by Blood
Somebody's been in there. Who? When? And did they find just the dirty slides? Or, presuming it was here, Peter's father's letter?
Damn!
He got back on the elevator and rode it back to the foyer. When he entered the sitting, he saw that a plate of sandwiches and other finger food had been laid out on a table beside a coffee service and half a dozen bottles of hard liquor.
He made himself a scotch and soda, looked for and found a cigar in a hu-midor, and then slipped into an armchair. He looked around the room. There was a change since he had left: The oil portrait of a Thoroughbred was no longer hanging over the fireplace. (Granduncle Guillermo had raised the horse from a colt, and had won a great deal of money on it.) In its place hung a large oil portrait of a beautiful young woman in an evening dress with an infant in her arms. The woman was Se¤ora Elizabeth Ann Howell de Frade, and the infant was her firstborn, Cletus Howell Frade.
Clete had last seen it hanging in his father's private library at Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo.
I wonder why he brought it here?
Well, it means he came here when I was in the States, which suggests that goddamned letter may be here-or was here-after all.
He found a match, and was in the slow process of correctly lighting the cigar when the door opened.
It was Enrico, in a Husares uniform.
The bandage on his head is leaking blood. Christ only knows what he looks like under that Student Prince Graustarkian uniform jacket.
"Mi Teniente..."
"I asked you not to call me that," Clete snapped.
"Se¤or Clete..."
"What in the name of God were you thinking riding a horse in your condi-tion?"
"I rode with your father in the cavalry all our lives, Se¤or Clete. It was my duty to ride with him tonight."
"And what are you going to do, for Christ's sake, when I die? Follow me to the cemetery in an airplane?"
Not only could Enrico not immediately counter the logic of that remark, but there was a chuckle of appreciation from a previously unseen spectator.
Clete raised his eyes from his still not fully and properly ignited cigar and saw a tall man in uniform. Not of the Husares. He didn't recognize anything about this one except the epaulets, which carried the insignia of a coronel.
Clete stood up.
"According to Enrico, you are quite a soldier yourself, Se¤or Frade. There-fore, you should know that arguing with a determined Suboficial Mayor is a waste of time and breath. One has the choice of giving in or having him shot."
"I'm tempted to do the latter," Clete said. "Or at least to chain him to his bed."
The tall colonel walked to him and put out his hand. "Perhaps levity is out of place," he said. "But on the other hand, I've heard that laughter often occurs spontaneously when pain is at the point of being unbearable."
"You have the advantage of me, mi Coronel," Clete said.
"Forgive me. But I have heard so much of you over the years, and tonight, from Enrico, that I feel I know you. Your father was my best friend, from our first day at the military academy. My name is Per¢n, Juan Domingo Per¢n."
"How do you do?"
"I have just, with great embarrassment, realized that I find myself an unin-vited guest in your home, Se¤or Frade."
"My father's best friend will always be my honored guest," Clete heard himself say.
Where the hell is this flowery language coming from? It just pops into my mouth. And not, I don't think, because I'm speaking Spanish, and not English. I have never been a charmer in either language.
He turned to Enrico.
"Take off your jacket and sit down," he ordered, pointing to a chair.
"Se¤or Clete?"
"You heard me," Clete said. He walked to the pull cord and jerked on it. When the housekeeper appeared a moment later, Enrico, with some difficulty, was still in the process of taking off his tunic.
She sucked in her breath when she saw Enrico's bloodstained undershirt.
"I'm going to need bandages, and tape, and cotton wool, and alcohol, or some other antiseptic," Clete said.
"S¡, Se¤or," she said, and quickly left the room.
"What I should do, Enrico, is call for an ambulance and send you back to the hospital."
"I am all right, Se¤or Clete."
Clete looked at him, felt a wave of emotion for Enrico's dedication to his father, and went to the whiskey bottles, poured an inch and a half in a glass, and handed it to him.
"With a little luck, you'll choke to death on this, and I won't have to worry about you anymore," he said.
"Gracias, Se¤or Clete," Enrico said, and added: "I saw you outside Our Lady of Pilar."
"You're lucky I didn't see you," Clete said.
The housekeeper and one of the maids appeared with what Clete had asked for.
Clete unwrapped the bandage on Enrico's head. Dried blood had glued it to his skin. After some thought, Clete decided it would hurt him less to jerk it off than to pull it. He did so. Enrico winced but made no sound.
He winced again as Clete mopped at the blood with alcohol-soaked cotton wool. It wasn't as bad as he thought it might be. The stitches sewing the wound together had not pulled loose. The wound itself, as Enrico had told him in the hospital, was actually a half-inch-wide, two-inch-long canal gouged out of his flesh. He washed it carefully, then applied a fresh bandage.
"You have done that before," el Coronel Per¢n said as Clete was applying the fresh bandage.
"Once or twice," Clete said. "This is one of those famous wounds-'an-other half an inch, and that's all she wrote, Charley!'"
"Excuse me?" Per¢n said.
"He's lucky he's alive," Clete said. "Another half an inch, another quarter of an inch..."
He bent over and looked for a fingerhold on one of the bandages on En-rico's upper chest. "On the other hand," he went on, "the head wound probably kept him alive. It knocked him out, and with all the blood, those murdering bas-tards thought he was already dead and not worth a round of 00-buck."
He jerked the bandage off. Enrico grunted.
"At least the banditos who did this soon paid for it," Per¢n said. "Saving yourself and the rest of the family the pain of a trial, and the government the ex-pense."
"Banditos, my ass," Clete flared, aware that he was now sounding more like himself. "Assassins is the word, mi Coronel. The fucking Krauts couldn't get me, so they went after my father and Enrico. And got my father."
There was no reply for a long moment, long enough for Clete to finish washing Enrico's wound and to turn to find a fresh bandage.
'"By "Krauts' I presume you mean Germans?" Per¢n asked, somewhat stiffly.
"That's right."
"Enrico told me that was his belief," Per¢n said. "But I am frankly sur-prised that you give credence to something like that."
"I believe it because it's true," Clete said evenly. "And the reason the bas-tards are dead, mi Coronel, is because dead people can't testify about who hired them."
"Argentina has long been plagued with banditos," Per¢n said.
"These bastards may have been banditos, but they were working for the Germans."
"Your father was a friend of Germany, Se¤or Frade. He had many German friends. He was a graduate of the Kriegsschule."
"Yeah, well, one of his German friends ordered his assassination. Another of them-or maybe the same sonofabitch-ordered my assassination. That time they got Enrico's sister, Se¤ora Pellano."
"In that tragic incident, as I understand it, you killed both of the burglars. Did you do that so they would not be able to testify in court?"
What the hell's the matter with you? You don't like hearing the truth? Well, fuck you, Colonel!
Watch your temper, Clete!
"I had to kill one of them," Clete said evenly. "The second, I am ashamed say, I shot because I lost control of myself when I saw what they had done to Se¤ora Pellano. I now regret that very much. If I hadn't lost my temper, we could have made
the sonofabitch tell us who paid him."
There was another long silence. Per¢n said nothing at all until Clete had finished replacing all of Enrico's bandages.
"Obviously, Se¤or Frade," he said finally, "you believe what you have said. I find it difficult-impossible-to accept. But I will look into the matter, and put the question to rest for all time."
Watch what you say, Clete! Not only was this guy your father's best friend, but pissing him off isn't going to accomplish anything.
"I would be grateful if you would, mi Coronel," Clete said. "And I have an-other service to ask of you."
"Anything within my power, Se¤or Frade."
"Would you see that Suboficial Mayor Rodriguez gets to Our Lady of Pilar tomorrow? By automobile? I will see to it that there are seats with the family for my father's best friends."
"Of course."
"You go to bed, Enrico, and try not to do anything else stupid between now and tomorrow."
"S¡, mi Teniente. Gracias, mi Teniente."
"If I can't get you to call me by my name, at least get the rank right," Clete said. "I was discharged from the Marine Corps as a major."
Clete saw Per¢n's eyes light up with that announcement.
Is that why I said that? So Per¢n won't dismiss me as just one more young, and stupid, lieutenant?
"You're very young to have been a mayor," Per¢n said.
"Yeah, well, we were in a war. Promotions come quickly when there's a war. Enrico, is my Buick drivable?"
"Yes, of course, mi Mayor."
"I think I'll take it with me," Clete said. "I took a Ford station wagon from my father's house. Do you think one of the men downstairs could drive it back for me? They may need it tomorrow."
"You came here alone?" Enrico asked, horrified.
"Why not?"
"Mi Mayor," Enrico said, shaking his head at Clete's stupidity. "The men downstairs will see you safely to el Coronel's house."
Clete put out his hand to Per¢n.
"I am delighted to have the privilege of your acquaintance, mi Coronel."
Per¢n grasped his hand firmly.
"The pleasure is mine, Mayor," he said. "I regret the circumstances."
Chapter Eight
[ONE]
The Basilica of St. Pilar
Recoleta Plaza
Buenos Aires
0915 10 April 1943
It was necessary for Antonio to really shake Clete to wake him, and even after a shower and several cups of coffee with his breakfast, he still felt groggy and exhausted.
As he had announced he would, Capitan Lauffer appeared at eight-thirty.
En route to Our Lady of Pilar, Clete told him about Enrico climbing out of a hospital bed onto a horse to escort his father from the Edificio Libertador to the Basilica, and also about meeting el Coronel Per¢n.
"He and your father were great friends," Lauffer said.
"So he said."
"He just came back from Germany."
"Excuse me? What did you say?"
"He just came back from Germany. He was on the Lufthansa flight yester-day."
"What was he doing in Germany?" Clete asked.
Lauffer shrugged. "I'm afraid I don't know."
Well, that explains that "difficult-impossible-to believe " bullshit he gave me last night, doesn't it?
"Is Per¢n involved in this Grupo de Oficiales Unidos business?"
"Se¤or Frade..."
"Do you think you could bring yourself to call me 'Clete'?"
"I would like that. My Christian name is Roberto."
He offered Clete his hand.
"Clete," Lauffer said, "one of the difficulties we have in Argentina with norteamericanos is that you have a tendency to ask questions that shouldn't be asked, and are impolitic to answer."
"In other words, he is," Clete said. "Is that why he came back? Because the G.O.U. is about to move?"
Lauffer looked at him, smiled, and shook his head.
"I don't know anything about the G.O.U."
"You are being deaf, dumb, and blind, right?" Clete challenged with a smile.
"But if I were a betting man. and I knew that one man was involved with the G.O.U., I would wager his best friend was."
"OK. That's good enough. Thank you for your nonanswer. And since you don't know anything about the G.O.U., I suppose you can't tell me if it's loaded with Nazi sympathizers?"
"I wonder if you are asking that question personally or professionally."
"Professionally?"
"There is a rumor going around that you are really an agent of the OSS."
"Of the what?"
"You never heard of the OSS, of course?"
"Not a word."
"Then I suppose it's also not true that you are the man who blew up the Reine de la Mer."
"The what?"
"As an officer of the Argentine Army, of course, I was horrified to hear that the American OSS violated the neutrality of Argentina by blowing up a neutral ship in our waters."
"As, of course, you should have been. The Americans blew up a Nazi ship, you say? Do you think they had a reason?" Clete asked, smiling.
"My father, however-he is a retired Admiral of the Armada"-Navy- "does not share my views. He said something to the effect that he was surprised it took the Americans so long to do what the British should have done in the first place, and that he hoped whoever did it not only got away but received an ap-propriate decoration."
"You can tell your father, if what you say is true, that something like that probably happened."
Lauffer smiled back at him. "A decoration and a promotion to Mayor?"
"Something like that," Clete said.
"So far as Nazis being within the Grupo de Oficiales Unidos: I would sus-pect that if such an organization really exists, it is not controlled by those who sympathize with Germany, or, on the other hand, by those who sympathize with the British and the norteamericanos. It would be concerned with Argentine in-ternal affairs."
Clete was disappointed when he looked out the window and saw they were at the rear of Recoleta Cemetery; he preferred not to end the conversation just now.
When they reached the church (The Basilica of Our Lady of Pilar (completed 1732), on Recoleta Square, is considered the most beau-tiful church in Buenos Aires.) itself, a line of people had already formed to view the casket when the church was opened. Clete wondered how many of them had known, much less admired, his father, and how many were there out of simple curiosity.
Lauffer knocked at a side door, which was opened by a monk in sandals and a brown robe.
"This is Se¤or Frade," Lauffer said, and the monk opened the door all the way and pointed to the interior of the church.
The casket-el Coronel's uniform cap, his medals, and the Argentine flag back in place on top-was in the center of the aisle near the altar. And the honor guard was present, too, preparing to go on duty; their officer-in-charge was checking the appearance of the troopers. When he saw Lauffer, he came to at-tention and saluted.
There was a tug on Clete's sleeve, and he turned to see another brown-robed monk, extending a large key to him.
"The key to your tomb, Se¤or," the monk said. Clete looked helplessly at Lauffer, and the monk picked up on it. "We have moved your grandfather, Se¤or, and made the preparations for your father. I would like your approval of the arrangements."
"Moved my grandfather"? What the hell does that mean? Lauffer, seeing Clete's confusion and hesitation, nodded. "Thank you," Clete said to the monk.
"I'll go with you. I knew this was coming, and brought a torch," he said, ex-hibiting a flashlight.
They followed the monk out of a side door of the church and into the ceme-tery. Ornate burial grounds were not new to Clete. Because of the water table, belowground burial in New Orleans is virtually impossible. The result of that over the years has been the construction of elaborate aboveground tombs cov-ering hundreds of acres.
The Old Man called the cemeteries "Marb
le City," allegedly to keep the bodies from floating down the Mississippi, but really erected to impress the neighbors. The worse the scoundrel, the larger his tomb.
But there was nothing in New Orleans like Recoleta Cemetery. Here even the smallest of family tombs resembled marble churches, and there were acres and acres of them, side by side.