“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.”
Señora Pellano was waiting up for him in the foyer of the Guest House.
“I thought perhaps you might like a little something to eat, Señor Cletus.”
“No. Thank you very much. And you don’t have to wait up for me like this, Señora Pellano.”
“It is my pleasure, Señor Cletus.”
“I’m going to turn in, Señora Pellano. Good night.”
“Buenas noches, Señor 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, Señor 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.”