"Crawfish bisque, Gentlemen," he said.
"Wonderful, he said, changing the subject," Clete said.
"Fine. You were telling me what you're going to be doing for Colonel Gra-ham in Argentina."
"Whatever I'm told to do," Clete said. "I expect to spend a lot of time on the canap‚-and-idle-conversation circuit."
"In other words, you're not going to tell me," the Old Man said.
"Right."
"Why didn't you just come right out and say it was none of my business?"
"It's none of your business," Clete said, laughing.
"OK. That's settled. What about Henry Mallin? Do you see much of him?"
Enrico Mallin, an Anglo-Argentine called "Henry," was Managing Director of the Sociedad Mercantil de Importacion de Productos Petroliferos (SMIPP). Howell Petroleum, especially Howell Petroleum (Venezuela), was his primary source of crude petroleum and petroleum products.
"From time to time," Clete said, as a very clear picture of Se¤or Mall¡n's daughter, Dorotea, came into his mind's eye.
"It might pay you to cultivate him a little," the Old Man said. "I've seen some very interesting geological reports about-where is it the whales are?"
"Patagonia?"
"Patagonia. This war isn't going to last forever, and I would be very inter-ested in your opinion of Mallin. Is he, in other words, the man we should have down there to set up exploration for us?"
"You're thinking of doing exploration down there? In Argentina!"
"I said 'we' and 'us,'" the Old Man said.
"You would actually invest your money in Argentina!"
"By the time this war is over, it will in all likelihood be your money..."
Damn him! He didn't say that to elicit my sympathy, but he is an old man, and he damned well might be dead before the war is over.
"... and if that comes to pass, I want you to remember that I told you that oil is like money. It doesn't matter where it comes from; it can be converted into cash."
"I'll try to remember that," Clete said.
"Don't be smug from a position of ignorance, Cletus. Try to remember that, too. You really don't know what this war is all about, do you?"
"In my ignorance, I've been under the impression we're fighting this war because the Japs bombed Pearl Harbor."
"Why did they bomb Pearl Harbor?"
"That's where our Pacific Fleet was."
"Don't you know, or are you being flip?"
"Tell me."
"We're fighting the Japanese-and for that matter, the Germans-over oil. Did you know that the Soviet Union has the largest oil reserves in the world?"
"No, I didn't," Clete said, genuinely surprised.
"The Russians have oil, the Germans want it-need it desperately-so they went to war. Did you know that the German Army and Air Force are already us-ing synthetic petroleum-they make it from coal-for twenty-five percent of their needs?"