“They serve pretty good food in there, Tony?” First Lieutenant Cletus H. Frade, USMCR, asked of Second Lieutenant Anthony J. Pelosi as Tony crawled out of the backseat of the Buick.
“As a matter of fact, it’s pretty good,” Tony replied.
“Well, eat a lot. And don’t complain about the prices. I want them to be successful. They owe me money.”
“They don’t owe you the money, I owe you the money,” Tony said, and then changed the subject. “How are we going to get together?”
“If you think you’ll be through dinner by then, I’ll pick you up at your apartment at eight in the morning.”
“Very funny,” Tony said, nodded at Graham, and walked into the restaurant.
“What’s that all about?” Graham asked as Clete pulled away from the curb.
“True love. Tony met a girl. An Italian girl. Her father owns that restaurant.”
“And the crack about the money?”
“That’s personal.”
“It would have been better if you weren’t so considerate of his love life,” Graham said. “I don’t think Internal Security is going to pick you up—or me—and take us someplace to work us over with a rubber hose, but I’m not so sure about Pelosi.”
Clete looked at him but didn’t reply.
“At least we got rid of el Capitán Delgano before we dropped him off. Unless, of course, they already know about his girlfriend.”
“They meaning Internal Security?”
“He’s either headed right for Internal Security or to someone else who’ll be grateful for a report on the interesting things we’ve been doing on your father’s estancia. I thought about blowing the sonofabitch away on the drive here. Now I’m sorry I did
n’t.”
“It would have gotten blood all over my nice leather seats,” Clete said, not willing to accept that Graham was serious.
“Disposing of the body would have been the problem, and I didn’t know how you two would react.”
My God, he’s serious.
“My father doesn’t seem worried about Delgano.”
“I am,” Graham said simply.
“Well, what the hell, Colonel. Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow…or a day or two later…we probably die.”
“Good God!” Graham said, his voice falling into a groan.
“Do you want me to take you to your hotel? Or the Edificio Kavanagh?”
“What’s that? Oh, Mallín’s office?”
Clete nodded.
“I better go there,” Graham said.
There was a large, sharp-pointed grain of truth in Clete’s flippant remark.
Based on his professional experience as a Naval Aviator while operating from Henderson Field on Guadalcanal, First Lieutenant Cletus H. Frade, USMCR, was possessed of knowledge that he did not elect to share with anyone but Second Lieutenant Anthony J. Pelosi, CE, AUS.
While he was confident that their system to illuminate the Reine de la Mer by means of parachute flares would probably illuminate the Reine de la Mer enough to permit whoever was firing the torpedoes from the submarine to see the sonofabitch well enough to aim accurately, the chances of the aircraft coming out of the encounter intact were practically nonexistent.