Perón considered the question for a moment as he waved Ramos into one of the chairs facing his desk.
“From our first day at the academy, I would say,” Perón said. “When they lined us up—me, then Jorge, then you—according to size.” He made a gesture with his hands. “Just before they started screaming at us.”
“I thought of Jorge on my way over here,” Ramos said. “If he were still here, I think he’d agree with my coming to say what I have to say.”
“If Jorge was still here, he’d be over there.” Perón gestured out the windows, which looked down on the Casa Rosada and the Plaza de Mayo.
“He would have made a good, even a great, president.”
“Yes, he would have. Are you finished beating around the bush, Eduardo?”
Ramos nodded.
“There is a plot to assassinate you, Juan Domingo,” he said.
“As you well know,” Perón replied, “every afternoon, after their third martini at the Circulo Militar, a dozen senior officers with nothing better to do sit around deciding which of us should be assassinated.”
“This isn’t like that, Juan Dom
ingo. This threat is bona fide. Even Farrell takes this seriously. You will shortly be arrested for your own protection.”
Perón considered that for a moment.
“What are they upset about now?” he finally asked.
“There’s a long list.”
“And what’s on that long list?”
“Aside from Señorita Evita Duarte, you mean?”
“Aside from my personal life is what I mean.”
“Shall I start with your relations with the Nazis?”
“Which Nazis? The ones we’re supposed to have here in Argentina?”
“Them, too. But what they’re concerned about is the ones in Germany who want to come here.”
“What am I supposed to have done in that regard?”
“Let me back up a little. These people have always been more than a little upset that you didn’t sever your relationship with Rudy Nulder when the rest of us did.”
El Señor Rodolfo Nulder was the director of security at the Secretariat of Labor and Retirement Plans.
“And I was a little upset with people, including you, for your treatment of Rudy after his resignation—”
“He didn’t resign, Juan Domingo. He was cashiered.”
“Rudy is a classmate of ours, Eduardo.”
“And of Jorge Frade’s, who said that if Rudy ever put foot on Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo again he’d kill him. Your loyalty to your friends may be commendable, but the fact is Rudy is a pervert and a cashiered officer.”
“I think we had better drop this subject,” Perón said icily.
Ramos met Perón’s eyes for a long moment before going on.
“It has come to their attention that Rudy Nulder, when you sent him to get our diplomats out of Berlin—”