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Father Welner smiled. “He actually said that to his board, Cletus?”
“I believe it, Father,” Perón said. “I know Señor Howell. He is a . . . formidable . . . man.”
“So Jorge led me to believe,” the priest said dryly.
Frade looked at him and thought, You’re a slippery sonofabitch, Welner.
From that answer neither Dowling nor Delgano would suspect that my father and my grandfather loathed and detested each other.
And that you damn well know it.
“But I was just thinking,” Perón went on, “that there’s blood in here, too.”
Now what the hell are you talking about?
“Excuse me?” Claudia said.
“Not only of his grandfather,” Perón explained, “but of his father. Look at him standing there, Claudia, his eyes blazing, his chin thrust forward, his hands on his hips, just daring someone—anyone—to challenge his authority. That doesn’t remind you of Jorge?”
She looked and, after a moment, she nodded.
“Yes, it does,” she said. “I often told Jorge he was the most arrogant man I’d ever known.”
“It is arrogance, my dear Claudia, born of confidence,” Perón said. “And I, for one, applaud it.”
Claudia glared at him, whereupon Perón put action to his words: He began to applaud. Duarte and Dowling looked at him incredulously.
Then Father Welner, smiling, clapped his hands, and, a moment later, Delgano followed. Then without much enthusiasm Duarte and Dowling joined in, and finally Claudia, with no enthusiasm at all.
I will be goddamned! Frade thought, then cut short the applause by gesturing toward Dowling and announcing, “To the business at hand. If you please, señor?”
“Well, you heard me read the radiogram we got—actually Seguro Comercial got—last night from Lloyd’s of London—”
“It should be read into the minutes,” Frade interrupted, “but before you do that, tell me this: Did Seguro Comercial send a letter when they sent you that cable? If so, that should be read into the record, too.”
“What actually happened, Señor Frade, is that the radiogram was delivered to me when it arrived at Seguro Comercial last night.”
“That sounds a little odd,” Frade said. “Why would they do that?”
“I also represent Seguro Comercial, Señor Frade. I thought you knew that.”
“No, I didn’t,” Frade snapped. “How can you represent the both of us? It seems to me you have to be either our lawyer or theirs.”
“Is there some reason I cannot be b
oth?”
“Yeah, there is. Whose side are you going to be on if we take them to court?”
“ ‘Take them to court’?”
“Correct me if I’m wrong,” Frade said, “but we went to them for insurance. And they sold us insurance. We wrote them a very large check. Deal done. Right?”
“That was before they heard from Lloyd’s of London, of course,” Dowling said. “That obviously changes things.”
“Not for me. Not for SAA. Seguro Comercial sold us insurance; therefore, we’re insured. If Seguro Comercial can’t reinsure, that’s their problem, not ours. If they try to get out of our deal, so far as I’m concerned, it’s breach of contract, and we’ll take them to court.”
“Let me try to explain this to you, Señor Frade,” Dowling said, tight-lipped. “We purchased ninety days’ coverage, with the understanding that the price would be renegotiated before the ninety days were up and the contract extended—”
