Honor Bound (Honor Bound 1)

He pawed perfunctorily through the chickens, ducks, and fishes in the “wooden” boxes, smiled, and waved them through.

“Buenas noches, Señores.”

“Buenas noches,” Clete replied, and motioned for a porter to carry their luggage toward the taxi line. He carried one of the “wooden” boxes and Tony carried the other.

As they walked toward the line, he asked Tony if he wanted to have dinner at the guest house, or else go out somewhere.

“Thanks, no, Clete,” Tony replied. “What are we going to do with this stuff, now that we’ve got it?”

“I’ll keep it,” Clete said. “That would probably be the safest thing.”

“I was thinking that maybe you could give the radios to Ettinger. Maybe he can figure out what to do when the batteries go dead.”

“Right.”

“And I’d like to take the detonators. I want to take a good look at them, to make sure how much dry-cell juice I’m going to need.”

“Good thinking. But we can drop the radios off at Ettinger’s apartment on the way to yours. And then we’ll drop the detonators at yours, and get some dinner.”

“I think I’ll pass, Clete,” Tony said. “Unless you really want some company.”

“Just an idea. I’ll bring the radios to David tomorrow.”

“What I’m going to do, Clete,” Tony said, as if worried that he’d hurt Frade’s feelings, “is go find a church. Light a candle. Say ‘thank you.’ You want to come along?”

“I think I’ll pass on that, Tony,” Clete said. “If I went to church, the steeple would fall off. But say ‘thank you’ for me, too, will you?”

“I will,” Tony said, wondering if it was a sin for him to be glad Clete didn’t want to go to church with him. The church he had in mind was near the Ristorante Napoli. Afterward, he would drop in to the Ristorante Napoli for his dinner. She just might be there.

Hell, she might even be in the church. Odds are that she’s Catholic, and nice Catholic girls go to church.

They took their turn in the taxi line, and finally climbed into one. Clete told the driver to take them to Tony’s apartment on Avenida Corrientes.

It was quarter past ten when the driver pulled up before the gate at 4730 Avenida Libertador. There were lights on over the drive and above the door, but the gates were closed, and the smaller pedestrian gate beside the vehicular gate was locked; he could see no light coming from the servants’ quarters. Since Señora Pellano had not known when to expect him, he presumed she had simply gone to bed.

Finding the keys he needed, then wrestling with the ancient lock on the gate, and then carrying his luggage and—carefully—both “wooden” boxes from the cab to the front door took another five minutes.

He paid the cabdriver, then moved everything inside the house.

I’ll bring these boxes upstairs—duty first. I’ll take them apart, put the pieces on a shelf in one of my closets, and then I’ll come down here and have a very stiff drink. I was more afraid smuggling this stuff past customs than I let on.

He was almost to the elevator when he heard, faintly, Beethoven’s Third Symphony on the radio or the phonograph. Then he saw a crack of light under the double doors to the library.

Who the hell can that be? My father?

He walked to it and pushed it open with his foot.

A young man in a quilted, dark-red dressing gown was slumped in one of the armchairs, a cognac snifter resting on his chest. A cigar lay in the ashtray on the table beside him.

Who the hell is this?

“Buenas noches, Señor.”

The young man was startled. He quickly put the cognac snifter on the table, rose, and smiled.

“Buenas noches,” he said.

“Yo soy Cletus Frade.”