"My father has a guest house. I'm staying there."
"On Avenida Libertador?"
"Yes. You know the house?"
"I know about it," she said. "The place one of the legendary Frades built with the master apartment on the top floor so he could watch the races at the Hipodromo without crossing the street?"
And for other purposes.
"That's the place."
"I've always wanted to see it."
"Anytime. It would be my pleasure."
The cricket player finally finished his speech, there was unenthusiastic applause, and a short man with a bushy mustache stepped to the lectern to announce the conclusion of the evening's events. He told everyone he wished to thank them for coming, and especially the Banco de Boston for their generous support.
People started rising to their feet, including Monica, who managed to brush her breasts against Clete's arm in the process.
Nestor appeared.
"About ready, Clete? I'd love to stay for the dancing, but I have an early-morning appointment."
"Thank you, Se?ora de Frade."
"Oh, Monica, please."
"Thank you, Monica, for the pleasure of your company."
"Perhaps we'll see each other again," she said, giving him her hand.
"When is Pablo due back, Monica?" Nestor asked.
"The day after tomorrow."
"It's always a pleasure to see you," Nestor said. "Clete?"
Clete followed him to the door, where Ettinger was waiting.
"Well, now that you and David have been introduced," Nestor said as he drove down Avenida Libertador, "it will seem perfectly natural that you meet for lunch or dinner. Two bachelors, so to speak, out on the town."
"Yes," Clete agreed.
"You seem to have made quite an impression on the de Frade woman, Clete," Nestor added. "Which might not be a bad thing."
"I don't think I understand."
With her husband out of town as much as he is, hostesses are always looking for a suitable bachelor to be her escort at dinner. You really should be socially active."
No way, thank you very much.
"I volunteer," David said from the backseat.
"She didn't seem nearly as interested in you, I'm afraid, David." Nestor laughed. "And they always ask the husband-less woman if the proposed dinner partner is satisfactory to her before they invite him."
Se?ora Pellano was waiting up for him in the foyer of the Guest House.
"I thought perhaps you might like a little something to eat, Se?or Cletus."
"No. Thank you very much. And you don't have to wait up for me like this, Se?ora Pellano."
"It is my pleasure, Se?or Cletus."
"I'm going to turn in, Se?ora Pellano. Good night."
"Buenas noches, Se?or Cletus."
He started toward the elevator. The telephone rang.
"A gentleman called before," she said. "Not an Argentine. His Spanish was not very good. He said he would call again. Perhaps that is him."
Pelosi. I wonder what he wants.
Clete waited for her to answer the telephone.
"It is a lady, Se?or Cletus," she said, and handed him the telephone.
"¿Hola?"
"Cletus, Monica. I wondered if you would really go home."
"I really went home."
"I'm still at the club. I stayed for the dancing. I'm bored."
"I'm sorry."
"Cletus, did you mean it when you said you would show me the Guest House?"
"Of course."
"You also said 'anytime.' I could be there in fifteen minutes."
"Why don't you come over, Monica? I'll show you my etchings."
"Oh, that sounds delightfully wicked. I'll be right there."
Or maybe Granduncle Guillermo's dirty pictures.
"I'm driving myself," Monica said. "And I'd really rather not drive home to drop the car off and look for a cab. Is there room in your garage?"
There was only one car in the basement garage, which was large enough for four cars, a Fiat sedan used by Se?ora Pellano.
"Yes, there is."
"Then be a dear and have it open when I get there, will you? We don't want people talking, do we? Or would you prefer that I take a taxi?"
"I'll have the gates and the garage open."
"Fifteen minutes," she said, and hung up.
He hung up the telephone and turned to find Se?ora Pellano looking at him.
"I'm to have a guest," he began. "She wants to park her car in the garage."
"I'll have Ernesto open it."
"I can do that."
"And I'll set out some agua mineral con gas and some ice in the reception room," she said. "Unless you would prefer it in the apartment? Se?or Cletus?"
"The reception room will be fine, thank you."
"And then I will say good night, Se?or Cletus."
"Thank you, Se?ora Pellano."
"I hope you have a good alarm clock," Monica said, looking at him over the rim of the scotch and water he had made her. "I absolutely have to be home by seven. If I'm not, the children are liable to wake up and ask where Mommy is."
Children? Of course, children. She's a married woman. Married women have children.
This is not the smartest thing you have ever done, Clete. It may turn out to be the dumbest. But there doesn't seem to be any question that you are about to return to the ranks of the sexually active.
Maybe that will put the Virgin Princess out of your mind.
"I think there's one in the apartment. Shall we go have "a look?"
"Splendid idea," Monica said. "And why don't I carry this tray along with us, so you won't have to wake the servants?"
She picked up the tray with the ice and soda water on it, smiled at him, and waited for him to show her the way to the bedroom.
[FOUR]
4730 Avenida Libertador
Buenos Aires
1745 30 November 1942
Cletus Howell Frade, First Lieutenant, USMCR, and Laird of the Manor, in T-shirt and khaki trousers, was sitting on a heavy wooden chairso heavy it absolutely could not be tipped back on its rear legs, and he had really triedon the balcony outside his bedroom. A liter bottle of Quilmes Cerveza (beer) rested on his abdomen. His feet, in battered boots he'd owned since before he went to College Station to join the corps of cadets at Texas AandM, rested on the masonry railing. And he was watching an exercise boy let a magnificent Arabian run at a full gallop at the racetrack across the street.
"I wish I was up there with you, you lucky sonofabitch, whoever you are," he announced to the world in general.
And immediately regretted it. Every time he opened his mouth and a sound came out, even a cough, either Se?ora Pellano or one of the maids appeared with a warm smile on her face and inquired,
"S?, Se?or?"
He glanced over his shoulder to see if one of them was headed his way. No one was coming through the bedroomor Grand-uncle Guillermo's playroom, as he had come to think of it.
He looked back toward the river and the racetrack. Thirty or forty sailboats were on the river, and there was activity at the racetrack, as if they were preparing for a race. He took another pull at the neck of the bottle of cerveza.
Damned good beer. They really know how to eat and drink down here.
He was not looking forward to the evening. He was going to dinner, where he would meet his aunt Beatrice and his uncle Humberto for the first time. Until three days before, he had been blissfully unaware that he had an Uncle Humberto or an Aunt Beatrice or a Cousin Jorge who got himself killed at Stalingrad.