“Where are we going?” Tony asked.
“We have more than an hour. I don’t think it’s a good idea to just sit here. It might make somebody curious.”
Do I mean that, or do I want a beer at that all-night truck stop?
“Shit, there’s nobody out here. We haven’t seen a car—or a light, for that matter—since we left that village.”
“OK. You wait here, and I’ll go back to the truck stop for a beer.”
“The hell I will.”
“I’ve been thinking about those whores,” Tony announced as a plump woman in a dirty apron poured from their second liter bottle of cerveza.
Three minutes after they had put the walkie-talkies away, there was a knock at their door in the casino. Two very attractive, well-dressed women stood outside, in the corridor. The taller of the two—she had luxuriant reddish-brown hair—wondered if they might be interested in some companionship, if they hadn’t lost all their money in the casino. Clete replied that would be a delightful experience, but unfortunately, he was waiting for his wife.
“First of all, they weren’t whores, they were prostitutes; there’s a difference. And secondly, shame on you.”
“You weren’t interested?” Tony asked. “Christ, they were really good-looking!”
“Well, I have this problem, Tony. I have the honor of the Marine Corps to think of. Marine officers don’t pay women; it’s the other way around.”
“Oh, shit,” Tony groaned.
“There wasn’t time, and I didn’t think it was such a good idea,” Clete explained.
Not for the sake of the efficient execution of my assigned mission, he thought, but because the dark and innocent eyes of the Virgin Princess seemed to be looking at me.
“Well, I don’t mind telling you I was tempted. I haven’t had any in a long time. You bastards didn’t give me any time in New Orleans…”
“We bastards?”
“…and when I was on leave at home, my brothers insisted on showing me a good time; they never left me alone.”
“Your brothers don’t like women?”
“One of them is a priest.”
“Oh. Tough luck. Well, you shouldn’t have any trouble getting the wick dipped in B.A., Tony. There’s women all over.”
“I’m working on a little something,” Tony said. He was thinking of the girl he had seen go in the Ristorante Napoli in La Boca.
I’m going back there and just hang around and look for her, he thought. That is, if we get back, and don’t get stood against some wall and shot for trying to smuggle twenty pounds of molded Composition C4 and walkie-talkies into Argentina.
He picked up his beer glass.
“Isn’t it about time we started back?”
“Jesus Christ, it’s dark out here,” Tony said. “There’s not a goddamned light anywhere!”
“Shut up!” Clete ordered abruptly.
He thought he had heard the sound of an aircraft engine, a little one, probably a Lycoming. And then he was sure.
“Get on the horn,” he ordered as he reached for the headlight switch.
“It’s not 0400,” Tony protested.
“Goddamn it, do what you’re told.”