Estancia Santa Catalina
Near Pila
Buenos Aires Province, Argentina
2320 13 August 1943
Cletus Frade was already annoyed when Father Welner came up to him in the library, where, over postdinner brandy and cigars, he was talking business with Humberto Duarte, Gonzalo Delgano, and Guillermo de Filippi, SAA’s chief of maintenance. Frade, at Delgano’s suggestion, had hired de Filippi away from Aeropostal, the Argentine airline, to work for SAA.
Like Delgano, de Filippi was a former officer of the Argentine army air service. According to Delgano, he had gone to Aeropostal after he had failed a flight physical and could medically retire. Frade wasn’t sure how true this story was. It was entirely possible that de Filippi, like Delgano, was actually working for the Bureau of Internal Security and that el Coronel Alejandro Bernardo Martín had ordered Delgano to get SAA to hire him as another means of keeping an eye on SAA.
But it wasn’t this that bothered Frade, who knew that Martín and BIS were going to watch SAA as a hawk watches a prairie dog. It was de Filippi himself. Behind his back, when talking to Delgano, he called de Filippi “Señor Mañana,” which made reference to de Filippi’s standard reply when asked when something he had been told to do would be done. Mañana was the Spanish word for “tomorrow.”
De Filippi had just told Frade that it would not be the day after mañana, but the day after the day after mañana before the Lodestar that Clete and Delgano had flown from Burbank would be ready to fly to Rosario, Córdoba, and Mendoza.
“May I see you a moment, Don Cletus?” the priest asked.
Frade held up a finger to ask Welner to wait, then turned to de Filippi.
“Tell you what we’re going to do, Guillermo,” Frade said. “Two things. One: It is now standard company policy that the absolute maximum turnaround time for any of our aircraft not requiring scheduled maintenance—like, for example, a one-hundred-hour overhaul—is twelve hours. Two: The day after mañana, since Gonzo and I are trying to get this airline off the ground sometime this year, SAA will rent my Lodestar for our trip. Any problem with that, Guillermo?”
He didn’t wait to hear Señor Mañana’s reply, if any, instead pushing himself somewhat awkwardly out of his chair—he had a large cigar in one hand and a large brandy snifter in the other—and motioned with his head toward a relatively unoccupied corner of the library.
When the priest had followed him there, Frade said unctuously, “Tell me how I may help you, my son.”
Welner, smiling, shook his head in resignation.
“I don’t suppose it has occurred to you that the way you jumped all over de Filippi might be counterproductive?”
“On the other hand, it might not. Mañana is not a good way to do business.”
“This is Argentina, Cletus. Not the U.S. Corps of Marines.”
“I’ve noticed. Your nickel, Padre.”
“Excuse me?”
“An Americanism. Since you dropped a nickel in the telephone to talk to me, the presumption is that you had something to say.”
“I never heard that before. What I wanted to ask, Cletus, is if I might stay at Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo tonight.”
“Why would you want to do that?”
“I presumed I was invited on the bird shoot tomorrow.”
Oh, shit. I thought I’d gotten rid of him.
“If you would be so kind as to put me up,” Welner went on, “I wouldn’t have to get up in the wee hours to drive over there. And if I left here, some other of Claudia’s guests could spend the night.”
“You’re a bird shooter?”
“Does that surprise you?”
“Yeah, it does.”
“Did you notice the four Browning over-and-under shotguns in the gun cabinet to the left?”
“Yeah, I did. Two identical Diamond Grade .16s and two .28s. It made me curious.”