Griffin W.E.B. - Honor Bound 01 - Honor Bound

Clete opened the package. In a felt-lined walnut box—with 20 rounds of ammunition and accessories, including a spare cylinder—was a Colt Army .44-40 revolver, the old Hog Leg. It was in good shape, but it was obviously a working gun. The blue was well worn, as were the grips, which were nonstandard—personalized. They were of some wood Clete did not recognize, inlaid with silver wire. On one side was again probably the Frade coat of arms; and on the other was probably the regimental crest of the Husares de Pueyrredon, whatever the hell that was.

He removed the cylinder and peered down the barrel. No rust, no pits, but evidence (the lands were worn smooth) that it had been fired a good deal. He replaced the cylinder and was returning the pistol to its box when he heard a knock at the door. "Dinner will be at your pleasure, Se?or," someone called. "Be right there," Clete called.

* * *

El Coronel Jorge Guillermo Frade stood at one end of a table with enough side chairs to seat at least twenty people. It was set, at that end, for two. There was a large centerpiece, a sterling-silver sculpture of a horse at full gallop. There were two silver bowls filled with freshly cut flowers. There were four wineglasses for each of them, and a dazzling display of silverware. An enormous standing rib of beef rested on a large silver platter, and there were at least a dozen other serving dishes, each with a silver cover.

"You had time to freshen up?" Frade asked.

"Yes, Sir. Thank you for the pistol. I'm sorry, I didn't bring ..."

"I didn't expect you to."

He snapped his fingers. A man in a gray cotton jacket appeared immediately and poured a splash of wine in one of the four wineglasses in front of Clete's plate.

“This is a Pinot Noir, from a vineyard in which the family has an interest," he said. "I tend to feel it whets the appetite for beef. Is it all right?"

Clete sipped the wine.

"Very nice," he said, nodding at the man in the gray jacket, who then filled the glass before moving to the colonel's glass.

"That's a fascinating room," Clete said. "How did you get all those clippings down here?"

Frade did not reply. He stood up, and with an enormous knife cut the beef. He laid a two-inch-thick rib on a plate held by a maid, who carried it to Clete and then returned to Frade, who was now holding out a vegetable bowl to her.

Frade waved impatiently at her.

"I will ask her to serve the vegetables and the sauce and the pudding," Frade said. "It is less complicated."

“How did you get your hands on those clippings?”

Frade sat down, pursed his lips, and shrugged.

"Very well," he said. "When your mother came to me as my bride, her dowry was an interest—approximately one quarter ..."

It wasn't approximately a quarter, it was twenty-four-point-five percent, precisely. Christ knows, I've heard that figure often enough!

"... of the outstanding stock of Howell Petroleum. It wasn't then worth what it is now, but even then it was of considerable value. When God called your mother to her heavenly home ..."

Well, that's one way of putting it, I suppose."... it came to me. I considered it, of course, to be yours ..." Jesus Christ! That means that with the third of the twenty-four-point-five percent of Howell Stock Uncle Jim owned and left me, I will own thirty-two point something of Howell. And if the Old Man leaves me a third of his stock — a third of fifty-one percent is seventeen percent, seventeen and thirty-two-point-something is forty-nine-point-something— I will be majority stockholder in Howell Petroleum. And I think he'll leave me more than a third. Sarah's girls don't need the money, and the Old Man likes me best.

Jesus Christ, Cletus Frade, you are an avaricious sonofabitch, aren't you ?

"... to which end I engaged an American attorney, who established a trust fund for you managed by the First National Bank of Midland. I asked him to keep an eye out for anything ..."

"And he hired a clipping service."

"I presume."

"I've been told some unpleasant stories of my mother's death," Clete heard himself say.

"If you don't mind, I would prefer not to discuss the matter."

"I would prefer that you did."

"No one dares talk to me like that. Just who do you think you are?"

"I'm the only son you have."

"You are a guest in my house, and you are insufferably rude."

' 'I told you, the rules are different. I want your version of what happened. If you don't want to give it to me, I will have to presume that my grandfather's version is true.... It paints you as the unmitigated sonofabitch of the century. And if it is true, I don't think I want to be here."

"You dare to call your father a sonofabitch?"

"That's what it looks like from where I'm sitting."

Frade stared down at his plate, then suddenly, furiously, pushed it away from him. It slid a third of the way down the table and then crashed to the floor. The maid made a faint yelping noise and rushed to clean up the mess. "Get out! Get out!" Frade ordered. She scurried from the room.

"You take that from your mother," Frade said to his son. "I know when to stop. Your mother... your mother had a will of iron."

"Is there something wrong with that?"

"There is a time to bend. Nothing is black and white."

"For example?"

"It was necessary for your mother to join my church in order to marry me. For a long time she absolutely refused. I tried to explain to her that I personally didn't care if she lit candles to Satan himself, but that Argentina is by law a Catholic country. To be legally recognized, a marriage has to be performed in a Catholic church. Otherwise, there would be serious problems about our children. In the eyes of the law, they would be bastards, and there would be all sorts of difficulties about inheritance.”

“So she said she would talk with a priest in New Orleans. An ordinary priest was not good enough for your grandfather. If his daughter talked to someone, she would deal with someone important, in this case, his golf-playing friend, the Archbishop. I met that sonofabitch when I was there. I blame a good deal of what happened on him."

On the Archbishop? That's stretching things a little, isn't it?

Clete's father made sudden angry stabbing motions with his leg. For a moment, Clete thought there was a rat or a mouse under the table. But when the maid reappeared, he understood that the call button was mounted on the floor under the table.

"Bring whiskey," Frade ordered. "Scotch."

"And for the young Se?or?"

"Bring him whatever he wants, of course."

"Nothing for me, thank you."

"Then I received a letter from your mother. She wrote that she had been wrong, and that she now understood. She would now be confirmed in my Church and place her life in God's hands and mine. I didn't pay a lot of attention. I have never pretended to understand women and God. But the immediate problem, marriage in church, was over."

The whiskey was delivered. Frade watched impatiently for about thirty seconds as the maid fussed with a silver-handled shot glass, then he took the bottle from her and poured an inch and a half in his glass.

"And then get out," he concluded to her. He waited until the maid fled again before going on.

"So we were married. We went to Europe. It was a splendid time. And then she became pregnant with you. And fell ill. Her doctor informed me that further pregnancies were ill-advised. That was fine with me. We were to have a baby. Two or three babies might increase the chances of having a son, but if the choice was between a second baby and your mother ..."

He took a healthy swallow of his drink.

"I told her, before you were born, that there is some sort of an operation performed during—what is the word— deliverythat prevents future pregnancies. She flatly refused. She said her life was in God's hands; God would protect her. She had sworn a vow before God; she was honor bound.