“Nonsense. No trouble at all. We’ll have a little cognac and a cigar, and whenever you feel you should, I’ll have Samuel drive you back to the Monteleone.”
“Thank you very much, Sir. I’d like that.”
“If you’ll excuse me, I’d like to wash my hands,” the old man said, and stood up. “If the waiter should get lost and come in here, Cletus, will you ask him to have Samuel bring the car around?”
“Yes, Sir,” Clete said. He waited until the old man had gone, then said, “David, I’m sorry you had to sit through that. There was no stopping him.”
“Actually, it was a fascinating story,” Ettinger said. “And no, you couldn’t have stopped him. He’s like my mother.”
“Your mother? Where is she?”
“In New York. She and I got out. She hates like he does. When I told her I was going to Argentina, she was disappointed. She had visions of me blowing up the Brandenburg Gate with Adolf Hitler on it.”
“You told your mother you were going to Argentina?” Clete asked incredulously, angrily. “Jesus Christ, Ettinger, what the hell were you thinking about?”
Ettinger looked both shocked and distinctly uncomfortable.
I guess I sounded like a Marine officer, and he didn’t expect that. Well, that’s what I am.
“I presume you signed the same form that I did, which made it pretty clear it’s a General Court-martial offense to have diarrhea of the mouth about what we’re doing?” Clete went on coldly.
“I felt relatively sure that whatever I told my mother, she would not rush to the telephone to pass it on to the Abwehr.”
“Don’t be flip with me, Sergeant!” Clete said coldly. “Exactly how much did you tell your mother?”
“Just that I was going to Argentina, Sir.”
That’s right, Sergeant, you call me “Sir.”
“To do what?”
“She knew what I’ve been doing here…”
“You told her what you were doing for the CIC? She and who else?”
“Just my mother, Sir. I had to tell her something. I couldn’t just suddenly vanish. And what I told her seemed to be the best story I could come up with. The subject of what I was supposed to tell my mother never came up at the Country Club…”
“You should have been able to figure that out without a diagram. You were supposed to tell her nothing! Damn it, Sergeant, you were in the CIC! You certainly should have known better than to tell anyone, much less a civilian…”
“Sir, I don’t mean to be insolent, but your grandfather seems…”
“What my grandfather knows or doesn’t know is not the subject here. What you told your mother is.”
“Yes, Sir. I led her to believe that I would be doing the same thing there that I’d been doing here. Making sure that the refugees are in fact refugees. I told her that when I had an address, I would send it to her, but that she shouldn’t expect to hear from me for a while.”
“I can’t believe you told her where we’re going!”
“Sir, I thought it would put her mind at rest,” Ettinger said.
“You did?” Clete asked sarcastically.
“Mother knows that Argentina is neutral,” Ettinger explained. “And her memories of Argentina seem to begin and end with the Teatro Colón:”—Buenos Aires’ opera house—“Spanish-speaking people with exquisite manners.”
“She’s been there?” Clete asked, wondering why he was surprised.
Ettinger nodded. “So have I. But I was a kid, and I can’t remember a thing. My grandfather took us there.”
“And how much did you tell your grandfather?”