Just inside the terminal building he spotted a tall, brown-haired man with a massive mustache. The other man spotted him at the same moment.
Enrico Mallín. I know him. I told the
old man I didn’t remember him, but now that I see him, I do.
I remember something else about you, too, you sonofabitch! You made a pass at—what the hell was her name? Beth Fogarty—when I took old stand-up nipples Beth by the old man’s house. What was that, the legendary hot-blooded Latin? If it wears a skirt, have a go at it, even if it’s half your age?
Mallín gently but unmistakably pushed a uniformed man—probably customs—aside and walked up to Clete.
“Cletus, my young friend, how good it is to see you again!” he said, shaking Clete’s hand and wrapping his arm around his shoulders.
“It’s good to see you too, Enrico.”
Clete sensed a certain stiffness at that, and realized that Enrico the Horny expected to be called “Mister.”
Fuck you, Enrico, Little Cletus has grown up.
“And your friend? Associate?” Mallín asked.
“A little of both, actually,” Clete said. “Tony Pelosi, this is Mr. Enrico Mallín.”
“Welcome to Argentina,” Mallín said as he shook their hands. “I am very pleased to meet you both. Shall we go?”
“What about the luggage?” Clete asked.
“My chauffeur is here with the wagon,” Mallín said. “He will take care of the luggage.”
“A wagon?” Tony blurted.
“A Ford,” Mallín said, smiling condescendingly. “By and large, we have very few horse-drawn wagons on the streets these days.”
That was a cheap shot, Enrico. What was that for? To pay me back for not calling you “Mister”?
“We can just walk out of here?” Clete asked. “What about Immigration?”
“Right this way,” Mallín said. “We’ll need your passports.”
He led them to an unmarked door, pushed it open without knocking, and waved them inside ahead of him.
A middle-aged man wearing a better-quality uniform than the man outside gave them a look of indignation—who the hell are you to barge into my office?—but then he noticed Mallín. He stood up, smiled, and offered his hand.
“These are my friends,” Mallín said.
“Welcome to Argentina,” the man said in heavily accented English, and shook hands with them in turn. “Please, your documents?”
He took a rubber stamp and an ink pad from his desk, very carefully stamped the passports, signed his name carefully, handed the passports back, and shook hands with each of them again.
“I so very much appreciate your courtesy, Inspector,” Mallín said.
“I am happy to be of service, Señor Mallín,” the inspector said, and bowed them through a door behind his desk. They found themselves in a short corridor, and then came to another door, this one leading to the street, where a dark-green Rolls-Royce convertible and a 1941 Ford Super Deluxe station wagon were parked at the curb.
A short, plump man in gray chauffeur’s livery smiled and touched the brim of his cap.
“If you will be so kind as to give Ramón your baggage checks, he will see to the luggage,” Mallín said.
The baggage checks were handed over, and then Mallín opened the passenger door of the Rolls.
“I am so sorry that my home is simply not large enough to receive you both as my guests,” he said. “I have taken the liberty to arrange for Señor Pelosi accommodations in the Alvear Palace Hotel, which I hope, Señor Pelosi, you will find satisfactory until other arrangements can be made. Cletus will stay with us; he’s nearly—how do they say it in Texas?—kin.”