Griffin W.E.B. - Honor Bound 01 - Honor Bound

"Can you think of anything else?" his father asked.

No. Not a thing. Oh, yeah!

Clete smiled. His father looked at him curiously. "Dad, how would you like to loan me thirteen thousand dollars?"

"Excuse me?"

"I need to borrow thirteen thousand dollars," Clete asked. "Will you loan it to me.?"

"Of course. But why?"

"It involves a Mi?a," Clete said.

"You have become involved with a Mi?a?" Frade asked, disappointment all over his face.

"One of my men has," Clete said. "And her Argentine boyfriend found out about it, and is being a real bastard to the girl and her family."

"I thought for a moment..."

"One of my men, Dad, not me. I can get in enough romantic trouble without paying for it."

"I never took a Mi?a," Frade announced righteously. "Never. Not even in the long, lonely years."

"Before you met Claudia, you mean?"

His father ignored him. "A man who has to pay a woman is not really a man. I find the custom disgusting."

"Well, this guy, the Argentine, is apparently a real bastard. He co-signed a mortgage, and when he found out that the girl was seeing one of my officers, he told the bank he would no longer guarantee payment."

"I am not surprised. A man who would pay for sex ..."

Clete dug in his pocket and came out with the notes he took when Tony came to see him at the hospital.

"The mortgage is with the Anglo-Argentine Bank. The father's name is Alberghoni."

"And the man's name?"

Clete shrugged helplessly.

"It will be no problem," he said. "Your uncle Humberto is managing director of the Anglo-Argentine Bank. You and I will go to the library now and have a quiet word with him. And he and I will take personal pleasure in frustrating this man's ungentlemanly behavior. The mortgage will be paid in full by tomorrow."

"Thank you."

"It is my pleasure," el Coronel said. "And now, to restore my relationship with Se?ora Carzino-Cormano, may I suggest we go see her?"

“Restoreyour relationship?”

"Se?ora Carzino-Cormano told me that unless I made my peace with you before you left today, she would never forgive me. I think she meant it."

"Your relationship with Claudia is important to you?"

"Obviously."

"Then why don't you marry her?"

"Why I don't marry her is none of your business. How dare you ask a question like that?"

"Because I'm concerned with your welfare," Clete said.

"Are you indeed?" el Coronel replied, and marched out of the room.

Chapter Nineteen

[ONE]

4730 Avenida Libertador

Buenos Aires

1330 24 December 1942

A thunderstorm that threatened most of the way on the drive to Buenos Aires struck minutes before Clete and Enrico arrived at Uncle Guillermo' s house. The rain drummed on the Buick's canvas roof and almost overwhelmed the windshield wipers; the thunder and lightning were as awesome as they were in West Texas.

Attired in undershorts and Sullivan's boots, Clete lay with his back propped up against the elaborately carved headboard of Granduncle Guillermo's bed. As he watched the lightning flash on the River Plate, he sipped an early Christmas Eve beer, or a pre-luncheon beer, whatever you want to call it.

He remembered that he also had had a Christmas Eve, pre-luncheon beer the year before, aboard USS Saratoga. It had also been raining heavily, he recalled, a sudden rain squall that had come up quickly, and from which he had found shelter under the wing of one of the F2A-3 Brewster Buffaloes lashed to the Saratoga's flight deck.

Schultz, Second Lieutenant Charles A., USMCR, inevitably called "Dutch," had suddenly appeared beside him, his khakis drenched by the rain. He was clutching something lumpy wrapped in a flight suit to his chest, and happily proclaimed, "Who says there's no Santa Claus?"

The lumps turned out to be two quart bottles of Budweiser beer, smuggled aboard at Pearl Harbor in defiance of Navy regulations.

"Merry Christmas, Clete," Dutch had said, handing him one of the bottles. They had pried the tops off on the undercarriage of the Buffalo.

But it was beer, and even warm, proof that there was indeed a Santa Claus, for those who really believed.

"Next year," Dutch had said, raising his bottle in a toast, "Cold beer, at home!"

It didn't turn out that way, did it, Dutch ?

The next day, Christmas Day, we flew those outdated goddamned Buffaloes off theSaratoga onto Midway Island. And then we flew them against the Japs. A Buffalo was no match against a Zero. Every goddamned one of us was shot down.

You never will get to go home, will you, Dutch? I got picked up, and you didn't.The Secretary of the Navy regrets to inform YOU THAT YOUR SON, SECOND LIEUTENANT CHARLES A. SCHULTZ, USMCR...

And the circumstances under which I am “at home” are not quite the ones we had in mind when we had that fantasy, are they, Dutch?

But this beer is cold, and this is a marvelously comfortable bed with clean sheets, and when, in the inevitable course of human events, I will have to let the beer out, it will be into a porcelain fixture in a marble floored bathroom, not into a foul smelling opening in a stinking compartment labeled, probably with unintentional humor, "Officer's Head."

And I am alive, and in one piece, and there is a good deal to be said for that.

At least, so far, I am alive and in one piece.

And, in the sense that I am going to have a little Christmas Eve supper with my father, I am home-That little supper will probably consist of no more than eight or nine courses, served on fine china and dissected with monogrammed sterling silver. Last year, it was sort of turkey chop-suey, eaten off a stainless steel tray, with cranberry sauce atop the mashed potatoes. Or was it mashed potatoes dumped over the cranberry sauce?

And if that sounds awful, I wonder what the boys on the 'Canal are having for Christmas this year?

Stop being maudlin, Clete, thingsare getting better.

Without much effort, he thought of two prime examples:

On the way to Buenos Aires, Enrico, literally riding shotgun beside him in the front seat of the Buick, worked out how to meet Pelosi and Ettinger without broadcasting everything they said to one another to Internal Security or the Germans.

"Your problem, mi Teniente, is keeping the clowns and the Germans from hearing you. The clowns will of course be following you, and them, and they will have telephone surveillance on your line and theirs."

"So what do I do?"

"Mi Teniente, you take them for a ride in your automobile. The clowns will not be able to hear what you say, and it will embarrass them to have to be so obvious about following you."

"Just telephone them and say I'll pick them up?"

"No. Just set a time and place to meet them. The man who brings daily deliveries of agua mineral, vegetables, and meat to the house is a friend. He will carry messages safely past the clowns."

"When does he make his next delivery?"

"Starting at three o'clock this afternoon. Three times a day."

"This is Christmas Eve."

"People need food and agua mineral on Christmas Eve," Enrico said with a shrug.

"You've got everything laid out, right? You're pretty good at this, Enrico."

"I have learned much from your father, mi Teniente."

And then Clete himself worked out a temporary, partial solution to the problem of the Virgin Princess: At Clete's suggestion, his father agreed to invite the Mallins and their children to dinner at the big house on Avenida Coronel Diaz in Palermo.

"After Christmas, of course, and before New Year's. As an expression of my gratitude to them for their hospitality when you first arrived."

"Thank you."

"You will be able to see Dorotea before you go to Miami."

"It's nothing like that, Dad," Clete said, aware that he didn't sound at all convincing. "They were just very kind to me."