Honor Bound (Honor Bound 1) - Page 139
Dear Beatrice’s Poor Jorge had been murdered by the filthy communists, not killed in battle in Russia while accompanying an invading army. The Germans did not shoot their aristocracy, and they were engaged in fighting the filthy, godless communists. Thus, they could not be all bad.
This talk bothered him; but he managed to resist a growing temptation to mention the Germans’ murder of several hundred thousand Jews—he was not sure if he believed Nestor’s several millions figure; he didn’t want to. But he didn’t want to get in an argument with anybody either, not when Aunt Beatrice was liable to pop up at his side at any moment, and tell him again how much he looked like his mother and Poor Dear Jorge, both of them now together and with God and all the blessed angels…and how they took baths together and splashed and laughed and were so happy when they were infants.
Aunt Beatrice was out of her mind; there was no question about that. But Uncle Humberto was worse. He was not floating around on a drug-induced cloud. He was in the here and now and knew what was going on. Humberto kept looking at Clete out of big, dark, immensely sad eyes—How is it that you are alive, and my Jorge is dead?—until he saw Clete looking back. Then he put on a wide, toothy, absolutely phony smile and gave him a thumbs-up sign.
The Mallíns were there, of course. Not only were they part of that social circle, but it would be unthinkable not to invite them after they were so kind to Dear Cletus when he arrived.
The Mallíns, less the Virgin Princess. Aunt Beatrice’s dinner to meet Dear Jorge’s son had been a grown-ups’ party; children not welcome. Clete wasn’t sure at first if he was relieved or disappointed, but soon admitted he was goddamned disappointed.
At least I could have looked at her every once in a while.
All things considered, it was a lousy evening at Aunt Beatrice’s and Uncle Humberto’s.
No one tried to speak to Clete or Tony at dinner, and there wasn’t even any eye contact from the other diners.
Nor was there anyone who paid the slightest bit of attention to them in the casino, except when Tony delivered a loud Cicero, Illinois, “Oh, shit!” when he drew a king to a pair of fives and a two at the Vingt-et-Une table and dropped almost a thousand dollars.
By then it was midnight, and Clete decided he had been wrong about a possible contact in the casino. Nestor told him to spend the night here, he decided, because that’s what an American in Uruguay on business would be expected to do.
“Let’s go to bed,” he said to a sad Tony Pelosi as he counted what was left of his money.
Tony was sad, but without good reason.
“I’m up six hundred over the two fifty you gave me,” he announced in the elevator. “And if I hadn’t gotten that fucking king!”
“Don’t be greedy. Greedy gamblers always lose.”
“My father says that all the time,” Tony agreed. “You say that too?”
“I thought I made it up,” Clete said, straight-faced.
Pelosi was in his room less than two minutes when Clete heard him call, excitedly, “Hey, Frade! Come in here.”
Clete walked across the sitting room. Tony was in his underwear, and he was holding what looked like an oversized telephone to his ear.
“What the hell is that?”
“It’s a walkie-talkie.”
“A what?”
“A radio. A two-way radio!”
“That little thing?”
“I seen them demonstrated at Bragg. They’re new. Not yet issued.”
Pelosi pointed to a small leather bag on the bed, not much larger than a woman’s purse.
“That was on the rack at the foot of the bed when I came in,” Pelosi said. “With this inside.”
He handed Clete a three-by-five-inch filing card—obviously American—on which was typewritten:
* * *
(1) Speak English
(2) Your call sign is “Hunter.”
Source: readsnovelonline.net