"Sorry," Clete said.
"Your father is in the Edificio Libertador," Claudia said.
"We just came from there."
"I'm sure he would like it, but I found it rather macabre."
"It was impressive," Clete said. "But, yeah, I think el Coronel would like it."
A maid appeared with a bucket of ice.
Too soon to be in response to Alicia's sending for someone, Clete decided. Somebody decided we would need a drink.
"Your aunt Beatrice was over there all day. She came back not an hour ago. We are to have a small-family, I suppose-dinner."
"How is she?" Clete asked.
"She's not here," Claudia said. "She's in the arms of Jesus and/or morphia."
"Mother!" Alicia said, shocked.
"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that. Forgive me."
There was a barely audible tap on the corridor door, and when Humberto Valdez Duarte turned his head to it, he saw the door open just wide enough to show his butler's face, his eyebrows asking permission to enter.
Duarte, a tall, slender man of forty-seven, who wore his thick black hair long at the sides and brushed slickly back, held out his hand, palm outward, and shook his head "no."
He quickly swung his feet off his wife's delicate, pink and pale-blue silk-upholstered chaise longue, on which he had been resting with a cup of coffee, and walked out of the bedroom and through the sitting, to the door.
"Se¤or Frade is here, Se¤or," the butler said.
"Thank God!" Duarte said softly.
"I put him, and Capitan Lauffer of the Husares, in the reception, with the Carzino-Cormanos."
"Fine. Please offer them whatever they wish, and tell them the Se¤ora and I will join them shortly.
The butler nodded, then withdrew his head from the door and closed it softly.
Duarte went back into the bedroom. Beatrice Frade de Duarte was sitting before her vanity in her slip, brushing her long black hair. She smiled at him in the mirror. His wife was six months older than he was, a tall, slim woman with large dark eyes and a dazzling smile.
"What was that, carino?" she asked.
"Cletus is here."
"Oh, good! In time for dinner."
"He has Capitan Lauffer of the Husares with him. What would you like me to do about him?"
"Invite the Capitan to join us, of course. I've always liked him, and you know how fond Jorge was of him."
"Would you like me to go to them now, or wait until you're ready?"
"You go down now, of course, offer my apologies, and tell them I'll be there shortly."
He walked to the vanity, smiled at his wife in the mirror, touched her head, and finally bent over and kissed it. She smiled and put up her hand and caught his.
Then he turned and left the room.