“I think you had better tell me what has been happening,” Welner said.
Clete had just started when another visitor arrived who had decided that under the circumstances it was not necessary to wait in the foyer while Antonio determined if the master of the house was at home.
Claudia stood just inside the door, her hands on her hips, her eyes flashing.
What we have here is an outraged mother.
“Good morning, Claudia. What a pleasant surprise! Can I offer you a little breakfast?”
“You sonofabitch,” she repeated, and marched toward him.
“Have you heard from Alicia?” Father Welner asked.
“She came in just after you called,” Claudia said. “She’s in her room, crying her heart out, and she won’t unlock the door.”
Clete had a sudden, very clear memory of Marjorie pulling hysterical young female I hate you I locked the door crap on Martha, whose response had been a well-placed kick to open the door, followed by a rush into the room, a slapped Marjorie, and the announcement that the slap was nothing like what she was going to get the next time she locked the door.
That wouldn’t work in the Carzino-Cormano house, a slightly smaller version of the Museum, whose doors are like bank vaults. Claudia would have needed four men on a battering ram to do what Martha did with her boot.
“But she’s all right?” Welner asked.
“That depends on how you define ‘all right,’” Claudia said. She stood beside Clete and glowered down at him. Then she pulled up a chair and sat down.
Clete had another mental image, an unpleasant one, of Claudia, genuinely concerned, rather than angry, in the corridor outside Alicia’s closed door, being refused entrance.
He picked up the silver coffeepot and filled a cup.
“One lump or two?” he asked as he picked up the sugar tongs.
“Black, thank you,” she said, adding, “Goddamn you, you’re just like your father.”
“Why doesn’t that sound like a compliment?”
“It wasn’t intended as one. What in the world were you thinking of last night, Cletus? When you got her out of the house?”
“You heard about that, huh?”
“When the butler came in about the same time she did. If I had known that last night, I would have come here and—”
“Actually, she wasn’t here,” Clete said.
“Then where was she?”
“Peter’s going to Germany this morning,” Clete said. “He wanted to see her again before he left. He was having dinner at the Alvear with the ambassador and the SS guy, and couldn’t get away for more than a few minutes. So I picked her up and took her to the apartment in the Alvear.”
“What SS guy?” Welner asked.
Clete looked at him. “His name is von Deitzberg. They sent him from Germany to find out who was responsible for what happened on the beach on Samborombón Bay.”
“And what happened on the beach?”
“Enrico and Rudolpho shot the German military attaché and another SS guy who ordered the murder of my father. They were trying to smuggle something into Argentina.”
“You ordered this?” Welner asked.
“No. But I’m not sorry they shot those bastards, and don’t give me any of that ‘Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord’ crap.”
“Watch your mouth, Cletus, you’re talking to a priest,” Claudia said.