“Hola, Padre,” Clete said.
“Hola, Cletus. I only learned that you were in Argentina three days ago. It was impossible for me to come to Buenos Aires until today.”
Clete said nothing.
“Is it an embarrassment for you if I call there?” Jorge Guillermo Frade asked.
“No, Sir. Not at all. You just caught me a little off base.”
“‘Off base’? Of course, the baseball.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“I would like to see you, Cletus.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Would tomorrow be convenient? Luncheon, perhaps, here at my home. I could send a car for you…”
“No,” Clete said. Why did I say “no”? “I have business downtown tomorrow morning. At the Alvear Palace Hotel. Could we meet there?”
“Certainly. Give me a time.”
“Noon. I’ll meet you in the lobby at noon.”
“I will be there.”
“How are you going to recognize me?”
“That will be no problem,” his father said. “I will look forward to seeing you at noon. Thank you, Cletus.”
The phone went dead.
I have just talked to my father. He found out I’m here and called me up. He invited me to lunch. A belated sense of being a father? Simple courtesy? Or simple curiosity. If I had a son, I’d at least want to see what he looks like.
“I’ll be goddamned!” Clete heard himself say.
Nice, in front of the Mallíns.
He exhaled audibly as he replaced the telephone in its cradle, then turned to face Mommy, Daddy, and the Virgin Princess. They were all looking at him with understandable curiosity.
“That was my father,” Clete announced.
The looks on the faces of Mommy and Daddy changed from curiosity to surprise, or confusion. The look on the face of the Virgin Princess changed to disbelief.
“Your father?” Enrico Mallín asked, visibly baffled by the announcement. “He’s here? In Buenos Aires?”
Clete was surprised at Mallín’s reaction. Considering that Enrico Mallín had been doing business with Howell Petroleum for years, and had actually stayed with the old man on St. Charles Avenue, he had naturally presumed that Mallín had been treated, at least once, to the old man’s standard “Oh, let me tell you about that three-star sonofabitch Hor-gay Goool-yermo Frah-day” diatribe, and that good manners, not ignorance, were the reason why the subject of his father had not come up.
Is that yet another example of the old man’s “The Bottom Line Is All That Matters” philosophy? He didn’t want to lose Mallín as a source of revenue. And that might have happened if Mallín—or Mallín’s father—had known about the bad blood between the old man and my father.
“He lives here,” Clete said. “I was born here. Until just now, I thought you knew.”
“No, I didn’t,” Mallín said. “He lives here? He’s an Argentine?”
“A retired Army officer,” he said.
“But you’re an American,” Pamela blurted.