“Sorry,” Clete said. “You know what I mean.”
“I’m not sure I do,” Welner said.
“In Texas, in these circumstances, the guilty couple would make a quick trip to Reno, or maybe over the border into Mexico, and come back a married couple. This was supposed to be a small, private ceremony.”
“This is not Texas,” Welner said.
“How can it be—and that ‘small, private ceremony’ I got from you—how can it be small and private when there’s going to be two hundred people here for the wedding?”
“This is not Texas,” Welner repeated. “There are people who had to be invited.”
Clete resumed walking toward his—formerly el Coronel’s—apartment, a bottle of wine in each hand.
“Why?”
“Because they are family friends and would be deeply hurt if they weren’t,” Welner said. “For example, el Coronel Juan Domingo Perón, whose name you mistakenly crossed off of Claudia’s guest list.”
Clete opened a door into the house by standing on his left foot and then pushing on the lever handle with his cowboy-boot-shod right foot. He turned and looked at the priest. “That wasn’t a mistake,” he said. “I crossed the sonofabitch’s name off on purpose.”
“And after discussing the matter with me, Señora de Carzino-Cormano put it back on.”
“Christ!” Clete said disgustedly, and resumed walking down the wide corridor to his apartment. Welner walked quickly after him.
A tanned, stocky, short-haired, blond woman in her forties, who was wearing a simple black dress with a single strand of pearls, came out of the side door that led to one of the apartments and blocked Clete’s path.
“I was about to come get you,” she announced. “And where are you going with that wine?” And then she saw Welner. “How nice to see you, Father,” she added and, smiling, offered him her hand.
“Mrs. Howell,” Welner said.
That was a mother, a good strong mother, talking to a son. She may not have borne Cletus, but she raised him from infancy. They are mother and son.
“I was just about to tell him—I spoke with Claudia—that you were coming for lunch. And I wanted him to be cleaner than that.” She gestured at his dirty clothing and grease-stained hands.
“I am en route to the shower,” he said.
“With the wine?”
“With the wine,” he said. “We’re celebrating—you heard?—the Cardinal has agreed to have Dorotéa’s priest in the wedding.”
“I heard,” she said. “And Claudia told me who was responsible. Thank you, Father.”
“I did nothing,” Welner said.
“Why don’t you come with me? And we’ll have a little Champagne to thank you.”
“Father Welner and I are having a private little chat,” Clete said, smiling at her. “You know, man to man? Things a bridegroom should know?”
She smiled and shook her head in resignation. “You don’t have to go with him, Father,” Martha Williamson Howell said. “He has a tendency to believe that what he wants is what everybody wants.”
“In that, Mrs. Howell, he is very much like his father.”
“We’re having lunch in the gazebo,” she said, “in,” she looked at her watch, “twenty-five minutes.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Clete said.
“Go easy on the wine,” she said, and stepped back through the door to her apartment.
Clete went the rest of the way down the corridor to his own apartment, which consisted of a sitting room, a bedroom, and what had been known as “el Coronel’s study.” As soon as he was inside he began to unbutton his shirt. “Open one of these, will you?” he said, handing the priest the wine. “I’ll be out in a minute.”
“With great pleasure,” the priest said, and went to the bar in the sitting room to find glasses and a corkscrew as Clete disappeared into the bedroom.
Welner opened one of the bottles of wine, poured himself a glass, and then walked into el Coronel’s private study.
A thought occurred to him that he’d had many times before: If some scholar ever decided to write The Early Years of Cletus Howell Frade: A Biography, he could do ninety percent of his research right in this room, which General Edelmiro Farrell, a close friend of el Coronel Jorge Guillermo Frade, had described as “Jorge’s shrine to his son.”
Years earlier, Cletus Marcus Howell, Clete’s maternal grandfather, had blamed Jorge Guillermo Frade for the death during her second pregnancy of his daughter and the unborn child. She and her baby—Cletus—were in the United States when she died.
The Old Man had vowed that his grandson would never return to Argentina, where young Cletus had been born, and he had the influence to make good on his vow. When Jorge Guillermo Frade had appeared in Texas to claim his son, he had been arrested by Texas Rangers, thrown in jail for ninety days for trespassing, and then deported into Mexico. The Argentine Ambassador in Washington had reported that the U.S. government would never issue him a visa again.
Thus, Jorge Guillermo Frade had never seen his son from the time he was a year old until he had appeared in Argentina five months before. Nevertheless, with the help of a firm of lawyers in Midland, Texas, where Clete had been raised by his uncle and aunt, he had kept up with him.
There were more than a dozen thick scrapbooks in el Coronel’s private study, filled with clippings from the Midland newspaper—and later, from other newspapers—tracing his son’s life. There were guest lists from children’s fourth-birthday parties; there were notices from the Future Farmers of America; there were reports about Clete’s years at Texas A&M and Tulane in New Orleans, and then of his exploits when he became a Marine and a fighter pilot, whose seven victories over Guadalcanal made him an ace.
The walls of el Coronel’s private study were covered with photographs of his son. And there was a large oil portrait of the late Elizabeth-Ann Howell de Frade holding their infant son Cletus Howell Frade in her arms.
It had been the war, and the war only, that had finally brought father and son together. It had come to the attention of the Office of Strategic Services that the man who would very likely be the next President of the Republic of Argentina had a son who was a Marine officer.
After being discharged from the Marine Corps, ostensibly for medical reasons, Clete had come to Argentina, ostensibly representing Howell Petroleum. Argentina (through the Sociedad Mercantil de Importación de Productos Petrolíferos) imported a substantial portion of its petroleum needs—refined and crude—from Howell Petroleum (Venezuela); thus the cover story was that Cletus was in Argentina to make sure that SMIPP was not diverting petroleum products to the German/Italian/Japanese Axis.
He was actually an OSS agent charged with two missions: First, to establish a relationship with the father he did not know, and if possible to tilt him in favor of the Americans in the war. Second, to somehow arrange for neutral Argentina (whose army was in fact pro-German) to stop offering shelter in Argentine waters to German vessels replenishing German submarines operating in the South Atlantic.
His first residence in Argentina was as a guest in the home of Enrico Mallín, SMIPP’s Managing Director. Mallín had an English wife, a fourteen-year-old son, and a nineteen-year-old blond-haired daughter named Dorotéa (whom Clete thought of at the time as the Virgin Princess).
He had been in the Mallín home less than a week when he met his father for the first time—a very emotional encounter for both of them. That same day, el Coronel had taken him to a mansion on Avenida Libertador overlooking the Buenos Aires racetrack. The house had been built by Clete’s grand-uncle Guillermo, it was explained; since Guillermo’s death, it had been used by the Frade family as a guest house.
It was now Clete’s, it was further explained.
Though el Coronel would brook no argument, the arrangement in fact suited
Clete. It would not only give him a base of operations for his OSS activities he would not have in the Mallín home, but also the Virgin Princess was making it clear that she was not satisfied with the platonic little-sister role he had assigned to her.
Clete’s OSS activities had exacted costs. For starters, the Germans had sent a pair of assassins to the Avenida Libertador house. Warned that they were coming, he had been prepared, and had killed both of them, but not before they had brutally murdered the housekeeper, Señora Marianna Maria Dolores Rodríguez de Pellano, a lifelong Frade family servant who had cared for Clete as an infant and who was Enrico Rodríguez’s sister. But the highest price of all had been the assassination of el Coronel Jorge Guillermo Frade, also ordered by the Germans. Not only had El Coronel assisted his American son in the sinking of the replenishment ship, but the Germans were well aware that el Coronel Frade was the driving force behind the coup d’état the Grupo de Officiales Unidos was planning against the regime of President Ramón S. Castillo. If the revolution succeeded, el Coronel Frade would become President of Argentina; and, influenced by his son, he would certainly tilt Argentina toward the Allies—or worse, engineer a declaration of war on the Axis. In addition to preventing him from becoming president, El Coronel Frade’s assassination would send a message to the GOU: that the Germans rewarded their friends and punished their enemies.
When his father was assassinated, Clete was in the United States (and newly promoted to major in the U.S. Marine Corps), where he was being trained to assume duties—as cover for his OSS activities—as the Assistant Naval Attaché of the U.S. Embassy in Buenos Aires.
His father’s death changed the OSS’s plans for him. As far as the Argentines were concerned, the Argentine-born Cletus Howell Frade was an Argentine citizen. And under Argentine law, on his father’s death he had become sole heir to the Frade fortune, one of the largest in Argentina. Both of these things could be put to use by the OSS.
He had returned to Argentina under cover of a son come home to bury his father and claim his inheritance. On the day he placed his father’s body in the Frade family tomb in the Recoleta cemetery, Dorotéa Mallín had coolly informed him that as a result of one of their (actually infrequent) liaisons, she was carrying his child.
Welner knew most of the details of Clete’s involvement in the coup d’état—in no small part because el Coronel had written Outline Blue, its operations order. The success of Outline Blue had installed General Arturo Rawson in the Pink House as President, and General Pedro Ramírez as Minister of Defense.
During the coup, Clete had flown Rawson (in an Argentine Army Piper Cub) from the revolution’s headquarters at Campo de Mayo, the military base on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, to observe the progress of the two columns of revolutionary troops advancing on the Pink House.
Meanwhile, the Lockheed transport had been kept ready at Campo de Mayo’s airfield. If the coup d’état had failed, Clete would have flown the leaders of the revolution to safety in Uruguay.
The priest also knew that Clete had been involved in two more OSS operations since his return to Argentina. But—despite his normally excellent sources of information—he knew very little about these, except that the first had dealt with a second replenishment ship the Germans had sent into the River Plate, and that the second had something to do with the transfer of Nazi money into Argentina.
Wondering idly what Dorotéa Mallín de Frade would do with the shrine to her husband once she was legally installed in El Patrón’s apartment, Welner took a last look around the room and returned to the sitting room to replenish his glass.
A moment later, Cletus Frade emerged from the bedroom, wearing only a clean pair of khaki trousers, fresh from his shower. He helped himself to a glass of wine. “I don’t like that sonofabitch, Padre,” he said.
Welner had no doubt that the sonofabitch was el Coronel Juan Domingo Perón. “He was your father’s best friend,” he argued.
That’s not entirely true, he thought. Not only because I believe that I was Jorge Frade’s best friend, but also because Perón and Jorge Frade had grown apart as they had grown older. The two men, he knew, had been very close when they were cadets at the Military Academy, and Perón had been best man at Jorge’s wedding, and was Cletus Frade’s godfather.
It is really difficult for men of vastly different means—Perón has only his Army pay—to remain friends.
But not only that: Although publicly, Jorge loyally dismissed the rumors concerning Perón’s personal life as outrageous, I think he knew they were true.
“Best friend?” Clete challenged sarcastically. “I find that very hard to believe.”
“He’s your godfather,” Welner said.
“He’s a goddamned Nazi, and you know it.”
“I don’t know that, and neither do you,” Welner argued.
“He’s toeing the Nazi party line,” Clete said. “‘El Coronel was killed by bandits.’ He knows goddamned well the Germans ordered him killed.”
The priest shrugged. There was no point in arguing about that.
Clete chuckled bitterly. “And he’s a dirty old man,” he said. “Who likes little girls. And don’t tell me I don’t know that. I was in the house on Libertador when he brought one in. She was fourteen. Maybe younger.”
“Judge not, lest ye be judged.”
“I don’t want that sonofabitch at my wedding,” Clete said.
“I get back to my original irrefutable argument, Cletus: This is not Texas. Things are different here. If you are wise, you will learn to understand that, and make the necessary adjustments.”
Welner was very much afraid the argument was about to get out of hand—Clete was his father’s son, just as hardheaded—when Enrico came into the room.
“You’re sorry, but the tubing split, right?” Clete challenged.
“The line is back on the car, Señor Clete, and the oil pressure is now correct,” Enrico said.
“El Padre here has invited el Coronel Perón to my wedding,” Clete responded. “I suppose you think that’s a good idea, too?”
“Of course, Señor Clete,” Enrico said, making it clear the question surprised him. “He was your father’s friend. He is your godfather.”
“Jesus!” Clete said, and shook his head in resignation.
But from the tone of Clete’s voice, Welner concluded that the issue of Juan Domingo Perón had been defused. He was relieved. Cletus Frade would have enough trouble in Argentina without insulting Perón.
“I don’t trust that oil line,” Clete went on. “After lunch, we’ll take it for a ride.”
“Sí, Señor,” Enrico said, “I will bring it to the house.” He nodded his head respectfully to the priest and left the room.
[THREE]
Don Cletus Howell Frade, el patrón of Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo and its 84,205 (more or less) hectares, sat at the head of a table elegantly set for six in a gazebo in the formal English gardens in front of the main house.
At the foot of the table sat his grandfather, Cletus Marcus Howell, a tall, pale, slender, and sharp-featured septuagenarian wearing a gray pin-striped suit. Howell was Chairman of the Board of Howell Petroleum, and of Howell Petroleum (Venezuela). Everyone thought of him, more or less fondly, as “the Old Man.”
Father Welner was sitting to Cletus’s right. Martha Williamson Howell sat across from him, while Martha’s daughters, Marjorie, nineteen, and Elizabeth (Beth), twenty-one, dressed very much like their mother, sat opposite each other. The girls were Cletus’s cousins, but their relationship was that of brother and sisters.
When one of the maids approached the head of the table with a bottle of wine, Cletus turned his wineglass over. The maid moved to Cletus Howell, poured a small amount of wine in his glass, and stepped back to await his judgment. He took a sip, smiled appreciatively, and made a thumbs-up gesture to
the maid, who then walked around the table to fill Mrs. Howell’s glass.
“No wine, Cletus?” the Old Man asked in Spanish, as if surprised.
“Don’t encourage him, Dad,” Martha Howell said, also in Spanish. “I don’t know how much he had before lunch.”
“I’m going to take the Horch for a ride after lunch,” Clete said. “To change the subject. But don’t let me stop you.”
“Oh, I won’t. This isn’t bad,” Howell said, unconsciously switching to English.
“You’ve got it fixed, Clete?” Marjorie asked.
“That’s what I’m going to find out, Squirt,” he said.
“Can I drive it?
“Why not?”
“And me?” Beth asked.
“Females in love should not drive,” Cletus said solemnly.
“What makes you think I’m in love?”
“You have been in love ever since you discovered there are two sexes,” he said. “And I saw you making eyes at that gaucho at the stable last night.”
“Oh, you go to hell, Clete,” she said, blushing.
“What gaucho last night?” Cletus Marcus Howell demanded.
“I was just pulling her chain, Grandpa,” Clete said quickly. “Yeah, Beth, you can come, if you want.”
Is Jorge Guillermo Frade spinning in his casket, Father Welner thought, at the thought of two young norteamericano females driving his beloved Horch?
Two maids began serving empanadas, half-moon-shaped dumplings filled either with chopped, seasoned meat, or blue cheese and ham.
“Is this lunch?” Cletus Marcus Howell asked, looking at the dumpling on his plate with suspicion.
“This is what we Argentines think of as an appetizer, Grandpa,” Cletus said.
“They’re delicious,” Marjorie said. “I love them!”
“I hate to think what might be in them,” the Old Man said.
The faint sound of an aircraft engine caught Cletus’s attention and he tried to look up at the sky. The roof of the gazebo blocked his view. After a moment, he pushed his chair back and walked out of the gazebo and stood looking up at the sky.
Secret Honor Page 13