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“Okay, I can understand that, Bernardo. But why don’t you take a couple of deep breaths, count to twenty, and calm down? I don’t know what Cronley is talking about and I don’t think you do either.”
“I think Cronley is suggesting that he has a method to determine the landfall of U-234, and I think that Kapitän von Dattenberg agrees with him. Am I wrong, Subteniente?”
“Let me answer for the subteniente, General,” von Dattenberg said. “He has a theory that will be difficult—almost impossible—to explain—at least quickly—without having both the suitable charts—maps—and the list of rendezvous sites in hand. I suggest that we wait until we have them. There is no need for any hasty actions.”
Martín, Frade thought, is about to jump all over him. He just about lost it a moment ago.
I never saw him lose control—or almost lose it, and almost losing control is like being a little bit pregnant—like that before.
I wonder why he’s so excited about the uranium oxide?
Jesu
s, Stupid! You know why!
In real life, unlike the movies, people don’t take a bullet in the upper leg and then take an aspirin, or a drink, and then forget about it. God only knows how much morphine he’s been taking.
It’s surprising he makes any sense at all.
“Why don’t we go upstairs and watch the races—they just started—while we wait?” Dorotea said.
“What?” Martín snapped.
His face clearly showed both confusion—What the hell is she talking about, “races”?—and annoyance—Why is this female inserting herself into this?
Doña Dorotea flashed him a warm smile.
“While we’re waiting for your people to bring the maps and the list of rendezvous points, Bernardo,” she said.
Oh, Jesus! Clete thought, waiting for Martín’s reaction.
When it came, it wasn’t what Clete expected.
“I think that’s a splendid idea,” Martín said. “All we’re doing until the maps and list of rendezvous points arrive is spinning our wheels. And, frankly, I’m a little tired. I can’t imagine why. A few minutes’ rest is probably just what I need.”
[TWO]
Jimmy Cronley really didn’t know what to think about Clete’s “house,” except that it wasn’t exactly a house. It was enormous, certainly a lot bigger than the house in Midland where Clete had grown up, and, for that matter, far larger and more impressive than Cletus Marcus Howell’s house on Saint Charles Avenue in New Orleans, which, after he’d gone there with Clete when he was twelve or thirteen, was what he thought of when he heard the word “mansion.”
This place looked more like a library, or a museum, or maybe a city hall or a courthouse than it did a house in which real people actually lived. The stone and iron fence around it looked more substantial than the one the United States government had built around the gold vault at Fort Knox.
Neither did Jimmy know what to really think about Clete’s wife. The first thing he had thought when he met Dorotea at the airport was that Clete finally had been snagged by one of the long line of long-legged blondes to whom Clete had been attracted—and vice versa—as far back as Jimmy could remember.
This long-legged blonde was different from the others, somehow. It wasn’t just the British accent, although that was somehow erotic and probably appealed to Clete at least as much as it did to him.
The first hint he had that Dorotea was something special was when she announced in the dining room that she was going to sit in on the meeting. Clete had accepted that announcement without question—while at the same time trying to throw out the old man.
Jimmy had decided that was because she was Clete’s wife—you can’t throw your wife out of her own dining room—but changed that opinion during the discussion of the landfall. He saw by her face that she wasn’t just politely listening. She was interested.
And more than interested: Jimmy had the feeling that Dorotea knew where he was going with the discussion as soon as von Dattenberg did. Which meant before Colonel Cletus did. Clete still didn’t have a clue.
And then when the Argentine general was right on the edge of losing it, she put that fire out by suggesting they “go upstairs and watch the races.”
Jimmy had no idea what she was talking about, but whatever it was had calmed the general.
—
Everybody in the dining room filed out into the enormous foyer of the mansion and headed toward a wide stairway—divided at the top—leading to the upper floors. Clete and Dorotea walked behind General Martín, who was having a hard time with his crutches. Jimmy fell in line behind them.
