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

Another steward came down the aisle, carrying a tray of glasses and a bottle of champagne wrapped in a napkin.

Clete nudged Pelosi, who was dozing in the seat beside him, waking him, and noting with surprise how his face was astonishingly dark with whiskers. Pan American had provided razors, but they both chose not to use them. Since it was unlikely either of them was going to be kissed on board, shaves could wait until they got to Buenos Aires.

Pelosi had a questioning look. And a hint of annoyance, as well.

"Champagne," Clete said.

"What are we celebrating?"

"Our arrival."

"Champagne, gentlemen?" the steward asked as he reached them.

"Thank you ever so much, and you can leave the bottle," Clete said.

The Martin set down into choppy water with a series of crashes. Water sprayed over the windows, so the seaplane was nearly stopped before Clete could look past Pelosi and see outside. The water was dirty. Or at least brown.

The seaplane turned, and the pilot shut down its engines. Punctuated only by the clangs of cooling metal and the lapping of water against the hull, the quiet felt strange. Then a string of boats appeared: The first four were outsize motorboats, with brightly varnished woodwork. And after them, in line, came four work boats, to take off the luggage and cargo. Clete had seen them load mailbags aboard in Miami and in Rio de Janeiro.

He wondered idly if there was other cargo. It must cost a fortune to ship something air express, if that's what it's called. The bill for our tickets was more than the Marine Corps is paying me by the year as a first lieutenant on flight status.

There was a flurry in the cabin as the passengers—thirty-six of them, thirty-four of them male, he had counted—started getting ready to get off. Pelosi saw them too, and began to get up.

Clete waved him back into his seat, and pointed out the window. The first of the passenger boats was still far from the Martin. No one would be getting off in the next couple of minutes.

Finally, they opened the door, and there was the smell of fresh air. And it was warm. The temperature rose quickly. He was sweating by the time it was their turn to pass through the hatch and step onto what looked like a stubby second wing, and from that down to one of the powerboats.

The ride to shore cooled them off.

It's no hotter here than it was in Miami,Clete decided. Maybe a little more humid.

Just inside the terMi?al building he spotted a tall, brown-haired man with a massive mustache. The other man spotted him at the same moment.

Enrico Mallin. 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?

Mallin 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?" Mallin asked.

"A little of both, actually," Clete said. "Tony Pelosi, this is Mr. Enrico Mallin."

"Welcome to Argentina," Mallin 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,” Mallin said. "He will take care of the luggage."

"A wagon?" Tony blurted.

“A Ford," Mallin 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," Mallin 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 Mallin. He stood up, smiled, and offered his hand.

"These are my friends," Mallin 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," Mallin said.

"I am happy to be of service, Se?or Mallin," 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 Ram6n your baggage checks, he will see to the luggage," Mallin said.

The baggage checks were handed over, and then Mallin 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 Se?or Pelosi accommodations in the Alvear Palace Hotel, which I hope, Se?or 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."

"Cousin Enrico," Clete said, smiling.

Mallin looked at him, and after a moment, smiled.

Chapter Seven

[ONE]

Buenos Aires, Argentina

2005 21 November 1942

It was a fifteen-minute drive to the hotel—on, so far as Clete was concerned, the wrong side of the road; like the Australians the Argentines drove on the left (and would continue to do so until 1944). Mallin took them through a park, where people in proper equestrian clothing were riding fine-looking horses on bridle paths, and then down wide, tree-lined avenues. A statue of an ornately uniformed man on horseback seemed to stand at every major intersection.

Clete realized immediately that Buenos Aires was not the kind of place he'd expected. He had assumed that Argentina would be something like Mexico, and Buenos Aires something like Mexico City. It was not. It was unlike any city he had ever seen before.

They came to a park in which enormous banyan trees shaded neat walkways, and a moment later pulled off the street into the entrance of a hotel. A polished brass sign read:Alvear Palace Hotel.

A doorman in a top hat and a brass-buttoned linen coat which reached almost to his ankles walked quickly to the car and opened the passenger-side door.

Mallin stepped out of the car and held the seat back forward so that Pelosi could climb out of the backseat.

"I think you will find the Alvear comfortable, Mr. Pelosi," Mallin said, "and I would suppose that after your long flight, you greatly need a good night's sleep. I apologize again for not being able to take you into my home...."

"This is really something," Pelosi said. "Like the Drake in Chicago."

It looks like the Adolphus,Clete thought, recalling the Dallas landmark. Pre-World War I polished brass and marble elegance.

"I will go in with you," Mallin said, "to make sure that everything is satisfactory."