2000 8 December 1942
“Very nice,” Lieutenant Pelosi observed to Lieutenant Frade as he inspected their suite—two bedrooms, plus sitting room and foyer.
“Try to remember you’re an officer and a gentleman,” Clete said, “and don’t piss in the bidet.”
“Screw you, Clete!”
Pelosi went to a window and hauled on the canvas tape that raised the heavy blinds over the French doors.
“Hey, the ocean’s right out here!” Pelosi said, and then began to raise the other blinds.
“Jesus Christ, it really gets around, doesn’t it? The last time I looked, it was in Miami.”
“I mean we’re facing the ocean, wise guy,” Tony said, and opened one of the French doors. “And there’s a balcony.”
Clete followed him outside.
They were on the top floor of the ornate, stone, turn-of-the-century building. The balcony indeed faced an open body of water.
“The water’s dirty,” Tony observed.
“I think this is still the River Plate,” Clete said. “You don’t get to the Atlantic until you’re in Punta del Este. That’s up that-a-way, about a hundred miles.” He pointed.
“That breeze feels good. Jesus, I hate this hot weather. You realize it’s only a couple of weeks ’til Christmas? Sweating on Christmas!”
“Why don’t we open all the blinds—in the bedrooms, especially—and the doors, to let the breeze in. And then go down and have dinner and see what happens? Play a little roulette, maybe?”
“Jesus, I’m still recovering from lunch, and we didn’t eat that until three,” Tony replied. “I think I’ll just sit out here and watch the water go up and down.”
“I don’t think Ne—we were sent here to try our luck,” Clete said. “And if someone were trying to contact us, they’d prefer to do it in a crowd, rather than up here in the room.”
Tony considered that a moment, then said, “Let me take a leak. I’ll be right with you.”
When he came out of his bathroom, Clete handed him five fifty-dollar bills.
“What’s this for?”
“To gamble. It’s your Christmas present from the taxpayers of the United States.”
“And what if I win?”
“You will be expected, of course, to turn all your winnings over to the government.”
“In a pig’s ass I will.”
“Shame on you, Lieutenant Pelosi!”
They had a very good dinner in the dining room. It was in the center of the building, a large, somewhat dark space from whose three-story-high ceiling hung four enormous crystal chandeliers. A grand piano was at one end of the room, beside the bar, and a pianist played light classical music for most of their meal. Later it was replaced with a string quartet.
The room was full of prosperous-looking people, Clete thought; but nobody there was an aristocrat. Successful businessmen, he decided. Or ranchers in from the country for a night on the town. Moneyed, but no
t rich-rich like the sixteen or so people at Aunt Beatrice’s and Uncle Humberto’s dinner table.
Uncle Humberto’s guests were rich-rich; they smelled of money and privilege. And they were simply fascinated with Dear Jorge’s long-lost son. Half a dozen of them simply refused to speak Spanish with him, insisting on proving their worldliness by showing they spoke a second language as well as their native tongue.
He’d heard somewhere that in the Russian Court—before they booted the Czar out and murdered him and his family and threw their bodies down a well—the official language was French.
Clete thought of that after noticing that just about everybody had a pronounced loathing for the Russians, with a lesser but concomitant sympathy for the Germans.