Honor Bound (Honor Bound 1)

“Yo soy Cletus Frade,” Clete said. “I am waiting for my father.”

“Pardon?”

“I am Cletus Frade, el Coronel Frade’s son. I am waiting for him.”

The woman clapped her hands in front of her, fingers extended. She did it again and again.

“Madre de Dios,” she said; tears ran down her face and she began to sob.

“It would be a kindness, Cletus,” his father’s voice came softly, from behind him, “if you permitted Señora Pellano to embrace you. She cared for you as an infant.”

Cletus looked back at the woman and then, somewhat embarrassed, held his arms open. She wrapped her arms around him, put her face on his chest, and sobbed unashamedly.

“A bit overemotional, perhaps,” Frade said. “But she means well.”

Clete, very uncomfortable, nevertheless gave the woman all the time she wanted, until she finally pushed herself away.

“Pardon, Señor,” she said.

“I am very pleased to meet you, Señora,” Clete said. It was the only thing he could think of to say.

“You can see his mother in his eyes, God grant that she rests with the angels and in peace,” Señora Pellano said.

“Yes, I saw that,” el Coronel Jorge Guillermo Frade said with emotion, and then found it necessary to blow his nose again. Then he cleared his throat. “Señora Pellano, I am going to show Cletus the house. If he finds it to his liking, he will be staying here. Perhaps you would be good enough to bring some coffee to the master suite?”

“Sí, mi Coronel,” Señora Pellano said.

I’m surprised he didn’t order more booze. Why? Probably because he figures now that I’ve been convinced that we’re all one big loving family, he wants to make sure I’m not too drunk to answer his questions when the questioning session begins.

The tour ended when Frade ushered his son up a narrow flight of steps in the back of the house into a large suite on the top floor.

“There’s an elevator,” el Coronel said, pointing. Clete turned and saw a sliding door. “The stairs are for the servants, or, it was said, for ladies whom Uncle Guillermo brought in by the rear door.

“You normally keep shutters closed against the afternoon sun in the summer,” Frade went on as he walked to the front of the room from the elevator, “but I will raise them to show you the vista.”

He pulled hard, grunting, on a strip of canvas next to one o

f the windows, and a vertical shutter covering a French door leading to a balcony creaked upward.

“There, of course, is the Hipódromo,” he said, pointing. “And the English Tennis Club. Beyond it is the River Plate. One day there will be an aeropuerto between here and the river; and there is talk of building a course for el Golf over there to the left. Do you play golf, Cletus?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Of course, and tennis, too. I will arrange for guest memberships at the English Tennis Club and at my golf club.”

How the hell did he know I play tennis?

“In the afternoon, and at night, when the sun is down, you catch the wind from the river,” Frade said.

Clete heard the elevator and turned in time to see the door slide open. Señora Pellano and the young maid who had opened the door were inside a beautifully paneled small elevator. Señora Pellano was carrying a coffee service, and the maid was carrying a tray with whiskey.

“So what do you think, Cletus? Would you be comfortable here?” Frade asked as he collapsed into a leather armchair.

“The house is beautiful,” Clete said.

It was not as large as it looked. Most of the rooms were small. In square feet, it was probably not as big as the house on St. Charles Avenue. And for that matter, there were probably more square feet in the houses in Midland and on the ranch. But it was inarguably more elegant than any of them, with crystal chandeliers in most of the rooms and corridors, and ornate bronze banisters on the stairway. And the luxuriously furnished suite which occupied all of the top floor certainly proved that Granduncle Guillermo knew how to take care of himself.

“Señora Pellano,” Frade said as she poured him a scotch, “if Señor Cletus were to move in here, have I your promise you will care for him well?”