“Could I drop you off?” Spiers asked. “I have a car and driver.”
“I’d appreciate that,” Clete said. “Are you sure it’s no imposition?”
“Not at all. My pleasure.”
Clete turned to Enrico.
“We’re leaving,” he said in Spanish. “What are you going do about the shotgun?”
“The shotgun?” Spiers asked, visibly surprised.
Shit, he speaks Spanish. I should have thought of that. Diplomats aren’t very useful if they can’t speak the language.
“Señor Rodríguez is my father’s gamekeeper,” Clete continued in Spanish. “We were looking at a shotgun—we’re going to my father’s estancia this afternoon—and we sort of hid it when we heard you were coming.”
“The bird shooting here is supposed to be magnificent,” Spiers said. “I myself don’t hunt, but I have friends who do.”
“You don’t hunt?”
“I just can’t stand the thought of killing anything,” Spiers said.
[SIX]
4730 Avenida Libertador
Buenos Aires
1105 22 December 1942
Two policemen were strolling down the sidewalk in front of the Guest House, and Clete saw a car that was almost certainly an unmarked police car parked farther down the street.
Clete thanked Spiers for the ride, and for his concern, then passed through the gate and up to the door.
A maid he didn’t recognize, a middle-aged woman, opened the door and looked at him dubiously.
Señora Pellano will never open the door to me again. Shit!
“This is Señor Frade,” Enrico said behind him.
The woman stepped out of the way.
Now that he was here, Clete was sorry he had come.
“I don’t think I want to stay here,” he said to Enrico. “I think I’ll put some clothes in a bag and check into a hotel.”
“It is better that you stay here,” Enrico said. “I can protect you better, and this is your home, mi Teniente.”
“OK,” Clete said, deciding he was being a little overemotional.
“Mi Teniente, when do you plan to go to Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo? I must see that we have petrol, the air in the tires…”
Christ, Señora Pellano’s funeral!
I have to go. If I don’t, he won’t go with me. And he has the right to be at his sister’s funeral.
“Let me put some things in a bag, Enrico. We might as well go now. There’s no point in hanging around here.”
“Sí, mi Teniente.”