W E B Griffin - Honor 1 - Honor Bound

by Honor Bound(Lit)

  As soon as the whiskey was delivered, while the waiter was carrying out the little routine of overflowing the silver shot glass on a handle, a procession of brass making their manners came to the table.

  The introductions followed the same pattern:

  "Coronel, I have the honor to present my son, Cletus, late Teniente of the air service of the U.S. Marine Corps, who has been medically retired after service in the Pacific at Guadalcanal. He is here on business, which I hope will take a long time to complete."

  Like blowing up a neutral ship in your river.

  Once, his father rose to his feet, and Clete followed him.

  "Mi General," his father said, "I have the honor to present my son, Cletus, late Teniente of the air service of the U.S. Marine Corps, who has been medically retired after service in the Pacific at Guadalcanal. He is here on a visit. Cletus, I had the honor to succeed el General Sussman as Colonel Commanding the Hussares de Pueyrred6n."

  "A sus ¢rdenes, mi General," Clete said.

  The introduction seemed to both please and surprise the Gen-eral.

  "You served at Guadalcanal, Teniente?"

  "S¡, mi General."

  General Sussman examined him closely, and nodded approv-ingly.

  "I am very happy to make your acquaintance," he said in somewhat awkward English. "Welcome to Argentina."

  I don't think you would say that if you knew why I am here, General.

  "Gracias, mi General."

  Frade waited until the General was out of earshot, then an-nounced, "Coronel Sahovaler-the fat, bald one-succeeded me at the regiment. I should have introduced him that way."

  Dear old Dad, Clete realized, is half in the bag. And if he is, you almost certainly are. So watch yourself.

  That triggered another thought, a somewhat alarming one: His only reaction when he realized I was lying to him was to change the subject, and then let me drive that car of his. Is it possible that he intends to get me drunk to see what he can worm out of me? Of course it's possible. It's even likely.

  Without asking, the bartender delivered another Jack Daniel's doble long before either of their glasses was empty.

  "I think we should carry these into the dining room and put something into our stomachs," Frade announced somewhat thickly after draining the first drink and picking up the second. "As you may have noticed, the Portenos are very dangerous driv-ers. One must be in full control of one's faculties to survive."

  The booze flows like water-if that's really whiskey he's drink-ing-and he wants me to think he's drunk. Of course, he's trying to get me drunk enough to confide in him, father-to-son. Well, why are you surprised? The Old Man told you often enough he's a three-star sonofabitch. Well, screw you, Dad. I may be an am-ateur at this business, but I can not stupid.

  "Excuse me?" Clete asked politely, smiling, as he rose to his feet. "The what? Portenos?"

  "Natives of Buenos Aires," his father explained. "As opposed to those who come from the country. They drive like madmen. They seem to believe that an automobile has two speeds, on and off."

  Clete chuckled.

  The headwaiter of the dining room followed them to their table.

  "Edmundo," el Coronel ordered, "see if they can find some-thing nice, a Beaujolais perhaps, in my stock."

  "S¡, mi Coronel."

  And now wine, on top of the whiskey, Clete thought.

  "This is an occasion. I have the honor to introduce my son, Cletus, late Teniente of the air service of the Marine Corps of the USA."

  And fatherly pride and charm on top of the wine. Mi Coronel, mi Papa, you are a clever sonofabitch, aren't you? What I would like to do is just walk out of here. But I have a feeling I should stick around. Maybe I can learn something from you.

  "A great privilege and honor, mi Teniente," the headwaiter said. "El Coronel would prefer some of the French?"

  "French or Argentine, Cletus?"

  "Argentine, please," Clete said.

  "I personally believe our wines are superior-the stock I keep here at the club is from a small vineyard the family has an interest in-but I am of course prejudiced."

  "The Argentine wine I've had so far has been great," Clete said.

  "And we are known for our beef, too," Frade said. "Might I suggest a lomo? With papas fritas?"-a filet mignon and french-fried potatoes. "And a tomato and onion salad?"

  "Sounds fine, thank you."

  "One should not eat heavily in the middle of the day," Frade declared. "It slows the blood, and thus one's ability to think clearly."

  "Yes, Sir, I agree."

  When a waiter delivered the bourbon, Frade ordered their meal.

  "One day," he said, "I hope you will find the time to tell me about Guadalcanal. As a soldier, I am of course interested."

  I guess that's Question Number One.

  "Yes, Sir. I'd be happy to."

  "Will there be time? When will you return to the United States?"

  And that's Question Number Two.

  "I don't know. I'll be here indefinitely."

  "I did not know that," Frade said. "Cletus, certainly you can-not take advantage of Se¤or Mallin's hospitality indefinitely."

  "No, Sir. I don't intend to. Se¤or Mallin has found an apart-ment for me. I'm to move in tomorrow."

  "Where?"

  "Posadas 1354 Piso sexto."

  "That's absurd," Frade declared, and belched. "I beg your pardon."

  What the hell does that mean?

  "The Guest House is yours," Frade declared with a grand wave of his hand. "For as long as you're here."

  "Excuse me?"

  "It will be perfect for you," Frade said. "All it does most of the time is sit there and eat up my money anyway. It's settled." He then had a second thought. "Unless, of course, it is not to your liking."

  "Sir, I don't understand what you're talking about."

  "I would ask you to share my home," Frade said, "but I was once your age, and I know how it is with young men. From my own experience." El Coronel Frade winked, man-to-man, at his son. "Before I met your mother, of course."

  That's the first mention of my mother.

  "It is on the Avenida Libertador, across from the Hipodromo de Argentina, our major horse track," Frade went on. "It was built by my uncle Guillermo. He would be your granduncle Guillermo. He was a horseman. Unfortunately-within the family- we concede that is about all he was, a horseman. Charming fel-low. Played six-goal polo in his sixties. When he was younger, he raced thoroughbreds. If he just raced them, which is quite expensive enough, he would have been all right, but he insisted on gambling on them as well, and he was not at all good at that."

  A waiter delivered a bottle of wine, and he and Frade went through a ritual of cork-sniffing and sipping.

  "That will do," Frade announced. "Well, as they say in Amer-ica," he went on, picking up his Jack Daniel's doble and draining it, "waste not, want not"

  He looked at Clete, who took a very small sip of his drink and set the glass down.

  I wish I could think of some way to get rid of the rest of this. Except that if I poured it out someplace, there would be another instant refill. Better to just pretend to sip on it.

  "When your granduncle Guillermo-who never married, by the way-built the Avenida Libertador house, he put the master suite on the fourth floor. This was so that he could watch the races without having to mingle with the crowds, he said. My father, your grandfather, said it was because he could entertain ladies in his bedroom between races. Guillermo was my father's older brother. They were very close."

  Now he's giving me this rundown on the family-my grand-uncle who played the ponies and chased women-to make me feel close and part of things. If you can't trust your own family, who can you trust?

  "Shortly after the house was built, your granduncle Guillermo bet more money than he could afford on a horse he owned. It lost, and he found himself in trouble and had to turn to his father for help. He would be, of course, my grandfather and your great -grandfather.
Your great-grandfather married Maria Elena, the sec-ond daughter of Edwardo Pueyrred¢n, which is where you and I, Cletus, get our Pueyrred¢n blood."

  That's nice. What the hell is Pueyrred¢n blood?

  "As my father related the story to me, Grandfather helped Un-cle Guillermo out of his financial difficulties. Of course, Uncle Guillermo knew he would, for the honor of the family. He had done so before, and he would do so again. But this time Grand-father extracted a price. He bought Uncle Guillermo's house. Un-cle Guillermo used the money to pay his debt of honor. And then Grandfather told him he intended to put it on the market, since he didn't need it, and Guillermo could not afford to buy it back. Thus, it would be necessary for Uncle Guillermo to move out, and to live and work at San Pedro y San Pablo until such time..."

  "Saints Peter and Paul?" Clete asked, confused.

  "Our estancia," Frade explained. "Since you are going to be here for some time, you will of course visit there: It will, of course, be yours one day. Someday, I hope, in the far distant future."

  Did I hear that correctly? I have suddenly become heir appar-ent? Good thought, Pop. The heir apparent will certainly tell you anything about himself you care to know.

  "Uncle Guillermo, of course, thought this would be a tempo-rary arrangement, that he would spend a couple of months at San Pedro y San Pablo until things calmed down with Grandpapa. But Grandpapa was annoyed with him (though Grandpapa was not serious about putting the house on the market). When Daddy- your grandfather-married, his father--your great-grandfather- gave the house on Libertador to him as a wedding present. I was born there. When your grandfather died, he passed his home to my father. I live mere now-a money sewer on Avenida Coronel Diaz in Palermo. My father did not wish to sell the Libertador house, for even then they were talking of building apartment buildings along Libertador, and the land value was rising, so he turned it into a guest house. I have always felt that Daddy would give the house to me on my marriage, but God called him home before that could happen."

  El Coronel Jorge Guillermo Frade stopped, quickly pulled the crisp white handkerchief from his breast pocket, grimaced, and loudly blew his nose. "Disculpeme"-excuse me-he said.

  My God, he's crying! Am I supposed to believe that's for real?

  "Disculpame," he repeated, dabbing at his eyes with the hand-kerchief. "Something was stuck in my throat. As I was saying, when your mother came here as my bride, we lived in the Libertador house when we were in the city. To her, living in the house on Avenida Coronel Diaz was like living in a museum. You were not born there, Cletus, but it was from the Libertador house, when your mother's time came, that I took her to the hospital where you were born."

  He blew his nose loudly again, and picked up his wineglass and drained it.

  He's really shameless. And good. If I hadn't figured the sonofabitch out, I'd really start to think he was shedding tears at the memory of my mother.

  "After we have our lunch, if they ever get around to serving it," he said, "we will drive over mere and you will decide if you would be comfortable there."

  [FOUR]

  Clete was to remember the drive from the Officers' Club to the house on Libertador for a long time. His father drove. He left the Officers' Club with a squeal of tires on the cobblestones, then raced through town practically flat out, blowing the very loud horn at whoever had the effrontery to place a car in his path, weaving in and out of the traffic-which was six lanes in each direction along Avenida Libertador. Just as Clete noticed the en-trance to the racetrack, he made a sudden U-turn, tires squealing again, the huge Horche leaning dangerously, and pulled up before a stone building with an elaborate facade, where he slammed on the brakes.

  His father stared at him triumphantly.

  "It will be necessary to place the fate of the Horche in the merciful hands of God," he announced. "It takes them forever to open the damned gates, and I have urgent need of the bano"- a toilet.

  He left the car and walked quickly to the door of the house, where he lifted a huge brass knocker and banged it half a dozen times. The door was opened by an attractive young woman in a maid's uniform. Frade walked past her, called over his shoulder, "You will please excuse me a moment," and disappeared through a door.

  The power of suggestion, Clete thought. My back teeth are now floating.

  He was alone for perhaps two minutes, looking around the sparsely furnished room-heavy, wooden, leather-upholstered chairs and couches, and a round table with a silver bowl of flow-ers in the center-and then a short, plump, gray-haired woman in a gray dress appeared. She smiled.

  "May I offer you something, Se¤or? A cup of coffee per-haps?"

  "Yo soy Cletus Frade," Clete said. "I am waiting for my father."

  "Pardon?"

  "I am Cletus Frade, el Coronel Frade's son. I am waiting for him."

  The woman clapped her hands in front of her, fingers extended. She did it again and again.

  "Madre de Dios," she said; tears ran down her face and she began to sob.

  "It would be a kindness, Cletus," his father's voice came softly, from behind him, "if you permitted Se¤ora Pellano to embrace you. She cared for you as an infant."

  Cletus looked back at the woman and then, somewhat embar-rassed, held his arms open. She wrapped her arms around him, put her face on his chest, and sobbed unashamedly.

  "A bit overemotional, perhaps," Frade said. "But she means well."

  Clete, very uncomfortable, nevertheless gave the woman all the time she wanted, until she finally pushed herself away.

  "Pardon, Se¤or," she said.

  "I am very pleased to meet you, Se¤ora," Clete said. It was the only thing he could think of to say.

  "You can see his mother in his eyes, God grant that she rests with the angels and in peace," Se¤ora Pellano said.

  "Yes, I saw that," el Coronel Jorge Guillermo Frade said with emotion, and then found it necessary to blow his nose again. Then he cleared his throat. "Se¤ora Pellano, I am going to show Cletus the house. If he finds it to his liking, he will be staying here. Perhaps you would be good enough to bring some coffee to the master suite?"

  "S¡, mi Coronel," Se¤ora Pellano said.

  I'm surprised he didn't order more booze. Why? Probably be-cause he figures now that I've been convinced that we're all one big loving family, he wants to make sure I'm not too drunk to answer his questions when the questioning session begins.

  The tour ended when Frade ushered his son up a narrow flight of

  steps in the back of the house into a large suite on the top floor.

  "There's an elevator," el Coronel said, pointing. Clete turned and saw a sliding door. "The stairs are for the servants, or, it was said, for ladies whom Uncle Guillermo brought in by the rear door.

  "You normally keep shutters closed against me afternoon sun in the summer," Frade went on as he walked to the front of the room from the elevator, "but I will raise them to show you the vista."

  He pulled hard, grunting, on a strip of canvas next to one of the windows, and a vertical shutter covering a French door lead-ing to a balcony creaked upward.

  "There, of course, is the Hipodromo," he said, pointing. "And the English Tennis Club. Beyond it is the River Plate. One day there will be an aeropuerto between here and the river; and there is talk of building a course for el Golf over there to the left. Do you play golf, Cletus?"

  "Yes, Sir."

  "Of course, and tennis, too. I will arrange for guest member-ships at the English Tennis Club and at my golf club."

  How the hell did he know I play tennis?

  "In the afternoon, and at night, when the sun is down, you catch the wind from the river," Frade said.

  Clete heard the elevator and turned in time to see the door slide open. Se¤ora Pellano and the young maid who had opened the door were inside a beautifully paneled small elevator. Se¤ora Pel-lano was carrying a coffee service, and the maid was carrying a tray with whiskey.

  "So what do you think, Cletus? Would you be comfo
rtable here?" Frade asked as he collapsed into a leather armchair.

  "The house is beautiful," Clete said.

  It was not as large as it looked. Most of the rooms were small. In square feet, it was probably not as big as the house on St. Charles Avenue. And for that matter, there were probably more square feet in the houses in Midland and on me ranch. But it was inarguably more elegant than any of them, with crystal chande-liers in most of the rooms and corridors, and ornate bronze ban-isters on the stairway. And the luxuriously furnished suite which occupied all of the top floor certainly proved that Granduncle Guillermo knew how to take care of himself.