Page 181

“Party pooper,” he said, and walked toward the bathroom.

When he came out several minutes later, she was back in the bed, covered by the sheet.

“You changed your mind?” he asked.

“Go, Cletus!”

“You’re not coming?” he asked.

“He asked, hopefully,” Dorotea said. “Relax, my darling. No, I’m not coming. This is Argentina. Women are not welcome in serious meetings between men. What I’m going to do is give you a few minutes and then go down the back stairs and eavesdrop from the pantry.”

“With or without your clothes?”

“Go!”

There were nine men in the library when Clete walked in trailed by Enrico Rodríguez. One of them was Antonio LaVallé, who had been el Coronel Jorge Frade’s butler and whom Clete had not expected to see; he normally reigned over the staff of the big house on Coronel Díaz.

La Vallé—following the English custom, he was called by his surname—was tending bar. Everyone in the library held a drink in his hand.

“Sorry to keep you waiting,” Clete announced.

He recognized only Coronel Alejandro Martín and Capitán Roberto Lauffer, who was aide-de-camp to El Presidente, General Arturo Rawson. But one of the younger men and a tall, ruddy-faced man wearing the uniform of an infantry colonel looked familiar. He couldn’t come up with names, but he remembered now that the younger man was Martín’s driver.

I really don’t know how to handle this.

I can hug Lauffer. We became close during the Operation Blue coup d’état.

But what about Martín? Does he want these other people—and who the hell are they?—to think we’re pals?

To hell with it!

He went to Lauffer, said “Roberto,” and hugged him and made kissing gestures. Then he went to Martín, said “Alejandro, we’re going to have to stop meeting like this,” and hugged him but did not make a kissing

gesture. Then he turned to Martín’s driver.

“I’m Cletus Frade,” he said, offering his hand. “I know your face, but I can’t come up with a name.”

“Sargento Lascano, Don Cletus.”

“Actually, Major Frade,” Martín said, “he is Suboficial Mayor Lascano. Manuel does for me what Enrico did for your father.”

“You mean he carries you home when you’ve been at the bottle?” Clete asked innocently.

The infantry colonel laughed.

“Major Frade has your number, old boy,” he said in a crisp British accent.

Martín shook his head and went on: “It is more practical for our purposes to have him known as ‘Sargento,’ as it is for you to have people think you are simply Don Cletus.”

Clete nodded but didn’t say anything.

“Similarly, it is more convenient for el Teniente Coronel José Cortina, who is my deputy”—a stocky, middle-aged man walked up to Frade and shook his hand—“to be thought of as Suboficial Mayor Cortina.”

Then the other stocky, middle-aged man in the library walked up to Frade and offered his hand.

“My name is Nervo, Major. I am a policeman.”

“Actually,” Martín said, “my good friend Inspector General Santiago Nervo is the chief of the Gendarmería Nacional.”