“Sí. Señor Aragão?”
There was surprise on Aragão’s face, quickly replaced by a smile and the announcement that his car was at the curb.
It was a gray 1940 Ford. It came with a cap-wearing chauffeur. They got in the backseat.
“Take us to the Hotel Aviz,” Aragão ordered regally, then turned to Frade. “The restaurant at the Aviz is better, I think, than at the Britania, and, frankly, there’s a better class of people.”
Clete said nothing.
He thought: What a pompous asshole.
At the Aviz’s restaurant, they were shown to an elaborately set table in a corner, and the moment they sat down, busboys put a screen of wooden panels around them.
“I don’t suppose you know much about Portuguese wine,” Aragão declared. “But if you like Merlot, there’s a very nice Merlot type, Monte do Maio. I sent some over to Graham.”
“I had some. Very nice,” Frade said.
“Well, let’s have some of that, and then we’ll decide on what to eat.”
“Thank you,” Clete said politely.
I’m going to have to work with this guy, so the last thing I want to do is antagonize the sonofabitch.
Aragão ordered the headwaiter, the waiter, and the wine steward around so arrogantly that Clete thought they would probably bow and back away from the table and then spit in the soup they would serve them.
As soon as the wine was delivered—and Aragão had gone through the ritual of sniffing cork, then swirling wine around the glass and his mouth before nodding his reluctant approval—Aragão turned to Frade and announced, “Frankly, I expected a somewhat older man; I have a son your age.”
Frade’s anger flared. His mouth almost ran away with him. At the last instant, he stopped himself.
“Do you?” he asked politely.
“He’s a Marine. He was on Guadalcanal. Now he’s in the Naval Hospital in San Diego.”
Oh, shit!
“I flew with VMF-225 on Guadalcanal,” Clete said. “How badly was he hurt?”
“Rather badly, I’m afraid. But he’s alive. Colonel Graham didn’t mention your Marine service.”
“No reason he should have,” Clete said.
“I served with Graham in France in the First World War. We stayed in touch. And then, when the Corps said I was too old to put on a uniform, I’d heard rumors that Alex was up to something. I went to him and asked if there was anything I could do. And here I am.”
He looked at Frade. Smiling shyly, he said, “Semper Fi!”
“Semper Fi, Señor Aragão,” Clete replied with a grin.
Thank you, God, for putting that cork in my mouth!
In the next hour and a half, Clete learned a good deal more about the pudgy man with the pencil-line mustache and the slicked-back hair.
The briefcase contained all the paperwork for what the newly appointed Lisbon station chief of South American Airways had done, which included renting hangar space—“That may have been premature,” Aragão had said, “as the nose of that airplane you flew in obviously won’t fit in the hangar, much less the rest of it. Not to worry; I’ll deal with it”—office space, arranging for office personnel, the ticket counter at the airport, and personnel to staff that, too.
The list went on and on.
It was only when he finally had finished all that that Aragão, almost idly, said, “While it can wait, one of these days we’ll have to figure out how I’m to be repaid. This really came to a tidy amount.”
“You used your own money to pay for all this?” Clete asked.