"The scotch is fine, thank you," he said.
"We went to eight o'clock mass," Beatrice said.
"Did you?"
"At Our Lady of Pilar," (The Basilica of Our Lady of Pilar (completed 1732), on Recoleta Square, is considered to be the most beautiful church in Buenos Aires. It is adjacent to the Recoleta Cemetery, which dates to 1822 and contains the remains of the most prominent Argentine families, interred in magnificent marble tombs (many of these tombs have as many as five subterranean levels, each holding three levels of caskets on open shelves, access to which is by stairways leading down from the ground floor). Humberto said, evenly, but looking at Frade.
Christ, I know what's coming.
"And then afterward, we went to Recoleta," Beatrice went on.
There is a dreamy quality to her voice, and to the way she behaves. I hope to God she doesn't become addicted to whatever she's taking.