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

Next came a small plate of vermicelli with a tomato-and-pepper sauce. Washed down with a couple of glasses of vino tinto, it wasn't at all bad; but Tony was disappointed. He could have eaten two, three times as much.

The small portion was explained with the delivery of some kind of chicken.

"What's this?"

"Suprema a la Maryland."

"Maryland?"

The man shrugged. "It is something my mother taught me. The sauce is from bananas and corn. Perhaps it is Argentinean, not Italian."

You bet your ass it's not Italian. Grandma told me the first banana she ever saw was in Chicago, and that she tried to eat the peel, it looked so good.

Washed down with the rest of the bottle of vino tinto, the Suprema a la Maryland wasn't half as bad as he thought it would be.

Tony declined another bottle of wine— the last thing I can afford to do is get shitfaced—and dessert. He was full up.

"Magnifico," he declared, and asked for the bill. It was a hell of a lot cheaper than the last meal he'd had downtown.

"Do you know someplace I can buy some telephone wire?"

"Right around the corner," the man told him.

Tony consulted his pocket-sized Spanish-English/English-Spanish dictionary before entering the hardware store.

"Cable para el telefono, por favor?"

What looked like a hundred-foot roll of multistrand 16-gauge steel wire was produced. He would have preferred copper, but this would do.

And, hey, look at me, I'm speaking Spanish!

"How much?"

"How many meters will Se?or require?"

"All of it."

"This is all I have."

So what?

"I will require all of it. Where I wish to place the telephone is a long way from the wall."

The man shrugged, announced a price, and Tony paid him. The wire was neatly wrapped in an old newspaper and tied with string.

Tony returned to the street and headed back toward the waterfront. As he neared Ristorante Napoli, he saw a fine-looking female coming the other way. She looked out of place here—too well-dressed, like one of the Mi?as in the hotel. He wondered what she was doing in this neighborhood.

They met near the door to Ristorante Napoli. Tony smiled at her. She didn't respond, although he was sure she saw him smiling at her.

She looked right through me. Well, what the hell, the way I'm dressed, she probably decided I don't have any money. Or maybe she's not a Mi?a after all. She looks like a nice girl. Nice girls, nice Italian girls, always play hard to get.

And then she pushed open the door to the Ristorante Napoli and went in.

I'll be damned. That gives me two reasons to come back here.He reached the waterfront and started toward the bus stop.

He saw a taxi.

Fuck the bus. Lieutenant Pelosi has made all the sacrifices in the service of his country he intends to today.

He flagged the taxi down and told the driver to take him to the Alvear Palace Hotel.

Jesus, that was a good-looking woman!

[TWO]

Aboard MV Colonia

Rio de la Plata

0115 8 December 1942

"What do you say we go on deck and take the evening breeze?" First Lieutenant Cletus Howell Frade, USMCR, said to Second Lieutenant Anthony J. Pelosi, CE, USAR, as the waiter cleared their table.

"All right," Tony replied.

Clete stood up, peeled a couple of bills from a thick wad and tossed them casually on the table, then walked out of the dining room onto the deck.

The dining room, like their cabin, was on the bridge deck. There were benches along the bulkheads, and a dozen or so deck chairs. All the deck chairs were occupied, and people were scattered along the benches.

Clete looked aft. There was a glow on the horizon, obviously the lights of Buenos Aires. He estimated they were twenty-five, maybe thirty miles into the river. It was about a hundred twenty-five miles from Buenos Aires to Montevideo. The Colonia looked like a miniature ocean liner, and carried probably two hundred people. It sailed from Buenos Aires just after midnight, and would arrive in Montevideo at about nine in the morning. There were cabins, a dining room, a lounge, and a bar. You came aboard, had a drink and dinner, and then went to bed. When you woke up, you were in Uruguay. A couple of times Clete took the over-night boat from New York to Boston with his grandfather, when the Old Man had business with the Bank of Boston that had to be handled in person. The Colonia reminded him of that.

He led Pelosi forward, then down a ladder, then forward again, and down another ladder to the main deck. They stepped over a chain, with a sign in Spanish, "No Entry—Crew Only," hanging from it, and walked forward to the bow.

"That sign meant 'off limits,' didn't it?" Tony asked.

"Well, if somebody comes, we're just a couple of dumb Norteamericanos who don't speak Spanish. Besides, what they're worried about is a bunch of people out here lighting cigarettes, which will keep the helmsman and the officers on the bridge from seeing. No lights forward, in other words."

"No shit?"

"Would you like one of these?" extending to him a leather cigar case.

Tony considered the offer for a moment ... He gives me a speech about no cigarettes up here, and then pulls out cigars ...and then took a long, thin, black cigar.

"Thank you," he said.

"A fine conclusion to a splendid meal," Clete said.

"If you like eating at midnight."

"I wonder what they were serving at the O Club at Fort Bragg tonight? Three'll get you five it wasn't what we had."

"Jesus, their food is good, isn't it?" Tony said. "First-class steak!"

Clete handed him a gold cigarette lighter.

"You have to flip the top up first, and then spin the wheel," Clete explained. "I have the feeling that was made sometime around World War One."

Pelosi lit his cigar, then, hefting it, handed the lighter back.

"Heavy. Gold?"

"I'm sure it is. Nothing was too good for my uncle Bill."

"Excuse me?"

"My granduncle Guillermo. That was probably his. I found it and the cigar case in a drawer in his—now my—bedroom. I decided that if he had known what a splendid fellow I am, he would have left me both in his will, so I took possession."

Tony had to smile. He was glad it was too dark out here for the Pride of the Marine Corps to see his face.

"And the house, too?"

"The house belongs to my father. Uncle Bill lost it betting on the horses."

"No shit?"

"Uncle Bill was a man after my own heart. According to my father, he spent his life drinking good whiskey, laying all the women in Buenos Aires, gambling on horse races, and playing polo. I have decided I want to be just like him."

"You know how to play polo?"

"We used to play it at A and M. We called it polo, and I guess it was. But we did it on cow ponies, using brooms and a basketball."

"What's A and M? For that matter, what's a cow pony?"

"A and M, you ignorant city slicker, is the Texas Agricultural and Mechanical Institute. You really never heard of A and M?"

"Yeah. Now I know what it is. You went there?"

"For two years. I finished up at Tulane in New Orleans."

"So what's a cow pony?"

"A horse, most often what they call a quarterhorse, a small one, trained to work cattle. When we played 'polo,' the cow ponies made it clear they thought we were insane. We had them running up and down a field, and we were yelling and making a lot of noise, and there wasn't a cow in sight."

Pelosi chuckled.

"But you never played real polo?"

"No. I've been wondering if I could. Maybe. Christ knows, I grew up on a horse."

"Really?"

"On a ranch in West Texas. I was raised by my aunt and uncle."

"So those cowboy boots are for real? I thought maybe you thought they just looked good."

"They feel good. When I went in the Corps and had to wear what they call 'low quarter' shoes—do they call them that in the Army?—I felt like I was running around barefooted."