They walked across the sidewalk to the fence—made of what looked like gold-tipped ten-foot spears—and pushed a doorbell mounted in the gate.
“That,” von Deitzberg said, pointing to a finely detailed family crest set in the gate, “is presumably the Frade coat of arms?”
“I would suppose so, Herr General.”
The lock buzzed and Peter pushed the gate open, allowing von Deitzberg to walk ahead of him for the thirty feet from the gate to the shallow flight of stairs leading to the front door. The Frade crest was also in stained glass on the door of the large, four-story, turn-of-the-century masonry mansion. The door was opened by a smiling, middle-aged woman in a black dress with crisply starched white collar and cuffs. “El General von Deitzberg to see el Coronel Perón,” Peter said.
“El Coronel will receive you in the library, caballeros,” she said, and motioned them across the foyer.
A middle-aged woman, similarly dressed, had greeted Peter with the same kind of warm smile the last time he had been in the Frade guest house. The killers-for-hire Grüner had sent to the house to assassinate Cletus Frade had slit her throat in the kitchen before going upstairs to deal with Cletus.
“If the Herr General prefers, I could wait here,” Peter said, indicating one of the chairs lining the foyer wall.
“I want you with me,” von Deitzberg said. “I don’t speak much Spanish, and you can interpret.”
“Jawohl, Herr General.”
“As well as hone your skills of observation and intuition,” von Deitzberg added with a smile.
The housekeeper pushed open the door to the library and stepped inside. Juan Domingo Perón, in a well-cut dark-blue suit, rose from a dark red leather armchair and smiled when they entered the room. “Guten Abend,” he said in correct but heavily accented German. “It is a pleasure to see you again, Manfred.”
“Thank you for receiving me, Juan Domingo,” von Deitzberg said in German, bowed, clicked his heels, and then put out his hand.
Perón took it and then looked at Peter.
“A sus órdenes, mi Coronel,” Peter said, clicking his heels and bowing his head.
“And it is always a pleasure to see you, my young friend,” Perón said, stretching out his hand with a warm smile. “And tonight especially, when you are going to be very useful to an Argentine who speaks terrible German, and a German whose Spanish is a little less than perfect.”
“It will be a pleasure to be of service, mi Coronel,” Peter said. “But your German sounds fine to me.”
“First things first,” Perón said, smiling, in Spanish. “Would you please translate ‘What may I offer you to drink?’”
Peter did so.
“First, Juan Domingo, let me say what a beautiful house this is,” von Deitzberg said in German. “Then I will have a glass, if that would be possible, of your very good Arg
entine beer.”
Peter translated.
Perón nodded and looked at the housekeeper. “Señora Lopez, would you bring us some beer, and perhaps some cheese and ham and crackers?”
“Sí, Señor.”
“And after that, we can take care of ourselves,” Perón said.
Except for von Deitzberg, who walked to a wall and complimented the “exquisite paneling,” not another word was said until the housekeeper and a maid had delivered two silver Champagne coolers, each holding several bottles of beer, and two silver serving trays loaded with hors d’oeuvres. This happened so quickly that it was obvious it had all already been prepared. They then left the room.
“This beautiful building, Manfred—please translate for me, Mayor von Wachtstein—was owned, until his murder, by my lifelong friend el Coronel Jorge Guillermo Frade.”
Peter translated. Von Deitzberg did not reply.
“It is now owned by his son, my godson, Mayor Cletus Frade. In the kitchen of this house, the housekeeper, whom I knew for many years, was brutally murdered by assassins sent to kill my godson.”
Peter translated again, hoping his surprise at what amounted to an accusation was not evident.
“I was not aware of the history of the house, Juan Domingo,” von Deitzberg said, waited for Peter to translate, and then went on: “But I cannot think of a better place for me to tell you what I have been sent from Germany to say.”