Neither Per¢n nor the girl got out of the car before Enrico drove the Rolls out of the garage.
"Who was the girl, Enrico? His daughter? I thought Per¢n wasn't mar-ried."
"He is not, Se¤or Clete."
"What is she, then, his niece?"
"Not his niece, Se¤or Clete. Where are we going, Se¤or Clete?"
Interesting question.
What do I do now? Go to The Museum and call Dorotea from there? Why call her? She might have come to Uncle Willy's house, but she won't come to The Museum.
"Oh, Christ. To hell with it. To the Mallins' house, please."
Enrico nodded, and at the next intersection turned left off Avenida del Libertador.
"If that girl wasn't Per¢n's niece, who was she?" Clete asked.
Enrico did not answer.
He's not answering that question. Why not? Because he would be embar-rassed by the answer? Or because the answer would embarrass Per¢n? That's what it has to be.
Jesus, is what I am now starting to suspect possible? Obviously, truth be-ing stranger than fiction, it is.
"My God, Enrico, that girl was only fourteen, fifteen years old."
After a significant pause, Enrico said, "Your father, Se¤or Clete, used to say that to have true friends, you must accept in each one a character flaw of some kind."
"I'll be goddamned," Clete said, chuckling. "El Coronel Juan Domingo Per¢n is a dirty old man!"
Enrico was not amused. Clete wondered why he himself-he was still smiling-had thought it, literally, laughable.
"Enrico, you don't think there's something strange about somebody his age fooling around with young girls?"
"It is not for me to judge, Se¤or Clete."
"Has he been doing this long?" Clete asked, naughtily.
He got a look from Enrico that told him there would not be a reply.
[FOUR]
23 Calle Acros
Belgrano, Buenos Aires
193Q 19 April 1943
Enrico pulled the Rolls Royce up and stopped before the door of the Italian-style mansion that occupied the eastern corner lot at the intersection of Calle Arcos and Virrey del Pino. He did not get out of the car, as he usually did, to open the door for Clete. He sat, both hands on the wheel of the Rolls, looking straight ahead out the window.
He's pissed at me. Jesus, why? Because I think there is something funny- sick but funny-that the oh, so dignified Coronel Juan Domingo Per¢n has got a thing for little girls?
"Norteamericanos are different, Enrico," Clete said. "We think there is something funny-"
"It is not funny, Se¤or Clete," Enrico said, dead serious, and still not look-ing at him. "God made him that way."
"Did God make you that way, too?" Clete asked gently, thinking he had a sudden insight.