“Princess? Why do you call her ‘Princess’?” Pamela asked, smiling.
“Yes, why do you?” the Virgin Princess asked.
“Princesses are beautiful young girls, adored by their parents, who live in a castle like this one, waiting for their knight in shining armor to ride up on his horse,” Clete said.
“I don’t think I like the ‘young girl’ part. And why should my knight have to wear shining armor? Why not cowboy boots?”
“Dorotea, you’re embarrassing Clete,” Pamela protested.
“Am I embarrassing you, Clete?”
“Yes, you are.”
“You can go to hell,” the Virgin Princess said.
“Ignore her, Clete,” Pamela said, one adult to another. “All of her friends think it’s chic, and makes them seem mature, to swear like sailors.”
[THREE]
Office of the Managing Director
Sociedad Mercantil de Importación de Productos
Petrolíferos
21st Floor, Edificio Kavanagh
Calle Florida 1065
Buenos Aires, Argentina
1030 27 November 1942
“Excuse me, Señor Mallín,” his secretary said, walking to his desk and extending a visiting card to him. “This gentleman says it is quite important that he see you.”
Mallín took the card and looked at it.
* * *
Alejandro Bernardo Martin
Teniente Coronel
Ministerio de Defense
* * *
Goddamn it! I knew something like this was going to happen!
“Ask him to come in, please,” he said.
Martín, in a tweed jacket and gray flannel trousers, came into the office smiling and held his hand out.
“I very much appreciate your time, Señor Mallín,” he said. “I know that you’re a very busy man.”
“I always have time for the Ministry of Defense, mi Coronel,” Mallín said, shaking his hand. “May I offer you a coffee?”
“If it would not be an imposition?”