He next went to the Duarte mansion and stayed there for several hours, presumably helping Señora Carzino-Cormano deal with his father, who was by then very deeply in his cups.
“And where, Habanzo, is young Frade now?”
“At the Guest House, mi Coronel.”
“You’re sure of that?”
“Sí, mi Coronel.”
“And the agents on duty are prepared to deal with the situation if he suddenly erupts again from the garage and drives away at a high rate of speed? They will not, to rephrase the question, lose him again?”
“No, mi Coronel.”
“And may we expect further ‘technical difficulties’ with communications surveillance of the Guest House line?”
“I have been assured, mi Coronel, that the equipment is now working perfectly. But on the other hand, mi Coronel…”
“I don’t wish to hear about ‘on the other hand,’ Habanzo.”
“No, mi Coronel.”
“I want enough people on the communications surveillance, and enough visual people watching the house, so that tomorrow morning I will know if there were telephone calls to him, and what was said. And I want to know who comes to visit him.”
“Sí, mi Coronel.”
“And if he leaves the Guest House by car—even at a ‘high rate of speed’—I want to know where he goes, who he sees, and with a little bit of luck, what he says.”
“Sí, mi Coronel.”
“That will be all, Habanzo. I will see you here, with tonight’s preliminary reports, at nine in the morning. And if there is any unforeseen problem, I expect you to telephone me at my home.”
“Sí, mi Coronel. I understand.”
“I devoutly hope so, Habanzo.”
[TWO]
4730 Avenida Libertador
Buenos Aires
0015 20 December 1942
“I wonder,” Clete Howell said aloud as he pulled off the avenue onto the driveway and stopped, “if I can get this big sonofabitch through that narrow gate.”
He was driving his father’s Horche, with Señora Pellano sitting next to him. He had the Horche because he took his father home from the Duartes’ in it, and he needed a way back to the Guest House.
An hour earlier, though he seemed to have passed out for the evening in a leather armchair in the Duartes’ upstairs sitting room, El Coronel suddenly stood up and announced that he was tired and going home.
“You are not going to drive,” Señora Carzino-Cormano said. “You’re drunk.”
“Don’t be absurd.”
“Dad, you’ve had a couple,” Clete said.
“He’s had a liter!” Señora Carzino-Cormano said.
“I have never been drunk in my life.”