The photo albums on the table were full of photographs and newspaper clippings, mostly from the Midland, Texas, Advertiser and the New Orleans Times-Picayune. Since there was no other way for Jorge Guillermo Frade to keep up with the activities of his son, he had hired a lawyer in Midland, and the lawyer had hired a clipping service. Every time Clete's name was mentioned in the newspapers-for example, when he was a guest at some six-year-old's birthday party-it was clipped out and sent to Argentina.
Clete's eyes teared, and his throat was tight.
What the Old Man did to you, Dad-what he did to me-was wrong. You were my father, and I was your son, and he should have let us get to know one another.
He didn't kill my mother. She killed herself. When she converted to Catholi-cism, she went whole hog-not surprising, considering who her father was- and swallowed that horseshit about birth control being a mortal sin- murder-and got herself in the family way even after she was told it would very likely kill her.
And you lied to me, every time the subject came up. My father did not sim-ply put me out of his mind as if I never happened. The proof of that is all this crap in this room. He never got in touch with me because you did everything in your power to keep him from even writing me a goddamned letter.
And he told me, and I believe him, that he considered having me kidnapped and brought here. And the only reason he didn't was that if he did, his sister would have raised me, and she's as nutty as a fruitcake. He didn't have me kid-napped because he thought Martha raising me was better for me than having Beatrice raise me. And he was right.
He didn't forget me. For Christ's sake, the only reason he didn't marry Claudia was because it would have posed problems about my inheritance. He wanted me to have everything he owned.
Another wall of el Coronel Jorge Guillermo Frade's private study was a bookcase. Books that he actually read, Clete had decided the first time he saw them, not books bought by the yard to look good.
When Clete raised his eyes from the leather-bound photo albums, Enrico was tugging at one of its shelves. A four-shelf section of the bookcase swung slowly outward, revealing a substantial-looking safe. There was a combination dial and a small, spoked, stainless-steel wheel. On the safe was the legend Himpell G.m.b.H, Berlin in gold letters.
Enrico leaned over to work the combination.
"While I think of it, you'd better give me the combination," Clete said. "Wait till I find a pencil and some paper."
He went to his father's desk, opened the center drawer, and found both.
"OK?"
"Se¤or Clete, you are going to write the numbers down?" Enrico asked du-biously.
"Let's have them," Clete ordered.
"Right two times, then stop at eleven," Enrico reported reluctantly. "Left, past eleven, to eighteen. Right past eighteen to twenty-two. Left past twenty-two to nine."
Clete wrote the numbers down.
"Let me see if I can work it," he said, and went to the safe. He showed En-rico what he had written down: Right 12. Left 27. Right 26. Left 13.
"That is not what I told you," Enrico said, his curiosity showing.
"It is if you add the year 1943 to it," Clete said. "Eleven and one is twelve; eighteen and nine is twenty-seven, et cetera. Get the idea?"
"S¡, Se¤or Clete," Enrico said. "Clever!"
"I am a clever fellow with a lousy memory," Clete said. "That little trick is very helpful."
He had done the same thing with the telephone numbers Leibermann gave him in the Cafe Colon.
Clete bent over the safe and, reading from the notepaper, worked the com
-bination. The dial turned very smoothly; there was no audible or tactile sensa-tion as he moved the dial to the numbers.
I'm going to look like a fool if this thing doesn't open.
He stopped on thirteen and turned the spoked, stainless steel wheel. Again there was no sound or tactile sensation, but when the wheel had turned its limit, and he pulled on it, the safe door swung smoothly open.
There were two shelves in the safe, dividing it into thirds. The upper shelf held an inch-thick stack of paper held together with a metal fastener, obviously a document of some sort. Clete started to reach for it, then stopped when his eye fell on the butt of a Colt.45 ACP pistol nearly concealed under a large light-blue manila envelope on the second shelf.
What the hell is the.45 for?
A melodramatic scenario came into his mind.