Oppy bent his head down like a man on a cross.

“No?” she said. “Well, if you do think of any questions, I will be at the bar having a very early, not-so-perfect martini. I will be returning to the Hill later with Klaus. Since you want to be sure where everyone is at all times.”

Oppy didn’t raise his head until she was gone, and then blinked as if he were trying to will away a scene. “Joe, where were you?”

Gold was already gone. Joe saw him trotting up the street past a camera shop; as the tour bus rolled by, Gold skipped off the curb and jumped onto the running board, his newspaper clutched under his arm. “I met a spy,” he said.

Together, Joe and Oppy walked a block to the old Spanish courtyards on Palace Avenue. This was the Hill bus stop and Joe’s jeep was parked outside, but Oppy opened a wrought-iron door to the smallest courtyard, a narrow passageway of carved beams and squash blossoms around a browning lawn. The screen door at the inner end of the courtyard was the Hill’s anonymous parcel drop and reception center in Santa Fe.

“You mean Gold,” Oppy said in a low voice although there was no one else in the courtyard. “Augustino told me about him. Augustino is handling it. I don’t see how you’re involved.”

“Gold was in Santiago this morning.”

“Augustino is handling everything. What you can do is stay out of Captain Augustino’s way. Let’s hope you haven’t scared Gold off. You know, Joe, we are fast approaching the climax of this enormous endeavor. I don’t have the time or the patience to deal with you or your adventures anymore, not when the effort of thousands of people and the lives of many thousands of soldiers are hanging in the balance. You are the smallest possible factor in Trinity. Please don’t fuck it up. Stay out of my way, stay out of Captain Augustino’s way and, if you want to do Anna Weiss a great favor, stay out of her way, too.”

23

How high the moon? the horns asked. Tables sat on circular tiers around the dance floor and bandstand, each table set with red cloths and candles, some with sweating pails of champagne. How high the moon? trombones wondered. Waiters in red jackets balanced steaks on trays. Wrought-iron sconces lit the curved mock-adobe wall. Out on the hardwood, young officers danced with women in full skirts and puffed shoulders, blondes coiffed like Ginger Rogers, brunettes like Dorothy Lamour. The club comfortably held two hundred diners and dancers, and another forty at the bar.