“I think that’s possible,” Clete said.
“Why would he want to do that?”
“All kinds of possibilities,” Clete said. “The bottom line to all my thinking on the way up is that my Tío Juan is a lot smarter than I’ve been giving him credit for being.”
Graham grunted. “I tried to make that point to you.”
Frade raised his glass in a gesture of a toast, took a long sip of the drink, and when he’d swallowed and exhaled, went on: “Too smart—knowing Dorotea and I were going to the house—to leave something incriminating just lying around where I was likely to find it. And I thought that he’s smart enough to have put a hair or something in the lid of the map case that would tell him it had been opened.”
“You’re right, Alex,” Hughes said. “Our little Cletus has developed a real feel for the spy business, hasn’t he?”
“Fuck you, Howard,” Clete said sharply, raising his glass in Hughes’s direction in another mock toast, and taking another drink.
Hughes looked at him coldly.
“What did you say?” he asked incredulously after a moment.
“You’re out of line, Howard,” Graham said. “Clete, when I told him what I think of you, what Allen Dulles thinks of you, it was complimentary. The phrase ‘Little Cletus’ never came up.”
Unrepentant, Hughes blurted: “I’ve known him since he was in short pants, for God’s sake!”
“That was a long fucking time ago, Howard,” Clete said. “I’m a big boy now. The next time you say something like that to me, I’ll knock your goddamn teeth down your throat.”
Hughes assumed a boxing position. “Just a precaution, Major Frade, sir, in case you don’t take this as a compliment.”
“What?”
Hughes moved his fists and his feet around like a boxer.
Clete fought off the temptation to smile.
Hughes went on: “Boy, he’s really the old man’s grandson, ain’t he, Colonel Graham, sir?”
“Oh, shit,” Clete said, and laughed.
“I would take that as both a compliment and an apology, Clete,” Graham said.
“Still, I think I’d rather whip his ass,” Clete said, but he was smiling.
Graham, also smiling, asked, “Can we now get back to the spy business?”
“I’d much rather whip Howard’s ass,” Clete said.
“Be that as it may, Major Frade,” Graham said, “you were about to tell us why you think Perón wanted you to see what he had in his map case.”
Frade sipped at his glass, shrugged, then said, “There’s a lot of possibilities, but as absurd as this may sound, I think he might be trying to turn me.”
“That’s interesting,” Graham said. “Why would he want to do that?”
“He’s got all of his ducks in a row but me,” Clete said.
“He’s the éminence grise behind the president now, and—”
“When I knew him he didn’t know what that meant,” Hughes said.
“God damn it, Howard!” Graham snapped. “Enough. And I mean it.”
Hughes threw up both hands in apology and surrender.