Señora Pellano! How did these bastards get past her?
He looked at the man screaming in pain. The way his leg was bent, it was clearly broken. Blood covered the man’s hands.
I shot at him four times and only hit him once, in the lower leg?
He walked to him, kicked his knife across the room, then went to the desk. He picked up a loaded .45 magazine, ejected the empty one in the pistol, loaded the fresh one, and let the slide go forward.
He went to the stairs and started down them.
There were no lights.
He went down carefully, rubbing his back against the wall, desperately hoping he wouldn’t fall.
He reached the first floor and found the handle to the kitchen door.
He raised the pistol and pushed the door open. The kitchen, too, was dark. He felt around for the switch, found it, and snapped on the lights.
Señora Pellano, in a black bathrobe, was sitting at the kitchen table. Her eyes were open and her head was thrown back.
Her throat had been cut. Through the gaping wound he could see bone and her slashed throat. Blood soaked her bathrobe and dripped onto the floor.
“You miserable sonsofbitches!” Clete said, his voice breaking.
He ran back up the stairs to Uncle Guillermo’s playroom. Halfway up, he could hear the man screaming again.
“For the love of the Blessed Virgin, please help me!”
He reached the playroom. The man had crawled to the bathroom, where he had pulled a towel from the rack and was attempting to make a tourniquet with it.
He looked at Clete.
“Please, Señor, for the love of God, help me!”
Clete raised the pistol and shot him in his good leg. And then, when the man looked at him in surprise and terror, he shot him again, aiming between his eyes. His aim was a little off; he hit him in the center of his forehead.
[THREE]
4730 Avenida Libertador
Buenos Aires
0115 20 December 1942
El Teniente Coronel Bernardo Martín made an illegal U-turn in the middle of Avenida Libertador and pulled up behind one of the five Policía Federal police cars parked in front of the Frade Guest House.
His action attracted the attention of two uniformed Policía Federal officers—the one assigned to make sure that traffic continued to flow along Avenida Libertador, and the one assigned to make sure that no unauthorized persons entered the scene of the crime. Both greeted him as he left his car.
“Yo soy el Coronel Martín, del Servicio de Seguridad del Interior,” he said. Though he was out of uniform—he was wearing only the shirt he had worn that day and a pair of casual trousers—he spoke with such authority that one of the policemen saluted and the other begged his pardon for stopping him.
He entered the foyer of the Guest House and found el Comandante Habanzo in animated conversation with several Policía Federal officers—two uniformed senior officers, one a capitán, the other a teniente, and two plainclothe
s detectives, most probably from the Homicide Bureau.
Habanzo looked enormously relieved to see him.
“Mi Coronel,” he said.
Interesting that he is here, Martín thought as Habanzo briefly described the carnage at the Guest House. Is this a manifestation of his devotion to duty, inspired by our little chat earlier? Or is there another reason?