Honor Bound (Honor Bound 1)

The young women left the table.

“She’s so very attractive,” Kertiz said, obviously referring to Maria-Teresa, and then added, “Pity.”

“Yes, I think she is,” Mallín said. “What do you mean, ‘pity’?”

“None of them—sadly—seem able to deny themselves the attentions of a young man,” Kertiz said. He reached into his pocket, produced a brownish envelope, and handed it to Mallín.

There was a photo inside. It showed Maria-Teresa standing by the railing of the canal across from the English Yacht Club at El Tigre. She was holding the hand of a dark-skinned young man. His back was toward the camera; his face could not be seen, but Mallín could see his dark skin, and that he was touching Maria-Teresa’s face with his hand.

Another goddamned Italian! Mallín thought furiously. A stevedore from La Boca, or a vegetable salesman, all dressed up in his one suit of “good” clothes.

“I took my family out to El Tigre yesterday,” Kertiz said. “To the Yacht Club. You know that my wife’s grandfather was one of the founding members?”

“I had heard something like that,” Mallín said.

While your grandmother was a Miña.

“And I had the camera with me, a Leica I-C, with a shutter speed of one one-thousandth of a second. With the new American film and the Leica, one can take photographs with practically no light.”

“Fascinating!”

How dare the ungrateful little bitch do this to me!

“I wasn’t sure at first that it was actually your little friend, but I took the shot anyway, and I developed the film…. I have my own laboratory, I think you know, complete in every detail.”

“How nice for you.”

“And I examined the negatives, and then made an enlargement, so I could tell for sure.”

“It is her cousin Angelo,” Mallín said. “I know the boy well. He works in her father’s restaurant.”

“Oh, I am so happy to hear that,” Kertiz said, making it quite clear that he thought that possibility was remote indeed. “I would hate to think that she does not find satisfaction with you, my friend.”

“May I have this?” Mallín asked.

“Of course. I made it for you.”

“Muchas gracias.”

“De nada.”

Soon after the girls returned to the table, without the manners to excuse himself, Kertiz jumped up and walked across the room to invite himself to sit with another gentleman and his Miña. A minute or so after that, he rather imperiously waved for his Corazonita to join him.

Of course, you sonofabitch. You accomplished at my table what you set out to do. Rub this disloyal bitch’s philandering in my face.

“I didn’t think to ask, Teresa,” Mallín said when they were alone. “Did you have a pleasant Sunday?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“And what did you do?”

“Well, I went to an early mass at San Juan Evangelista, then we had a family dinner, and then visited with relatives.”

You are a bad liar.

Did you really go to mass? Or were you in bed all morning with your vegetable salesman? Perhaps in bed with your young man in the apartment I provide for you? After you told your father you were going to mass, did you then take your vegetable salesman into our bed?

“I was thinking that perhaps one day we should drive out to El Tigre,” Mallín said.