“I’m in Recoleta, in my apartment. Where is she, Cletus?”
“There’s nothing really to worry about,” Clete said. “I think I know where she is. Let me see if I can find out for sure. Why don’t you come over here?”
“Why should I do that?”
“By the time you get here, I should be able to tell you where she is,” Clete said, and added, “And she’s probably going to need your pastoral services.”
Father Welner hung up without saying another word.
Clete went into the bedroom off the master suite and woke Enrico up. “Get on the phone and discreetly inquire if Alicia Carzino-Cormano is still in the apartment,” he ordered.
“She didn’t go home?”
Clete shook his head, “no.”
“The Germans would do nothing bad to her, Señor Clete.”
“I hadn’t even thought about that,” Clete thought aloud, then added, “I’m more worried about Señora Carzino-Cormano. Get on the phone, Enrico.”
It took ten minutes to learn that while one of the beds in the apartment in the Alvear Plaza showed signs of use, no one was in the apartment now, and—the shifts having changed—none of the staff was available to be questioned about when the persons in the apartment had left. Bellmen would be sent to the homes of the night-floor waiter and elevator operator to ask what they knew.
“She’s either at von Wachtstein’s apartment,” Clete said, “or maybe she went to the airport to see him off. Or maybe she jumped in the River Plate.”
“You really think she would do that, Señor Clete? That is a mortal sin.”
“Christ, I’m just kidding,” Clete said. “Bad joke, sorry.”
On the other hand, who knows? Her world has just flown off. Women in love have been known to do stupid things. See Anna Karina, or whatever the hell her name was, the Russian who jumped under the train.
Jesus Christ, what did I do?
Antonio appeared to inquire if Señor Frade was at home to Padre Welner, who was in the foyer.
“Of course,” Clete said.
The Reverend Kurt Welner, S. J., who had decided that under the circumstances he did not wish to wait in the foyer, came into the room.
“Where is she?” he demanded.
“Right now, I don’t know,” Clete said. “Enrico, is there anyway we can call El Palomar and find out if the Lufthansa flight has left?”
Enrico thought the question over. “I can send Rudolpho out in a car to see, Señor Clete.”
“It’s a big, four-engine airplane with a swastika on the tail,” Clete said. “If it’s still there, he can’t miss it. Send him.”
“Alicia is with her German?” Welner asked.
“She was. His plane was scheduled to leave very early this morning. She may have gone out there to see him leave, or she may still be in his apartment. I’ve got the number in my wallet. You can call.”
Well, if he didn’t know that Peter and I are more than enemies being polite to each other in a neutral country, he does now. Damn!
Welner followed Clete into his bedroom, waited until Clete found Peter’s apartment telephone number, and then called it.
The maid answered, and said that el Mayor von Wachtstein was out of town and she didn’t know when he would return.
“Now I have absolutely no idea where she could be,” Clete confessed.
Unless, of course, she did take a jump into the river.