“Yes, Reverend Mother.”
The huge nun left, carefully closing the door behind her.
“That will take a few minutes,” Mother Superior said. “There’s no reason for everyone to wait for me. I know my way out there. And if you would be so good, Father, to hear my confession while we wait?”
[THREE]
Casa Montagna
Estancia Don Guillermo
Km 40.4, Provincial Route 60
Mendoza Province, Argentina
1915 14 August 1943
Darkness had fallen, but there was enough light from the headlights for Clete to be able to see the white stone kilometer markers along the road as the resident manager of Estancia Don Guillermo—whose name, if he had ever known it, Clete had forgotten—drove the Lincoln down the macadam road.
They were now at Km 39.8.
That means we’re point-six kilometer from where we’ll turn onto Estancia Don Guillermo, and thirty-nine-point-eight kilometers from where they started counting, probably at a marker in the Mendoza town square.
That’s not saying we’re thirty-nine-point-eight kilometers from the center of town, but that we’re thirty-nine-point-eight kilometers down the road from the marker.
The way this road weaves, we’re a lot closer as the bird flies than that.
Why the hell do people say that?
“As the bird flies” means in a straight line? I’ve never seen a bird fly more than twenty-five yards in a straight line.
Jesus Christ, it’s odd thoughts time! And that means C. Frade’s tail is really dragging.
I have every right in the world to have my tail dragging. Not only did I just fly from the States across Central and South America, and then fly down here, I also just threw Tío Juan out of Uncle Willy’s house, had people try to kill me, and—and what else?
Doesn’t matter what else.
I have every right to be tired, and I damn sure am.
What does matter, however, is that when my tail is really dragging, I tend to do really stupid things. Like, for example, being a little less than charming to Mother Superior at the convent and then actually getting ready to walk out of her office.
If Dorotea and Welner hadn’t stopped me, I think I would have, and that would have really screwed up things.
Watch it, Little Cletus. You just can’t afford to screw something up.
Ten seconds later, the Lincoln slowed and turned off the highway. Fifty meters off the road, there was a gate in a wire fence. Beyond the fence, the headlights lit up rows of grapevines as far as he could see.
There was a Ford Model A pickup truck inside the fence. A man got out of it, walked to the gate, and swung it open. The Lincoln’s lights flashed over the pickup as they drove through the gate, and Frade saw
there was a second man standing by the side of the truck, a Mauser rifle cradled in his arms. This one he recognized. He was one of the peones he’d brought from Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo.
When they drove past, the man saluted. Clete returned it.
They drove for a kilometer, perhaps a little more, through endless rows of grapevines. The road suddenly became quite steep—the resident manager had to shift into second gear—and made a winding ascent of a mountainside.
And then there was a massive wooden gate blocking the road.
But there’s no fence or anything to the right of the gate.