W. IV - Honor Bound 05 - The Honor of Spies

"Why would I want to do that?"

"Because the brothers want to see if you approve of their cleaning of the Frade tomb."

"Since I don't think you're trying to be funny, you can have a little wine."

"You are so kind," Welner said as he sat down in the other wicker chair.

Frade poured wine into the priest's glass.

"Being kind gets me in all kinds of trouble," Frade said. "By 'the brothers,' you mean the monks who run the cemetery?"

"No. I meant the brothers. Are you interested in the difference between monks and brothers?"

"Spare me. Why did they clean the tomb?"

"Because the marble was dirty, and I understand there was a little corrosion here and there."

"I think I'm beginning to understand. In addition to my saying 'thank you,' they would not be offended if I slipped them an envelope stuffed with money?"

"That would be very nice of you, if you should feel so inclined."

"Am I supposed to believe that you drove all the way over here from Claudia's just to tell me that?"

"I had a few other things on my mind."

"For example?"

"How did you find the United States?"

"Well, I set the compass on north-northwest, and eventually, there it was, right out in front of the airplane."

The priest shook his head tolerantly.

"Things went well?"

"All the pilots of South American Airways now have their air transport rating, if that's what you're asking."

"The problem of insurance has been resolved?"

"It's a done deal," Frade said.

"That's good to hear."

"Why do I have this feeling that, having beat around the bush long enough, you are about to get to your real reason for coming over here?"

"I happened to be driving past your house on Avenida Libertador--"

"Ah-ha! And was that before or after your spies on the premises--"

"Getting right to the point, Cletus: Why did Juan Domingo Peron suddenly stop accepting your kind hospitality?"

"Now that you mention it, it probably had something to do with what I said to him."

"And what was that?"

"If I remember correctly, and I usually do, what I said was, 'One more thing, Tio Juan, you degenerate sonofabitch. You're going to have to find someplace else for your little girls. I want you out of here by tomorrow.' Or words to that effect."

"You didn't!" Welner blurted.

"Tell him, Enrico."

The priest looked at Enrico, who nodded.

"Are you out of your mind, Cletus?" Welner asked.

"Not so far as I know. I confess to being a little annoyed with my godfather at the time."

"About what?"

"Well, just before I said that, he pointed a pistol at me. I get very annoyed when people point pistols at me. And so does Enrico. For a couple of seconds there, I thought Enrico's shotgun might go off and cause a tragic accident."

Welner again looked at Enrico, who again nodded.

"What set this off?" Welner asked.

"Well--are you sure you want to know?"

"Yes, I'm sure."

"Saved by the belle," Frade then said.

"Excuse me?"

"Belle with an 'e' at the end. As in: 'Belle on horseback.' Drink your wine, Father, before the posse gets here and the sheriff tries to shut us off before dinner."

When Frade had awakened that morning, he'd been alone in bed. It was long after first light, and Dorotea was nowhere around. He found a note stuck with a blob of Vaseline onto the bathroom mirror:

Darling, I didn't have the heart to wake you. Madison and I have taken Mr. Fischer to see his family. Be back for lunch or earlier. Dorotea.

Frade now pointed at the break in the trees, and Welner looked where he pointed.

A line of people on horseback, led by Dona Dorotea and trailed by Wilhelm Fischer, Captain Madison R. Sawyer III, and half a dozen peones, was coming toward them at a walk.

This was lost on Father Welner, but there was more than a passing similarity to a scene in a Western movie where the posse returns from cutting off the bandits at the pass. Everyone but Fischer was holding a long arm either cradled in the arm or upright, with the butt resting on the saddle. Dorotea had a double-barreled shotgun, and Sawyer a Thompson submachine gun with a fifty-round drum magazine. Everything else was there except dead bandits tied across saddles.

Dorotea, Sawyer, and Fischer walked their horses to the verandah, dismounted, tied the horses to a hitching rail, and went onto the verandah.

"Howdy," Frade said. "How about a little something to cut the dust of the trail?"

Dorotea looked at her husband and shook her head. Then she kissed her husband affectionately and the priest formally.

"Father, this is Mr. Wilhelm Fischer," Dorotea said. "He's come all the way from South Africa to see how we grow grapes and make wine. Willi, this is Father Welner, an old and dear friend."

Frade saw the look on Welner's face.

"Hey, Padre," Frade said as Welner and Fischer shook hands, "you ever hear that curiosity killed the cat?"

The priest did not reply directly.

"Welcome to Argentina, Mr. Fischer," he said.

III

[ONE]

Estancia Santa Catalina

Near Pila

Buenos Aires Province, Argentina

2115 13 August 1943

Cletus Frade was well turned out in a tweed suit from London's Savile Row for the "supper" la Senora Claudia de Carzino-Cormano was giving to mark the return of Frade from the United States. "Supper" was a code word. "Dinner" would have meant black-tie. Frade had one of those, too, also from Savile Row. He also had a silk dressing gown and two dozen shirts from Sulka's in Paris.

All of the clothing had been his father's. He was comfortable wearing it, because when he had found it in one of the two wardrobes in the master suite of the big house, it all had been in unopened boxes.

A tailor from Buenos Aires had been summoned to adjust the unused clothing to fit Clete--not much had been required--and to adjust the clothing that his father actually had worn to fit Enrico. His father had been, to use a term from Midland, Texas, where Clete had been raised, something of a clotheshorse.

Frade had observed at the time that he now had all the clothing he would need for his lifetime.

He would not have been mistaken for a Londoner, however, or even for an Argentine who patronized the tailors of Savile Row or the linen shops on the Rue de Castiglione in Paris. Because when he climbed down from the driver's seat of the Horch before the verandah of the big house of Estancia Santa Catalina, not only was he wearing a gray Stetson "Cattleman" hat, but when his trouser legs were pulled up, they revealed not silken hose but the dully gleaming leather calf of Western boots, finely tooled, and bearing his initials in contrasting red leather.

There were a dozen large automobiles already parked at Claudia's big house, including two Rolls-Royces, two Cadillacs, half a dozen Mercedeses, and a pair of Packards, one of them Father Welner's. He didn't see the olive-drab Mercedes that was provided to el Coronel Juan D. Peron as the Argentine secretary of state for labor and welfare.

The Rolls-Royce Wraith Saloon Touring limousine belonged to his uncle, Humberto Valdez Duarte, who was the managing director of the Anglo-Argentine Bank. In Argentina, managing director translated to chairman of the board. Duarte, a tall, slender man of forty-six, was married to Beatriz Frade de Duarte, Clete's father's sister.

The 1939 Rolls-Royce Phantom III James Young-bodied "Drop Head" (convertible) belonged to Clete's father-in-law, Enrico Mallin, managing director of the Sociedad Mercantil de Importacion de Productos Petroliferos (SMIPP). Mallin--a forty-two-year-old Argentine who stood six-foot-two, weighed one hundred ninety-five pounds, and had a full head of dark-brown hair and a massive, immaculately trimmed mustache--didn't like his son-in-law at all. And the feeling was mutual.